Writing “Tifinagh” on a rock in the province of El Jadida.. The Institute of Antiquities reveals the conclusions of its investigations
Social media widely circulated pictures of a room bearing the inscription “Tifinagh” that was first published on February 6, 2023 on an electronic newspaper page on Facebook, with a short comment indicating that it was discovered in “Al-Walaja, Sidi Abed, Doukkala” (the New Districts).
And the National Institute of Archeology and Heritage, in coordination with the Directorate of Cultural Heritage, took the initiative to “take all necessary measures to verify the location of the discovery and to access the room in order to study and document it, as the regional departments of the culture sector – the Ministry of Youth, Culture and Communication – carried out extensive investigations on the spot in cooperation with the local authorities.” in the Jdeideh region, but it was not possible to obtain clear and certain information about the aforementioned room.”
According to a press release, it stated that “regardless of the location of the discovery of the chamber, the National Institute of Archeology and Heritage declares, based on the examination of the photographs conducted by Abdel Aziz Al-Khayari, a professor at the same institute and a specialist in ancient writings, that the chamber is a tombstone bearing a funerary inscription consisting of a line Vertical and written in Libyan letters libyques (which are the letters in which the Amazigh language was written in the past, from which the “Tifinagh” letters were derived).
And she pointed out that “the aforementioned inscription belongs to the ancient era prior to the advent of Islam, and it is similar in terms of the type and characteristics of the Libyan alphabet used in it to other inscriptions previously found in Ain Al-Juma’a (in the southwest of Casablanca) and Sidi Al-Arabi in the suburbs of Muhammadiyah and Al-Nakhila in the Settat and Souk regions. Friday in Al-Maaziz area, etc.”
She pointed out that "these documents are all - although their writing symbols have not yet been deciphered - of great importance from a historical, cultural and scriptural point of view, as they are clear indicators and tangible evidence about the reconstruction of the region during the ancient era and about the circulation of the Libyan alphabet, and can contribute in the future to shed light On the characteristics of the ancient Amazigh language, of which our knowledge is still very limited.
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