Alsószentmihály inscription explained

The Alsószentmihály inscription is an inscription on a building stone in Mihai Viteazu, Cluj (Transylvania, today Romania). The origins and translation of the inscription are uncertain.

The relic

The stone was an ancient Roman building stone—proved by the leaf-symbol, a frequently applied ornamental element of ancient Roman inscriptions—reused in the 10th century. Alsószentmihály located on the territory of the late Province Dacia existed up to the middle of the 3rd century. Dénes showed that the Khavars (Khazar rebels joined the Hungarians in the 9th century^[1]) probably settled in this region (that time Transylvania).^[2] In some parts of Hungary, there are data of the Khavars even from the 13th century.^[3]

Script used for the Alsószentmihály inscription

Some quotations from historian Gábor Vékony about the identification of the script in this inscription:

• "Since the Alsószentmihály inscription was found not in the geographical area of the Old Hungarian script, and in the first line, only vowels could be read based on the Szekely alphabet, we can state surely that the possible transcription of the inscription is surely out of the Székely script".^[4]
• "To summarize, we can state that the Alsószentmihály Village inscription is the relic of the Khavars settled into Transylvania, which is naturally written in Khazar with Khazarian script."^[5]
• "Similar symbol occurs in other Khazarian runic inscriptions as well."^[6]
• "In Transylvania, the inscription of the reused stone built into the wall of the church of the Alsószentmihály Village is unambiguously written with Khazarian runic alphabet."^[7]

Based on the quotations above examples, it can be stated that Vékony identified the script of the Alsószentmihály relic as a Khazarian script. According to Vékony, another relic, the Homokmégy-Halom inscription contains Khazarian text as well.^[8]

The meaning of the inscription

The Alsószentmihály inscription was deciphered by archaeologist Gábor Vékony.

The transcription of Vékony (it uses IPA symbols):^[9]

	First Row	Second Row
Inscription
Transcription (using IPA)	^ɛbi ^atl^ïɣ	jyedi • kyr qer^ej^i
Translating from Common Turkic,^[10] ^[11]	His mansion is famous.	Jüedi Kür Karaite. or Jüedi Kür (the) Karaite.

According to Vékony, the inscription was made by a Khavar leader, whose religion was Karaite.^[12] The first symbol of the first row is a ligature, its transcription: ^atl^ïɣ.^[13] The first symbol (from left) in the second row is a Khazarian word separator.^[14]

In the inscription, the third symbol of the first row (from left), and the symbol in the second and last place can be considered as the descendants of the Turkic ideograms. Nevertheless, their relation needs more evidence.

Critics, alternative theories

There are several critics of Vékony's theories and translations, most notably the Hungarian linguist and historian, András Róna-Tas. The debates were summarized by István Riba in 1999 and 2000.^{[15] [16]}

External links

• The Alsószentmihályfalva Rovas inscription on the RovasPedia
• Jenő Demeczky, Dr. Gábor Hosszú, Tamás Rumi, László Sípos, Dr. Erzsébet Zelliger: Revised proposal for encoding the Rovas in the UCS. Individual Contribution for consideration by UTC and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2, 14. October 2012.
• Rovás Info News Portal
• Rovas Foundation: Code request for the Rovas script in ISO 15924 (2012-10-20)
• Jenő Demeczky, György Giczi, Dr. Gábor Hosszú, Gergely Kliha, Dr. Borbála Obrusánszky, Tamás Rumi, László Sípos, Dr. Erzsébet Zelliger: Additional information about the name of the Rovas script. Individual Contribution for consideration by UTC and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2, 2012-10-21.
• Jenő Demeczky, György Giczi, Gábor Hosszú, Gergely Kliha, Borbála Obrusánszky, Tamás Rumi, László Sípos, Erzsébet Zelliger: About the consensus of the Rovas encoding – Response to N4373 (Resolutions of the 8th Hungarian World Congress on the encoding of Old Hungarian). Individual Contribution for consideration by UTC and ISO/IEC JTC1/SC2/WG2. Registered by UTC (L2/12-337), 2012-10-24

References

• Bálint, Csanád (1980): Some Archaeological Addenda to P. Golden's Khazar Studies. In: Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarium Hungaricae Vol. 34. 1981, pp. 397–412
• Bálint, Csanád (1981): A kazár kaganátus régészeti kutatása a Szovjetunióban [The archaeological research of the Khazar Khanate in the Soviet Union]. In: Magyar Tudomány [Hungarian Science], No. 5. 1980, pp. 381–386
• Benkő, Elek (1972): Egy újabb rovásírásos emlék Erdélyből [A new runic script relic from Transsylvania]. (A szentmihályfalvi templom rovásfelirata [The runic inscription of the Alsószentmihály church]). In: Magyar Nyelv [Hungarian Language]. 1972, Vol. LXVIII, No. 4, pp. 453 and Appendix
• Dénes, József (1984–1985): A magyarok hét neme és hét országa (A magyar "törzsek" elhelyezkedése a Kárpát-medencében") [The seven gens and seven countries of the Magyars (The allocation of the Magyar "tribes" in the Carpathian Basin)]. In: Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve [The Annual of the Ferenc Móra Museum of Szeged], Szeged, 1991, pp. 571–577
• Györffy, György (1990): A magyarság keleti elemei. [The Eastern Elements of the Hungarians]. Budapest: Gondolat.
• Kristó, Gyula & Makk, Ferenc (2001): A kilencedik és a tizedik század története [The history of the 9th and the 10th centuries]. In: Magyar Századok [Hungarian Centuries]. Published by Pannonica Kiadó, Ser. ed.: Gyula Szvák, 222 p. 
• Róna-Tas, András (1999): The Khazars and the Magyars. In: Golden, Ben-Shammai, and Róna-Tas (eds., 1999), pp. 269–278
• Róna-Tas, András (2007): Tudtak-e írni a magyarok a honfoglalás előtt? Írásbeliség Eurázsiában, 7–9. század [Could the Hungarians write before the Magyars' Landtaking? Literacy in Eurasia, 7th–9th centuries], In: História, Vol. 29, No. 8, pp. 22–24
• Vékony, Gábor (1985): Késő népvándorláskori rovásfeliratok [Runic inscriptions from the Late Migration Period]. In: Életünk Vol. XXII, No. 1, pp. 71–84
• Vékony, Gábor (1987): Későnépvándorláskori rovásfeliratok a Kárpát-medencében [Runic inscriptions from the Late Migration Period in the Carpathian Basin]. Szombathely-Budapest: Életünk szerkesztősége.
• Vékony, Gábor (2004): A székely írás emlékei, kapcsolatai, története. Budapest: Nap Kiadó.

Notes and References

1. Kristó, Gyula & Makk, Ferenc (2001): A kilencedik és a tizedik század története [The history of the 9th and the 10th centuries], p. 52. In: Magyar Századok [Hungarian Centuries]. Published by Pannonica Kiadó, Ser. ed.: Gyula Szvák, 222 p.
2. Dénes, József (1984–1985): A magyarok hét neme és hét országa (A magyar "törzsek" elhelyezkedése a Kárpát-medencében") [The seven gens and seven countries of the Magyars (The allocation of the Magyar "tribes" in the Carpathian Basin)]. In: Móra Ferenc Múzeum Évkönyve [The Annual of the Ferenc Móra Museum of Szeged], Szeged, 1991, p. 573
3. Györffy, György (1990): A magyarság keleti elemei. [The Eastern Elements of the Hungarians]. Budapest: Gondolat, p. 50
4. Vékony Gábor (2004): A székely írás emlékei, kapcsolatai, története. Budapest: Nap Kiadó, page 218, first five rows of the first paragraph
5. Vékony Gábor (2004): A székely írás emlékei, kapcsolatai, története. Budapest: Nap Kiadó, page 230, first three rows of the second paragraph
6. Vékony Gábor (2004): A székely írás emlékei, kapcsolatai, története. Budapest: Nap Kiadó, page 280, fifth and sixth rows of the fourth paragraph
7. Vékony Gábor (2004): A székely írás emlékei, kapcsolatai, története. Budapest: Nap Kiadó, page 109, last third of the second paragraph
8. Vékony Gábor (2004): A székely írás emlékei, kapcsolatai, története. Budapest: Nap Kiadó, page 218, first five rows of the first paragraph
9. [Gábor Vékony|Vékony, Gábor]
10. [Gábor Vékony|Vékony, Gábor]
11. Gábor Hosszú (2011): Heritage of Scribes. The Relation of Rovas Scripts to Eurasian Writing Systems. Budapest: Rovas Foundation
12. [Gábor Vékony|Vékony, Gábor]
13. Vékony, Gábor (1985): Késő népvándorláskori rovásfeliratok [Runic inscriptions from the Late Migration Period]. In: Életünk Vol. XXII, No. 1, pp. 71–84
14. Vékony Gábor (2004): A székely írás emlékei, kapcsolatai, története. Budapest: Nap Kiadó, page 217
15. Riba, István: Jöttek, honfoglaltak, fújtak. Régészvita egy rovásírásról [Came, settled, blown. Archaeological debate about the runic scripting]. In: Heti Világgazdaság [Weekly Word's Economy], Vol. 21. 1999. N. 46. pp. 101–102, 105.
16. Riba, István (2000). "Reading the Runes: Evidence of the Dual Conquest?" . The Hungarian Quarterly. Vol. XLI. No. 157, Spring 2000