Southwest Writing Museum

Category: Civil Architecture > Museum

District: Beja > Almodôvar > Almodôvar > Almodôvar e Graça dos Padrões

Location:

The Museum of Southwest Writing is located in the town of Almodôvar, in the district of Beja. It is situated in the heart of the town's historic center, on Rua do Relógio, integrating into the traditional urban fabric and offering a perspective on the town's cultural life.

An Ancestral Legacy

This museum is dedicated to the Southwest Script, a communication system considered the oldest in the Iberian Peninsula and the first to be based on an alphabet. This script was used by peoples who inhabited the peninsular Southwest, particularly the Tartessians, during the Iron Age, approximately between 1000 and 500 BC. The Southwest Script is distinguished by its complexity and the fact that it remains undeciphered to this day, exhibiting cultural influences from civilizations such as the Egyptian and Phoenician.

The Stone Treasure

The museum's collection features a significant set of pieces engraved with this ancient script. Funerary stelae, generally in schist, predominate, constituting physical testimonies of the culture and practices of these ancient populations. Among the exhibited examples, the Stela of São Martinho stands out, notable for its size and the richness of its approximately sixty identified signs, making it one of the most extensive Tartessian inscriptions. Equally important is the Stela of Abóbada, unique for being one of the few that includes figures, giving it particular interest. The museum also displays the Stela of Monte Novo do Visconde, a schist block with engraved characters, discovered next to an ancient necropolis. The collection allows for the observation of the available universe of signs and how they were engraved, including pieces that suggest a learning process, such as the so-called Espanca signary.

An Archaeological Enigma

The Museum of Southwest Writing plays a fundamental role in understanding this enigmatic form of communication. The Southwest Script, dating from the 7th to 5th centuries BC, is one of the great historical enigmas of the Iberian Peninsula. Many of the inscriptions were found out of their original context, which adds to the mystery surrounding the identity of their creators and the exact function of the pieces. Although there is an idea of the phonetics of some characters, their meaning remains largely unknown. The museum is one of the main pillars of archaeology in Portugal, offering a unique opportunity for visitors to get closer to one of the oldest and most mysterious testimonies of human communication in the region.

License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.pt