The sneaky scrawlings start at the end of a cultic ritual text written in Hittite – the oldest known Indo-European tongue – after an introduction that essentially translates to: “From now on, read in the language of the country of Kalašma”. Kalašma is referencing an organized society from the Bronze Age, which probably sat on the northwest fringe of the much larger Hittite Empire in ancient Anatolia – some distance from the capital city of Hattusa, where this clay tablet was later unearthed.
The article goes on to describe the Hittite culture and why they preserved foreign rituals in their original tongue.
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