On the occasion of the recent trial and court ruling on the
case of the findings at the archaeological site of Iruña-Veleia, reports have
been published in the media that seriously distort the reality of the events.
This distortion of reality has crossed borders, with the false news that a
geologist had pleaded guilty, acknowledging that "the whole thing was
nothing but a joke" (!), being reported in two British newspapers with wide
readership. It is worrisome that in the Iruña-Veleia case some media are
failing to fulfill their mission of truthfully informing citizens.
With regard to the sentence, it is important to highlight
that it acknowledges the lack of proofs against the main individual accused,
Eliseo Gil, the former director of the excavation, with the ruling being
entirely based on circumstantial evidence, and that the court case remains unresolved,
since Gil has appealed his conviction, requesting his acquittal.
But, apart from the events in the judicial sphere, the
Iruña-Veleia case has a scientific side, which a large part of the public is
unaware of. And the fact is that what has been presented in some media outlets as
a "crude forgery", is actually the subject of a lively and still unresolved
controversy among experts from various scientific disciplines, who hold
conflicting views on the authenticity of the findings. And the reality of this
controversy has been made clear in the judge’s ruling, where it is stated that
there are "opposing opinions that will have to be assessed in the field of
archaeological, linguistic, epigraphic, etc., sciences." and that
"there are conflicting opinions about their authenticity among the
different experts who have been able to analyze the pieces." The
recognition by a judicial body of the scientific controversy surrounding the Iruña-Veleia
findings disproves the myth of the “scientific unanimity” favorable to their falsehood, which was created in November 2008 by the Department of Culture of the Provincial Council
of Álava (DFA) and which lasts until today, fed by some media that ignore the
facts. And the reality is that numerous authors in various fields (archaeology,
epigraphy, linguistics, history, geology, Egyptology) have publicly expressed,
through reports, scientific articles, books and conference presentations, their
opinions and arguments favorable to the authenticity of the Iruña-Veleia
findings. And this controversy is not affected by the court ruling. First,
because the court case remains unresolved, and, second, because scientific
issues must be resolved in scientific forums, such as scientific journals and
conferences, not in courts of law. And this is what the sentence refers to when
it expressly asserts that the opposing opinions "will have to be assessed
in the fields of the archaeological, linguistic, epigraphic, etc., sciences."
We do not want to hide the fact that the sentence is based
on the analyses carried out by an expert from the Institute of Cultural
Heritage of Spain (IPCE) on 36 pieces from Iruña-Veleia (out of the more than
400 found at the site), which he interpreted as indicative of recent execution
or manipulation of the graffiti engraved on them (however, he failed to present
the results of analyses performed on control graffiti of undoubted age, ancient
and recent, supporting his interpretations, which casts a shadow of doubt on his
conclusions), and, based on these analyses, the ex-director of the excavation
was convicted as the author of the graffiti, performed "by himself or
through other persons". But neither should it be omitted that in none of
the three other reports on physical analyses delivered to the court, from the
experts of the accuser and of the defendant, as well as from the IPCE itself,
is it concluded that the graffiti are false. Therefore, we see that in the
field of physical evidences there are also discrepancies among the expert
opinions and court testimonies.
Where there are no discordant opinions is about the age of
the pieces found at Iruña-Veleia: their origin from Roman times, indicated by the
stratigraphic dating which was favorably evaluated by two prestigious
international archaeologists, is not questioned by anyone and is recognized in
the sentence itself. As for the linguistic, epigraphic or physical analyses proposing
dates for the graffiti incompatible with the stratigraphic dating, they have
been questioned by various experts, who consider that they are compatible with
Roman times. We believe that the only way to end this controversy is through
science. For this reason, we appeal to the DFA, which has the custody of the
pieces, to make available those which are not part of the litigation (currently
focused only on 36 pieces whose graffiti were considered false in the sentence)
to the scientific community, in order to carry out the pertinent studies aimed
at determining the age of the graffiti, their interpretation and publication.
We also request that the Iruña-Veleia pieces which remain unwashed at the Museum
of Archaeology of Álava be cleaned, videotaping the entire process, and that
control excavations be carried out by an independent archaeological team in the
vicinity of the places where the “exceptional” graffiti were found, in order to
check if similar findings are reproduced.
The graffiti from Iruña-Veleia, if they are from Roman times
(and no one has conclusively shown that they are not), provide novel and
valuable information on the ancient Basque language, on the evolution from
Latin to Romance languages, and on early Christianity. Therefore, the
resolution of the controversy about their authenticity and their scientific
study and publication can be of enormous importance for our historical and
cultural heritage.
Signed by
Antonio Rodríguez Colmenero, Professor Emeritus of Ancient
History at the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain
Edward C. Harris, MBE, PHD, FSA, Founding Executive Director
Emeritus, National Museum of Bermuda
Xabier Gorrotxategi, Ph.D. in Archaeology
Luis Silgo, Ph.D. in History, specialty in Archaeology
Noé Villaverde Vega, Ph.D. in Archaeology with European
mention
Mikel Albisu, graduate in Geology
María Pilar Alonso, Ph.D. in Language and Communication
Juan Martín Elexpuru, Ph.D. in Basque Philology
Roslyn Frank, Professor Emeritus at the University of Iowa,
Iowa City, IA, USA
Ulrike Fritz, Egyptologist, Eberhard Karls University of
Tübingen, Germany
Alicia Satué, graduate in Philology of Classical Languages
Miguel Thomson, Staff Scientist at Public Research Organizations
Koenraad Van den Driessche, Ph.D. in Geology, specialty in
Geochemistry
Patxi Zabaleta, lawyer and writer, member of Euskaltzaindia
(Academy of the Basque Language)
