I am afraid the "discovery" owed loads to the politics of the nationalist regional government and its will to subsidize or finance any "research" (i.e. pseudo-science) that can set the Basques apart from Spain. The first Basque written words that we have so far appeared in the same place as the oldest Spanish written words.

Thanks for the link! Now that the hoax has been revealed I'll be even more interested to see photos of the so-called Basque inscriptions.

- Steve Chrisomalis

'Nonexistent gods'! Any other kind?

It must have been a Dravidian conspiracy. (We all know that Muruga is alive and kicking.)

What's the world coming to, I never thought I'd live to see trickery and dishonesty in the field of Basque studies....

What's next? Crackpot theories about Dravidians?

I wonder if the mass-media will report about the fake as eagerly as they reported about the "sensational discovery".

It really sounds more like a practical joke than a hoax seriously intended to deceive.

Yep, Emerson, especially taking into account something actively omitted in the 1st intervention here (by alfanje): The provincial culture department in charge of funding/managing this research (Diputación Provincial de Alava) has been for years under the control of the Spanish Popular Party ("non-nationalist" only in the sense of being proud and sound Spanish nationalist)...

In any case, introducing graffittis reading "DESCARTES" or "NEFERTITI" into a corpus trying to be historically deceptive is, in my humble opinion, too much even for committed hoaxing separatists...

Could be both.

So much more ambitious than "Manlios me fefakhed".

Please, that's med, with the Ancient Endingd, and fhefhaked, with the Ancient Redupliduplication!

And Manlios would make sense, but IIRC it's just Manios.

For the fh, see modern Māori wh...