Sinaia lead plates

Mysterious plates made of lead found in Romania in the 19th century

The Sinaia lead plates (Tăblițele de la Sinaia) are a set of lead plates written in an unknown language or constructed language. They are alleged to be a chronicle of the Dacians, but are considered by some scholars to be modern forgeries. The plates were written in the Greek alphabet with a few other character additions.

The origin of the Sinaia lead plates is obscure. The first known mention of them was when the 200 lead plates were discovered in the warehouse of the Bucharest Museum of Antiquities, Romania, in the 19th century. Of the 200 pieces originally in the collection of plates, only 35 are known to remain today, but there are some photos of some of the rest. When discovered they were ignored and considered to be forgeries because they appeared new, with no traces of corrosion. They were not considered valuable enough to be evacuated with the rest of the Romanian Treasure to Russia in 1916, during World War I. However, some renewed interest in the plates among non scholars has been shown more than a century later, following the publication of a report about them by engineer Dan Romalo in 2003. According to "an oral tradition", the lead plates are in fact copies made at the Nail Factory of Sinaia in 1875 from the originals, which were allegedly made of gold, and they were kept for a while at the Sinaia Monastery. An analysis made at the Institutul de Fizică Atomică in Măgurele concluded that the composition of the plates is very similar to printing lead manufactured in the 19th century. According to the director of the Institute of Archaeology, Alexandru Vulpe, it is obvious they were made in 19th century and this was the opinion of both Vasile Pârvan and the archaeologists who studied them after him, some believing they were created by Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu, who is known to have made other forgeries as well. According to Vulpe, the tablets include only what was known before 1900, for example, it uses the spelling "Comidava" for a Dacian town, although now it is known that the correct spelling is "Cumidava", as found in 1942 in an honorific inscription dedicated to Julia Mamaea.