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Researchers Identify 31 Letters in Ancient Anatolia’s Lost Sidetic Language
Researchers have expanded the known Sidetic alphabet to 31 letters, moving the field closer to decoding one of Anatolia’s lost languages. The new findings come from active excavations at Side Ancient City in Antalya’s Manavgat district.
The work is led by Prof. Dr. Feriştah Alanyalı, excavation director and archaeologist at Anadolu University, in collaboration with Italian linguist Alfredo Rizza and Austrian linguist Michaela Zinko. Funding comes through the Culture and Tourism Ministry’s Heritage for the Future Project.
Sidetic sits within the Luwian branch of Anatolian Indo-European languages, a grouping that also includes Lycian and Carian. Decipherment has moved slowly because the surviving inscriptions are few and most span only one or two lines.
Alanyalı said that the thin body of material has made it hard to reconstruct grammar, vocabulary, and structure with any confidence.
New excavations yield longer texts and bilingual comparisons
New excavations have brought a shift. Researchers have now recovered inscriptions running as long as 30 to 40 lines, well beyond anything previously available. Bilingual texts written in both Sidetic and Greek have also come to light.
Alanyalı said that those texts have renewed optimism because matching content across two languages helps researchers assign meaning to unknown signs and connect recurring words to known concepts.
One finding in particular has drawn attention. Researchers now think the Sidetic terms “Siruawn” and “Siruawan” refer to Side itself.
Since the Greek word “Side” (Greek:Σίδη) translates to pomegranate, a fruit that featured prominently on the city’s ancient coinage, Alanyalı said that the name likely carried the same meaning in the native language.
She described this as a significant finding for understanding the city’s origins and identity.
An ancient city that held its language for centuries
Side is typically known through its Greek and Roman structures, but Alanyalı said that the city’s history runs deeper.
Ancient accounts record that settlers from the Greek city of Kyme arrived at Side and, over time, abandoned their own language in favor of the one spoken by local residents.
Alanyalı said that tradition points to a community whose culture was firmly rooted long before outside groups arrived.
That cultural foundation held even after Alexander the Great brought Greek influence into the region during the fourth century B.C.
The inscriptions show that Side’s residents continued writing in Sidetic for roughly two centuries into the Hellenistic period, with the language appearing to fade only around the late second century B.C.
Alanyalı said that the persistence of Sidetic complicates the idea that Greek culture quickly swept away what came before it.
Assyrian and Babylonian seals point to ancient eastern ties
Archaeological finds also point to Side’s connections with civilizations to the east. A Neo-Assyrian seal turned up during excavations at the site.
Separately, Italian researchers obtained a Neo-Babylonian seal from residents of the area before the Turkish War of Independence. Alanyalı said that the two objects together point to cultural ties with Mesopotamia dating back to the seventh century B.C.
A bilingual inscription tied to the city’s Serapis Temple adds another dimension. Alanyalı said that the text documents how the temple was financed, listing the names of donors and the sums each contributed, all written in Sidetic.
31 letters bring researchers closer to Anatolia’s lost language
The use of the local language for a public record of that kind confirms it was still understood and used in everyday civic life.
With the alphabet now standing at 31 known letters, up from 26, researchers working on this lost Anatolian language have a sharper set of tools.
Alanyalı said that the international team continues its work, and each newly identified letter brings the field a step closer to a fuller reading of inscriptions that Side’s people worked for generations to preserve.
