If you’ve always fancied yourself a bit of an archaeologist or have always loved solving puzzles, then there’s a town in Brittany that is desperately in need of you.
No one has been able to decipher this mysterious inscription and the town of Plougastel-Daoulas is now looking for someone who can. Photo by Fred Tanneau/AFP/Getty Images
The town of Plougastel-Daoulas, in Brittany’s region of Finistère in the north of France, has its own version of the Egyptian Rosetta Stone— a mysterious rock visible only when the tide is low, inscribed with writings that no one’s been able to decipher so far.
That’s why the town has announced a competition open to anyone who can decipher the message written on the stone. It’s open to anyone (linguists, academics, students, professionals and amateurs) and the prize is €2000 (around $2250), which will be awarded to the most plausible suggestion by a committee. “There are people who tell us it’s Basque and others who say it’s old Breton,” commented the town’s mayor, Dominique Cap. “But we still have not managed to decipher the text”.
This mystery has been going on for about four years when this man-sized stone was first spotted. It could very well be centuries old, but nothing will be known for sure until the inscription that covers most of the stone’s surface is deciphered— at a first glance, one can see mainly capital letters, as well as the picture of a sailing boat and two dates, 1786 and 1787, which probably refer to the artillery batteries of the nearby city of Brest according to Veronique Martin, who’s leading the search for the code-cracker.
Local councillor Michel Paugam indicated the stone’s inscription, which probably dates back at least to the 18th century. Photo by Fred Tanneau/AFP/Getty Images
You can learn more about the stone at the town of Plougastel-Daoulas’s official website here.
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