Advances in Anthropology, 2017, 7, 289-297 http://www.scirp.org/journal/aa ISSN Online: 2163-9361 ISSN Print: 2163-9353 DOI: 10.4236/aa.2017.74016 Oct. 19, 2017 289 Advances in Anthropology The Inscription Nr. 6858 from Kjolmen (Bulgaria) Reinhardt S. Stein 1 , Giancarlo T. Tomezzoli 2 1 Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA 2 Etno-Archaeological Observatory, Munich, Germany Abstract The inscription 6858 was discovered on a grave slab at the beginning of 1965, 1 km far from the village of Kjolmen (Preslav district—Bulgaria). After having considered previous decipherings, we propose a deciphering based on similar- ities between the inscription characters and characters in the Greek alphabets and on similarities of its words with words in present, surviving Slavic lan- guages. The inscription meaning is: this is the tomb of Ebavo son of Zesasha and in the grave is too Ilasi wife of Leteda and daughter to me, which indicates that, originally, the slab was inscribed in a non-survived Proto-Slavic lan- guage. This indicates that the inscription originated from a Proto-Slavic cul- ture which settled in the southern part of the Balkan area during the 6 th - 5 th cen. BC, i.e. well before the 7 th cen. AD the generally accepted period of the Slavs arrival in Eastern Europe, and represents an invitation to make efforts for exploring the presence and development of Proto-Slavic cultures in the Balkan area, Europe and Middle-East in the antiquity. Keywords Cremation, Grave, Tomb, Inscription, 6858, Kjolmen, Preslav, Bulgaria, Proto-Slavic, Slavic 1. Introduction The inscription was discovered on a grave slab at the beginning of 1965, 1 km far from the village of Kjolmen (Preslav district—Bulgaria) (Beševliev, 1965; Schmitt-Brandt, 1967; Ancillotti, 1986; Woudhuizen, 2000-2001). The grave, covered by a low tumulus, was destroyed by a deep tractor-ploughing and rec- ognized from its broken rests found in the surroundings. The slab covered the grave, with the inscribed side facing its interior, together with other two unin- How to cite this paper: Stein, R. S., & Tomezzoli, G. T. (2017). The Inscription Nr. 6858 from Kjolmen (Bulgaria). Ad- vances in Anthropology, 7, 289-297. https://doi.org/10.4236/aa.2017.74016 Received: July 28, 2017 Accepted: October 16, 2017 Published: October 19, 2017 Copyright © 2017 by authors and Scientific Research Publishing Inc. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Open Access