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Veleia was a Roman town in Hispania, now located in the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain. The site is located in the municipality of Iruña de Oca, 10 kilometers west of Vitoria. The town was an important station on the Roman road ab Asturica Burdigalam that ran parallel to the coast of the Bay of Biscay. At its apogee, the city could have been inhabited by some five to ten thousand people, and apparently went through different cycles of prosperity and decline into the Early Middle Ages until it was finally abandoned.

It has been argued (e.g. J.M.Lacarra) that the location of Iruña is actually the Victoriacum founded by Liuvigild in his campaigns against the Vascones (581), since only a very small portion of the actual town has been unearthed so far by archaeologists.

The archaeological site of Iruña-Veleia is the most important from the Roman period in the Basque Country. It was alleged to contain the oldest known texts written in the Basque language as well as, allegedly, the oldest representation of the crucifixion of Jesus found to date, but later it was said that the findings were forgeries. Other authors favored their genuinely ancient provenance, in agreement with the stratigraphic dating performed by the archaeologists who made the discoveries.

In June 2020 the archaeologist who had made the claims and two collaborators were found guilty of fraud and presenting false records. The court ruled that the artefacts had been altered “with contemporary incisions that were intended to suggest they contained inscriptions or markings of the same age as the objects themselves, and that they possessed a historical and cultural value of which they were devoid.” The leader of the police investigation said that it had been “one of the greatest falsifications or manipulations relating to archaeological materials from the Roman world”."

Chronology

Bronze and Iron ages

The town was founded in the 8th century BC, in the Late Bronze Age. The houses from this period, rectangular and round with adobe walls and thatched roofs, are similar to those found at the nearby site of Atxa (Vitoria).

Roman period

In the first half of the 1st century some of these houses were replaced by others of Roman style (domus). This architectural romanization continued as the century advanced.

The late Roman city (3rd and 4th centuries) is better known. It shows signs of decay and the construction of a wall that encloses an eleven hectare area. The town survived into the 5th century after Roman power had disappeared from the region, but by the end of the century only burial plots in abandoned buildings are found.

Modern age

There was an abbey at the site at least since the 16th century whose buildings remained visible until the mid 19th century.

Sensational findings and forgery case

The Iruña-Veleia site had been granted 3.72 million euros funding by the Basque regional government. In 2006, a series of sensational findings at Iruña-Veleia were announced to the press by the director of the archaeological mission. These included what would have been the oldest non-onomastical texts in Basque, which were hailed as the first evidence of written Basque. Also, it was announced the discovery of a series of inscriptions and drawings on pottery fragments, some of which refer to Egyptian history and even some written in Egyptian hieroglyphs. Finally, it was announced the finding of the earliest representation of the Calvary (crucifixion of Jesus) found anywhere to date. The inclusion of the letters RIP were seen as a clue that the artefact was a forgery as it suggested that Jesus had not been resurrected. Despite this assertion held by the accusation, the two UPV-EHU experts committed an appreciation error, since the lines carved in the pieces are not actually letters, and no "RIP" can be inferred from them, as concluded in the June 2020 sentence.

In May 2009, prominent archaeologist Edward Harris published the conclusions of a detailed assessment of the findings in Iruña-Veleia, according to the copies submitted to him by the excavations team in charge, with the scholar examining the excavation method, recording of plan and section data, as well as the compilation and illustration of stratigraphic sequences. He concluded that the findings held true, according to the evidence provided. A committee of experts, the "Comisión Científica Asesora" ("Scientific Advisory Committee") was constituted by the provincial government of Álava to study the findings. The committee was made up of nine academics, all professors of the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU) in Vitoria, along with three members of the provincial government of Álava, the director of the Provincial Museum of Archaeology, and the director of the excavation, and was presided over by one of the members of the provincial government of Álava.

On November 19, 2008, it was publicly announced that all these inscriptions, some 400 in total, were forgeries, a conclusion reached, unanimously, by the members of the committee who analyzed the data for almost 10 months. According to the press releases, the texts were described in some reports as "crude manipulation," "incoherent," having texts and words both "incorrect and non-existent", and as being so "obviously false as to be almost comical." The case was dubbed by some as the "biggest archaeological fraud in the history of the Iberian Peninsula" and "the product of an elaborate hoax." Ultimately, one of the members of the committee, Prof. Julio Núñez, became the new director of the Iruña-Veleia archaeological excavations

The provincial government of Alava pursued legal actions against the alleged perpetrators of the supposed fraud. The sponsors of the project (Euskotren) also brought charges against the archaeological team, but the case was dismissed, and only the lawsuit filed by the provincial government of Alava remained in force. In June 2020 the perpetrators were found guilty of fraud and the production of false records.

See also

• Basque language
• Caristii
• Autrigones
• Ab Asturica Burdigalam (the Roman road that run through Veleia).
• Glosas Emilianenses for the actual oldest text in Basque

External links

• Iruña-Veleia Official website (in English)
• Official reports on the controversial findings
• Ieshu Ioshe Marian, blog that follows in detail the controversy surrounding the excavation (in Spanish)
• En el ángulo oscuro blog that follows in detail the controversy surrounding the excavation (in Spanish). Most contributors believe that the investigation of the case was insufficient.
• SOS-IruñaVeleia Web site with a complete overview of the findings, all the informs and a lot of information about the affair. This website defends the need of more investigation about the archaeological evidence (in English, Spanish and Basque).
• Iruña Veleia y sus "revolucionarios" grafitos VIII: Más cerca de la autoría, blog created by epigraphist Prof. A.Mª. Canto discussing the alleged findings and the judicial research on a modern author of the inscriptions.

Bibliography

• (in Basque) Barandiaran, Alberto, Veleia afera, Elkar, 2010. ISBN 9788497839150
• Elkin, Mike (2009): "The Veleia Affair" Archaeology Volume 62 Number 5, September/October 2009.
• (in French) Iglesias, Hector (2009), « Les inscriptions de Veleia-Iruña » {pdf} Les inscriptions de Veleia-Iruña (version entièrement revue et augmentée d'un index alphabétique). Artxiker, bibliothèque numérique d'IKER, Centre de recherche sur la langue et les textes basques du CNRS, Baiona-Bayonne.

References

1. ^ (in Spanish) "Álava se querella contra los responsables del fraude de Veleia", El País, 2009-03-25.
2. (in Basque) "Veleia: disparateen zerrenda", Sustatu, 2008-11-20.
3. (in Spanish) "Tres arqueólogos abandonaron Veleia tras los hallazgos de 2006", El País, 2008-11-22.
4. (in Spanish) "Iruña-Veleia, culebrón arqueológico", El País, 2008-12-06,
5. ^ Jones, Sam (11 June 2020). "Spanish archaeologist sentenced for faking Basque finds". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 June 2020.
6. (in Spanish) "Un maestro entre el Nilo y el Zadorra", Diario de Noticias de Álava, 2006-06-09; "En Veleia hubo alguien muy culto y de alto 'status', que dominaba la historia egipcia y sabía escribir jeroglíficos", El País, 2006-06-09; "Aparecen en Veleia restos de inscripciones en euskera del siglo III y de temática cristiana" Archived 2007-10-06 at the Wayback Machine, Noticias de Álava, 2006-06-09.
7. JUZGADO DE LO PENAL Nº 1 DE VITORIA-GASTEIZ - UPAD PENAL., ZIGOR-ARLOKO ZULUP - GASTEIZKO ZIGOR-ARLOKO 1 ZENBAKIKO EPAITEGIA (2020-06-10). "CAUSA / AUZIA:Procedimiento abreviado /Prozedura laburtua389/2018 - M" (PDF). EITB > Multimedia > Documentos. Retrieved 2020-06-13.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: url-status (link)
8. Harris, Richard C. (2009-06-10). "Iruna­ Veleia Archaeological Assessment, To Whom It May Concern" (PDF). SOS Veleia. Retrieved 2020-06-13. {{cite news}}: soft hyphen character in |title= at position 6 (help)CS1 maint: url-status (link)
9. López de Lacalle Arizti, Lorena. "Nota de la Diputada de Euskera, Cultura y Deportes, Lorena López de Lacalle Arizti" (PDF).
10. (in Spanish) "Los expertos concluyen que los grafitos en euskera del siglo III son 'totalmente falsos'", El Mundo, 2008-11-19.
11. (in Spanish) "La Diputación alavesa relega a Amelia Baldeón a un museo de segunda fila", El País, 2009-03-04.
12. (in Basque) Barandiaran, Alberto, «Iruzur bitxiena eta ikusgarriena» Archived 2012-12-07 at the Wayback Machine, Berria, 2012-11-30.
13. "La UPV-EHU, con Julio Nuñez al frente, redactará el Plan Director de Iruña-Veleia". Gara. 6 November 2009.
14. (in Spanish) "La Diputación aporta al fiscal nuevas pruebas sobre el engaño de Veleia. Una empresa alemana afirma que los gráficos aportados por Cerdán para autentificar los hallazgos «son una copia» de su manual", El Correo, 2009-03-03.

42°50′32″N 2°47′15″W / 42.84222°N 2.78750°W / 42.84222; -2.78750

• Populated places established in the 8th century BC
• Populated places disestablished in the 5th century
• Basque history
• Basque language
• Roman towns and cities in Spain
• Álava
• Former populated places in Spain
• Indigenous ancient cities in Spain
• Bien de Interés Cultural landmarks in Álava
• Hoaxes in Spain