ceased to be written in the 1st century AD, it may have survived in some areas until the Visigothic period (ca. 500s to 700s), according to Menéndez Pidal. There are several theories about the geographical origin of Iberian. According to the Catalan theory, the Iberian language originated in northern Catalonia, where the earliest Iberian inscriptions are documented (600 BC) (Ullastret). Its expansion towards the north and south would have been due to broad population movements in times not long before the first written documents, from the 11th to the 10th century BC, given that the Iberian language appears homogeneous in Iberian texts and, if it were of greater antiquity, dialectalization should be evident. The presence of non-interpretable elements such as Iberian anthroponyms amongst inscriptions in this area is not considered statistically significant. Writing The oldest Iberian inscriptions date to the 6th century BC or maybe the 5th century BC and the latest ones date from the end of the 1st century BC or maybe the beginning of the 1st century AD. More than two thousand Iberian inscriptions are currently known. Most are short texts on ceramic with personal names, which are usually interpreted as ownership marks. Many coins minted by Iberian communities during the Roman Republic have legends in Iberian. The longest Iberian texts were made on lead plaques; the most extensive is from Yátova (Valencia) with more than six hundred signs. Three different scripts have remained for the Iberian language: Northeastern Iberian script Dual variant (4th century BC and 3rd century BC) Non-dual variant (2nd century BC and 1st century BC) Southeastern Iberian script Greco-Iberian alphabet (most of the aforementioned Leads of La Serreta are written in this version). Northeastern (or Levantine) Iberian script The northeastern Iberian script is also known as the Iberian script, because it is the Iberian script most frequently used (95% of the extant texts (Untermann 1990)). The northeastern Iberian inscriptions have been found mainly in the northeastern quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula: chiefly on the coast from Languedoc-Roussillon to Alicante, but with a deep penetration into the Ebro valley. This script is almost completely deciphered. All the paleohispanic scripts, with the exception of the Greco-Iberian alphabet, share a common distinctive typological characteristic: they use signs with syllabic value for the occlusives and signs with monophonematic value for the remaining consonants and for vowels. From a writing systems point of view they are neither alphabets