Unknown Ancient Writing System Associated With Early Nomadic People Decoded

Researchers finally decoded an ancient script that left scholars clueless for decades. According to a new study, the writing system was used in some parts of Central Asia.

'Unknown' Kushan Script Decoded

A research team at the University of Cologne's Department of Linguistics has deciphered an ancient writing system that sheds new light on its history. The "unknown" Kushan script was formerly used in some regions of Central Asia between approximately 200 BC and 700 AD, Phys.org reported

It has been linked to early Eurasian steppe nomads like the Yuèzh and one of their royal families, the Kushans, who established a vast empire that included a substantial portion of what is now Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northern India.

Since the 1950s, people have been aware of the mysterious Kushan script, but it has never been fully understood. Several dozen Kushan inscriptions, most of which are brief, have been discovered thus far, with the majority coming from the modern countries of Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan.

On a boulder on Mount Qarabayu, more than 14,000 feet above sea level and some 60 miles southwest of Kabul, French archaeologists unearthed a larger inscription written alongside two other ancient languages in the 1960s.

Inscriptions in both the recognized Bactrian language and the unidentified script were discovered carved onto a rock face in the Almosi Gorge in northwest Tajikistan last year. It led some experts to redouble their efforts to decipher the puzzling Kushan writing.

In the end, linguists from the German University of Cologne worked with Tajik archaeologist Bobomullo Bobomulloev, who was involved in the latest bilingual inscription discovery, to interpret the writing system partially.

The scientists employed a previously utilized technique to decipher other ancient writing systems to decode the unidentified script. A notable example is how the Rosetta Stone was used to translate hieroglyphs from Ancient Egypt written in the already-understood language of Ancient Greek.

Svenja Bonmann, a researcher from the University of Cologne and one of the study's authors, told Newsweek they imitated the method that led to deciphering the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs or Old Persian cuneiform.

They have deciphered 60 percent of the known characters and are working on the remaining 40 percent.

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More About the Unknown Kushan Script

According to UNESCO, Sanskrit, and Prakrit are pre-Kushan languages, and the traders who traveled the Silk Road across Central Asia spoke Bactrian and Sogdian. Even though these linguistic systems are well-known, much is still unknown about the languages of the Kushan Empire.

Archaeologists discovered the so-called "unknown Kushan script" in the 1960s. However, Professors Svenja Bonmann, Jakob Halfmann, and Natalie Korobzow have now investigated portions of the script discovered on cave walls, clay pots, and bowls in many Central Asian nations.

The so-called breakthrough sprang from interpreting the "royal name Vema Takhtu," written in both Bactrian parallel manuscripts. The phrase "King of Kings" was highlighted in the relevant parts.

These findings, according to the Kushan language study, "proved to be a good indicator of the underlying language." The team then used Bactrian parallel text to evaluate character sequences, showing the phonetic features of the individual characters.

According to the new study, the untranslated Kushan script is "a completely unknown Middle Iranian language." It was reportedly neither similar to Bactrian nor to the language known as Khotanese Saka, once spoken in western China.

The study was published in the journal Transactions of the Philological Society.