A Partial Decipherment of the Unknown Kushan Script*.
Several dozen inscriptions in an unknown writing system have been discovered in an area stretching geographically from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to southern Afghanistan. Most inscriptions can be dated to the period from the 2nd century BCE to the 3rd century CE, yet all attempts at decip...
| Published in: | Transactions of the Philological Society Vol. 121; no. 2; pp. 293 - 330 |
|---|---|
| Main Authors: | , , , |
| Format: | Article |
| Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
Jul2023
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=166102195&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 166102195 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00791636 7RD jtl: Transactions of the Philological Society issn: 00791636 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Jul2023 vid: 121 iid: 2 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 166102195 10.1111/1467-968X.12269 ppf: 293 ppct: 37 formats: tig: atl: A Partial Decipherment of the Unknown Kushan Script*. aug: au: Bonmann, Svenja Halfmann, Jakob Korobzow, Natalie Bobomulloev, Bobomullo affil: Department of Linguistics, University of Cologne and University of Würzburg and National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan, Cologne, Germany Institut für Altertumswissenschaften, Julius‐Maximilians‐Universität Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany National Museum of Antiquities of Tajikistan, Institute of History, Archaeology and Ethnography of the National Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan, Dushanbe, Tajikistan su: Inscriptions Iranian languages Tajikistan Afghanistan Uzbekistan sug: subj: Tajikistan Afghanistan Uzbekistan Inscriptions Iranian languages ab: Several dozen inscriptions in an unknown writing system have been discovered in an area stretching geographically from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to southern Afghanistan. Most inscriptions can be dated to the period from the 2nd century BCE to the 3rd century CE, yet all attempts at decipherment have so far been unsuccessful. The recent discovery of previously unknown inscriptions near the Almosi gorge, Tajikistan, however, allows for a renewed attempt at decipherment. Drawing upon a catalogue of characters and a distributional analysis, we report two identical sequences in the newly found Almosi inscriptions and in the Dašt‐i Nāwur trilingual. Based on parallel texts in Bactrian, we suggest to read the name of the Kushan emperor Vema Takhtu in these sequences, accompanied by the title 'king of kings' and several epithets. This allows for the deduction of probable phonetic values of 15 different consonantal signs and four vocalic diacritics and the inference that the inscriptions record a previously unknown Middle Iranian language. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y dt: @attributes: year: 2023 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|