13 July 2025 The Future is the Product of the Past

Researchers decipher enigmatic ancient ‘Unknown Kushan Script’

A research team at the University of Cologne’s Department of Linguistics deciphered a writing system belonging to the Kushan Empire, one of the influential states in the history of Central Asia.

The unknown Kushan script has puzzled academics for over seventy years, and now a team of early career researchers at the University of Cologne has managed to decipher it.

Over a period of several years, Svenja Bonmann, Jakob Halfmann, and Natalie Korobzow examined photographs of inscriptions found in caves as well as characters on bowls and clay pots from various Central Asian countries in order to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

On 1 March 2023, they first announced their partial decipherment of the unknown Kushan script at an online conference of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tajikistan. Currently, about 60 percent of the characters can be read, and the group is working to decipher the remaining characters. A detailed description of the decipherment has now been published in the journal Transactions of the Philological Society under the title ‘A Partial Decipherment of the Unknown Kushan Script’.

New discovery led to breakthrough

The ‘unknown Kushan script’ is a writing system that was in use in parts of Central Asia between about 200 BCE and 700 CE. It can be associated with both the early nomadic peoples of the Eurasian steppe, such as the Yuèzhī, and the ruling dynasty of the Kushans. The Kushans founded an empire which, among other things, was responsible for the spread of Buddhism to East Asia. They also created monumental architecture and artworks.

Where the bilingual inscription was discovered in Tajikistan. Photo: Bobomullo Bobomulloev
Where the bilingual inscription was discovered in Tajikistan. Photo: Bobomullo Bobomulloev

So far, several dozen mostly short inscriptions are known, most of them originating from the territory of the present-day states of Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Uzbekistan. There is also a longer trilingual that was found by French archaeologists in the 1960s at Dašt-i Nāwur in Afghanistan: on a boulder at 4,320 m altitude on Mount Qarabayu, approximately 100 km southwest of Kabul.

The writing system was has been known since the 1950s, but had never been successfully deciphered. In 2022, a short bilingual was found carved into a rock face in the Almosi Gorge in northwestern Tajikistan, approximately 30 km from the capital Dushanbe. In addition to the unknown Kushan script, it also contains a section in the already known Bactrian language. This discovery led to renewed attempts by several researchers to decode the script – independently of one another. In the end, the linguists at the University of Cologne succeeded in partially deciphering the writing system in collaboration with the Tajik archaeologist Dr. Bobomullo Bobomulloev, who was instrumental in the discovery and documentation of the bilingual.

Success 200 years after the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphs

The team applied a methodology based on the way unknown scripts have been deciphered in the past, i.e. the Egyptian hieroglyphs using the Rosetta Stone, ancient Persian cuneiform script or Greek Linear B script: Thanks to the known content of the bilingual inscription found in Tajikistan (Bactrian and unknown Kushan script) and the trilingual inscription from Afghanistan (Gandhari or Middle Indo-Aryan, Bactrian and unknown Kushan script), Bonmann, Halfmann and Korobzow were able to gradually draw conclusions about the type of writing and language.

The Kushan Empire and contemporary polities in continental Asia circa 100 AD. Photo: Wikipedia

The breakthrough was finally made possible by the royal name Vema Takhtu, which appeared in both Bactrian parallel texts, and the title ‘King of Kings’, which could be identified in the corresponding sections in the unknown Kushan script. The title especially proved to be a good indicator of the underlying language. Step by step, using the Bactrian parallel text, the linguists were able to analyse further character sequences and determine the phonetic values of individual characters.

Key to a better understanding of Kushan culture

According to the research group, the Kushan script recorded a completely unknown Middle Iranian language, which is neither identical to Bactrian nor to the language known as Khotanese Saka, which was once spoken in western China. The language probably occupies a middle position in the development between these languages. It could be either the language of the settled population of northern Bactria (on a part of the territory of today’s Tajikistan) or the language of certain nomadic peoples of Inner Asia (the Yuèzhī), who originally lived in northwestern China. For a certain period of time, it apparently served as one of the official languages of the Kushan Empire alongside Bactrian, Gandhari/Middle Indo-Aryan and Sanskrit. As a preliminary name, the researchers propose the term ‘Eteo-Tocharian’ to describe the newly identified Iranian language.

The group is planning future research trips to Central Asia in close cooperation with Tajik archaeologists, as new finds of further inscriptions are to be expected and promising potential sites have already been located. First author Svenja Bonmann remarked, “Our decipherment of this script can help enhance our understanding of the language and cultural history of Central Asia and the Kushan Empire, similar to the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphs or Mayan glyphs for our understanding of ancient Egypt or Mayan civilization.”

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-968X.12269

University of Cologne

Related Articles

A 2,500-year-old Slate Tablet Containing Paleo-Hispanic Alphabet Found

15 June 2024

15 June 2024

Experts analyzing the symbols on a 2,500-year-old tablet recently discovered in Spain have uncovered a mysterious ancient alphabet. According to...

A princely tomb discovered in the infrastructure project of the A7 Ploieşti-Buzău highway in Romania

20 December 2022

20 December 2022

An impressive archaeological discovery took place on the Ploiești-Buzău section of the Moldova Highway. The excavations uncovered a princely tomb,...

Unique 6,000-Year-Old Sacred Hearths and Karaz Pottery Discovered at Tadım Mound in Elazığ

28 March 2025

28 March 2025

Archaeological excavations at Tadım Castle and Tadım Mound (Tadım Höyük), located within the borders of Tadım Village in Elazığ, continue...

“If this site (Sharda temple)is restored and conserved, it will attract thousands of Hindus and Buddhists from Kashmir and the rest of the world”

7 August 2021

7 August 2021

Sharda Peeth, a historic learning institution located 200 kilometers (124 miles) from Muzaffarabad, the capital and largest city of Pakistan-administered...

500-year-old Ottoman bath revived after years of restoration

5 April 2024

5 April 2024

The 500-year-old Zeyrek Çinili Hammam, a masterpiece of Mimar Sinan and one of the most important examples of Ottoman Bath...

Early Anatolian Genes: Genetic Links Between Girmeler Mound and 17,000-Year-Old Pınarbaşı Skeletons

16 April 2025

16 April 2025

Recent archaeological excavations at Girmeler Mound, located near the ancient Lycian city of Tlos in southwestern Türkiye, have not only...

Citizen scientists discover more than 1,000 new burial mounds in a Dutch archaeological project

29 January 2023

29 January 2023

A Dutch archaeological project in which thousands of amateur sleuths combed specialized maps and high resolution photographs resulted in the...

A Treasure-Laden Burial Chamber Found Hidden Among Terracotta Army

7 June 2024

7 June 2024

Qin Shi Huang was the first emperor of China, and his tomb is renowned for being guarded by an army...

Four 1,900-year-old Roman swords found in Judean Desert

6 September 2023

6 September 2023

The Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced the discovery of four extremely well-preserved Roman swords hidden in a cave in the...

Rescue work begins on a 160-year-old shipwreck, the largest and best-preserved wooden shipwreck ever discovered underwater in China

3 March 2022

3 March 2022

Rescue work has begun on a 160-year-old shipwreck in China, the largest and best-preserved wooden wreck ever discovered underwater. This...

An Urartian female executive grave was found at the Çavuştepe Mound

9 September 2021

9 September 2021

The grave of an Urartian, who was buried with his horse, cattle, and dog, had been found recently. Today, another...

One of the oldest known mosques in the world uncovered in Israel

23 June 2022

23 June 2022

A team of Israeli archaeologists has discovered what is one of the oldest known mosques in the world. Israeli archaeologists...

Runic Alphabet Symbols in the Tombs Found in the Excavations in Istanbul

23 May 2021

23 May 2021

In the excavations carried out by the Istanbul Archeology Museums in the area where the metro station will be built...

New suspect in greatest act of vandalism in the history of dinosaur study

29 May 2023

29 May 2023

Researchers from the University of Bristol are rewriting the history of paleontology’s darkest and most bizarre event. Vandals with sledgehammers...

Statue of Roman Emperor Hadrianus found in western Turkey

14 September 2021

14 September 2021

Excavations in the ancient city of Alabanda in the western province of Aydin have uncovered pieces of the statue of...