Ancient 'unknown' script finally deciphered 70 years after first being discovered

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Ancient 'unknown' script finally deciphered 70 years after first being discovered
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Sascha is a U.K.-based trainee staff writer at Live Science. She holds a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Southampton in England and a master’s degree in science communication from Imperial College London. Her work has appeared in The Guardian and the health website Zoe. Besides writing, she enjoys playing tennis, bread-making and browsing second-hand shops for hidden gems.

Researchers have partially deciphered the"unknown Kushan script" — a writing system that has puzzled linguists since it was first found in the 1950s.

This Middle Iranian language was likely one of the official languages of the Kushan Empire, which sprawled across Central Asia and northwestern India between 200 B.C. and A.D. 700. At the height of its power, in the second century A.D., the Kushans co-existed with the Roman Empire.

An Iranian languageIn a study published July 12 in the journal Transactions of the Philological Society, Bonmann and her colleagues examined the newly discovered"bilingual" inscriptions and decoded the Kushan script using similar methods to those previously used to decipher other ancient languages.

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