Kushan script

The Kushan script (écriture inconnue in French, neizvestnoe pis’mo in Russian, both meaning unknown lettering) is a partially deciphered writing system, an abugida, which is written from right to left. The script was used in parts of Central Asia between 600 and 200 BCE (depending on the dating of the Issyk inscription) and 700 CE, including the Kushan Empire, along with Greek and Kharosthi scripts, associated with the Dà Yuèzhī of the Eurasian Steppe in ancient Bactria. Its inscriptions were discovered by archaeologists in the 1950s. Textual remnants consist of cave wall carvings and painted ceramics. Most of what was written was probably recorded on palm leaves or birch bark which had decomposed. A 2023 analysis by Bonmann et al. hypothesized that the language recorded in the script was of (previously unknown) Middle Iranian type. However, newer analysis by Nicholas Sims-Williams (2025) and Halfmann et al. (2026) concluded that the language was Bactrian, recorded in both Greek and Kushan scripts in the inscription. The script comprises less than 30 signs, and likely around 25. It is possibly an Imperial Aramaic-derived script, that has been modified with diacritics.