The Issyk inscription is a yet undeciphered text, found in 1969 on a silver bowl in
Issyk kurgan
The Issyk kurgan, in south-eastern Kazakhstan, less than 20 km east from the Talgar alluvial fan, near Issyk, is a burial mound discovered in 1969. It has a height of six meters and a circumference of sixty meters. It is dated to the 4th ...
in Kazakhstan, dated at approximately the 4th century BC. The context of the burial gifts indicates that it may belong to
Saka
The Saka ( Old Persian: ; Kharoṣṭhī: ; Ancient Egyptian: , ; , old , mod. , ), Shaka (Sanskrit ( Brāhmī): , , ; Sanskrit (Devanāgarī): , ), or Sacae (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) were a group of nomadic Iranian peoples who hist ...
tribes.
Description
The Issyk inscription is not yet certainly deciphered, and is probably in a
Scythian
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an ancient Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved for the ancient tribes of northern and eastern Centra ...
dialect, constituting one of very few
autochthonous
Autochthon, autochthons or autochthonous may refer to:
Fiction
* Autochthon (Atlantis), a character in Plato's myth of Atlantis
* Autochthons, characters in the novel ''The Divine Invasion'' by Philip K. Dick
* Autochthon, a Primordial in the ...
epigraphic traces of that language.
János Harmatta
János Harmatta (2 October 1917 – 24 July 2004) was a Hungarian linguist. He deciphered the Parthian ostraca and papyri of Dura Europos and was the first to decipher a major Bactrian inscription.Ritoók, Zsigmond. (1997"The contribution of ...
, using the
Kharoṣṭhī
The Kharoṣṭhī script, also spelled Kharoshthi (Kharosthi: ), was an ancient Indo-Iranian script used by various Aryan peoples in north-western regions of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely around present-day northern Pakistan and e ...
script, identified the language as a
Khotanese Saka dialect spoken by the
Kushans
The Kushan Empire ( grc, Βασιλεία Κοσσανῶν; xbc, Κυϸανο, ; sa, कुषाण वंश; Brahmi: , '; BHS: ; xpr, 𐭊𐭅𐭔𐭍 𐭇𐭔𐭕𐭓, ; zh, 貴霜 ) was a syncretic empire, formed by the Yuezhi, ...
, tentatively translating:
Zaur Hasanov (2015) identifies the script as an ancient Turkic language, related or identical to the Orkhon-Yenisei script, and translates it as:
[
]
Comparing the two proposed translations, the ancient Turkic translation is markedly more coherent semantically, and contains a poetic expression of respect for the dead, which is considered significant as the Turks followed
Tengrism
Tengrism (also known as Tengriism, Tengerism, or Tengrianism) is an ethnic and old state Turko- Mongolic religion originating in the Eurasian steppes, based on folk shamanism, animism and generally centered around the titular sky god Tengri. ...
, in which there is a cult of the ancestors; thus it may be deemed more appropriate as an inscription at a grave site, compared to the Khotanese translation which reads roughly like a food recipe.
Photos of the inscription
See also
*
Nestor's Cup and
Duenos inscription
The Duenos inscription is one of the earliest known Old Latin texts, variously dated from the 7th to the 5th century BC. It is inscribed on the sides of a '' kernos'', in this case a trio of small globular vases adjoined by three clay struts. It ...
for other ancient inscriptions on vessels that concern the vessel itself
References
{{reflist
Undeciphered writing systems
Archaeology of Kazakhstan
Kurgans