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LiveScience
LiveScience
Sascha Pare

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

Last year, researchers discovered Bactrian and Kushan inscriptions on a rock face near the Almosi Gorge in northwestern Tajikistan. (Image credit: © Bobomullo Bobomulloev)

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

The researchers decoded the ancient text using rock face inscriptions that were discovered near the Almosi Gorge in northwest Tajikistan in 2022, which include sections in an extinct but known language called Bactrian.

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