3 ms·

Enigmatic Ancient ‘Unknown Kushan Script’ 60% Deciphered by Scientists

60 points by janandonly 3y ago

thaumasiotes 3y ago
Also from ancientpages.com: "Knowledge of Divine Alien Beings and High-Tech in Ancient Egypt Described in Sacred Books and Papyrus" https://www.ancientpages.com/2021/05/12/knowledge-of-divine-alien-beings-and-high-tech-in-ancient-egypt-described-in-sacred-books-and-papyrus-the-god-who-spoke-about-time-dilation-part-1/ https://www.ancientpages.com/2021/05/12/knowledge-of-divine-... "Unusual High-Tech Machine in The Bible Offers Evidence of Lost Ancient Advanced Civilization" https://www.ancientpages.com/2018/08/18/unusual-high-tech-machine-in-the-bible-offers-evidence-of-lost-ancient-advanced-civilization/ https://www.ancientpages.com/2018/08/18/unusual-high-tech-ma...
- tudorw 3y ago
  fringe publications are that, fringe, I like it, I feel like it's okay to have places where uncertainty can have a space, even if it invites articles that fall over the line, so, this is not a endorsement of aliens or lost ancient civilization, just hope that we can preserve some spaces that take a little risk now and again, like arXiv :)
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    I'm not sure what I'd think if arXiv started charging readers to view their papers on perpetual motion machines.
    - bee_rider 3y ago
      Maybe charge to post them. * Add some cost to disincentivize implausible postings * Even if it is junk, at least you are supporting the site
- Ar-Curunir 3y ago
  Here's the link to the actual journal article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-968X.12269 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-968X.1...
- ChainOfFools 3y ago
  Agreed, I hate to flag archaeo stories but "news" sources like this should not be given the boost in search rankings that they will get from showing up in places like this. fwiw the much more interesting, informative open access paper is here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-968X.12269 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-968X.12269
heredoc 3y ago
this was already reported twice here.
janandonly 3y ago
Similar to the famous Rosetta Stone, it was the 2022 discovery of a short bilingual inscription on a rock face in Tajikistan (along with other such discoveries) that helped them decipher it, thanks to the royal name “Vema Takhtu” along with the title “king of kings” and other epithets appearing in both texts. The script was in use in Central Asia between 200 BCE and 700 CE. It’s associated with nomadic peoples like the Yuèzhī, as well as the ruling dynasty of the Kushans. What makes this a big deal is that the Kushan Empire of Central Asia was incredibly influential. Among other things, it was responsible for the spread of Buddhism to East Asia. Source: https://ancientbeat.substack.com/p/ancient-beat-69-giant-ground-sloth https://ancientbeat.substack.com/p/ancient-beat-69-giant-gro...
- JoeAltmaier 3y ago
  How fortunate it was a phonetic script! If it had been simply ideograms, it might never have been decoded.
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    There are no known texts written in "simply ideograms". (And good reason to believe that no such text has ever existed.) Even in the earliest Sumerian and Chinese texts, symbols are used for their phonetic values. That said, the level of "ideogrammaticality" in those texts is much higher than you might like.
    - lumost 3y ago
      Isn’t ancient Egyptian ideogrammatic?
      - nine_k 3y ago
        Not entirely. Each image (hieroglyph) had also a phonetic value, sometimes so well known that most Phoenician characters were modeled after them. Basically all Western alphabets and abjads (like Arabic) stem from the Phoenician script, which is phonetic.
pharmakom 3y ago
Can someone explain in simple terms how decoding works? How do you know you have the actual decoding and not some valid but incorrect one?
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > How do you know you have the actual decoding and not some valid but incorrect one? Well, if you're able to decode at high quality, that's not really a concern. There's no such thing as a "valid but incorrect" decoding for the same reason that when you're decrypting an encrypted message, and you get a stretch of valid language, you don't worry about whether that's really the message that was originally encrypted or just a weird coincidence. However, ancient languages are usually not understood that well, which makes it impossible to determine whether a decoding really is or isn't valid. The protocol is supposed to be that several different teams are issued the same text, and if they produce translations that say the same thing, the decipherment is considered valid. This goal has not necessarily actually been achieved in some languages that are nevertheless considered "deciphered". Here they say that the unknown language is recognized as a variety of Middle Iranic, which adds some plausibility since other Middle Iranic languages will be well understood and so it's possible for outside experts to criticize their work. The shortness of the inscription they're working from subtracts plausibility; if other texts exist and they can be convincingly deciphered, that would be good favorable evidence. postscript: > As a preliminary name, the researchers propose the term "Eteo-Tocharian" to describe the newly identified Iranian language. This strikes me as very weird, since there is a Tocharian language group and Iranic languages don't belong to it.
  - brokenkebaby 3y ago
    >This strikes me as very weird, since there is a Tocharian language group and Iranic languages don't belong to it. I guess it's because "Tocharian" as used for IE languages of city-states of Tarim considered to be a mistaken name now. Eteo-Tocharian means True/Real Tocharian, and doesn't mean it belongs to "Tocharian".
  - narag 3y ago
    ...and you get a stretch of valid language... How do you know it's valid?

60 points by janandonly 3y ago

Also from ancientpages.com: "Knowledge of Divine Alien Beings and High-Tech in Ancient Egypt Described in Sacred Books and Papyrus" https://www.ancientpages.com/2021/05/12/knowledge-of-divine-alien-beings-and-high-tech-in-ancient-egypt-described-in-sacred-books-and-papyrus-the-god-who-spoke-about-time-dilation-part-1/ https://www.ancientpages.com/2021/05/12/knowledge-of-divine-... "Unusual High-Tech Machine in The Bible Offers Evidence of Lost Ancient Advanced Civilization" https://www.ancientpages.com/2018/08/18/unusual-high-tech-machine-in-the-bible-offers-evidence-of-lost-ancient-advanced-civilization/ https://www.ancientpages.com/2018/08/18/unusual-high-tech-ma...

tudorw 3y ago
fringe publications are that, fringe, I like it, I feel like it's okay to have places where uncertainty can have a space, even if it invites articles that fall over the line, so, this is not a endorsement of aliens or lost ancient civilization, just hope that we can preserve some spaces that take a little risk now and again, like arXiv :)
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  I'm not sure what I'd think if arXiv started charging readers to view their papers on perpetual motion machines.
  - bee_rider 3y ago
    Maybe charge to post them. * Add some cost to disincentivize implausible postings * Even if it is junk, at least you are supporting the site
Ar-Curunir 3y ago
Here's the link to the actual journal article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-968X.12269 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1467-968X.1...
ChainOfFools 3y ago
Agreed, I hate to flag archaeo stories but "news" sources like this should not be given the boost in search rankings that they will get from showing up in places like this. fwiw the much more interesting, informative open access paper is here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-968X.12269 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-968X.12269

heredoc 3y ago

this was already reported twice here.

janandonly 3y ago

Similar to the famous Rosetta Stone, it was the 2022 discovery of a short bilingual inscription on a rock face in Tajikistan (along with other such discoveries) that helped them decipher it, thanks to the royal name “Vema Takhtu” along with the title “king of kings” and other epithets appearing in both texts. The script was in use in Central Asia between 200 BCE and 700 CE. It’s associated with nomadic peoples like the Yuèzhī, as well as the ruling dynasty of the Kushans. What makes this a big deal is that the Kushan Empire of Central Asia was incredibly influential. Among other things, it was responsible for the spread of Buddhism to East Asia. Source: https://ancientbeat.substack.com/p/ancient-beat-69-giant-ground-sloth https://ancientbeat.substack.com/p/ancient-beat-69-giant-gro...

JoeAltmaier 3y ago
How fortunate it was a phonetic script! If it had been simply ideograms, it might never have been decoded.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  There are no known texts written in "simply ideograms". (And good reason to believe that no such text has ever existed.) Even in the earliest Sumerian and Chinese texts, symbols are used for their phonetic values. That said, the level of "ideogrammaticality" in those texts is much higher than you might like.
  - lumost 3y ago
    Isn’t ancient Egyptian ideogrammatic?
    - nine_k 3y ago
      Not entirely. Each image (hieroglyph) had also a phonetic value, sometimes so well known that most Phoenician characters were modeled after them. Basically all Western alphabets and abjads (like Arabic) stem from the Phoenician script, which is phonetic.

pharmakom 3y ago

Can someone explain in simple terms how decoding works? How do you know you have the actual decoding and not some valid but incorrect one?

thaumasiotes 3y ago
> How do you know you have the actual decoding and not some valid but incorrect one? Well, if you're able to decode at high quality, that's not really a concern. There's no such thing as a "valid but incorrect" decoding for the same reason that when you're decrypting an encrypted message, and you get a stretch of valid language, you don't worry about whether that's really the message that was originally encrypted or just a weird coincidence. However, ancient languages are usually not understood that well, which makes it impossible to determine whether a decoding really is or isn't valid. The protocol is supposed to be that several different teams are issued the same text, and if they produce translations that say the same thing, the decipherment is considered valid. This goal has not necessarily actually been achieved in some languages that are nevertheless considered "deciphered". Here they say that the unknown language is recognized as a variety of Middle Iranic, which adds some plausibility since other Middle Iranic languages will be well understood and so it's possible for outside experts to criticize their work. The shortness of the inscription they're working from subtracts plausibility; if other texts exist and they can be convincingly deciphered, that would be good favorable evidence. postscript: > As a preliminary name, the researchers propose the term "Eteo-Tocharian" to describe the newly identified Iranian language. This strikes me as very weird, since there is a Tocharian language group and Iranic languages don't belong to it.
- brokenkebaby 3y ago
  >This strikes me as very weird, since there is a Tocharian language group and Iranic languages don't belong to it. I guess it's because "Tocharian" as used for IE languages of city-states of Tarim considered to be a mistaken name now. Eteo-Tocharian means True/Real Tocharian, and doesn't mean it belongs to "Tocharian".
- narag 3y ago
  ...and you get a stretch of valid language... How do you know it's valid?