Bactrian, the ancient language of Afghanistan, was virtually unknown before the recent discovery of more than a hundred leather documents written in Bactrian in a local variant of the Greek alphabet. As well as revealing an important new language of the Indo-European family, these documents shed light on the history and culture of Afghanistan during the 4th to 8th centuries AD, a turbulent period during which power changed hands many times, ending with the Arab conquest and the introduction of Islam. The three volumes of this series provide a comprehensive edition of the texts, with translations, photographs, glossary, and indexes, making this rich material available to linguists and historians alike.

Product Description: Bactrian was the principal language of administration in what is now Afghanistan from the time of the Kushan empire (1st to 3rd centuries C.E.) until the early Islamic period. The surviving Bactrian inscriptions and documents, coins and countermarks, seals and sealings attest a large number of personal names, whose various linguistic origins - Persian, Sogdian, Indian, Hunnic, Turkish, and of course native Bactrian - mirror the variety of peoples and religions which combined to form the unique culture of this region during the 1st millennium C...read more

Product Description: Bactrian, the ancient language of Afghanistan, which was used for administrative purposes by a succession of dynasties from the 2nd to the 9th century CE, was virtually unknown until the discovery during the 1990s of more than 150 documents written on leather, wood and cloth...read more

Product Description: The first of two volumes on documents of the 2nd to 9th centuries which throw new light on the history and culture of Afghanistan.

Product Description: The exciting recent developments in our understanding of the history of the Indo-Iranian languages and their speakers are surveyed and assessed by a group of internationally renowned linguists and archaeologists. In the last few years the materials available for the study of the older Indo-Iranian languages have increased dramatically: there have been sensational discoveries of texts in the ancient languages of northwest India and northern Afghanistan...read more