An inscription carved into a boulder high in the Almosi Gorge of Tajikistan’s Hissar Range has enabled philologists to decipher a writing system known as “the unknown script,” which was used during the centuries when the multiethnic Kushan Empire (ca. A.D. 50–250) held sway over Central Asia. Local shepherd Sanginov Khaitali first spotted the inscriptions in the 1970s, and in July of 2022, he guided a team led by archaeologist Bobomullo Bobomulloev of Tajikistan’s National Academy of Sciences to the site. They found the inscription was written in both the unknown script and Greek letters, which allowed linguists using the team’s photographs to decipher the mysterious writing system. The inscription is dedicated to the Kushan “king of kings” Vema Takhtu (reigned ca. A.D. 80–90). Bobomulloev believes that remains of a stone wall near the inscription may have once belonged to a Kushan royal hunting enclosure. (Credit for all images: Bobomullo Bobomulloev.)
