In 1969, archaeologists excavating the Issyk kurgan in southeastern Kazakhstan made a discovery that would become a national symbol: the "Golden Man." Among the more than 4,000 gold ornaments and pristine artifacts found in this ancient Saka burial mound was a small, seemingly unassuming silver bowl. However, engraved on its exterior was a brief text of about 25 characters that has puzzled linguists and historians for over half a century. Known as the Issyk inscription, this ancient script offers a rare glimpse into the linguistic world of the Eurasian steppes during the 4th century BC.
The Issyk kurgan, located about 50 kilometers east of Almaty, contained the undisturbed remains of a young warrior, estimated to be 16 to 18 years old. While the central tomb had been looted in antiquity, this secondary burial chamber preserved an extraordinary wealth of Scythian elite culture. The warrior's attire was entirely covered in gold appliqués featuring intricate animal motifs, leading to the moniker "Golden Man" or "Golden Warrior." The accompanying grave goods included a bronze mirror, weapons, and the inscribed silver bowl, placed near the deceased's head.
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The Golden Man of the Issyk kurgan. (eggry/CC BY-SA 2.0)
The Mystery of the Silver Bowl's Script
The inscription on the silver bowl consists of runic-like characters arranged in two lines. Unlike later Turkic runes, the Issyk script reads from left to right and features explicit notation of vowels. For decades, the text remained one of history's great undeciphered codes. Early attempts to translate the inscription yielded wildly varying results, with some scholars proposing a proto-Turkic reading and others suggesting an Eastern Iranian origin, reflecting the broader debate over the ethnolinguistic identity of the Saka people.
of the characters forming the Issyk inscription. (from R. Rolle, The World of the Scythians (1980)/ Public Domain)
In 1992, linguist János Harmatta attempted a translation using the Kharoṣṭhī script, identifying the language as a Khotanese Saka dialect. He proposed a translation relating to the vessel holding wine and cooked food for the mortal. However, this interpretation was not universally accepted, and the true nature of the ancient writing system remained elusive.
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A Breakthrough in Decipherment
A significant breakthrough occurred in 2023 when a team of researchers from the University of Cologne, including Svenja Bonmann, Jakob Halfmann, and Natalie Korobzow, announced a partial decipherment of the "unknown Kushan script," which they linked directly to the Issyk inscription. The team utilized newly discovered bilingual and trilingual inscriptions from Tajikistan and Afghanistan, applying methodologies similar to those used to decode Egyptian hieroglyphs with the Rosetta Stone.
The researchers concluded that the script recorded a previously unknown Middle Iranian language, which they tentatively named "Eteo-Tocharian." This language served as an official language of the Kushan Empire alongside Bactrian and Sanskrit. The decipherment revealed royal names and titles such as "King of Kings," providing crucial phonetic values for the characters. This discovery strongly supports the hypothesis that the Issyk inscription represents an early form of this Kushan script, used by the nomadic Iranian-speaking tribes of the steppe.
Cultural Significance and Legacy
The decipherment of the Issyk inscription not only sheds light on the linguistic landscape of ancient Central Asia but also deepens our understanding of the cultural exchanges between nomadic steppe tribes and settled empires. The kurgan and its contents, including the inscribed bowl, highlight the sophistication and far-reaching connections of the Saka elite.
Today, the "Golden Man" stands as a potent symbol of Kazakhstan's national heritage, adorning monuments and currency. As researchers continue to work on fully translating the remaining characters of the Kushan script, the Issyk inscription remains a vital key to unlocking the lost voices of the ancient Eurasian steppes, bridging the gap between the nomadic Scythian warriors and the monumental legacy of the Kushan Empire.
Top image: Silver bowl with the Issyk inscription found in the kurgan. Source: eggry / CC BY-SA 2.0
By Gary Manners
References
Bonmann, S., Halfmann, J., Korobzow, N. & Bobomulloev, B. 2023. A Partial Decipherment of the Unknown Kushan Script. Transactions of the Philological Society. Available at: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-968X.12269
Grokipedia. Issyk inscription. Available at: https://grokipedia.com/page/issyk_inscription
University of Cologne. 2023. Research group deciphers enigmatic ancient script. Available at: https://uni-koeln.de/en/university/news/news/news-detail/research-group-deciphers-enigmatic-ancient-script
Wikipedia. Issyk kurgan. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issyk_kurgan
