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Bactrian Documents from Northern Afghanistan: Legal and Economic Documents
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.
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.
- GenresHistory
256 pages, Hardcover
First published December 31, 2000
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February 1, 2024
For a long time, the sole evidence for the Bactrian language was a few inscriptions, but in the early 1990s a collection of over a hundred Bactrian documents written on leather, cloth, or wood came to light and Nicholas Sims-Williams was permitted to edit and publish them. This first volume consists of mainly contracts and accounting documents, which are reproduced in their original script followed by English translation.
What makes this book so great is how appealing it will be to a wide audience. Historians will appreciate the glimpse into Afghan society of the early-mid first millennium AD. Some of these contracts are specific enough that you feel like you are a witness to details of the everyday life of this people. Yet this edition of the corpus is also very helpful to linguists, as Sims-Williams gives a complete glossary at the end of the book with etymologies. For readers with prior training in the Iranian branch of Indo-European, namely Avestan and Sogdian, one can quickly get up to speed with this language just through this glossary. There is also an index of words so that one can quickly see how a given word is used in context.
The study of Bactrian has made advances in the new millennium, so some readings here must be revised, but in the main this edition remains useful and one of the key references for this language.
What makes this book so great is how appealing it will be to a wide audience. Historians will appreciate the glimpse into Afghan society of the early-mid first millennium AD. Some of these contracts are specific enough that you feel like you are a witness to details of the everyday life of this people. Yet this edition of the corpus is also very helpful to linguists, as Sims-Williams gives a complete glossary at the end of the book with etymologies. For readers with prior training in the Iranian branch of Indo-European, namely Avestan and Sogdian, one can quickly get up to speed with this language just through this glossary. There is also an index of words so that one can quickly see how a given word is used in context.
The study of Bactrian has made advances in the new millennium, so some readings here must be revised, but in the main this edition remains useful and one of the key references for this language.
Displaying 1 of 1 review