Details

Subjects:

Bactrian language -- Specimens.
Bactrian language.
Bactria -- History.

Form/Genre:

Palimpsests.
Seals (artifacts)
Manuscripts, Digital.
Specimens.

Language:

Bactrian.

Summary:

Letter written on parchment in the 4th or 5th century in the northern Hindu Kush region (in modern Afghanistan). 10 lines of Bactrian language in Greek cursive script in which Nawaz instructs Ram-yol, the recipient, to give good treatment to a third individual named Siz-bur. The letter is a palimpsest, written over an earlier, illegible document, with lines of the earlier writing visible in the margins on the left and bottom edges (no margins on right and top edges); writing is also visible on the verso. A strip almost cut away along the bottom edge is threaded through a clay seal of a divine face surrounded by a sunburst.

Local notes:

Lawrence J. Schoenberg & Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative.

Penn Provenance:

Sold by Sam Fogg Ltd. (London) to Lawrence J. Schoenberg, March 2002.
Deposit by Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle, 2013.
Gift of Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg, 2016.

Publications about:

Published in Nicholas Sims-Williams, Bactrian documents from northern Afghanistan (Nour Foundation, 2000-2012), Volume 2, pages 92-93; palimpsest text in Volume 3, p. 21.

Cited as:

UPenn LJS 489.

Contributor:

Schoenberg, Lawrence J., former owner.
Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection (University of Pennsylvania)

OCLC:

857793612

Web link:

The Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle Manuscript Initiative Fund Home Page