Ulaanbaatar
2000 year old inscription deciphered
Society
Ulaanbaatar /MONTSAME/ ‘Sergelen International Expedition’ NGO spelled out the inscriptions on Bilge Khan and Kul Tigin stelea found near the Orkhon River basin.
More than 70 large and small steles with inscriptions found in Mongolia were referred to the Turkic Empire. However, national scholars deciphered the inscriptions and found that it was 2000-year-old Xiongnu script.
Founder of the NGO S.Sergelen noted that the script was invented by the Xiongnus over 2000 years ago and later used as the official script of the Turkic and Uyghur Khaganates for more than 1000 years. “Decipherment of the 2000-year-old inscription will be a revelation in Mongolian history and linguistics. Some of the stele inscriptions found in Mongolia are also likely written in the Xiongnu script,” he said.
Professor of Linguistics, PhD G.Buyantogtokh said that “The inscription was mostly studied by the European researchers and first transcribed by the Danish philologist Vilhelm Thomsen in 1893. Foreign researchers announced that it is written in the Turkic script. However, we have discovered that it was written in the Xiongnu script that was used 2000 years ago. The inscription of the Bilge Khan stele reads ‘I, Bilge Khan of Turkic Empire, claim my reign under the Heaven’. We have only deciphered the short one. There is also a stele with inscription three times larger than that. We have also read the Tonyukuk stele inscriptions. Similar stele inscriptions were found only in Mongolia and nowhere else. The script is read bottom-to-top, symbolizing the pursuit of heaven,” he noted.
