The Issyk inscription is a yet undeciphered text, possibly in the Kushan script, found in 1969 on a silver bowl in Issyk kurgan in Kazakhstan, dated at approximately the 4th century BC. The context of the burial gifts indicates that it may belong to Saka tribes.

Description

The Issyk inscription is not yet certainly deciphered, and is probably in a Scythian dialect, constituting one of very few autochthonous epigraphic traces of that language. Various possible identifications of the script have been proposed. In 1992, János Harmatta, using the Kharoṣṭhī script, identified the language as a Khotanese Saka dialect spoken by the Kushans, tentatively translating: A 2023 analysis by Bonmann et al. identifies the Issyk inscription's language with a new sub-branch of Eastern Iranian languages, particularly a language "situated in between Bactrian-, Sogdian-, Saka- and Old Steppe Iranian". They also propose referring to the now-identified script as the "(Issyk-)Kushan script".

Photos of the inscription