Description
This Element examines – for the first time in a single volume – the written evidence from the 'Far East' of the Hellenistic world (Bactria, Sogdiana, Arachosia, Gandhara). It examines how successive invaders of this region, from Persia, Greece and India, left their linguistic and textual mark. It reviews the surviving Hellenistic-period written material from archaeological sites in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan in Aramaic, Greek and Prakrit.
Table of Contents
1. Introduction; 2. Aramaic, Elamite and Iranian Languages in the Achaemenid East; 3. Greek and its uses in Hellenistic Central Asia; 4. Afterlives: Text and language under the Kushan Empire; 5. Conclusion.
