I've been reading a book on the recent traveller on the silk road and since the book lacked images I searched for material on Google. On of the great collection of ancient oriental writing was discovered along the road and images of it have been posted on a German specialist site.
Here is a sample of a c800 AD Soghdian script.

The scripts are varied and all are beautiful.

The site is:http://www.bbaw.de/bbaw/Forschung/Forschungsprojekte/turfanforschung/de/DigitalesTurfanArchiv

Thanks for posting this, I love looking at old writing. Are these manuscripts from Tun Huang along the Silk Road? This is where a massive repository of ancient Asian writings of multi-various origins were unearthed. There was a Japanese novel published in 1960 which is set within the riddle of how and why these manuscripts ended up sealed in the caves of Tun Huang. I read the English translation and found it very engaging, although I don't know how accurate it was.

For those interested: Tun Huang, a novel by Yasushi Inoue

Again, thanks for posting.

Doug

Hi Doug,
Yes they are from Tun Huang. The variety of script and language that long ago is truly fascinating. Thanks for the info on the novel. I'll try to find a copy.
Greg

Illiad image copy:

Thanks. I'm looking through it.