Dilberjin Tepe, also Dilberjin or Delbarjin, is the modern name for the remains of an ancient town in modern (northern) Afghanistan. The town was perhaps founded in the time of the Achaemenid Empire. Under the Kushan Empire it became a major local centre. After the Kushano-Sassanids the town was abandoned.
A coin of Kidara on the model of Varahran, of the type found in Dilberjin. Circa CE 350–365, Balkh mint.
Remains of the Dioscuri mural at the entrance (left side of the mural).
Dilberjin fresco, 5th-6th century.
Dilberjin fresco fragment.
Bactrian is an extinct Eastern Iranian language formerly spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria and used as the official language of the Kushan and the Hephthalite empires.
Bactrian language
The Rabatak inscription is an inscription written on a rock in the Bactrian language and the Greek script, which was found in 1993 at the site of Rabatak, near Surkh Kotal in Afghanistan. The inscription relates to the rule of the Kushan emperor Kanishka, and gives remarkable clues on the genealogy of the Kushan dynasty.
The Surkh Kotal inscription (SK4) is the first known substantial document written in Bactrian, an Iranian language. It uses the Greek script. It was written at the time of the Kushan ruler Huvishka, 2nd century CE. Kabul Museum.
The Hephthalites used the Bactrian script (top). Here, their endonym Ebodalo (ηβοδαλο), "Hephthalites".