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Afghanistan: A fragment of Bactrian cursive script dating from the Hepthalite or White Hun Empire (6th century CE)

The Hephthalites (or Ephthalites), also known as the White Huns, were a nomadic confederation in Central Asia during the late antiquity period. The Hephthalite Empire, at the height of its power (in the first half of the 6th century), was located in the territories of present-day Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, India and China.

The Bactrian language is an extinct Eastern Iranian language which was spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria. Linguistically, it is classified as belonging to the middle period of the Northeastern Iranian branch.

Because Bactrian was written predominantly with the Greek alphabet, Bactrian is sometimes referred to as 'Greco-Bactrian', 'Kushan' or 'Kushano-Bactrian'.

More than a hundred Bactrian documents, written in cursive script on leather, cloth or wood were discovered in the last decade of the 20th c. Before that the corpus of Bactrian was effectively limited to a single inscription from Surkh Kotal and the short legends on coins and seals. Almost all other texts were either illegible, incomprehensible, or both.