Julian Rentzsch: Runic Inscriptions in Eurasia

The Department of Middle Eastern Studies at CU FA cordially invites all interested to a lecture by Dr Julian Rentzsch from Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz.

Annotation

Across Eurasia, numerous inscriptions in runic writing systems can be found, including commemorative stelae from the Second Turkic Empire in the Orkhon Valley in present-day Mongolia, but also inscriptions from other Turkic peoples in the Yenisey area as well as in the Altai and Tian Shan Mountains. Taking these Old Turkic inscriptions as a starting point, the presentation will sketch the research history of these inscriptions and outline the fundamental graphematic principles of the Old Turkic script system. After that, some selected research problems connected to the runic inscriptions will be presented. We will then turn to other runic script systems in Eurasia, specifically the Székely script – also known as Old Hungarian script or Hungarian runes – in Transylvania, and runiform signs found on fragments from the Late Avar period in the Carpathian Basin, and discuss the question of a possible relationship between these script systems and other, seemingly similar and yet undeciphered signs in Western Eurasia, and perspectives for their investigation.