Snka

Snka is an ancient writing system attributed to the Snkan civilization of the Tarith Basin, used from about 1200 to 500 BCE. The script is considered a logosyllabary, combining logographic signs with a set of syllabic phonemes. Estimates place the total inventory between 700 and 900 signs, with many symbols representing common words for deities, goods, and social roles, and phonetic components used for grammatical endings and loanwords. Inscriptions appear on ceramic shards, stone monuments, and metal tags, and are usually arranged in horizontal lines or in ceremonial tablets with parallel columns.

The name Snka is conventional among researchers; the original endonym is unknown. The earliest substantial corpus was recovered at sites in the Tarith region, with a cluster of inscriptions dating to the late Middle Bronze Age. A partial decipherment emerged after the discovery of a bilingual inscription linking Snka to a neighboring language, enabling recognition of a basic sound system and some grammatical markers.

Scholarly work on Snka focuses on its administrative and religious texts, which reveal a centralized temple economy and a pantheon with a high god associated with justice and harvest. The script influenced later regional scripts and has been the subject of digital archiving and typographic projects to create readable fonts for scholarly editions. However, many signs remain undeciphered, and full understanding of the language is still debated.

See also: writing systems, Tarith language, ancient scripts.