Script - Avestan
Avestan is a historical right-to-left script used to write the sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, primarily the Avesta, dating from roughly the 5th century BCE to the 4th century CE. Its Unicode encoding covers 61 characters, including consonants, vowels, and ligatures, specifically designed to represent the phonetic nuances of the Avestan language as orally transmitted for centuries. The script’s characters are derived from the Pahlavi writing system but were uniquely adapted to preserve the precise pronunciation of liturgical chants, with each glyph corresponding to a distinct sound. This value enables digital representation and scholarly analysis of ancient religious manuscripts, ensuring the script’s linguistic and cultural heritage remains accessible for research and preservation.