Avestan Alphabet

The Avestan alphabet was used for rewriting Avesta, the primary collection of religious texts about Zoroastrianism. They were composed in the Avestan language, which went extinct in the 5th century. It was actually dying out starting from the V century, and eventually it mainly served for religious worship and other ceremonial purposes. This alphabet was based on the Aramaic script used during the Pahlavi dynasty. The number and appearance of the letters slightly varied and depended on the individual transcribing the manuscript. The oldest manuscript that has survived till our days dates back to the XIII century.