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Deciphering the Murfatlar Inscriptions - Part Three.


But let's move on. Three groups of letters with a title above them occur in the M2 inscription. These are religious concepts that will lend themselves to translation more easily.

Inscription M2


The third of them consists of three letters:


There is a similar combination of letters at the beginning of inscription M13:

Inscription M13



Also, in the inscription M55, the upper two letters are the first letters of the same three-letter combination:


The first letter of the same combination is incised twice on a bow from the city of Békés
Hungary (Libisch G. 2004).

Inscription from Hungary


Undoubtedly, this is a significant expression. But what is it? A curious inscription from Murfatlar will perhaps shed some light on the matter:

Inscription M82


On the inscription M82, in addition to IС ЧС, letters seem interwoven instead of the two parts of the cross. I don't know why, but it occurred to me that these letters are the runic spelling of the name of Christ. I went through the inscriptions for a long time and decided that my best candidate was the three letters:



The idea is good, but the proof is only the inscription M82, which seems unconvincing. In fact, the first letter is found on a slave from Ashiktash (Kyzlasov I. 1994):


Част от надписа от Ашикташ

And also in the inscription from Isak Kul (Livshits V. 1976).


Надпис от Исък Кул

And among the signs from Murfatlar, there are two more similar signs:


The third of them resembles the Greek letter sampi and is found in the inscription from Pliska:

Inscription from Pliska



Isn't this a combination of two signs:

A happy accident answered my questions. I came across a bilingual inscription on a tile from Pliska (Doncheva-Petkova L. 1980):


Then the combination of three signs reads IS KS (Jesus Christos):



     But why did I decide that the central character is "k"? Here is a Kipchak expression: Biyimiz da Tengrimiz bizim Jisus Krisdos. - Our Lord and our God Jesus Christ.
     
      After this success, I now have the sound values of 10 characters:














 





 













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