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18.   Stone Panel with Syro-Turkic Inscription
Yuan dynasty (1272—1368)
Quanzhou Maritime Museum
Ricci 18  KP 031 Z4

The Syro-Turkic inscription is currently being deciphered. In the indented section at the top there is a cross on a lotus flower flanked by two flying figures. A decorated bow-shaped design appears at both ends of the panel.

A significant number of Nestorian Christian inscriptions are in the Syriac script but the language is a mixture of Syriac and Old Turkish (Syro-Turkic for short). This mixing of a Semitic and an Altaic language has greatly increased the problem for the researcher. The Chinese themselves do not have trained epigraphists who can read the Syro-Turkic script used in many of the inscriptions. In Quanzhou there are about 40 inscribed panels amounting to nearly 1000 lines of writing, representing the largest collection of inscriptions in Syriac outside of the Middle East, and the largest in the “Nestorian” script anywhere in the world.