Multilingual inscription

As means for decipherment

• Behistun Inscription, in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian; used for the decipherment of cuneiform.
• Karatepe bilingual, in Phoenician and Luwian; for Anatolian hieroglyphs.
• Orkhon inscriptions, in Middle Chinese and Old Turkic ; for Old Turkic script.
• Rosetta Stone, in Ancient Egyptian, and Ancient Greek; for Egyptian hieroglyphic script.

  Examples

Bilinguals

• the first known Sumerian-Akkadian bilingual tablet dating to the reign of Rimush,.
• the Urra=hubullu tablets in Sumerian and Akkadian; one tablet is a Sumerian-Hurrian bilingual glossary.
• the bilingual Ebla tablets in Sumerian and Eblaite
• the bilingual Ugarit Inscriptions :
• *tablets in Akkadian and Hittite
• *tablets in Akkadian and Hieroglyphic Luwian
• *tablets in Sumerian and Akkadian
• *tablets in Ugaritic and Akkadian
• the Karatepe Bilingual in Phoenician and Hieroglyphic Luwian
• the Tell el Fakhariya Bilingual Inscription in Aramaic and Akkadian
• the Çineköy inscription in Hieroglyphic Luwian and Phoenician
• the Assyrian lion weights in Akkadian and Aramaic
• the Kandahar Edict of Ashoka in Ancient Greek and Aramaic
• the Amathus bilingual in Eteocypriot and Ancient Greek
• the Idalion bilingual inscription that helped to decipher the Cypro-Syllabic script
• the Pyrgi Tablets in Etruscan and Phoenician
• the Kaunos Bilingual, in Carian and Ancient Greek
• the Philae obelisk, in Egyptian hieroglyphs and Ancient Greek
• the Rosetta Stone Series, in Egyptian and Ancient Greek; they allowed the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphs
• *the Raphia Decree
• *the Decree of Canopus
• *the Rosetta Stone decree : the Rosetta Stone and the Nubayrah Stele
• the Cippi of Melqart in Phoenician and Ancient Greek; discovered in Malta in 1694, the key which allowed French scholar Abbé Barthelemy to decipher the Phoenician script
• the Punic-Libyan Inscription in Libyan and Punic; from the Mausoleum of Ateban, now held at the British Museum, it allowed the decipherment of Libyan
• the Monumentum Ancyranum inscription in Latin and Greek; it reproduces and translates the Latin inscription of the Res Gestae Divi Augusti
• the Stele of Serapit in Ancient Greek and Armazic
• the Velvikudi inscription in Sanskrit and Tamil
• the Valun tablet in Old Croatian and Latin
• the Muchundi Inscription in Arabic and Malayalam
• the Kalyani Inscriptions in Mon and Pali

Trilinguals

• the trilingual Aphek-Antipatris inscription in Sumerian, Akkadian and Canaanite; it is a lexicon
• the trilingual Ugarit Inscriptions :
• *a dictionary in Sumerian, Akkadian and Hurrian.
• *a literary text in Sumerian, Akkadian and Hittite; it was imported from Hattusa.
• the Achaemenid royal inscriptions in Old Persian, Elamite and Akkadian ; it allowed the decipherment of cuneiform script
• the Xanthos Obelisk in Ancient Greek, Lycian and Milyan
• the Van Fortress inscription in Old Persian, Akkadian, and Elamite; it allowed the decipherment of Old Persian.
• the Letoon trilingual, in standard Lycian or Lycian A, Ancient Greek and Aramaic
• the Ezana Stone in Ge'ez, Sabaean and Ancient Greek
• the Monumentum Adulitanum in Ge'ez, Sabaean and Ancient Greek
• the trilingual epitaph for Meliosa in Hebrew, Latin and Greek; the Jewish headstone includes a pentagram and a five-branched menorah in the Latin text.
• the BommalaGutta Inscription in Telugu, Kannada and Sanskrit.
• the Galle Trilingual Inscription in Chinese, Tamil and Persian
• the Yongning Temple Stele in Chinese, Mongolian and Jurchen; see below.
• the Shwezigon Pagoda Bell Inscription in Burmese, Mon and Pali

  Quadrilinguals

• the quadrilingual Ugarit Inscription in Sumerian, Akkadian, Hurrian and Ugaritic.
• the Myazedi inscription in Burmese, Pyu, Mon and Pali; it allowed the decipherment of Pyu.
• the Yongning Temple Stele in Chinese, Jurchen, Mongolian and Classical Tibetan; the Buddhist mantra Om mani padme hum is transcribed from Sanskrit using 4 scripts arranged vertically on sides, and there is another Chinese text engraved on the front with abbreviated Mongolian & Jurchen translations on the back.

  Inscriptions in five or more languages

• the Sawlumin inscription in Burmese, Pyu, Mon, Pali and Sanskrit
• the Cloud Platform at Juyong Pass inscriptions in Sanskrit, Classical Tibetan, Mongolian, Old Uyghur, Chinese and Tangut; it engraves two different Buddhist dharani-sutras transcriptions from Sanskrit using 6 scripts, another text in 5 languages, and a Chinese & Tangut summary of one dharani-sutra.
• the Stele of Sulaiman in Sanskrit, Classical Tibetan, Mongolian, Old Uyghur, Chinese and Tangut ; the Buddhist mantra Om mani padme hum is transcribed from Sanskrit using 6 scripts, below another Chinese engraving.

  Modern examples

• the cornerstone of the UN headquarters in English, French, Chinese, Russian and Spanish; the text "United Nations" in each official language and "MCMXLIX" are etched on stone.
• Peace poles, displaying each one the message "May Peace Prevail on Earth" in multiple languages
• the Georgia Guidestones, with two multilingual inscriptions
• *a short message at the top in four ancient languages, i.e., in Akkadian, Ancient Greek, Sanskrit and Egyptian
• *the ten guidelines on the slabs in eight modern languages, i.e., in English, Spanish, Swahili, Hindi, Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese and Russian.