During the last twenty years, more than 150 documents in Bactrian, the language of pre-Islamic Afghanistan, have come to light. These documents provide unique information on the history of Afghanistan and neighbouring lands in the 4th to 8th centuries C.E., as well as revealing a Middle Iranian language which was hardly known before. The first volume of Nicholas Sims-Williams' edition, which was published in 2001, contained all the legal and economic documents which were known up to that time. The present, substantially revised edition includes a number of additional documents as well as incorporating significant improvements to the text and translation. However, some sections of the earlier edition, in particular the glossary, have been omitted, since they have been superseded by the equivalent sections of Bactrian Documents II (published in 2007 and still available).
