契丹大字
The main source of Khitan texts are monumental inscriptions, mostly comprising memorial tablets buried in the tombs of Khitan nobility. Only one monument in a Khitan script was known before the 20th century, the "Record of the Younger Brother of the Emperor of the Great Jin Dynasty" ("Langjun xingji" 郎君行記), which has stood in front of the tomb of Wu Zetian since at least 1618. Until the 1920s it was believed to be written in the Jurchen script. Only after the discovery of the memorial tablets of the Emperor Xingzong of Liao and his consort was it realized that the "Record of the Younger Brother of the Emperor" and the Liao-dynasty memorial tablets were both written in a Khitan script. Several more memorial tablets in the same script were discovered during the 1930s, including memorials for the Emperor Daozong of Liao and his consort. Initially it was not clear whether the script inscribed on these memorial tablets was the Khitan large script, recorded to have been devised in 920, or the Khitan small script, recorded to have been devised about 925. A different, unknown script, which appeared more similar to Chinese (incorporating many characters borrowed directly from Chinese), had been discovered on a temple monument in 1935, as well as on a memorial to Xiao Xiaozhong in 1951; and in 1962 Jin Guangping suggested that these two monuments were written using the Khitan large script, and that the "Record of the Younger Brother of the Emperor" and the imperial memorial tablets were written using the Khitan small script. This identification of the two Khitan scripts is now widely accepted.