dated near or after the fall of the Sasanian Empire and (with exceptions) extending to about 900, after which Iranian languages enter the "modern" stage.

The oldest surviving example of the Pahlavi literature is from fragments of the so-called "Pahlavi Psalter", a 6th- or 7th-century translation of a Syriac Psalter found at Bulayïq on the Silk Road, near Turpan