Old Nubian, the language of the Christian kingdom of Makuria/Dotawo, was written with the characters of Coptic (itself derived from Greek oncial, plus a few signs taken from Egyptian Demotic), to which some signs borrowed from Meroitic cursive had been added. The Old Nubian alphabet thus used Greek, Coptic and Meroitic characters in a new synthesis.

The texts in Old Nubian are mostly religious, but some administrative and economic documents have also been preserved.