The Tariat inscriptions appear on a stele found near the Hoid Terhyin River in Doloon Mod district, Arkhangai Province, modern-day Mongolia. (The forms Terkhin and Terhyin are also used). The stele was erected by Bayanchur Khan of the Uyghur Khaganate in the middle of the eighth century (between 753 and 760 CE seems to be the best estimate).
Archeologists already knew of the existence of this stele [1] because it was mentioned in another Uighur stele found in 1909. But it took 47 years to discover and unearth the stele; finally being found by Mongolian archeologist T. Dorjsuren in 1956. The finds are now exhibited in the Mongolian Institute of Archeology in Ulaanbaatar. [2]
The Uyghur Khaganate replaced the Second Turkic Khaganate in Inner Asia in 745 CE. Its founder was Kutluk Bilge Köl (745-747). Unlike their predecessors, they were allies of the Tang dynasty and in the early days of the khaganate the khagans (rulers) supported the Tang emperor against the rebellious general An Lushan. They were one of the major powers of Asia. However, in 848 CE they were defeated by the Kyrgyz and were forced to move west to the Gansu and Xinjiang regions of modern-day China.
The stele had been erected on a bixi or tortoise plinth and is made of light gray granite. There are 30 lines of text inscribed on each side of the stele in old Turkic using the Orkhon alphabet (Turkic runes) which was also used in the famous Khöshöö Tsaidam Monuments of Bilge Khagan and his brother Kül Tigin of the Turkic khaganate in 732 and 735 CE. [Note 1] The narrator is Bayanchur Khan of the Uighur khaganate who reigned between 747 and 759 CE.
Bayanchor Khan refers to himself as El etmish Bilge Kagan. (Not to be confused with Bilge Kagan of the Turkic Khanate who lived earlier). According to inscriptions appearing on the east side of the slab, during the interregnum following the death of his father, Bayanchor fought against the tribes supporting his elder brother Tay Bilge Tutuk. Among these tribes, the Tatars seem to have been the most important enemy, for their names are mentioned several times. [3] On the west face of the stele, a brief history of the Turkic peoples is given. It is notable that the names of Bumin Khan and İstemi of the Turkic Khaganate are also mentioned in the inscriptions. This may mean that the power shift from the Turkic Khaganete to the (linguistically indistinguishable) Uighur Khanate was considered merely as a coup d'état. [4]
Old Turkic original text: [5]
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Bilge Qaghan was the fourth Qaghan of the Second Turkic Khaganate. His accomplishments were described in the Orkhon inscriptions.
Kul Tigin was a general and a prince of the Second Turkic Khaganate.
The Old Turkic script was the alphabet used by the Göktürks and other early Turkic khanates from the 8th to 10th centuries to record the Old Turkic language.
Old Turkic is the earliest attested form of the Turkic languages, found in Göktürk and Uyghur Khaganate inscriptions dating from about the eighth to the 13th century. It is the oldest attested member of the Siberian Turkic branch of Turkic, which is extant in the modern Western Yugur language. It is not the ancestor of the Uyghur language; the contemporaneous ancestor of Uyghur is called Middle Turkic, later Chagatai or Turki.
Orkhon Valley Cultural Landscape sprawls along the banks of the Orkhon River in Central Mongolia, some 320 km west from the capital Ulaanbaatar. It was inscribed by UNESCO in the World Heritage List as representing the development of nomadic pastoral traditions spanning more than two millennia. (See List of World Heritage Sites in Mongolia).
Mo-yun Chur (磨延啜) or Eletmish Bilge Qaghan was second qaghan of Uyghur Khaganate. His Tang dynasty invested title was Yingwu Weiyuan Pijia Qaghan or simply Yingwu Qaghan. He was also known as Gelei Qaghan. His official regnal name in Turkic was Tengrida Bolmish Eletmish Bilge Qaghan. He is mostly famous for ordering the erection of the Tariat Inscriptions.
The Uyghur Khaganate was a Turkic empire that existed for about a century between the mid 8th and 9th centuries. They were a tribal confederation under the Orkhon Uyghur (回鶻) nobility, referred to by the Chinese as the Jiu Xing, a calque of the name Toquz Oghuz or Toquz Tughluq.
Ötüken was the capital of the First Turkic Khaganate and Uyghur Khaganate. It has an important place in Turkic mythology and Tengrism. Otukan (Ötüken) is also one of the names given to Mother Earth. Otuken is located in Kharkhorin district in Övörkhangai Province of present-day Mongolia.
The Xueyantuo were an ancient Tiele tribe and khaganate in Northeast Asia who were at one point vassals of the Göktürks, later aligning with the Tang dynasty against the Eastern Göktürks.
The Eastern Turkic Khaganate was a Turkic khaganate formed as a result of the internecine wars in the beginning of the 7th century after the First Turkic Khaganate had splintered into two polities – one in the east and the other in the west. Finally, the Eastern Turkic Khaganate was defeated and absorbed by the Tang dynasty.
The Orkhon inscriptions (also known as the Orhon inscriptions, Orhun inscriptions, Khöshöö Tsaidam monuments, or Kul Tigin steles are two memorial installations erected by the Göktürks written in the Old Turkic alphabet in the early 8th century in the Orkhon Valley in what is modern-day Mongolia. They were erected in honor of two Turkic princes, Kul Tigin and his brother Bilge Khagan.
The Basmyls were a 7th- to 8th-century Turkic nomadic tribe who mostly inhabited the Dzungaria region in the northwest of modern-day China.
Nushibi was a Chinese collective name for five tribes of the right (western) wing in the Western Turkic Khaganate, and members of "ten arrows" confederation found in the Chinese literature. The references to Nushibi appeared in Chinese sources in 651 and disappeared after 766. The Nushibi tribes occupied the lands of the Western Turkic Kaganate west of the Ili River of contemporary Kazakhstan.
The Second Turkic Khaganate, was a khaganate in Central and Eastern Asia founded by Ashina clan of the Göktürks. It was preceded by the Eastern Turkic Khaganate (552-630) and then a period of Tang dynasty rule (630-682). The Second Khaganate was centered on Ötüken in the upper reaches of the Orkhon River. It was succeeded by its subject Toquz Oghuz confederation, which became the Uyghur Khaganate.
Kutlug I Bilge Boyla Khagan, also known by his throne name Qutlugh Bilge Kül Qaghan, and in Chinese sources the personal name of Yaoluoge Yibiaobi (藥羅葛逸标苾) was the Kaghan of Uyghur Khaganate, the successor state of the Second Turkic Khaganate, from 744 to 747 AD.
The Tonyukuk inscriptions, also called the Bain Tsokto inscriptions are Turkic inscriptions of the 8th century located in modern-day Mongolia. They are the oldest written attestations of the Turkic language family, predating the Orkhon inscriptions by several years.
Sir-Kıvchak were a Turkic people whose existence is controversial and who were proposed to be precursors to the Kipchaks who settled in East Europe in the 10th century.
Bars Bek, or Inanch Alp Bilge, was a khagan of the Yenisei Kyrgyz Khaganate.
The Ongin inscription was discovered in 1891 in Mongolia near the Ongi River, 160km south of the Orkhon inscriptions and 402km south-west of the Tonyukuk inscriptions. It was erected in honor of El Etmish Yabgu. Line 12 makes it clear that the author of the inscription erected a memorial to his father. According to Gerard Clauson, it must have been erected between 716 and 735, during the reign of Bilge Qaghan. According to Ercilasun it was erected in 719 or 720.
The Silver Deer of Bilge Khan is a 7th- or 8th-century silver and silver-gilt artifact extracted from the tomb of Bilge Qaghan, the burial complex of the fourth Qaghan of the Second Turkic Khaganate. It was discovered in 2001 during excavations carried out in Orkon Valley, at the future Bilge Khan Monumental Grave Complex, located about 400 km (250 mi) from Mongolia's capital Ulaanbaatar, between the Orkhon River and Khosho Tsaydam Lake.