Amga Korgan

Amga Korgan, “the fortress of Amga”, is a winter quarters named in two of the Orkhon inscriptions. The Göktürk army stayed there during the war against the Nine Oguz. The Kül Tegin inscription tells how the Oguz attacked the camp from there, and the Bilge Khan inscription dates a bad winter to the same place.^[1]

In the Kül Tegin inscription

On its north face the Kül Tegin inscription says: amga korgan kışlap, yazıŋa oguzgaru sü taşıkdımız, “wintering at Amga Korgan, in the spring we led the army out against the Oguz.”^[2] The khan sent Kül Tegin ahead in charge of the camp. While the army was out, the Oguz fell on the camp. Kül Tegin rode out and ran nine men through, and the camp was not given up.^[3] The khan adds that without Kül Tegin the women of the royal house would have gone into slavery and everyone would have died.^[3]

The edition of Tekin reads amga korgan.^[4] The older editions read Magı Kurgan, and the handbooks that follow them print that form.^[5]

In the Bilge Khan inscription

The Bilge Khan inscription has the same winter in the first person: otuz artukı eki yaşıma Amgı korgan kışladukda yut boltı. At the age of thirty-two, while the army was wintering at the fortress of Amgı, there was yut.^[6] Translations of the inscription give yut as famine. One study understands it as the dying of livestock. It gives two causes, a hard climate or a large force wintering in a small place.^[7]

Site and date

The stones give no year. One account places the winter at Amga in 715.^[8] A second account places the attack on the camp in the spring of 717, after the death of Kapgan in 716.^[9]

The stones do not say where the fortress stood. The word korgan names a fortified place, and the article on the word sets out how the inscriptions use it. One study identifies Amga Korgan as a fort near the edge of the realm. An army could then winter behind its walls, and stores of food for men and fodder for animals were kept there.^[10] The study counts the place among its evidence that the Göktürks were not pure nomads.^[11] No text confirms the stores, and the site is unknown.

References

^ Kül Tegin inscription; Bilge Khan inscription
^ Kül Tegin inscription
^ a b Kül Tegin inscription
^ Tekin o. J., p. 50
^ Ögel 2000, p. 161
^ Bilge Khan inscription
^ Baykara 1990, p. 20–21
^ Taşağıl 2004, p. 39
^ Sümer 1972, p. 15–17
^ Baykara 1990, p. 20
^ Baykara 1990, p. 18–19, 28–29

Sources

Literature

Tuncer Baykara, Göktürk Yazıtlarının Türk İskân (Yerleşme) Tarihindeki Yeri (1990)
Namsrai Gerelmaa, Költegin Yazıtı’nda Kalıplaşmış Bazı Kelimelerin Moğolca Esasında Yorumu (2011)
Bahaeddin Ögel, Türk Kültür Tarihine Giriş VII: Türklerde ordu, ordugah ve otağ (2000)
Ahmet Taşağıl, Gök-Türkler, Bd. III (2004)
Faruk Sümer, Oğuzlar (Türkmenler). Tarihleri, boy teşkilâtı, destanları (1972)