The Altın Köl stelae are two sandstone monuments with runiform epitaphs, found in 1878 in Khakassia and kept in the museum at Minusinsk.[1] They are two of the Yenisei inscriptions, numbered E 28 and E 29. The second is counted among the medium-length texts of the corpus.[2] Stone I is quoted mostly for three words in it. One is bars, the leopard. One is ärklig, the Mighty One, who parted the speaker from his own. One is a word that some take for Umay. Stone II is the epitaph of a hero. The editors since 1895 have read its opening line in at least six different ways.[3]

The stones and their find

A peasant of the village of Yudinaya, named Korchakov, found the two stones in 1878, about a verst from the small Lake Altın Köl, to the right of the Abakan.[1] They lay in the hills not far from the villages of Yudinaya and Monok, about four fathoms apart. A layer of earth covered them, and only the corners stood out.[1] Both are of brown sandstone with a yellowish cast, of the same shape, well dressed and inscribed in a similar way.[1] The first is whole and measures four and a half feet in length, seventeen inches in width and eight in thickness. The second is broken in two and measures six and a half feet, sixteen to eighteen inches and seven inches.[4] A later account gives the second stone as 195 by 50 by 15 centimetres.[2]

The accounts differ on small points. One puts the find in 1877.[5] Radloff has both stones brought to the museum in the year of the find. By contrast, a later account says that the second reached Minusinsk in 1881.[6] The initials of the finder are not the same in the two sources that give them.[6] Neither point touches the text.

The texts run on three faces of each stone. On stone I, Radloff prints three lines on each of the front, the right and the left face. On stone II he prints four lines on the front, which is the broad face. He prints two lines on each of the sides.[7] The modern name of the pair is the name of the lake, the Golden Lake. The Finnish expedition of 1889 recorded the second stone as “Abakan, Altynkoul” on its plate XXII.[8]

Editions

Radloff published the first reading of both stones in 1895, after the Orkhon stones had given the key to the script.[7] He worked from the plates of the Finnish expedition and from squeezes sent to him. His atlas of 1896 gave plain and retouched copies of the second stone.[9] The material for a new reading is the Finnish atlas, Radloff’s atlas, the corpus of Vasil’ev of 1983 and photographs of the stones published on the internet.[10] The editors of stone II are many: Orkun in 1940, Malov in 1952, Klyashtorny in 1976, Mori in 1987, Kormushin in 1997, Tekin in 1998 and Aydın in 2015.[11] A study of 2019 says that stone II is largely deciphered and that a general agreement on its sense has been reached. The same pages list five points that stay open: the order of the faces, the order of the lines on each face, the signs of several lines, the reading of phrases that follows from those signs, and the interpretation of sign groups whose spelling is certain.[12]

Radloff’s German translation is the oldest reading of both stones. Later editors have superseded it at several points.[13]

Stone I (E 28)

Radloff’s reading

On the front face, as Radloff renders it, the speaker says that he did not stay among his tiger kin living on the earth, among those of his who were endowed with excellence.[14] The second line praises the dead: a hero who ate horses, a mighty man who ate meat and cattle. The wolf with younger brothers may flee, but the tiger does not part from his own.[14] In the third line the speaker says, in Radloff’s transcription bu atımız umai bäg biz, that this name of ours is Umay Beg. He asks that the hearers not part from his customs and wishes.[14]

On the right face, in Radloff’s rendering, they set up the memorial because of the speaker’s excellence and the standing of his younger and older brothers.[14] The speaker says that he strove for the four corners. He says that the Mighty One has parted us, that sixteen are his years here, and that his tiger has parted from the hunters.[14] The left face begins with the ten months that his mother carried him and brought him to his people. It goes on to his rule of the land for his excellence and to his charge, to the grief of his people, against numerous enemies. The last line tells the hearers that they have laid their heavy burden on their younger and older brothers.[15]

Later readings differ on each of the points that matter, and on others. The sections below set them out in turn.

The leopard

The word is bars. Radloff translated it as tiger, and the Turkish literature reads it as pars, the leopard.[16] It stands in the first line of the front face in the phrase that one grammar reads as bars täg+im, “my tiger-like one”.[17] Another study quotes the place from an edition of 2013 as yėrdeki bars tegim e erdemligim e bökm[edim], which it renders “I was not sated of my attack like a leopard on the earth, nor of my heroism”.[18] That study takes the dead man to be likened to the leopard for its aggressiveness. It suggests that a sacredness attached to a beast that roused respect and fear. It adds that traces of a totem belief should be sought behind such a sentence.[18] Tekin’s grammar prints the same line as Yerdäki bars tägim ä! Ärdämligim ä! Bökmädim. It lists bars as “leopard”, and Bars beside it as a man’s name.[19] The closing cry recurs in many Yenisei epitaphs, among them both Altın Köl stones. In it the dead man says that he was parted from his wife, his children and his realm, and that he was not sated of them.[20]

The word occurs again in the third line of the right face. There the grammar reads altun Soŋa yïš käyiki artgïl tašgïl; atdaŋï Upa Barsïm adrïlu bardï, “O animals of the wooded mountain of Soŋa, multiply and flow over; my hunting Upa Bars has died”.[21] In that case the dead man is a hunter who takes leave of the game, and Bars belongs to a name, Upa Bars.[21] Tekin’s grammar prints the line as Altun, Soŋa yış keyiki, art ogul, taş ogul, tadçına barsım adrılu bard[ı], which differs after keyiki and in the name.[22] Radloff read the line as the tiger’s parting from the hunters. He gave the second word as šunda and took it for a demonstrative. By contrast, later editors take it for the place name Soŋa.[23]

Radloff’s glossary lists the dead man of the front face as Umay Beg. It adds that his kin is called the tiger kin and that it cannot be decided whether Bars is the name of the clan or only an honorific of it.[24] A third interpretation takes the two stelae for the memorial of a man named Bars, of a khan’s family, who fell in an unequal battle. It ties him to the Kirghiz khan Bars Beg. This interpretation is taken up below.[25] Another Yenisei stone names the same animal. The stele of Begre has its dead man say that he killed seven wolves and did not kill the bars or the kökmek. One study reads the spared animals as the totems of his people.[26] In these interpretations the leopard is a comparison, a man’s name and perhaps a clan’s. The signs do not decide among them.

Erklig

The second line of the right face holds the clause bizni ärklig adırtı, “Ärklig parted us”.[27] The clause before it is read in two ways. Radloff took it as “the four (corners) I sought”, and read the next clause as “the Mighty One has parted us”.[14] Tekin, in 1991, read tört inilgü ärtimiz, “we were four brothers”, and translated the whole line as “We were four brothers; the god of the Underworld separated us”.[28] The grammar that quotes him accepts the sense but changes a letter, l to y, and reads iniy ägü. The comitative ending +lXgU would give “we were with four brothers”.[28] All the readings agree on the verb: someone called Ärklig parted the speaker from his kin.

They disagree on what Ärklig is. The word is an adjective of the older language, “the powerful one”. One study translates the clause “the powerful one parted us”.[29] In the Old Uyghur Buddhist and Manichaean texts it is also a title, Ärklig Khan, of the lord of the dead in the one and of the just judge in the other.[30] The study argues that most Yenisei epitaphs are memorial texts in which the dead man says what he thinks as he leaves his relatives. A god at the border between life and death is therefore a likely sense of the word. The study adds that there is no evidence that the Altın Köl word is the god of the later Uyghur texts, and it judges the equation fairly probable.[29] The same study rejects a proposal that the stone names the planet Venus. The Old Uyghur text in which ärklig is the name of Venus is a translation from Chinese, and its religious setting is wholly different.[31] A recent study of the stone takes Erklig for the lord of the underworld. It ties the stone to the belief of the modern Khakas, among whom a shaman recorded in the early twentieth century said that death comes by the will of Irlig.[27] An account of the religion of the Turks and Mongols reads the clause, in its own numbering of the line, as almost certainly a witness of the god of the dead, Erlik, and so moves the figure back by about a thousand years.[32] In the order of the evidence, Erklig is an adjective first, then a translated figure in the Uyghur texts, and last a lord of the underworld in the modern record.

The stones are not monuments of the Göktürk khaganates. The Orkhon stones name no power of the dead.[33] What the Altın Köl clause shows is that a Yenisei epitaph blamed a power called Ärklig for a death. Whether that power was a god is the question of interpretation.

Umay

The third line of the front face contains a sequence of signs transcribed umy bgbz. In it a Yenisei text has been thought to name Umay.[34] The editors divide into three groups.[5]

The first group takes Umay for a man’s name. Radloff read umai bäg biz, “this name of ours is Umay Beg, (those) we are”. He took Umay for a man’s name.[14] Malov read “this is our name, Umay Beg”, Klyashtorny umaj begmiz, “we are Umay Beg”, and Gombocz Umai beg-biz, “we are Umay Beg”. All four therefore take the two words for the name of a man or of men.[5] Aydın reads umay begimiz, “Umay (and) our beg”. This names two persons, the goddess and a lord.[5] Kormushin reads the same letters umay begimiz. He takes the sense to be “our lady Umay”, giving the title beg to the goddess.[5] The last two read the ending as the possessive of the first person plural, “our”. The first four read -biz as the personal ending, “we are”.[5] A study of the word er at quotes the line as ukımız umay begimiz and gives no translation.[35] Tekin’s grammar prints a line Botomuz, Umay bägimiz and does not translate it.[22] An account of the religion of the Turks and Mongols takes Umay Beg for a man’s name, as the first group does.[36]

A study of religious terms says that the sentence in which Umay occurs in this text is hard to interpret.[37] The recent study of the line supports Kormushin and answers the objection that a female power cannot bear a masculine title. It points out that Khakas epics call their heroines “our khan and beg”. It also points out that Khakas prayers address a goddess of fire as khan and beg. These are records of the twentieth century from a people that kept the older religion.[38]

Two more suggestions belong with the sentence. A historian of medieval Kirghizia has suggested that the descendants of Bars Beg were thought to stand under the protection of Umay. This, the historian says, is why they bore the rare title Umay Beg. The same historian thinks that the aco, the head of the Kirghiz, may have held a priestly office in her cult.[5] A study of the image of the goddess in the art of Khakassia has used the stone to argue that Umay was worshipped as a goddess of war among the Kirghiz of the seventh to the ninth century. It reads the line, like Radloff, as a name, and infers that men who bore her name worshipped her.[39] Both suggestions go beyond a sentence that cannot be settled.

Each reading gives Umay a different standing. On the readings of Radloff, Malov, Klyashtorny and Gombocz the stone names men called Umay Beg and does not name the goddess.[5] On the reading of Aydın it names her, with a lord beside her. On the reading of Kormushin it names her and calls her beg, which would make Altın Köl I the Yenisei text with a divine Umay.[5] The Orkhon texts name her in two places, once in a comparison and once in a list of powers.[40] The Nalaikh piece would give her a title of rule. Its authenticity, however, is open.

Place and date

The line on the right face that calls to the game names altun Soŋa yïš, the forest of the Altun Soŋa.[41] The Kül Tegin inscription has the Göktürks fight the Kirghiz khan in the Soŋa forest, in the winter crossing of the Kögmen. This is the campaign against the Kirghiz of about 710.[33] A modern interpretation puts the Soŋa of the stones in the pine forests of the valley of the Soos, where Lake Altın Köl lies.[25] Both stones are then the memorial of Bars, of a khan’s family, who fell in an unequal battle against many enemies in the “golden black forest of Soŋa”. Klyashtorny reads him as the first khan of the Kirghiz, Bars Beg, killed in 711 in battle with the Göktürks.[25] The recent study of Umay notes that some scholars take stone I for the memorial of Bars Beg.[5]

Others separate the stones from Bars Beg. According to Kormushin, the two stones resemble each other in the shape of the slabs, in the order of the lines and in content, and they were set up for twin siblings.[42] The inscription for the elder says that they belonged to the Bars, the ruling clan of the Kirghiz.[42] The inscription for the younger, on stone II, is said to contain a phrase that belongs to Manichaeism.[42] Kormushin dates both stones to the end of the ninth century on the letter forms. He adds that the events told in Yenisei epitaphs cannot be tied to a known event or person, so that a date can rest only on a comparison of letter forms.[43] Stone I has the reading “we were four brothers” in one edition, which is hard to bring into line with a pair of twins.

The step from the stone to the khan is a step of the modern accounts. The Kül Tegin inscription does not name the khan who fell in the Soŋa forest. The Altın Köl texts name neither a khan nor a year.[33] Other men called Bars stand on other Yenisei stones, where the word is a name or part of a name.[44] The identification rests on the place name Soŋa and on the name Bars. The stones alone cannot confirm it.

Stone II (E 29)

The opening line of the broad face of stone II, the line with the speaker’s name, is the best-documented line of the pair. Radloff read it as ärdäm bolšar budunug ärk budunug är atım ärän ulug ärdämlig batur män and translated “the excellent Bolšar people, the mighty people (I rule), my hero name is Ärän Ulug, I am a batur endowed with excellence”.[45] Radloff took the first half for a people, the Bolšar, and the second for a personal name, Ärän Ulug.[46]

The later editors read it differently. Orkun and Malov separated bolsar from a people’s name. They made the sentence a statement about the valour that makes a people strong.[47] Klyashtorny kept a people, now called Bulsar, and read a verb, “I left(?)”, and an address, “O Eren Ulug”.[48] Mori read “if there is a brave man in the land, your people are powerful”, with a hero called Ärän Uluŋ.[49] Kormushin read a different sentence altogether: “he who has valour does not stray from the true path; if I stray, praising Zervan, I shall regain valour”. He therefore read the name of the Iranian Zervan.[49] Tekin gave, in English, “If (a man) has manly qualities, the people, the capable people … My name is Eren Uluga. I am a hero with manly qualities”, and Aydın followed him in Turkish.[50] A study of 2019 rereads the signs against photographs. It finds a sign for z where Radloff and Mori had taken an n. It therefore finds a verb, attımız, “we threw out”, and reads “because we are heroes, we threw out the people, the strong people; I am a great, virtuous hero”.[51] The line runs across a wide crack in the stone. Every editor has had to restore signs there.[52]

The formula that introduces the name, är atım, has a meaning of its own. In Radloff’s reading it is “my hero name”, the formula by which a Yenisei epitaph gives the name that the dead man bore as a man. Its meaning is argued under Er At. Radloff, Orkun and Malov have the formula here. Tekin reads atım alone.[53]

A further line of the broad face is read in two ways. Radloff takes it for a statement about a people: “my heroic tribe, the people of the Bolšar, did not live in agitation”.[54] Sertkaya takes bolsar for a verb and reads that when the dead man found heroism, his people were not able to protect him.[55] The two readings differ in whether bolsar names a people or is a verb.[56]

On the left face Radloff reads the ten months of the mother, who carried the speaker. In the second line the speaker wanders to all four corners and parts from his people because of his heroism.[54] The right face, in Radloff’s reading, says that he went as an envoy to the khan of the Tibetans and brought much back. It also says that he had pushed in to win gold.[57] A statement about the Tibetans rests on Radloff’s reading of one face. No later edition is cited for it.

Dating and attribution

No inscription of the Yenisei corpus is dated, and the Altın Köl stones are no exception.[58] Two datings are proposed. The year 711 follows if the dead man is Bars Beg.[25] The end of the ninth century follows from the letter forms and from the rule that a Yenisei text cannot be tied to a known person.[43] The attribution of the stones to the Kirghiz state rests on the region and on that identification, since no inscription of the Yenisei corpus names the Kirghiz.[58]

Reliability

The stones speak in the voice of the dead and give no history of events. They name no khan and no year. What they give is a vocabulary and a manner. The mother carries her son ten months. The brothers set up the stone. The hero takes leave of his people or of the game. He gives the name that he bore as a man, and a power parts the living from the dead.[59]

Three questions of the history of belief hang on stone I: whether a Yenisei text knew Umay, whether it knew a power of death called Ärklig, and whether the leopard stands for a man or for a clan. Each rests on a short sentence whose signs have been read in several ways. Each answer so far has drawn on the later record of the Altai and Siberia as much as on the stone. The stone supports the narrow statement that a Yenisei epitaph blamed a power called Ärklig for a death. The wider statements depend on the reading.

References

  1. ^ a b c d Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 332
  2. ^ a b Yıldız 2019, p. 70
  3. ^ Yıldız 2019, p. 78–83
  4. ^ Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 332, 334
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Davletov 2025, p. 88
  6. ^ a b Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 332; 70; Yıldız 2019, p. 332; 70
  7. ^ a b Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 332–336
  8. ^ Yıldız 2019, p. 72
  9. ^ Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 332–336; 72–73; Yıldız 2019, p. 332–336; 72–73
  10. ^ Yıldız 2019, p. 70, 72–75
  11. ^ Yıldız 2019, p. 69–71
  12. ^ Yıldız 2019, p. 71
  13. ^ Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 333–336
  14. ^ a b c d e f g Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 333
  15. ^ Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 334
  16. ^ Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 333; 1133; Tuncel 2023, p. 333; 1133
  17. ^ Erdal 2004, p. 336
  18. ^ a b Tuncel 2023, p. 1133
  19. ^ Tekin 2003, p. 233, 240
  20. ^ Tekin 2003, p. 230–235
  21. ^ a b Erdal 2004, p. 289
  22. ^ a b Tekin 2003, p. 233
  23. ^ Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 333; 199; Erdal 2004, p. 333; 199
  24. ^ Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 437
  25. ^ a b c d Butanaev 2015, p. 5
  26. ^ Tuncel 2023, p. 1126
  27. ^ a b Davletov 2025, p. 85
  28. ^ a b Erdal 2004, p. 160
  29. ^ a b Wilkens 2024, p. 87
  30. ^ Wilkens 2024, p. 86–87
  31. ^ Wilkens 2024, p. 87–88
  32. ^ Roux 1994, p. 104, 113
  33. ^ a b c Kül Tegin inscription
  34. ^ Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 333; 87–88; Davletov 2025, p. 333; 87–88
  35. ^ Aydemir 2014 (Jahr after dem Erstellungsdatum der PDF, nicht printed gelesen), p. 71
  36. ^ Roux 1994, p. 113
  37. ^ Wilkens 2024, p. 80
  38. ^ Davletov 2025, p. 89–91
  39. ^ Davletov 2025, p. 88, 96
  40. ^ Kül Tegin inscription; Tonyukuk inscription
  41. ^ Erdal 2004, p. 199, 289
  42. ^ a b c Kormuşin 2013, p. 11
  43. ^ a b Kormuşin 2013, p. 11–12
  44. ^ Aydemir 2014 (Jahr after dem Erstellungsdatum der PDF, nicht printed gelesen), p. 72
  45. ^ Yıldız 2019, p. 78; 335; Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 78; 335
  46. ^ Yıldız 2019, p. 78
  47. ^ Yıldız 2019, p. 78–79
  48. ^ Yıldız 2019, p. 79–80
  49. ^ a b Yıldız 2019, p. 81
  50. ^ Yıldız 2019, p. 81–82
  51. ^ Yıldız 2019, p. 69, 77–78, 83
  52. ^ Yıldız 2019, p. 75–77
  53. ^ Yıldız 2019, p. 78–82
  54. ^ a b Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 335
  55. ^ Sertkaya 1993, p. 74–75
  56. ^ Sertkaya 1993, p. 74–75; 335; Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 74–75; 335
  57. ^ Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 336
  58. ^ a b Yenisei inscriptions
  59. ^ Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 333–335

Sources

Literature

  • Wilhelm Radloff, Die alttürkischen Inschriften der Mongolei (1894–1895, parts 1–3)
  • Marcel Erdal, A Grammar of Old Turkic (2004)
  • Jens Wilkens (trans. Celalettin Bulut Bostan), Uygur Budizmi ve Manihaizm ile Yerel Dinlerin Etkisi: Dinî Terminoloji Örneği (2024)
  • Riza Tuncel, Eski Türk Avcılığının İnançsal ve Ritüelistik Boyutları (2023)
  • Nükhet Okutan Davletov, Timur B. Davletov, Altın Köl I (E 28) Yazıtında Geçen Umay Beg İfadesi Üzerine (2025)
  • Hülya Yıldız, Altın Köl II (E-29) Yazıtının Geniş Yüzünün Sol-İç Satırı Üzerine (2019)
  • V. Ja. Butanaev, Literaturnoe nasledstvo enisejskich kyrgyzov vremën drevnetjurkskich kaganatov [Литературное наследство енисейских кыргызов времён древнетюркских каганатов] (2015)
  • Âdem Aydemir, Kül Tigin Yazıtı’ndaki „Er At“ Kelimesi Üzerine (2014 (Jahr after dem Erstellungsdatum der PDF, nicht printed gelesen))
  • Talât Tekin, Orhon Türkçesi Grameri (2003)
  • Jean-Paul Roux, Türklerin ve Moğolların Eski Dini (1994)
  • İgor Kormuşin (Igor V. Kormushin), Türk Runik Yazısının Yenisey Değişkesinin Orhun ve Doğu Türkistan’daki Benzerleriyle Münasebetleri (2013)
  • Osman Fikri Sertkaya, Yenisey Yazıtlarının Yayınlarındaki Bazı Okuma ve Anlamlandırmaların Düzeltilmesi, Yeni Okuma ve Anlamlandırma Teklifleri (1993)

Articles resting on this source 1

Er At

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What links here2

Customs & Pastimes
Er At
Sources
Nalaikh Inscription

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Altın Köl Inscriptions.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/sources/altin-kol-inscription/

Last revised: 8 November 2026