More than thirty runiform inscriptions are known in Kyrgyzstan.[1] They come from three main areas of the Tian Shan, the valley of the Talas, Issyk Kul and the Kochkor valley of the Naryn region.[2] Twelve are cut on river stones, among them the stone of Koy-Sarı, and fourteen on rock faces. Nearly all are on stone; the exceptions are a wooden rod from the Talas valley and a jar and sherds from the south.[1] The counts differ between studies, and the texts are undated.

The Talas valley

In the Talas valley seventeen inscriptions are known. Twelve are epitaphs on stones from the river bed at one place, Kırk-Kazık, and the others are short texts that visitors cut into rock.[2] Kırk-Kazık lies seven to eight kilometres south-east of the town of Talas.[3]

Most accounts date the first find to 1896, when the teacher M. M. Gastev and the district chief V. A. Kallaur came on a stone with four half-lines. It is kept in the Hermitage.[4] One study gives 1898 for the first find.[2] In 1898 Kallaur found further stones, and the search was taken up again in 1961.[3]

The second stone is the longest text of the group. It is a block of red to grey granite, 118 by 62 by 63 centimetres, with 176 signs in eight lines.[5] It was found 500 metres west of the first stone and has been in the museum at Bishkek since 1961.[6]

Readings

Many readings of the Talas stones are not reliable. The reasons are poor squeezes and wrongly identified signs, above all on the stones 2, 11 and 12.[7]

Earlier readers read the first line of the second stone as a date: a monkey year, followed by an age or a number. Rysbek Alimov rejects this. In his reading the first sign is a word divider, not a p, the number twenty would be spelled differently in the runiform script, and the word for “monkey” is spelled with a voiced beginning elsewhere.[8] See the animal cycle.

A reading of the same stone by Çetin Çumagulov has a man call himself Kara Çor and say that his enemy cannot stand against him, and it names his father Tugan and his son Sugpash.[9]

The Açık-Taş rod and other objects

A wooden rod found at the pyrite deposit of Açık-Taş in the Talas valley bears runiform signs on all four sides. It is twelve centimetres long, its head and foot are missing, and it is kept in the Hermitage. Several scholars have tried to read it and reached very different results.[10] D. D. Vasilyev counts it among the Asian finds of the type known from eastern Europe.[11]

A stone mask, thirteen by ten centimetres, bears runiform signs on its lower jaw. Its reading is not secure and its date is not given.[10]

At the Kuru-Bakayır pass in the Talas Ala-Too range, two inscriptions were found at the end of 1981. One is transcribed kutçor and the other şarga. Klyashtorny explains şarga as the Sogdian word for “lion”.[12] For çor see chur, and for the language see Sogdian.

Kök-Say

In 1998 eight inscriptions were found at once at Kök-Say in the Kochkor valley, cut on large boulders. They are the first runiform texts known from the inner Tian Shan.[13] Two stand beside drawings, one of a mounted falconer and one of an archer.[13]

Five of the eight begin with the formula “my man’s name is Asıg”. Rysbek Alimov reads it so, and Çumagulov reads the words as er atım adıg on ok yer eşim without translating them.[14] Four or five of the stones bear the same tamga, in the form of a ram’s horn. The same tamga stands beside runiform texts in the Alay valley, in the Akulan mountains by Issyk Kul and at Kuru-Bakayır.[15] The readers do not explain the words on ok.

The Kök-Say texts share sign forms with the Talas inscriptions that are rare on the Yenisei and not found in Mongolia, and the same opening formula. Alimov takes this to mean that they belong to the same time.[16]

Way of the script

Before the stone of Koy-Sarı was found in 1926, no runiform text was known from Issyk Kul or the Chu valley. The finds of Talas and Kochkor, where none were expected, are taken to show that the script spread farther than had been thought.[17]

The script may have reached the Tian Shan by way of the Altai, because the signs of the Kyrgyz stones are closest to those of the Altai stones.[18]

Reliability

The Talas and Tian Shan texts show the runiform script in use in Kyrgyzstan on epitaphs, on rock and on objects. As long as their readings are provisional and none has a date, they cannot be tied to any of the khaganates.

References

  1. ^ a b Çetin 2000, p. 69
  2. ^ a b c Alimov 2017, p. 130
  3. ^ a b Çetin 2000, p. 69–70
  4. ^ Cumagulov 1993, p. 102; 69–70; Çetin 2000, p. 102; 69–70
  5. ^ Alimov 2017, p. 131
  6. ^ Alimov 2017, p. 131; 103; Cumagulov 1993, p. 131; 103
  7. ^ Alimov 2017, p. 129–130
  8. ^ Alimov 2017, p. 132–133
  9. ^ Cumagulov 1993, p. 103–104
  10. ^ a b Çetin 2000, p. 72
  11. ^ Vasilʼev 1993, p. 63
  12. ^ Çetin 2000, p. 71
  13. ^ a b Alimov 2000, p. 5–7
  14. ^ Alimov 2000, p. 6–7; 73; Çetin 2000, p. 6–7; 73
  15. ^ Alimov 2000, p. 6; 73; Çetin 2000, p. 6; 73
  16. ^ Alimov 2000, p. 7
  17. ^ Çetin 2000, p. 69, 72–73
  18. ^ Karaman Dezember 2021, p. 35

Sources

Literature

  • Çumagulov, Çetin, Göktürk Harfli Yazıtların Kırgızistan’daki Araştırılması, Muhafazası ve Bugünkü Durumu (2000)
  • Çetin Cumaguloviç Cumagulov, Vilhelm Thomsen'in Çalışmaları ve Kırgızistan'da Bulunan Göktürk Yazıtları (1993)
  • Rısbek Alimov, Kırgızistan’da Yeni Bulunan Runik Harfli Eski Türk Yazıtları Hakkında Ön Bilgiler (2000)
  • Rysbek Alimov, Talas Yazıtları: İşaret Kadrosuyla İlgili Bazı Düzeltmeler (2. Talas Yazıtı Örneğinde) (2017)
  • Ahmet Karaman, Dağlık Altay Yazıtlarında İleri Ögeler (Dezember 2021)
  • D. D. Vasilʼev, Göktürk Yazı Kültürünün Asya’nın Merkezinden Doğu Avrupa’ya Yolu (1993)

Related

What links here4

Places
Issyk-Kul · Talas
Sources
Altai runiform inscriptions · Sogdian inscriptions of the Talas valley

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Talas and Tian Shan runiform inscriptions.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/sources/talas-and-tian-shan-runiform-inscriptions/

Last revised: 8 November 2026