Sogdian inscriptions of the Talas valley

Rouran epoch Göktürk epoch Uyghur epoch Kirghiz epoch

Rouran First Göktürk Tang rule Second Göktürk Uyghur Kirghiz Huns Western Göktürk Türgesh Karluk Khazar

Rouran 400–554
First Göktürk 552–630
Tang rule 630–682
Second Göktürk 682–744
Uyghur 744–840
Kirghiz 840–924
Huns 370–469
Western Göktürk 552–659
Türgesh 699–766
Karluk 766–800
Khazar 650–969

Sogdian travellers on the upper Indus cut their names into the rock. Their successors north of the Tianshan did the same, in the gorges of the right-bank tributaries of the Talas on the southern slopes of the Kirghiz Alatau, at Terek-saj and Kulan-saj.^[1] The language is Sogdian, and the script is close to late Sogdian cursive. The names, however, are Turkic.^[2] Few such inscriptions are known. Some are dated by the era of the last Sasanian king, Yazdgird III. They run from the beginning of the tenth century to the beginning of the eleventh. The last was written in February or March 1026.^[1]

The valley holds writing in other scripts as well, among them the runiform script. The runiform stones have an article of their own, the runiform inscriptions of the Talas and the Tian Shan. In the Talas region, inscriptions in Sogdian, Old Uyghur, Syriac, Arabic and Tibetan script are known besides the runiform ones.^[3] The first runiform stone of the valley was found in 1896 near the village of Kırk-Kazık, south-east of the town of Talas. More stones followed in 1898.^[4] More than thirty runiform inscriptions are known in Kyrgyzstan as a whole.^[5] The two kinds of writing meet in one text. A runiform inscription found in 1981 at the Kuru-Bakayır pass in the Talas Ala-Too is transcribed şarga.^[6] This may be the Sogdian word sarg, “lion”.^[6]

References

^ a b de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 329
^ Sogdian inscriptions of the Talas valley
^ Cumagulov 1993, p. 101
^ Çetin 2000, p. 69–70
^ Çetin 2000, p. 69
^ a b Çetin 2000, p. 71

Sources

Sogdian inscriptions of the Talas valley

Literature

Étienne de la Vaissière, Sogdian Traders: A History (2005)
Çetin Cumaguloviç Cumagulov, Vilhelm Thomsen'in Çalışmaları ve Kırgızistan'da Bulunan Göktürk Yazıtları (1993)
Çumagulov, Çetin, Göktürk Harfli Yazıtların Kırgızistan’daki Araştırılması, Muhafazası ve Bugünkü Durumu (2000)

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Sogdian inscriptions of the Talas valley.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/sources/talas-sogdian-inscriptions/

Last revised: 8 November 2026