The atlas

How to use this site

The history of the Old Turkic world through its rulers, peoples, states, places and sources. Follow a reading path, browse a period or a subject, or search for a name.

Getting started

Reading paths

A path puts related articles in a set order. A link at the foot of each article leads on to the next.

A year page gathers everything dated to that year, with the rulers of the neighbouring realms. The Steppe Chronology follows events through time; the World Chronology sets the steppe beside China, Persia, Rome and the caliphate, decade by decade.

Subjects

The left menu groups the articles under Realms and events, People, Institutions and belief, and Sources and scholarship. Each category opens a list with one line on every article. All articles gives the alphabetical index. On a small screen, open Menu.

Finding a name or a passage

The search box

Finds article titles and alternative names, with suggestions as you type. It folds spellings, so Türgeš finds Turgesh.

Full-text search

Finds a word or a phrase inside the articles and shows the passage, so you can tell which article to open.

The Name index gathers every recorded form of a name, sorted by script. The Glossary explains unfamiliar terms in a line each.

Reading an article

Links: Lead to the people, places, institutions and events the article discusses. An article on a state gives the broad history; the biographies and the articles on single events take up its parts.
Conflicts and Battles & Events: A conflict runs for years: a war, a civil war, a campaign. An event is a single episode: a battle, an embassy, a treaty, a succession. A war links to its battles, and a battle to its war.
Contents: Jumps between the sections. On long articles a bar at the top shows the section you are in.
Information box: The key facts at a glance: dates, rank, family, offices and the recorded forms of the name. The fields vary with the subject.
Listen: Reads the article aloud.
Related and What links here: At the foot of the article: further reading within the atlas, and the other articles that refer to this one.

Following the evidence

Footnotes: A raised number ties a statement to its reference. Select it to jump to the reference; the arrow beside the reference brings you back.
Sources and Literature: Sources names the historical texts, inscriptions and objects an article rests on; Literature names the modern scholarship. Every source has an article of its own: who wrote it, when, what it covers and what it copies from.

InscriptionsThe monuments the Göktürks cut for themselves, with their text.DisputedCompeting interpretations, gathered from all articles.Competing datesWhere two datings stand, both of them.MysteriesQuestions on which the sources say nothing.Evidence mapWhich article rests on which source, and which source copies another.

The citation box at the end of every article gives a reference ready to copy.

Names, dates and languages

Khan is the ruler’s title throughout.
Göktürk names the people and their states. The bare name, 𐱅𐰇𐰼𐰜 in the inscriptions and Türk in transcription, stands where the name itself is the subject, and in quotations.
Kut is the fortune a ruler holds from Heaven.
AD and BC for dates. Where a date is disputed, the article gives the alternatives.
Scholarly transliterations stand in the name box of an article and in the Name index, not in the running text.
The flags in the header switch the interface between English, Turkish, German, Spanish and Japanese. The articles are in English, and some are also in other languages. The two buttons beside the flags switch between light and dark and between the two designs.