The Eurasian nomads lived from herds of sheep, horses and other animals.[1] Herding alone does not supply everything, because a pastoral economy cannot match the variety and quantity of food that farming gives and cannot support as large a population.[2] The nomads could not make everything they needed, and the settled states wanted their horses.[3] Trade, tribute and raiding between the two shaped the history of the steppe empires.[4]

Herds and Pastures

Main articles: Xiongnu Herds, Seasonal Pastures, Sheep, Camels, Livestock Losses in the Annals, Eurasian Nomads

The Shiji names horses, cattle and sheep as the animals the Xiongnu kept in greatest numbers, and camels, donkeys and mules among the rarer ones.[5] The Zhou Shu says that the Göktürks lived in domed felt tents, moved after water and grass, and lived by herding and hunting.[6] Soon after Bilge Khan came to the throne in 716, he wanted to build walls and set up temples.[7] His counsellor Tonyukuk advised against it.[7] The Göktürks, he said, resisted the Tang because they followed water and grass, had no fixed dwelling, lived by hunting and all knew how to fight.[7] In the winter after the Han campaigns of 72 BC, snow fell a zhang deep in one day, and people and livestock froze.[8] Hunger followed.[8] Of the people three in ten died, and of the livestock five in ten.[8] The annals do not say how they obtained these shares.

Farming in the Steppe and the Oases

Main articles: Xiongnu Agriculture, Uyghur Farming, Han Military Farms in the Western Regions, Farming and Taxes in Gaochang, Millet

The Shiji says that the Xiongnu had no walled towns, no fixed dwellings and no work of tilling fields.[9] At the fortified settlement of Ivolga in Buryatia, the finds include barley, wheat and millet, together with sickles and grinding stones.[10][11] In the Khanui valley in Mongolia, by contrast, the excavators found no evidence for farming in the Xiongnu settlements.[12] In the Tarim Basin, soldiers and convicts of the Han tilled land at the oases, stored the grain and fed the envoys who passed.[13] The Uyghurs lived before 744 from herding and hunting, and farming was foreign to them.[14] In the century of their khaganate they became in part a farming people.[15] At Gaochang in the Turfan basin, the Zhou Shu says, grain and wheat ripened twice a year.[6] The sources do not say how much grain the Xiongnu grew, or how much of their food it supplied.[5]

Iron and Other Metals

Main articles: Göktürk Ironworking, Xiongnu Ironworking, Bloomery Furnaces of the South Altai, Kirghiz Iron and Gold, Chinese Bans on the Export of Iron, Gold of the Xiongnu Court, Gold and Silver in the Orkhon Inscriptions

The Zhou Shu says that the Ashina, after some generations, submitted to the Rouran and lived on the southern slope of the Golden Mountain as their ironworkers.[6] The Golden Mountain is the Altai.[16] In the south-east of the range, in the Chuya and Kurai basins, lies the largest cluster of bloomery furnaces that the region has so far shown.[17] In 569 Göktürks in Sogdiana offered iron for sale to the Roman envoy Zemarchos.[18] The sources name the Ashina as smiths and record an offer of iron. They describe no Göktürk forge. The Xiongnu made iron in their own land.[19] A workshop with a smelting furnace at Ivolga shows that they produced iron within their own territory and did not only import it from Han China.[20] The Xin Tang Shu names gold, iron and tin in the country of the Kirghiz, and says that they regularly sent weapons made of the iron to the Göktürks.[21] Chinese courts tried to keep iron and iron goods from the peoples beyond the frontier.[22] They feared that these peoples would arm themselves from Chinese metal.[22] The sources name no Xiongnu gold mine and no Xiongnu goldsmith.[5]

Salt, Furs and Other Raw Materials

Main articles: Salt among the Turkic Peoples, Tuz Köl of the Karluks, Furs and Musk among the Turkic Peoples, Felt, Raw Materials and Trade among the Turkic Peoples

The Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam of 982 says that seven tribes of the Khallukh, the Karluks, took their salt from one lake, which it calls Tuz Köl, “Salt Lake”.[23] Marvazī says that the Kimak have no salt except what merchants import, and that for a maund of it the merchants obtain “a fox and sable skin”.[24] The sources of the Göktürk age report no salt-working at all. The Ḥudūd lists musk and furs for the Toghuzghuz, the Tukhs and the Kirghiz, and sable-martens for the Kimak.[25] The inscription of Bilge Khan names black sables and blue squirrels among the goods that the khan won for his people.[26] The Xin Tang Shu says that the levy of the Kirghiz was paid in sable and squirrel skins.[21] The Sui Shu says that the Göktürks lived in domed tents of felt.[27][6] The sources describe the exchange of goods far better than their production.

Craftsmen

Main articles: Craftsmen in the Steppe Empires, Xiongnu Pottery, Bone and Horn Working, Chinese Craftsmen at the Orkhon Monuments, Roof Tiles of the Uyghur Khaganate, Avar Craftsmen

The steppe empires got craftsmen by capture, by invitation and by the settlement of foreign communities.[28] The Xiongnu built a craft sector in part with Chinese prisoners and deserters.[29] The crafts at Ivolga included pottery, bone carving, and iron and bronze work.[11] The Göktürk aristocracy encouraged the voluntary settlement of large Sogdian colonies that engaged in agriculture, crafts and trade and even founded towns.[30] At the Orkhon, Bilge Khan says that he brought carvers from the Chinese khan, and that the Chinese khan did not refuse the request and sent the carvers of his own court.[31] The Uyghurs built walled seats and roofed them with tiles made on the spot by Chinese methods.[32] Byzantine mechanics and architects were meant to build a palace and baths for the Avar khagan Baian, and the Lombard king Agilulf gave the khagan shipbuilders.[33] The sources name the transfer of craftsmen in a few passages and almost never name a craftsman.

Markets, Horses and Silk

Main articles: Border Markets, Silk in the Steppe, Uyghur Horse-Silk Trade, Horse Market at the Western Shouxiang City (727)

The Göktürks first appear at the Chinese frontier as traders. The Zhou Shu says that under Bumin his people grew stronger.[6] They began to come to the frontier for silk and floss, wishing to open relations with China.[6] The Northern Zhou, allied to the khaganate by marriage, gave it a hundred thousand pieces of silk every year.[6] Under Tulan Khan the chiefs of the Göktürk tribes sent the Sui ten thousand horses, twenty thousand sheep, five hundred camels and five hundred cattle.[27] Soon afterwards they asked for markets on the frontier, and the emperor agreed.[27] In 727 the Tang allowed Bilge Khan a frontier market at the Western Shouxiang city.[34] The texts do not say how many horses the Göktürks sold in that market. The market was a concession that the Chinese court granted at its own pleasure. Pei Ju showed that it could also serve as a trap. From the end of the rebellion of An Lushan to the fall of the Uyghur Khaganate in 840, the Uyghurs sold horses to the Tang court and took silk in return.[35] The Chinese histories give the price as forty bolts of silk for one horse.[36]

Tribute, Gifts and Booty

Main articles: Tribute Missions and Bestowals, Han Bestowals on the Chanyu, Livestock Raids, Bride-Price in Livestock

A steppe ruler who sent an embassy to a Chinese court sent gifts with it, and the court sent gifts back.[37] Chinese writers named the first gifts tribute and the second bestowals or yearly payments.[37] The names put the Chinese ruler above the nomad.[38] The goods that moved did not always follow the names.[38] In 51 BC the court gave the Xiongnu chanyu Huhanye regalia, horses, gold, cash and 8,000 bolts of silk at his audience.[8] In AD 50 the Han fixed a yearly gift of silk for the Southern chanyu.[39] Raids brought in herds as well. After the defeat of the Göktürk pretender Funian, Ilterish raided the Nine Oguz and took many sheep and horses.[7] He grew strong and proclaimed himself khan.[7] In 700 Kapgan carried off more than 10,000 horses from the Tang studs in Longyou.[7] In 821 the Uyghurs came for Princess Taihe with 2,000 men and delivered 20,000 horses and 1,000 camels.[21] The histories list the goods of the Han bestowals in detail and say little about what the chanyus did with them.

Money and Coinage

Main articles: Türgesh and Karluk Coinage, Coinage of the Huna Peoples, Horses in Göktürk Law, Silk in the Steppe, Farming and Taxes in Gaochang

The payments from China to the Göktürks were made in silk, and money or gold seldom entered them.[40] Under the Uyghurs, silk was used as a form of currency.[41] The Sui Shu sets the penalty for a broken limb at one horse, for an eye at a daughter, and for a theft at ten times the loss.[27] The Chinese texts give no price for the horse. At Gaochang, the Zhou Shu says, taxes were counted in silver coin, and those who had none paid in hemp cloth.[6] The first coins struck on the spot in the region of Taraz date from the time of the Türgesh Khaganate.[42] The Kidarites minted gold dinars after late Kushan and Kushano-Sasanian models in the area of Kabul and in Gandhara, from about 385 to about 440.[43] The publication on the Taraz coins gives no ancient name or denomination for them.

Merchants and the Sogdians

Main articles: Sogdians, Sabao, The Göktürk–Sasanian Trade Conflict, Turkic-Sogdian Synthesis

In 545 the Western Wei sent the Göktürks an envoy, An Nuopantuo, a hu from Jiuquan.[6] The name An Nuopantuo is the Sogdian Anāhitā-banda, “servant of Anāhitā”. The Sogdians stood beside the Göktürk khans from the beginning.[44] They administered the commercial interests of the khaganate and pushed it towards Constantinople, the final market of the silk that the Göktürks drew out of China.[45] Menander says that the Sogdians asked their ruler to send an embassy to the Persians.[46] They wanted leave to travel to Persia and sell raw silk to the Medes.[46] The Persian king bought the silk and burned it before the eyes of the envoys.[47] The Xin Tang Shu says that Sogdians, whom it calls the hu of nine names, travelled with every Uyghur embassy.[21][48] The Chinese states made the sabao, the head of a community of foreigners, an official of mandarin rank, because the communities he led carried more economic weight than their numbers suggest.[49] The sources describe the religious role of the sabao better than the commercial one. They do not show the sabao leading a caravan.

References

  1. ^ Golden 1992, p. 3
  2. ^ Golden 1992, p. 7-8
  3. ^ Sinor 1990, p. 8-9
  4. ^ Golden 1992, p. 8
  5. ^ a b c Shiji, juan 110; Han Shu, juan 94
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
  7. ^ a b c d e f Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194
  8. ^ a b c d Han Shu, juan 94
  9. ^ Shiji, juan 110
  10. ^ Wright 2009, p. 375
  11. ^ a b Houle 2011, p. 138
  12. ^ Houle 2011, p. 152
  13. ^ Han Shu, juan 96; Shiji, juan 123
  14. ^ Sinor 1990, p. 336
  15. ^ Sinor 1990, p. 336–337
  16. ^ Golden 1992, p. 120
  17. ^ Konstantinov 2018, p. 15
  18. ^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.3, p. 117
  19. ^ Houle 2011, p. 150
  20. ^ Houle 2011, p. 138, 150
  21. ^ a b c d Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  22. ^ a b Jagchid 1989, p. 183
  23. ^ Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam; Minorsky 1970, p. 54,98
  24. ^ al-Marwazī early 12th c., p. 32; Minorsky 1942, p. 32
  25. ^ Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam; Minorsky 1970, p. 94,96,99
  26. ^ Bilge Khan inscription
  27. ^ a b c d Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  28. ^ Khazanov 1994, p. 225–226
  29. ^ Khazanov 1994, p. 254
  30. ^ Khazanov 1994, p. 256
  31. ^ Kül Tegin inscription; Tekin 1968, p. 281
  32. ^ Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 1, 48
  33. ^ Pohl 2018, p. 248
  34. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 194; Tang Huiyao (Institutional History of the Tang), juan 94
  35. ^ Mackerras 1972, p. 47
  36. ^ Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang), juan 195; Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  37. ^ a b Jagchid 1989, p. 115
  38. ^ a b Jagchid 1989, p. 115–116
  39. ^ Hou Han Shu, juan 89
  40. ^ Sinor 1990, p. 307
  41. ^ Mackerras 1972, p. 48
  42. ^ Smailov 2025, p. 78
  43. ^ Kurbanov 2010, p. 94
  44. ^ Golden 1992, p. 122
  45. ^ Golden 1992, p. 128
  46. ^ a b Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.1, p. 111
  47. ^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.1, p. 113
  48. ^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 308
  49. ^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 152

Sources

Literature

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Related

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “The Economy of the Steppe Empires.” Turkic Atlas, revised 7 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/institutions/economy-of-the-steppe-empires/

Last revised: 7 November 2026