Furs and musk come from the forests and mountains round the steppe. The geographers of the tenth century name them again and again as goods of the Turkic lands.[1] The Göktürk inscriptions name sables and squirrels among the gifts that were brought to the khans.[2]

The lists of the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam

The Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam of 982 gives the goods of a country in nearly every chapter on the Turkic peoples.[3]

Much musk comes from the country of the Toghuzghuz. It also supplies black, red and striped foxes, and the furs of the grey squirrel, the sable-marten, the ermine and the weasel. The text names sheep, cows and horses as further commodities.[4] The country of the Yaghma has little agriculture and yet produces many furs. Game is plentiful, and the wealth of the people is in horses and sheep.[5]

Different furs come from the country of the Khallukh, the Karluks. Their wealth is in sheep, horses and various furs.[6] From the Tukhs come musk and various furs, and their wealth is in horses, sheep, furs, tents and felt huts.[7] The commodities of the Kimak are sable-martens and sheep.[7]

From the country of the Kirghiz come, in great quantities, musk, furs, khadang wood, khalanj wood and knife-handles of khutu horn.[8] A clan of the Kirghiz country, the K.SAYM, lived on the slopes of the mountains in felt huts and hunted for furs, musk and khutu horn.[6]

The Ḥudūd describes the tenth century, and its notices on the Turkic peoples rest in part on the geography of Jayhānī.[9] Which notices those are is argued. The lists therefore say little about the age of the Göktürks.

Hunters and carriers

Marvazī, writing about 1120,[10] describes how the Kimak hunt. A Kimak who wants to hunt sable or ermine binds two pieces of wood to his feet, each three cubits long and a span wide, with one end turned up. He travels over the snow on them.[11] The Kimak have no salt of their own. Merchants bring it and receive a fox and sable skin for a maund.[11] The article on salt gives the passage in full.[11]

The furs also came from beyond the Turkic peoples. The people of Bulghār travel to the Yūra, a people of the northern forests, with clothes, salt and other goods. They get excellent sable and other furs from them.[12]

The geographers of the tenth century name Kirghiz musk among the goods that Transoxiana supplied. Part of the musk traded there probably entered the country through Chach. Furs passed through the same region, and they are often named among the products of the Turkic peoples north and east of it.[13]

Gifts and tribute in the Göktürk age

The inscription of Bilge Khan lists what the khan won for his people: yellow gold, white silver, figured silks, perfumed silks, thoroughbred horses, stallions, black sables and blue squirrels.[2] One early commentary takes these goods to include not only booty but also the trade that the Chinese emperor allowed the Göktürks in 727.[14] Whether that is so is not settled. At the khan’s funeral, the inscription says, thoroughbred horses, black sables and blue squirrels were brought without number.[15]

In 647 the Uyghur and Tiele chiefs asked the Tang for a road to the court, after the banquet of that year.[16] The tribes were to pay a yearly tax in sable skins.[17]

The Xin Tang Shu says of the Kirghiz that their levy was paid in sable and squirrel skins.[16] Are, their ruler, wore a sable cap in winter.[16] In 843 a white sable fur, which the Kirghiz had presented to the Tang throne, was sent with a jade ring to Princess Taihe at Taiyuan.[18]

The notices of the Göktürk age name furs as gifts, tribute and tax. The reports of furs bought and sold in the sources quoted here date from the tenth century and later.

References

  1. ^ Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam; Minorsky 1970, p. 94,96,99
  2. ^ a b Bilge Khan inscription
  3. ^ Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam; Minorsky 1970, p. 94,95,96,97,99
  4. ^ Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam; Minorsky 1970, p. 94
  5. ^ Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam; Minorsky 1970, p. 95
  6. ^ a b Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam; Minorsky 1970, p. 97
  7. ^ a b Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam; Minorsky 1970, p. 99
  8. ^ Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam; Minorsky 1970, p. 96
  9. ^ Minorsky 1955, p. 262–263
  10. ^ Minorsky 1942, p. 2,6
  11. ^ a b c al-Marwazī early 12th c., p. 32; Minorsky 1942, p. 32
  12. ^ al-Marwazī early 12th c., p. 34; Minorsky 1942, p. 34
  13. ^ de la Vaissière 2005a, p. 301
  14. ^ Thomsen 1993, p. 202
  15. ^ Bilge Khan inscription; Tekin o. J., p. 78–79
  16. ^ a b c Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
  17. ^ Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217; Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance), juan 198
  18. ^ Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 83

Sources

Literature

  • V. Minorsky, Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, "The Regions of the World": A Persian Geography 372 A.H. – 982 A.D., translated and explained, with the preface by V. V. Barthold, 2nd ed. (1970)
  • V. Minorsky, Sharaf al-Zamān Ṭāhir Marvazī on China, the Turks and India (1942)
  • V. Minorsky, Addenda to the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam (1955)
  • Sharaf al-Zamān Ṭāhir al-Marwazī, طبائع الحيوان Ṭabāʾiʿ al-Ḥayawān (early 12th c.)
  • Étienne de la Vaissière, Sogdian Traders: A History (2005)
  • Vilhelm Thomsen, Çözülmüş Orhon Yazıtları (mit: Orhon ve Yenisey Yazıtlarının Çözümü: İlk Bildiri) (1993)
  • Talât Tekin, Orhon Yazıtları. Kül Tigin, Bilge Kağan, Tunyukuk (o. J.)

Related

What links here3

Peoples
History of the Turkic peoples
Institutions and Titles
Raw Materials and Trade among the Turkic Peoples · The Economy of the Steppe Empires

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Furs and Musk among the Turkic Peoples.” Turkic Atlas, revised 7 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/institutions/furs-and-musk-among-the-turkic-peoples/

Last revised: 7 November 2026