The dress and hair of the Göktürks are known from the descriptions of their neighbours: Chinese historians, a Chinese Buddhist pilgrim and an Armenian chronicler of the Caucasus.

The Chinese description

The Zhou Shu opens its account of Göktürk custom with the hair and the robe. The Göktürks let their hair hang down and fastened their robes on the left.[1] The Sui Shu repeats the phrase and adds that they dressed in furs and coarse wool.[2] The Bei Shi, compiled from both, gives the two together.[3] The Chinese closed their own robes on the right. In their eyes the opposite fold marked a people as barbarian.[4][5]

The same pair of features had served the Southern Qi history for the Rouran, who plaited their hair and closed their robes on the left.[6] In the Chinese histories the pair belongs to a stock description of the peoples of the north. It does not show what a Göktürk robe looked like.

What the Zhou Shu means by the hair is read in two ways. One rendering takes beifa as hair worn loose and flowing.[7] A second rendering takes it here for braided hair. It renders the Sui Shu’s phrase as long hair reaching to the waist.[8]

Plaits at the Sui court

The Sui Shu names the plaits outright.[2] In 585 Ishbara Khan submitted to the Sui and sent the emperor a memorial of loyalty.[2][9] In it he wrote that his people could not for now recut the fold of the robe or undo the plaits, because the custom was old.[2][10]

In 607 Yami, whom the Sui had made Qimin Khan, asked for the opposite. He asked leave for himself and his people to take the dress of the great state and be one with the Chinese.[2] The emperor Yangdi refused.[2] He wrote to Yami that a loyal and filial heart had no need to change its clothes.[2] Later that year the emperor came to Yami’s camp. He wrote a poem on the visit, in which men with plaited hair hold up the mutton and men in leather offer the wine cups.[2][11]

The court of Tong Yabgu

The Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang met Tong Yabgu, khan of the western Göktürks, out hunting near Suyab.[12] The khan wore a robe of green satin.[12] His hair was loose, bound only with a band of silk some ten feet long that was wound round his head and hung down behind.[12] In one rendering the ten feet are the length of his hair.[13]

About two hundred officers, the daguan of the Chinese text, stood round him in brocade, with their hair braided.[12] The rest of the army wore furs and garments of fine spun hair, and carried lances, standards and bows.[12] When the pilgrim left, the khan gave him a set of vestments in red satin and fifty pieces of silk.[14] When Tong Yabgu sought a Tang princess, he sent a golden belt set with ten thousand studs and five thousand horses to seal the agreement.[15] The gold-decorated belt was an old mark of the riders of the steppe. The graves of the Hunnic age, in the first half of the fifth century, hold leather belts decorated with gold, from which three or more straps sometimes hung. Belts with such straps are not found before that age. In the sixth to eighth centuries they spread from Central Asia to the Merovingian lands.[16]

Xuanzang’s own record of the journey shows dress as a mark of belonging. A little over ten li south of Talas he passed a small walled town of some three hundred households, whose people were Chinese by origin and had once been carried off by the Göktürks.[17] He wrote that in dwelling, clothing and manners they had become like the Göktürks, while their speech and etiquette remained those of their homeland.[17]

In the Caucasus

The Armenian History of the Caucasian Albanians describes the northern army that fell upon Partaw in 628.[18] It calls the invaders Khazars. Whether they were Göktürks, Khazars or Khazars under Göktürk command is disputed. The chronicle says that the prince who ruled the northern army called up all the peoples under his command, men with shaven heads and men with long hair.[19] The defenders of Partaw saw a broad-faced host without eyelashes, with flowing hair.[18] The campaign brought that army as far as the walls of Tiflis.[20]

The record therefore consists of a Chinese formula about the fold of the robe, a khan’s answer that the plaits could not yet go, and the brief impressions of a pilgrim and an Armenian chronicler.

References

  1. ^ Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
  3. ^ Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties), juan 99
  4. ^ Julien 1864, p. 351
  5. ^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 20
  6. ^ Nan Qi Shu, juan 59
  7. ^ Julien 1864, p. 331
  8. ^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 19, 63
  9. ^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 75
  10. ^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 78
  11. ^ Mau-tsai 1958, Turkish edition, p. 94
  12. ^ a b c d e Life of Xuanzang, juan 2; Beal 1911, p. 42
  13. ^ Yavuz 2025, p. 355
  14. ^ Life of Xuanzang, juan 2; Beal 1911, p. 44
  15. ^ Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 215
  16. ^ Werner 1956, p. 83–84
  17. ^ a b Record of the Western Regions, juan 1
  18. ^ a b Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, II.11, p. 83
  19. ^ Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, II.11, pp. 82–83
  20. ^ Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, II.11, p. 85

Sources

Literature

  • Stanislas Julien, Documents historiques sur les Tou-kioue (Turcs) (1864)
  • Liu Mau-tsai, Çin Kaynaklarına Göre Doğu Türkleri (1958, Turkish edition)
  • Samuel Beal (trans.), The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang by the Shaman Hwui Li (1911)
  • Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
  • Charles J. F. Dowsett (trans.), The History of the Caucasian Albanians by Movsēs Dasxuranci (1961)
  • Joachim Werner, Beiträge zur Archäologie des Attila-Reiches (1956)

Related

What links here3

Battles & Events
Yangdi's Visit to Yami Khan (607)
Institutions and Titles
Metals and Metalworking in Kashgari's Dictionary
Customs & Pastimes
Culture of the Turkic Peoples

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Göktürk Dress and Hair.” Turkic Atlas, revised 7 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/institutions/gokturk-dress-and-hair/

Last revised: 7 November 2026