Göktürk Ironworking

The Göktürks enter the Chinese histories as smiths. 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.^[1] The Sui Shu tells their origin differently, as a flight of five hundred families from the Wei to the Rouran. It too says that they lived on the Golden Mountain and were skilled at ironwork.^[2] The Golden Mountain is the Altai.^[3]

The smiths of the Rouran

The Rouran remembered what the Ashina had been. In 546 Bumin asked Anagui, the Rouran khan, for a marriage.^[1] Anagui answered with an insult: “You are my smith slave; how dare you say such a thing?”^[1] Bumin killed the envoy and turned to the Western Wei for a bride.^[1] In 552 his army destroyed the Rouran.^[1]

How the Ashina came by the craft is not recorded. Some scholars call metallurgy their specific function within the Rouran khaganate. They suggest that the Ashina had subdued a local Altaian population that already specialised in it.^[4] Others hold that metallurgy was at first the basis of Göktürk political power.^[5] A third group holds that the Ashina made their own weapons from the time they reached the Altai. They supplied weapons and armour to the Rouran and to other states and tribes.^[6]

The Old Turkic word for iron, temir, survives in the inscriptions in the name of the Iron Gate, temir kapıg.^[7] The inscriptions name that pass as the western limit of the founders’ rule and of the later campaigns.^[8] Some scholars count the word among the Turkic loans from Indo-European neighbours and compare Buddhist Sanskrit cīmara, iron.^[9]

The iron offered to Zemarchos

In 569 the Roman embassy of Zemarchos reached the land of the Sogdians on its way to Istemi.^[10] When the envoys dismounted, Göktürks who had apparently been told to do so offered them iron for sale.^[11] Menander thought the aim was to show that they had iron mines, since iron was said to be hard to come by among them.^[11] He concluded that they meant to show they held land that contained iron.^[12]

Some scholars take the scene as proof that the Ashina were practised smiths. They hold that Bumin had paid for his war against the Rouran with the trade in iron and ironware.^[13] They note that it is not known whether iron or iron goods ever entered the trade with Byzantium.^[13] Others observe that the Romans were not interested in the iron.^[14]

The metalworkers of the Caucasus

Sixty years later a northern army took the metalworkers of the Caucasus in hand. In the second year of the Persian king Artashir, the Albanian chronicle says, the prince of the north sent his officials to the craftsmen skilled in gold and silver, wrought iron and copper.^[15] He also exacted heavy tribute from the merchants and the fishers of the Kur and the Araxes.^[15] That year ran from June 629 to April 630.^[16] The chronicle calls the northern army Khazar. Its relation to the Göktürks of the Caucasus campaign is disputed.

The sources name the Ashina as smiths. They record an offer of iron and a levy on metalworkers. They describe no Göktürk forge.

References

^ a b c d e Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou), juan 50
^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 84
^ Golden 1992, p. 120
^ Golden 1992, p. 126
^ Golden 1992, p. 152
^ Yavuz 2025, p. 210, 213
^ Tonyukuk inscription; Kül Tegin inscription
^ Kül Tegin inscription; Tonyukuk inscription
^ Golden 1992, p. 121
^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.2–3, p. 117
^ a b Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.3, p. 117
^ Menander Protector; Blockley 1985, fr. 10.3, p. 119
^ a b Yavuz 2025, p. 290
^ Golden 1992, p. 129
^ a b Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, II.16, p. 104
^ Dowsett 1961, p. 104

Sources

Literature

Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
R. C. Blockley, The History of Menander the Guardsman: Introductory Essay, Text, Translation, and Historiographical Notes (1985)
Charles J. F. Dowsett (trans.), The History of the Caucasian Albanians by Movsēs Dasxuranci (1961)