Roof Tiles of the Uyghur Khaganate

Among the most abundant finds from the walled sites of the Uyghur Khaganate are roof tiles made by Chinese methods.^[1] The authors read the walled sites as the sign of a polity that embraced urbanization, although the extent of this is not yet understood.^[1] The tiles show that Chinese methods of making clay roofing were used in the steppe.^[1]

Sites

The tiles come mainly from three kinds of site.^[2] Por-Bajin lies on an island in Lake Tere-Khol in Tuva, and its excavator dates it to the middle of the eighth century.^[3] Ordu Balïq, the capital of the khans, has yielded tiles from the excavations of 2010 and 2011.^[4] The third group is the dörvöljin sites, which the authors call elite Uyghur sites.^[5] Bay Balïq is the other prominent walled site of the central Mongolian plateau.^[6]

The authors of the main study sort the tiles into barrel tiles, pan tiles, eave-end tiles, beast-mask tiles and ridge tiles.^[7] The pan tile lies with its concave face up. The barrel tile covers the joint between two pan tiles. The disk at the front of the barrel tile, the wadang, is the decorated face.^[5] Tiles of this kind are older on the plateau than the Göktürks and the Uyghurs. The earliest roof tiles of Mongolia and southern Siberia date from the time of the Xiongnu and resemble those of the Han.^[7]

Manufacture

The Uyghur tiles are unglazed.^[8] This differs from the tiles of the Tang court and of the Bohai and Silla kingdoms, which also used coloured glazes.^[8] The clay is brown-gray and calcareous, with small inclusions, and it was not well prepared.^[9]

The tiles were made locally. An analysis of tile samples from Bay Balïq and of samples from Ordu Balïq, made by a Japanese and Mongolian expedition in 1999, showed different calcium and potassium levels at the different sites. The analysis concluded that the tiles were produced locally.^[10] The same analysis found that the tiles of the earlier Turkic sites had been made in certain areas and carried over long distances.^[10] A study of 36 fragments from Por-Bajin found that the raw material was delta loam from the bottom of the basin.^[11]

The tiles were fired, but not hot. At Por-Bajin the temperature stayed between about 200 and 550 degrees Celsius.^[10] The study calls the process more of a drying than a firing.^[10] Some tiles are reddish, which means that they were fired a second time in an atmosphere rich in oxygen.^[10]

The authors reconstruct the work from the tiles themselves. A mould of thin wooden strips, in the shape of a truncated pyramid, stood on a rotating platform. The mould was covered with textile matting so that the clay would separate from it. The potter applied the clay, most probably in coils, smoothed it, lifted the form off and let it dry in the sun. When it was dry enough to hold its shape, the form was cut with a knife into quarters for pan tiles and halves for barrel tiles. The pieces were then fired in a kiln.^[12] The wadang disk was joined to the barrel tile before firing, with clay and water. Cuts in the back of the disk made the join hold.^[13]

Marks on the tiles

Some tiles carry cord marks on the upper side, which are common manufacturers’ marks in central China.^[14] Others have stamped or incised marks. Two barrel tiles from Por-Bajin carry an incised curved line that the authors count among the tamgas.^[14] Two wadang from Por-Bajin have Chinese characters on the back, east on one from the eastern gate and west on one from the central building. They were most probably instructions for the builders.^[15]

The tiles of the Göktürk memorials

The memorial complexes of Kül Tegin and Bilge Khan at Khöshöö Tsaidam, twenty kilometres north-east of Ordu Balïq, were roofed with tiles as well.^[16] Each complex has its own type of wadang. The type of Kül Tegin has eight petals and thirty-two pearl roundels. The type of Bilge Khan has bulbous petals and forty-two roundels.^[17] The authors place both in the group of the time before the middle of the eighth century and set them apart from the Uyghur types.^[18] A painted barrel tile from the Bilge Khan complex shows three horsemen, two of them with bows, one shooting backward.^[19]

Beast-mask tiles were found at the complex of Kül Tegin and at the memorial complex of Tonyukuk.^[20] A much earlier fragment of the First Khaganate comes from the memorial of Taspar Khan, the Bugut complex, where it lay on the surface.^[21] The three differ in style from each other and from the Uyghur type.^[21] The excavator of the Kül Tegin monument took the whole complex for Chinese work.^[22] The Chinese craftsmen who built it are treated in their own article.^[23]

Relation to the Tang tiles

One scholar compares the tiles of Por-Bajin with tiles from the burial sites of the Tang emperors Xuanzong, Suzong and Dezong, and finds the Uyghur work rougher.^[24] The authors found no exact copy of an Uyghur wadang in China.^[25] The Uyghur tiles follow the Tang format, with their own character.^[25]

Open points

The report is a preliminary study, and the authors state that only a small part of Ordu Balïq and of the other tiled sites has been excavated.^[18] No source says who made the tiles, whether the potters were Chinese or Sogdian or local, or how many kilns worked. The stone of Šine-Usu has the khan order Chinese and Sogdians to build the city of Bay Balïq, but it does not name the tilemakers.^[26]

References

^ a b c Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 1
^ Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 6
^ Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 6–7
^ Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 2, 4
^ a b Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 4
^ Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 2
^ a b Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 3
^ a b Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 47
^ Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 47–48
^ a b c d e Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 48
^ Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 48–49
^ Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 49
^ Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 50
^ a b Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 51
^ Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 52
^ Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 54
^ Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 54–55
^ a b Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 55
^ Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 58
^ Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 56–57
^ a b Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 57
^ Jisl 1963, p. 398
^ Kül Tegin inscription; Tekin 1968, p. 272
^ Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 52–53
^ a b Arden-Wong Oktober 2015, p. 53
^ Sinor 1990, p. 321,337

Sources

Kül Tegin inscription

Literature

Lyndon A. Arden-Wong; Irina A. Arzhantseva; Olga N. Inevatkina, Reflecting on the Rooftops of the Eastern Uighur Khaganate: A Preliminary Study of Uighur Roof Tiles (Oktober 2015)
Lumír Jisl, Kül-Tegin anıtında 1958'de yapılan arkeoloji araştırmalarının sonuçları (1963)
Denis Sinor (ed.), The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia (1990)
Talât Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic (1968)