Kögmen

The Kögmen was a wooded mountain range that the Göktürks crossed on their campaigns against the Kirghiz.^[1] The Kül Tegin, Bilge Khan and Tonyukuk inscriptions of the Second Khaganate name it. An inscription of the Uyghur khan Bayanchur names it as a limit of his land.^[2] Where it lay is not settled.

The campaigns of Kapgan’s reign

In the Kül Tegin inscription Bilge Khan recalls the reign of his uncle. At that time he himself was shad over the Tardush.^[3] The uncle was Kapgan Khan.^[4] Eastward they campaigned as far as the Green River and the plain of Shantung. Westward they campaigned as far as the Iron Gate. Beyond the Kögmen they campaigned as far as the land of the Kirghiz.^[3] The Bilge Khan inscription repeats the passage.^[5]

A few lines later the inscription calls the Kögmen a land of its own.^[6] The passage then turns to Bars Beg. The Göktürks had given him the title of khan and Bilge Khan’s younger sister as his wife.^[7]^[8] He went wrong and was killed, and his people became serving-women and slaves.^[6] The Göktürks said that the land and water of the Kögmen should not be left without a master. They then set the Kirghiz in order.^[6]^[9] The text may name the Az people beside them. Alternatively, the same words may mean the small Kirghiz people.^[10]

The winter crossing

The editions restore a year of Kül Tegin’s life as his twenty-sixth. In that year the Göktürks campaigned against the Kirghiz.^[11] The snow was as deep as a spear. The Göktürks broke a way through it and marched up over the Kögmen forest. They fell on the Kirghiz in their sleep.^[12] They fought the Kirghiz khan in the Soŋa forest. They killed him and took his realm.^[13] The Bilge Khan inscription tells the same campaign in Bilge Khan’s twenty-seventh year.^[14]^[15]

Tonyukuk tells the war from the side of the man who planned it. It belongs to Kapgan’s western war.^[16] He heard that there was only one road over the Kögmen and that it was closed by snow.^[17]^[18] He found a guide, a man of the Az. The army climbed through the snow on foot and led the horses.^[17]^[18] After the Kirghiz khan was killed, the army came back over the Kögmen forest.^[17]^[19] A modern history dates the death of the Kirghiz khan to 710.^[20]

The Uyghur period

The Tariat inscription of the Uyghur khan Bayanchur names the Kögmen once more.^[21] In the passage on his summer pastures and fields he names three ends. The Altun Yış lies in the south and the Kögmen in the west. The third end, the Kadırkan Yış in the east, stands in a damaged place.^[21]

Name

kögmenkögmen yışOld TurkicKül Tegin inscription

The editions of the nineteenth century read the name Kögmän.^[22] In line 20 of the east face of the Kül Tegin inscription Wilhelm Radloff read Kökmän. Vilhelm Thomsen read Kögmän.^[23]

Location

The inscriptions place the Kögmen on the road from the Göktürk lands to the Kirghiz. They give no closer position.^[24] It may be the Tannu-Ola, though it could also be the Sayan or a range between the two.^[25] It is noted that the Kirghiz lived at least on its far side.^[25] A modern history keeps the Tannu-Ola.^[20]

The Kögmen has also been identified with the main ridge of the Sayan.^[26] In its support the name has been found in the Quman mountain, 曲漫山. A Chinese notice places the cave of the Kirghiz ancestors north of this mountain.^[27] A modern translation of the Kül Tegin inscription renders the Kögmen as the Sayan mountains.^[28]

The same two ranges are proposed for another mountain of the Kirghiz country. In 840 the Kirghiz khan moved his camp to the south of Mount Lao, also called Duman. The Xin Tang Shu puts this mountain fifteen days’ ride from the Uyghur camp.^[29] Mount Lao has been identified with the Tannu-Ola or the Sayan, and more narrowly with the Tannu-Ola alone.^[30] The sources do not say whether it is the range that the inscriptions call Kögmen.^[29]

References

^ Kül Tegin inscription; Tonyukuk inscription; Tekin 1968, p. 351
^ Kül Tegin inscription; Tonyukuk inscription; Tariat inscription
^ a b Kül Tegin inscription; Thomsen 1896, p. 103
^ Kül Tegin inscription
^ Bilge Khan inscription; Thomsen 1896, p. 103
^ a b c Kül Tegin inscription; Thomsen 1896, p. 104
^ Kül Tegin inscription; Ross 1930, p. 866
^ Tekin 1968, p. 347, 367
^ Tekin 1968, p. 334, 351
^ Radloff 1899, p. 52; 104; Thomsen 1896, p. 52; 104
^ Kül Tegin inscription; Ross 1930, p. 868
^ Kül Tegin inscription; Thomsen 1896, p. 109
^ Kül Tegin inscription; Thomsen 1896, p. 109–110
^ Bilge Khan inscription; Ross 1930, p. 873
^ Tekin 1968, p. 276
^ Tonyukuk inscription
^ a b c Tonyukuk inscription; Ross 1930, p. 40
^ a b Tekin 1968, p. 286
^ Tekin 1968, p. 287
^ a b Golden 1992, p. 180
^ a b Tariat inscription; Saadettin 1995, p. 74
^ Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 13; 103; 52; Thomsen 1896, p. 13; 103; 52; Radloff 1899, p. 13; 103; 52
^ Radloff 1894–1895, parts 1–3, p. 13; 104; Thomsen 1896, p. 13; 104
^ Kül Tegin inscription; Tonyukuk inscription
^ a b Thomsen 1896, p. 149
^ Radloff 1899, p. 52
^ Hirth 1899, p. 41
^ Yavuz 2025, p. 403
^ a b Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang), juan 217
^ Drompp 1999, p. 397

Sources

Literature

Wilhelm Radloff, Die alttürkischen Inschriften der Mongolei (1894–1895, parts 1–3)
Vilhelm Thomsen, Inscriptions de l'Orkhon déchiffrées (1896)
Wilhelm Radloff, Die alttürkischen Inschriften der Mongolei. Zweite Folge: Die Inschrift des Tonjukuk (1899)
Friedrich Hirth, Nachworte zur Inschrift des Tonjukuk. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Ost-Türken im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert nach chinesischen Quellen (1899)
E. Denison Ross (after Vilhelm Thomsen), The Orkhon Inscriptions; The Tonyukuk Inscription. Being a Translation of Professor Vilhelm Thomsen's Final Danish Rendering (1930)
Gömeç, Saadettin, Terhin Yazıtı'nın Tarihi Açıdan Değerlendirilmesi (1995)
Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
Michael R. Drompp, Breaking the Orkhon Tradition: Kirghiz Adherence to the Yenisei Region after A.D. 840 (1999)
Talât Tekin, A Grammar of Orkhon Turkic (1968)