Shiveet Ulaan

Shiveet Ulaan is a memorial complex of the Göktürk period in Bulgan province in Mongolia. It has stone figures of people and animals, a stone with tamgas and a domed hall in the west.^[1] The accounts at hand date it to the second half or the end of the seventh century, the time of the Second Khaganate.^[2]

Location and research

The complex lies in Bulgan province, at about 48°47’ north and 102°00’ east.^[3] It stands on a high place, about 1,340 metres above sea level. The river Khanui runs north of it and joins the Khunui.^[3] G. Ramstedt examined the site in 1912.^[3] The Japanese-Mongolian expedition of 1996 to 1998 reported on it in a preliminary report.^[4] One author of a survey of 2025 took part in the excavation of the site.^[5]

The complex

The report of the Japanese-Mongolian expedition describes the complex in two parts. In the west it closely resembles the Uyghur monument of Shine-Usu. In the east stand nine stone figures of people, four stone lions and six stone rams.^[3] On the foot of one of the rams a ram tamga is cut. The report takes it for the sign of a member of the Ashina.^[3]

A survey of Göktürk-period sites names Shiveet Ulaan among the largest monuments of its time. It describes in the west of the complex a stone hall of eight sides with a dome. Each side was 7 metres long and the hall was 4 metres high. Wooden beams carried the dome.^[6] The survey calls this form unusual for its time, when a memorial was a carved stone chest or a plain slab.^[7]

The stone with tamgas

Outside the complex, on the east side, stands a stone chest with a rectangular hole of 22 by 55 to 56 centimetres, 24 to 25 centimetres deep. The stone of the monument was set into it.^[3] The stone is 224 centimetres long, 80 to 84 centimetres wide and 22 centimetres thick, and its head is a half circle.^[3] It bears no letters, runic or other. Only many kinds of tamgas are cut into it. The report states that it is not yet known why tamgas stand where letters would be expected.^[3] The stone now serves Buddhists as a place of worship at a temple.^[3]

A book on the runic monuments of Central Asia shows a photograph of the stone. Its caption calls it a slab with the tamgas of the Turkic chiefs who took part in the funeral of Ilterish Khan, at the end of the seventh century.^[8] The survey of Göktürk-period sites counts tamgas of more than sixty tribes on the stone. Most of them correspond to signs of the tribes in the time of the founder of the Second Khaganate, among them the Ashina, the Ashide, the Basmil, the Kirghiz, the Khitan, the Karluk, the Türgesh and the Uyghurs.^[6] The article on the tamga treats the signs, and the article on Ilterish Khan the ruler.

The figures

The complex kept a group of stone figures that show members of different groups of society. The sculptor gave them their dress and their attributes, among them a sceptre in the hand and a ritual vessel.^[9] A male figure wears a headgear with a bird carved on its front, as if ready to fly.^[9] Among the Göktürk figures of Central Asia, female ones are rare. Besides one at Shiveet Ulaan, they are known at the memorial complexes of Kül Tegin and Bilge Khan.^[9] Female figures of the ancient Turkic peoples of the Central Asian region nearly always accompany male ones.^[10] The articles on stone figures and on burial and balbal treat the custom.

Date

The accounts at hand place the complex in the late seventh century. The report of the expedition assigns it to the second period of the eastern Göktürk empire. It reasons from the nine figures, the lions and the rams in the east, although the west resembles an Uyghur monument.^[3] A study of the figures dates the complex and its statues to the second half of the seventh century, at the start of the Second Khaganate. It takes the Ashina for the builders and the complex for an early model of the Göktürk-style ritual complex.^[11] The same study reads some features that are absent at the complexes of Kül Tegin and Bilge Khan, such as the lion, as signs of a steppe identity that the Göktürks later gave up when they took over Chinese sculpture.^[11]

References

^ Ōsawa 2000, p. 283; 189–190; Bogenbaev 2025, p. 283; 189–190
^ Park 2019, p. 33; 102; Klyashtorny 2003, p. 33; 102
^ a b c d e f g h i j Ōsawa 2000, p. 283
^ Ōsawa 2000, p. 277, 283
^ Bogenbaev 2025, p. 187
^ a b Bogenbaev 2025, p. 189–190
^ Bogenbaev 2025, p. 190
^ Klyashtorny 2003, p. 102
^ a b c Bogenbaev 2025, p. 192
^ Kubarev 2017, p. 97
^ a b Park 2019, p. 33

Literature

Takashi Ōsawa, Moğolistan’daki Eski Türk Anıt ve Yazıtlarının 1996–1998 Yılları Arasındaki Yeni İnceleme Sonuçları (Japon–Moğol Ortak Çalışmasının Ön Raporu Olarak) (2000)
S. G. Klyashtorny, История Центральной Азии и памятники рунического письма (Istoriya Tsentralnoi Azii i pamyatniki runicheskogo pisma) (2003)
N. Bogenbaev; S. Kentbek; T. Moldabai; N. Smagulov; A. Zhalmyrza, Некоторые аспекты изучения археологических памятников тюркского периода (Монголия и Алтай) (Some Aspects of the Study of Turkic Period Archaeological Sites, Mongolia and Altai) (2025)
Gleb V. Kubarev, Древнетюркские изваяния из Апшиякты в Центральном Алтае (к проблеме выделения женских статуарных памятников у древних тюрок) (Old Turkic Statues from Apshiyakta, Central Altai) (2017)
Ah-rim Park, Stone Statuaries of the Turks in the 7th and 8th centuries: the Shiveet Ulaan Ritual Complex (몽골 초원의 7–8세기 석상 연구, 시베트 울란 제사유적을 중심으로) (2019)