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A

AbangbuPersons · briefChief of the people of Suo in the Zhou Shu's second origin story of the Göktürks. Brother of the wolf-born Yizhi Nishidu, he and his kin lost their state through their folly.
AbaojiPersonsRuler of the Khitan, 872 to 926. In 924 he led an army to the Orkhon, the old home ground of the Göktürks and Uyghurs, in the year that marks the conventional end of Kirghiz power on the steppe.
Abaoji's campaign to the Orkhon (924)Battles & EventsCampaign of the Khitan ruler Abaoji to the Orkhon in 924. It gave 924 its place as the conventional end of Kirghiz power on the steppe, though no report puts the Kirghiz in it.
Abrui and Shir-i KishvarBattles & EventsFounding tradition of the Bukhara oasis: the tyrant Abrui, the flight of the dihqans and merchants to Talas, and Shir-i Kishvar, a Turkish lord's son, who killed him and built the city.
AbusiPeoples · briefTiele tribe, the eighth of the nine of the Toquz Oghuz in the Tang Huiyao, ranked with the others only after the Tianbao era. Also the name of a chief who went over to the Tang.
AcoInstitutions and Titles · briefWord the Tang histories write 阿熱 for the lord of the Yenisei Kirghiz. The Xin Tang Shu says the ruling clan took its name from it; scholars have proposed several explanations of the word.
AetiusPersonsCommander of the western Roman empire, d. 454. Once a hostage among the Huns, he relied on Hun auxiliaries for two decades and in 451 led the coalition that met Attila in Gaul.
AfrasiabPersonsLegendary king of Turan and the great enemy of the Iranian kings, from the Avesta to the Shahnameh. Kashgari's Turkic verse mourns him as Alp Er Tunga, and the mound of old Samarkand bears his name.
Afrasiab paintingsSourcesWall paintings of about 660 in the Hall of the Ambassadors at Samarkand. Long-haired Göktürks usher the embassies to the Sogdian king Varkhuman, and two figures in feathered caps are identified as Koreans.
Afu RiverPlaces · briefRiver of the Zhou Shu's Suo origin story of the Göktürks. Between it and the Jian a son of Yizhi Nishidu founded the state of Qigu, a Chinese name of the Kirghiz.
AfuzhiluoPersonsChief of the Fufuluo clan of the Gaoche. In 487 he led more than a hundred thousand tents out of the Rouran khaganate and founded a Tiele kingdom north-west of Gaochang.
AkatziriPeoplesNomadic people of the steppe north of the Black Sea, ruled by many chiefs. Attila subdued them in the 440s and set his eldest son over them; the Saragurs defeated them about 463.
AksuPlacesOasis state west of Kucha, called Gumo by the Han Shu and Baluka by Xuanzang. It produced copper, iron and orpiment, and its fine felts and woollens were prized by its neighbours.
al-BalādhurīSources · briefArab historian of the ninth century, author of the Futūḥ al-buldān. He is a witness to the Khazar victory at Ardabil in 730 and to the khagan's submission to Marwan in 737.
al-IṣṭakhrīSourcesArabic geographer of about 932. His chapter on the Khazars names a Jewish king over a mixed population, seven judges, and the strangling of the khagan at his investiture.
al-Jarrah ibn AbdallahPersons · briefArab governor killed in 730 at Ardabil, when a Khazar army under Barjik defeated his force.
al-MasʿūdīSourcesArabic historian and geographer of the tenth century. Two of his works treat the Khazars, the Bulgars and the Turks; he wrote from Baghdad and from travel, and he names what he heard.
AlansPeoplesIranian-speaking nomads of the steppe beyond the Don and the north Caucasus. The Huns subdued them in the 370s; in 576 the Göktürk prince Türk-shad counted them among the khaganate's slaves.
AlaraReligionsWater fairy of modern popular retellings of Turkic mythology, said to come from Lake Baikal and to live near water. A small winged girl who takes hatred and greed from human hearts.
Alchon HunsPeoplesHun dynasties of the Kabul valley, Gandhara and northern India, known from coins with the Bactrian word alxono. Khingila, Toramana and Mihirakula ruled in their name. Indian texts call them Huna.
Alp InanchPersons · briefKirghiz envoy to the Tang court in 863, named in the Zizhi tongjian. He asked once more to take Anxi from the Uyghurs, and the Tang refused.
AltaiPlacesThe mountain range where Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and China meet. On its southern slope the Ashina worked iron for the Rouran, and from its shape the Chinese histories derive their name.
Altai runiform inscriptionsSourcesMore than a hundred short runiform texts cut into rock in the Altai Republic, first reported in 1819. They are undated, many are damaged, and most readings are provisional.
Altaian Creation StoryReligionsAccount of the making of the earth that the Altaians told in the nineteenth century. In Radloff's version a first man dives into the primal water for earth, hides part of it in his mouth and is named Erlik. Verbitskii's version has no dive.
Altın Köl InscriptionsSourcesTwo runiform stelae found in 1878 in Khakassia, Yenisei texts E 28 and E 29. Stone I names a leopard, Erklig and perhaps Umay; stone II is a hero's epitaph. Some scholars tie them to Bars Beg.
Amga KorganPlaces · briefFortress where the Göktürk army wintered in the war against the Nine Oguz. Kül Tegin held the camp there, and the Bilge Khan inscription dates a hard winter to the stay. Its site is not known.
AmilzuriPeoples · briefPeople on the lower Danube in the fifth century, named first among those whom the Hun king Rua wanted to fight because they had fled to the Romans. Jordanes splits the name in two.
Ammianus MarcellinusSourcesLatin history of the Roman empire to the death of Valens in 378, finished about 392. Its last book holds the first full description of the Huns and of their attack on the Alans and the Goths.
AmrakPersonsSon of Taspar, elected khan at Ötüken in 581 as the compromise the assembly could accept. He abdicated within the year in Ishbara's favour, and the revolt came anyway.
An LushanPersonsTang general of Sogdian and Göktürk parentage, b. 703. His rebellion of 755 to 763 ruined the Tang, cost them Central Asia and brought the Uyghurs into China.
An NuopantuoPersonsThe Sogdian of Jiuquan whom Yuwen Tai sent to the Göktürks in 545, the first envoy of a Chinese state to Bumin. His name transcribes the Sogdian Anāhitā-banda.
AnagaiPersons · briefRuler of the Utigurs under Göktürk overlordship. In 576 he lay before the Roman city of Bosporos with a Göktürk force when Bochan was sent to take it.
AnagastesPersonsEastern Roman general on the Danube frontier of Thrace under the emperor Leo. In 469 he defeated and killed Attila's son Dengizich, whose head was shown in Constantinople.
AnaguiPersonsLast khan of the Rouran. He held the steppe for three decades, called Bumin his blacksmith slave, and died in 552 as the Göktürk army closed on his capital.
AnankhastPersons · briefEnvoy between the Göktürks and Constantinople in the years before 576, with whose embassy some of the Göktürks came whom Valentinos took home. Whether he was a Göktürk or a Roman is disputed.
Anbei ProtectoratePlaces · briefTang protectorate of the steppe north of the desert, named the Pacified North. It stands at the end of a line that began with the Yanran protectorate of 647 and passed through Hanhai.
Ancestor CultReligionsThe reverence of forefathers and the dead among the Xiongnu, Göktürks, Uyghurs and Kirghiz: the cave of the forebears, funeral offerings, memorials at the grave, and the law of the forefathers.
Anchan JuniInstitutions and Titles · briefGöktürk title formed on anchan, the word for meat. The Tongdian makes the anchan juni the officer who managed the affairs of the household.
AngisciriPeoples · briefTribe among the last followers of Attila's son Dengizich in the 460s, named only by Jordanes. The name may be Turkic or may mean the grassland Sciri.
AnimismReligionsModern name for the belief that places, waters, mountains, fire, animals and the dead have spirits or owners. It is the base layer under shamanism and, through it, under Tengrism.
AnluochenPersonsSon of Anagui. He fled to the Northern Qi in 552, and at the end of 553 the Qi set him up as ruler of the Rouran remnant. He revolted in 554 and was defeated, and the house ended with him.
Anxi ProtectoratePlacesTang protectorate over the Western Regions, set up at Xizhou in 640. Its seat later stood at Kucha, and the Four Garrisons of the Tarim lay under it until the Tibetans took them.
Aoshe ShadPersons · briefSon of Chula Khan. When his father died in 620, the princess Yicheng passed him over as ugly and weak and set up his uncle as Ilig Khan.
Apa (Kirghiz Chancellor)PersonsChancellor of the Kirghiz. In 848 he led a force of 70,000 against the Shiwei and brought the remaining Uyghurs back north of the desert. The Tang histories write his name Abo.
Apa TarkanInstitutions and Titles · briefA compound office of the Göktürk court, and the rank the Tang history gives Tonyukuk. Apa names a command, tarkan a standing at the khan's side.
AquileiaPlacesChief city of Venetia at the head of the Adriatic. Attila's Huns took it in 452 after a long siege, the first blow of their invasion of Italy, and sacked it.
Arab–Khazar Wars (642–737)ConflictsAlmost continuous fighting between Arab armies and the Khazars for the passes of the Caucasus, 642 to 737. It ended with Marwan's march to the Volga. Neither side defeated the other.
Archaeogenetics of the Steppe EmpiresControversiesWhat ancient DNA from Mongolia has shown about the Xiongnu, the Göktürk period and the Uyghur period since 2018, and what a genome cannot show: language, name or allegiance.
ArçuraReligionsForest spirit of the Chuvash and, as Şüräle, of the Volga Tatars, known from nineteenth- and twentieth-century folklore. A hairy, man-shaped being that leads travellers astray, tickling them to death.
ArdaricPersonsKing of the Gepids, Attila's trusted vassal and counsellor. After Attila's death he led the subject peoples against Attila's sons and defeated them at the Nedao.
AreLineages · briefRuling house of the Yenisei Kirghiz, named for their word for the lord. Its holder broke the Uyghur khaganate in 840, and the Tang court entered him in the register of the imperial clan.
Are KhanPersonsRuler of the Yenisei Kirghiz. He called himself khan about 820 and destroyed the Uyghur khaganate in 840. The Tang court entered him in the register of the imperial clan.
ArguPlaces · briefThe land from Isfijab to Balasaghun north of the Syr Darya, where Sogdian and Turkic were both spoken. A Sogdian and Turkic stronghold into the twelfth century and the cradle of the Karakhanid state.
Army of the Steppe EmpiresInstitutions and TitlesHow the steppe empires ordered their armies: the decimal commands of the Xiongnu, the wings and princely commands of the Göktürks, the khan's guard, the Uyghur tribes, and the sources' figures.
ArsilasPersons · briefSenior ruler of the Göktürks at the time of the Roman embassy of Valentinos in 576. Whether he held the supreme rule or was only the eldest of the leaders is disputed.
Asena the She-Wolf (Gök Börü)ReligionsAncestor in the Chinese accounts of Göktürk origins, golden head on the standard, name of the khan's guard. In the Göktürks' own writing the wolf is a simile for an army.
AshideLineagesGöktürk clan of the Tang frontier. Two of its chiefs raised Nishufu in 679, Ashide Yuanzhen commanded Ilterish's army from 682, and Tonyukuk is given to it by identification with Yuanzhen.
Ashide Wumo ChurPersons · briefGöktürk irkin of the Ashide clan, taken prisoner by the Tang general Yuchi Jingde at Jingyang in 626, when Ilig Khan marched on Chang'an.
Ashide YuanzhenPersonsGöktürk officer of the Tang frontier who went over to Ilterish in 682 and commanded his army as Apa Tarkan. The Tang history has him fall against the Türgesh; his identity with Tonyukuk is disputed.
AshinaLineagesThe dynasty of Bumin and Istemi, whose eastern and western branches ruled the Göktürk khaganates. Its princes founded empires, served the Tang and restored Göktürk rule in 682.
Ashina FunianPersonsKhan of 680, a son of Ilig's elder cousin, raised on the Yellow River while the tribes answered him. He surrendered to Pei Xingjian and was beheaded in the East Market.
Ashina HeluPersonsLast independent khan of the western Göktürks, d. 659. He proclaimed himself Shaboluo Khan over the Ten Arrows, and Su Dingfang hunted him down across the Ili and the Chu.
Ashina SimoPersonsThe khan the Tang gave back, 639 to 643. A clansman of Ilig whom two khans had refused to trust, set over a hundred thousand people north of the Yellow River.
AskelPersons · briefKing of the Hermichiones, whose envoys came to Constantinople in July 563. He is a western Göktürk chief and the sender of their first embassy on one account, a king of the Avars on another.
Assembly at Mount Yanzhi (609)Battles & EventsReception of the rulers of the Western Regions by the Sui emperor Yangdi at Mount Yanzhi in 609, prepared by Pei Ju. The king of Gaochang, the tudun shad of Yiwu and envoys of 27 states came.
aṯ-ṮaʿālibīSourcesArabic history of the Persian kings, written for a Ghaznavid prince about 1017 to 1021 and ascribed to aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī. It preserves the Persian tradition on the khāqān and on Bahrām's war with Šāba.
AtabegInstitutions and TitlesFather-lord: the commander set over a Seljuk prince as guardian and tutor, who governed the province in the prince's name. In several places the office replaced the dynasty.
AttilaPersonsKing of the Huns from the 430s to 453, with his brother Bleda until about 445. He made the eastern empire pay tribute. He invaded Gaul in 451 and Italy in 452. He died on the night of his last wedding.
Attila's Balkan warsConflictsHun invasions of the eastern Roman provinces south of the Danube in the 440s, under Bleda and Attila. They broke the eastern armies, tripled the tribute and made Attila the master of a great power.
Avar CraftsmenInstitutions and TitlesGoldsmiths and metalworkers of the Avar khaganate, who worked in Byzantine techniques for Avar taste. The khagan also brought in foreign specialists, and the Avars bought arms in Constantinople.
AvarsPeoplesSteppe people who held a khaganate in Pannonia until 796. Their khagans and ruling nobility most likely came from the Rouran, and with them the title khagan came to Europe.
Awusili IrkinPersons · briefGöktürk irkin who raided Yami's people south of the Yellow River during Yang Su's northern campaign of 601–602. Yang Su broke him and returned the captives and herds to Yami.
Axian ShadPersons · briefLegendary chief of the Ashina in the Chinese origin stories of the Göktürks. The Zhou Shu has him chosen by a leap at a great tree; the Sui Shu has him lead the people out of the cave.
Ay AtaReligionsThe moon as a male deity of the Turkic peoples, the Moon Father beside the Sun Mother. Xiongnu rulers bowed to it, Göktürks raided as it waxed, Uyghur khagans bore it in their titles.
AyranFoodsSoured milk drink of the Turkic peoples, in its older sense the buttermilk left in the churn. First recorded by Mahmud al-Kashgari in the 1070s. The dairy economy behind it is millennia older.
AzPeoplesPeople of the mountain country between the western Sayan and the Altai, named beside the Kırgız in the Göktürk inscriptions. A man of the Az guided Tonyukuk, and Kül Tegin took their iltäber.

B

BactriaPlaces · briefThe country south of the Oxus around Balkh. It fell to Persia in the partition of the Hephthalite lands, and the Göktürks took its cities in 588.
BadghisPlaces · briefRegion near Herat. A Göktürk army under Šāba advanced as far as Badghis and Herat in 588–589, and Bahram Chobin marched beyond both to destroy it.
BagaInstitutions and TitlesGöktürk title written 莫何 or 莫賀 in the Chinese histories. It stands in the titles of Ishbara and Bagha Khan and in Tonyukuk's own style, Boyla Baga Tarkan.
Bagatur (Modu Chanyu)PersonsChanyu of the Xiongnu, 209 to 174 BC. He killed his father, destroyed the Donghu and the Yuezhi, surrounded a Han emperor at Baideng and made the Xiongnu the first empire of the eastern steppe.
Bagha KhanPersonsBrother of Ishbara and khan of the eastern Göktürks from 587 by his will. He took Apa alive and fell on a campaign in the west in 588. His identity with the Persian Šāba is disputed.
Bagha ShadPersons · briefGöktürk prince who served under Tong Yabgu and was the father of Nishu, later Duolu Khan. He came to the Tang court in the Wude years and swore brotherhood with the future emperor Taizong.
BaghaturInstitutions and Titles · briefGöktürk title written 莫賀咄 in the Chinese histories. Ilig held it as Baghatur Shad before he became khan, and Tong Yabgu's murderer took the throne under it in the west.
Baghatur KhanPersonsUncle and murderer of Tong Yabgu, who made himself khan of the western Göktürks as Quli Sibi Khan. His war with Tong Yabgu's son Si Yabgu cost the khaganate its subjects; Nishu killed him in 630.
Bahram ChobinPersonsSasanian general who destroyed the Göktürk army in 588 or 589. He then rose against his own kings and lost. He fled to the Göktürks at Suyab and was poisoned there.
Baidao PlainPlacesBaidao, 白道川, on the Chinese frontier between the desert and the Yellow River. Ishbara Khan took refuge there under Sui protection in 585, and in 630 the Tang generals joined there to attack Ilig Khan.
Baidie CottonInstitutions and TitlesThe cotton cloth of the Turfan oasis. The Liang Shu describes a plant with a cocoon-like fruit and thread inside, woven into soft white cloth that served in trade. The Tang histories repeat it.
BalamberPersons · briefKing of the Huns in the Gothic tradition preserved by Jordanes, who conquered the Ostrogoths in the 370s and killed their king Vinitharius. No other source names him.
BalanjarPlaces · briefKhazar city in the North Caucasus and the name of a Turkic group. The Arabs raided it in 642, which began the century of war between Arabs and Khazars.
BalasaghunPlaces · briefTown in the Chu valley, the chief town of the land of Argu. Its people spoke both Sogdian and Turkic, and Sogdians in Turkic dress lived there as the Soghdaq. Later a Karakhanid capital.
BalkhPlaces · briefThe chief city of eastern Khurasan, at the edge of the mountains. One of the cities of Bactria the Göktürks took in 588, and a centre of Buddhism before the Arab conquest.
Ban ChaoPersonsHan officer in the Western Regions, 73 to 102. He won the Tarim oases from the Northern Xiongnu one by one, starting at Shanshan with thirty-six men. From 91 he held the basin as Protector-General.
Banquet of the Wine Fountain (647)Battles & EventsFarewell banquet of the Tang emperor Taizong for the Uyghur and Tiele chiefs in 647, after which the chiefs asked for a road to his court. Wine rose from a hidden spring for thousands of guests.
BardoresPeoples · briefHun tribe among the last followers of Attila's son Dengizich in the 460s, named only by Jordanes. Its name has been read as Turkic.
BarjikPersons · briefSon of a Khazar khagan and commander of the Khazar army that defeated and killed the Arab governor al-Jarrah at Ardabil in 730.
Bars BegPersonsKhan of the Yenisei Kirghiz, named in the Kül Tegin inscription. The Göktürks gave him the title of khan and a sister of Bilge Khan as wife. Modern histories date his fall to 710 or 711.
BasichPersonsHun leader who with Kursich led a raid into Media, probably the invasion of 395 across the Caucasus. The two later came to Rome with many men to make an alliance.
BasmïlPeoplesTurkic people of the Beiting country north of the Tianshan. Used by the Tang against the Second Khaganate, they rose against the last Ashina khan in 742 and fell in 744.
Battle of Ardabil (730)Battles & EventsKhazar victory on the plain of Ardabil in 730 in the second Arab–Khazar war. Barjik, son of the khagan, defeated and killed the Arab governor al-Jarrah ibn Abdallah.
Battle of Baidao (583)Battles & EventsSui surprise attack under Shuang, the prince of Wei, on Ishbara Khan's army at Baidao in 583, which broke the Göktürk host and sent Ishbara north in flight.
Battle of Balanjar (652)Battles & Events · briefFighting at the Khazar town of Balanjar in the North Caucasus, 652, which closed the first Arab–Khazar war. The Arab leader ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Rabīʿa died in this war.
Battle of BolchuBattles & EventsThe dawn attack on the Türgesh at Bolchu, about 711. Tonyukuk marched by night over the Altai and the Irtysh and struck against his khan's order.
Battle of BukharaBattles & EventsThe decisive engagement of the Göktürk–Hephthalite war, about 560. Istemi broke the Hephthalite king while Khosrow I closed from the south-west.
Battle of Dzungaria, 552Battles & EventsBumin destroyed the Rouran force sent west to stop him, in Dzungaria in January 552. It was the first of the two engagements that broke Anagui.
Battle of Huaihuang, 552Battles & EventsBumin destroyed the main Rouran army north of Huaihuang in 552, which drove Anagui to his death within weeks and made Bumin khan.
Battle of Jingyang (626)Battles & EventsVictory of the Tang general Yuchi Jingde over Ilig Khan's army at Jingyang in 626, which took an Ashide irkin prisoner. It did not stop Ilig, who stood on the Wei two days later.
Battle of Lake Sevan (629–630)Battles & EventsGöktürk victory on the shore of Lake Sevan, where Čorpan Tarxan's vanguard drew a Persian army of 10,000 into an ambush and destroyed it, the last success of the northern army in the Caucasus.
Battle of Mount Dajin (600)Battles & EventsVictory of the Sui general Shi Wansui over Tardush, then Bujia Khan, at Mount Dajin. The khan withdrew when he learned who led the Sui army, and the pursuit took thousands of heads.
Battle of Mount Mulai (553)Battles & EventsIssik Khan's victory over the Rouran remnant under Dengshuzi, north of the Woye garrison in 553. It left Dengshuzi to Mukan, who destroyed him and drove him to the Western Wei.
Battle of the Catalaunian PlainsBattles & EventsBattle in Gaul in the summer of 451 between Attila's army and a coalition of Romans and Visigoths under Aetius. It ended Attila's campaign in the West.
Battle of the Iron Mountain (630)Battles & EventsLi Jing's attack on Ilig Khan's camp at the Iron Mountain in the second month of 630, made while Tang envoys were there to receive his surrender. It destroyed the eastern Göktürk khaganate.
Battle of the NedaoBattles & EventsBattle in Pannonia in 454, at which the Gepid king Ardaric and the subject peoples defeated the sons of Attila. Attila's eldest son Ellac fell, and Hunnic rule over the middle Danube ended.
Battle of Zhoupan (582)Battles & EventsIshbara Khan's three-day battle with a Sui force of 2,000 under Daxi Zhangru at Zhoupan in 582, in the great Göktürk invasion of the Sui, after which the Göktürks turned away.
Bay BalïqPlacesTown on the Selenga that the Uyghur khan Bayanchur had built from 757 by Sogdians and Chinese. Its name means Rich Town, and the Šine-Usu inscription names it among his works.
Bayanchur KhanPersonsSecond khan of the Uyghurs, 747 to 759, and the man who made the khaganate a state. He built the walled capital on the Orkhon and left his own account on the Šine-Usu stone.
BayirkuPeoplesA Tiele people of the Nine Surnames, north-east of the Orkhon. Beaten by Kül Tegin at Lake Türgi Yargun; one of their stragglers killed Kapgan Khan in 716.
BegInstitutions and TitlesThe lord of a tribe or a clan, and the estate of such men. The rank between the khan above and the commons below, named on every face of the Orkhon stones.
Begre inscription (E 11)SourcesRuniform epitaph on a stele in north-eastern Tuva for Tör Apa, who rode against the Tabgach khan at fifteen and died at seventy-seven. Placements run from the seventh century to the ninth and later.
Bei Qi Shu (Book of Northern Qi)SourcesOfficial history of the Northern Qi, largely lost and made good from the Bei Shi.
Bei Shi (History of the Northern Dynasties)SourcesHistory of the northern dynasties from the Northern Wei to the Sui, completed by Li Yanshou in 659. It abridges the Wei Shu, the Zhou Shu and the Sui Shu and is not an independent witness.
BeihaiPlaces · briefThe Northern Sea of the Chinese histories, 北海, the northern bound of Mukan Khan's realm, five or six thousand li north of the desert. One translation renders it as Lake Baikal.
Beilou PassPlaces · briefFrontier pass of the Tang. In 624, after the peace at Binzhou, Ilig Khan asked to come to it and open a mutual market, and the Tang emperor could not refuse him.
BeitingPlacesThe Northern Court, a Chinese name of position. The Tang protectorate north of the Tian Shan carried it; so did a western khan's camp west of Mount Zuhe. Two grounds, one name.
BerelPlacesBurial ground on the Bukhtarma in the Kazakh Altai. Its great mounds of the fourth and third centuries BC kept frozen chambers with harnessed horses; a few Göktürk-period graves lie beside them.
BeshbalikPlacesTown north of the Tian Shan, the Tang Beiting. Kapgan Khan's army failed before its walls in 714; six years later Tonyukuk destroyed the Basmïl there.
Bi ChanyuPersonsFirst chanyu of the Southern Xiongnu, AD 48 to 56. Passed over twice, he took his grandfather Huhanye's title with eight southern tribes and brought his people inside the Han frontier.
BigilasPersonsInterpreter of the eastern Roman government and go-between in the plot of 449 to murder Attila. Caught with the gold, he confessed when Attila threatened his son, and was ransomed for 50 pounds.
Bilge KhanPersonsKhan of the Second Göktürk Khaganate, 716 to 734. His brother Kül Tegin's coup set him on the throne, and Tonyukuk advised him. A minister poisoned him in 734.
Bilge Khan inscriptionSourcesRuniform monument for Bilge Khan on the Orkhon, with the text of its faces. Its historical section runs parallel to the Kül Tegin inscription; its own passages give the khan's campaigns by age.
Bilge Khan's Golden CrownSourcesGold diadem with a bird of prey on its front panel, found in 2001 in a silver chest at the Bilge Khan complex. The excavators date the hoard to 735, a later critique to the Uyghur age.
Bilge Khan's Tent Banquet (725)Battles & EventsFeast in Bilge Khan's tent for the Tang envoy Yuan Zhen in 725, with Kül Tegin and Tonyukuk in the ring. Bilge asked why the Tang gave brides to Tibet, the Xi and the Khitan but not to him.
BittuguresPeoples · briefHun tribe among the last followers of Attila's son Dengizich in the 460s. Part of it later joined the Ostrogoths on their march to Italy in 488.
BledaPersonsKing of the Huns with his younger brother Attila from the 430s until about 445, when Attila had him killed. He ruled a great part of the Huns and kept a Moorish jester at his court.
Bloomery Furnaces of the South AltaiInstitutions and TitlesEarly medieval iron-smelting furnaces in the Chuya and Kurai basins of the south-east Altai, the densest cluster in the region. The excavators tie the smelting district to the Göktürks.
BochanPersons · briefGöktürk commander whom Turxanthos sent in 576 with a very large army against the Roman city of Bosporos in the Crimea, where Anagai of the Utigurs already lay.
Bodeng NingliPlaces · briefBare high mountain four or five hundred li from Dujin, the khan's seat, that the Göktürks called 勃登凝黎, glossed in Chinese as the spirit of the earth. The Zhou Shu names it beside the khan's yearly sacrifices.
Bögü KhanPersonsThird khan of the Uyghurs, 759 to 779, under whom the khaganate reached its height. He made Manichaeism the faith of his people and was killed by his cousin.
BoisciPeoples · briefPeople on the lower Danube in the fifth century, among those whom the Hun king Rua wanted to fight because they had fled to the Romans. The name has been explained as Celtic.
BomaPeoplesPeople of the far north near the northern sea, named for their piebald horses, which they kept for milk. They lived under birch bark and often fought the Kirghiz.
Bone and Horn WorkingInstitutions and TitlesBone plates of the bow, bone arrowheads, bone fittings of the horse and horn knife handles, with the bowyers who made the composite bow. The sources name the objects and describe no workshop.
Border MarketsInstitutions and TitlesThe markets on the Chinese frontier where the Göktürks traded their herds for silk. They first came to the border for silk before 545 and asked the Sui for markets in 588 and the Tang in 624.
Böri (Guard)Institutions and Titles · briefThe guard of the Göktürk khan, called 附離, fuli, in the Chinese histories. The Zhou Shu says the name means wolf, because the Göktürks were born of a wolf.
Börü KhanPersons · briefLesser khan of the west of the Göktürk realm from 572, a nephew of Taspar Khan and son of Rudan Khan, or by one Chinese history Rudan Khan himself. The Chinese call him Buli Khan.
Börü ShadPersonsNephew of Tong Yabgu with an independent command in the north-west. He led some forty thousand Göktürks through Derbent in 627 and took Tiflis with Heraclius.
BosporosPlacesRoman city at the eastern end of the Crimea, the ancient Panticapaeum by the strait of the same name. A Göktürk army and the Utigurs took it while the envoy Valentinos was with the Göktürks.
Boyla Kutlug YarganPersonsKirghiz officer who speaks on the Suji stone in Mongolia, the commissioned man of Kutlug Baga Tarkan. The stone dates from the end of the eighth century or from after 840.
BreadFoodsBread among the Turkic peoples. Mahmud al-Kashgari records in the 1070s the word ätmäk and breads baked in embers, in ashes, in the oven and in a kettle. Among the Kirghiz only the ruler served cakes.
Bride-Price in LivestockInstitutions and TitlesBetrothal gifts paid in horses, cattle, camels and sheep among the Gaoche, Rouran, Xueyantuo, Uyghurs, Kirghiz and Oghuz. The sums range from the herds of a bridegroom's family to the 20,000 horses of the Uyghur marriage of 821, and one bride-price was lost on the road.
Bronze Mirrors of the SteppeInstitutions and TitlesChinese bronze mirrors in the graves of the Xiongnu and later peoples, and the local copies cast when the supply from China stopped. They came as gifts, as trade goods and as heirlooms.
Buddhism among the GöktürksReligionsOne khan was converted by a captive Chinese monk in the 570s. He built a monastery, sent for sutras and fasted, and no one of his house followed him.
BuguPeoples · briefOne of the nine Tiele tribes of the Toquz Oghuz. Pugu Huai'en, who served the Tang against An Lushan and then revolted himself, came from its ruling family.
Bugut inscriptionSourcesA stone of about 582 to 584 on a stone tortoise in central Mongolia, in Sogdian. The earliest monument of the Göktürk state, set up for Taspar Khan according to some scholars and for Mahan Tegin according to others.
Bukhar KhudaInstitutions and Titles · briefThe title of the rulers of Bukhara before and under the Arab conquest, lord of Bukhara. The house survived the conquest, commanded Transoxian troops for the caliphs and lost its power in 874.
BukharaPlacesSogdian city in the lower Zerafshan valley and seat of the largest Hephthalite garrison. Taken by Istemi's army, it became the residence of the Ashina nobility in the west.
BulanPersonsKing of the Khazars whom the reply of King Joseph names as the first of his line to take up Judaism. The letter tells of an angel's dream, a debate between three faiths and the king's circumcision.
BulgarsPeoples · briefA Turkic people of the Pontic steppe. When the western steppe broke apart in the middle of the seventh century it left two states behind it, the Bulgar union and the Khazars.
Buli ShadPersons · briefYounger brother of Chula Khan. In 620 he led two thousand Göktürk horsemen to join the Tang army against the rebel Liu Wuzhou, and under Ilig Khan he held the Xi tribe.
Buluzhen KhanPersonsRouran khan in 414. He deposed his uncle Hulü by intrigue and left the government to the minister Shuli. Within the year Datan, the Gaoche chief Chiluohou's choice, had him strangled.
Bumin KhanPersonsLegendary Ashina Göktürk who overthrew the mighty Rouran in Mongolia in 552 and founded the Göktürk Khaganate in their place.
Burial and the balbalReligionsWhat the Göktürks did at a grave. The body lay in the tent, and the mourners rode seven circuits and cut their faces. Then the burning, in its season, and the line of stones running east.
Busir GlavanPersonsKhazar khagan who received the exiled emperor Justinian II, gave him his sister Theodora as wife and then agreed to have him killed. The sources call him only Chagan. Busir Glavan is a modern name.
BuyeoStatesThe state of the Songhua plain from which the Chinese histories derive Goguryeo. Tanshihuai drove it back, the Murong broke it, and its name outlived it as a claim of descent.
BuyrukInstitutions and TitlesThe khan's minister. The inscriptions name the buyruks directly after the khan and make the quality of a reign depend on them; a buyruk poisoned Bilge Khan in 734.
ByzantiumStatesThe eastern Roman empire. It received Maniakh in 568 and sent Zemarchos to Istemi in 569. Under Heraclius in 627 it allied with Tong Yabgu against Persia.

C

CamelsInstitutions and TitlesThe camels of the steppe peoples in the Chinese and Muslim sources: a rare animal among the Xiongnu, a gift of tens or thousands from the Gaoche, Göktürks and Uyghurs, and the pack animal of the caravans. The Kimek kept none, because the camel did not live in their country.
Campaign of Marwan (737)Battles & EventsCampaign of the Umayyad general Marwan ibn Muhammad through the Caucasus to the lower Volga in 737. The khagan fled, was caught and was forced to take Islam. He gave it up when the army left.
Captives and the UnfreeInstitutions and TitlesPeople taken in raids and wars of the steppe empires, from the Xiongnu to the Khazars: ransomed, exchanged, enslaved, sold or kept as defectors, and what the sources show about their status.
Capture of Apa (587)Battles & EventsBagha Khan's western campaign of 587 against Apa Khan under banners the Sui had sent him, in which Apa's men went over and Apa was taken alive. On Gao Jiong's advice the Sui emperor spared him.
Capture of Ilig Khan (630)Battles & EventsSeizure of the fleeing Ilig Khan in the camp of his kinsman Suni Shi in 630, and his arraignment before Taizong at Chang'an. Taizong named five crimes and spared him for the oath at the Wei.
Cave of the ancestorsPlacesThe cave to which the khan led the nobles once a year to sacrifice, according to the Zhou Shu. The one Göktürk cult site the Chinese record and the inscriptions never mention.
Cefu yuanguiSourcesChinese encyclopaedia arranged by topic, compiled under Wang Qinruo and Yang Yi and completed in 1013. Its chapters on foreign vassals date the embassies of the western Göktürks year by year.
ChachPlacesThe Tashkent oasis on the middle Syr Darya, a zone of contact between nomad and settled. It entered the Sogdian sphere under Göktürk overlordship in the sixth century.
ChakarInstitutions and Titles · briefSogdian title of the sovereign's bodyguard, warriors bound to a lord. Chakar fought in the army of An Lushan, and the caliphs of the ninth century built guards on the model.
Chang'anPlaces · briefCapital of China under the Han, the Sui and the Tang, the modern Xi'an. The Sogdians called it Khumdan, after Xianyang, the capital of the Qin nearby.
ChanyuInstitutions and TitlesThe supreme title of the Xiongnu ruler, four centuries before Khan. The Han Shu gives the full style as Chengli Gutu Chanyu and glosses it as son of heaven.
CharatonPersons · briefKing of the Huns about 412, called by Olympiodorus the first of the kings. He was appeased with presents from the emperor after the murder of Donatus.
Chebi KhanPersonsAshina khan of the far north, 630s to 650, who took the great title himself rather than receive it. His own chiefs went over and his army did not come when he called.
ChelchalPersonsHun officer in the eastern Roman army, about 467. His speech to blockaded Goths, that the Huns lived off their labour like wolves, made the Goths kill the Huns in their ranks.
ChepetukhInstitutions and TitlesTitle of the commander of the great khagan's army in the Armenian history of Sebeos, also written Chembukh. It may be a garbled form of yabgu.
ChersonPlacesGreek city on the south-western coast of the Crimea, held by Rome. Valentinos sailed by it to the Göktürks in 576, and in 579 the emperor said that Göktürks were encamped there.
Chiji ShadPersons · briefYounger brother of Shibi Khan. Around 614 the Sui official Pei Ju offered him a Sui princess and the title of Southern Khan to divide the khaganate, and he did not dare accept.
ChikPeoplesPeople on the upper Yenisei between the river and the Sayan, named with the Kırgız and the Az. Bilge Khan beat their army at Orpin after crossing the river Kem.
Chinese Bans on the Export of IronInstitutions and TitlesChinese measures to keep iron from the nomads, from the Han court to a Tang decree of 714. In 177 a Han councillor charged that fine iron had passed to the Xianbei.
Chinese Craftsmen at the Orkhon MonumentsInstitutions and TitlesCarvers, builders and painters sent by the Tang court to the Orkhon for the memorials of Kül Tegin and Bilge Khan, 731 to 735. Bilge Khan asked for them, and the emperor did not refuse.
Chinese transcriptions of TurkicLanguagesHow the Chinese annals write Göktürk names, titles and a few explained words in characters chosen for their sound. The variant spellings, the glosses and the limits of reconstruction.
Chinese Weaponsmiths among the XianbeiInstitutions and Titles · briefChinese refugees who taught the Xianbei chief Kebineng to make weapons, armour and shields. In 177 a Han councillor had already named Han fugitives as counsellors of the Xianbei.
Chorpan TarkhanPersons · briefGöktürk commander with the title tarkhan, leader of the vanguard of the army of the north in the Caucasus. In 629 or 630 he destroyed a Persian army of 10,000 by Lake Sevan.
Chounu KhanPersonsKhan of the Rouran, 508 to 520, and elder brother of Anagui. He crushed the Gaoche in 516 and raised a shamaness to khatun. His mother and ministers killed him.
ChrysaphiusPersonsEunuch and leading minister of the emperor Theodosius II, d. 450. In 449 he plotted Attila's murder through Edeco; Attila demanded him for punishment, and Marcian had him executed.
Chula KhanPersonsKhan of the eastern Göktürks, 619 to 620, and brother of Shibi. He died within the year, by one account poisoned by a Chinese official at his court.
ChumukunPeoples · briefA tribe of the western Göktürks, first of the five that the Tang histories name under the Duolu, the eastern wing of the Ten Arrows. Its chief carried the rank of chur.
Chunyu TanPersons · briefChinese official at the court of the Rouran khan Anagui. Sent as an envoy in the 530s, he stayed, kept the khan's correspondence and taught him to write to the Chinese courts as an equal.
ChurInstitutions and TitlesA rank of command below the princes of the ruling house. It stands among the twenty-eight hereditary grades, names the five chiefs of the Duolu wing, and is carried in the name of Kapgan Khan.
Church of the EastReligions · briefThe Syriac church of the Persian world, called Nestorian. Sogdians carried it to China and the Turks; a metropolitan see of the Turks existed by about 782. It lasted in Semirech'e into the 1300s.
Chuzhe RiverPlaces · briefRiver of the Zhou Shu's Suo origin story of the Göktürks, on which a son of Yizhi Nishidu founded a state. It is identified with the Yenisei.
ÇigşiInstitutions and Titles · briefTitle that occurs seven times on five stones of the Yenisei epitaphs. It comes from the Chinese 刺史 cishi, prefect, and the Tang made the chiefs of surrendered tribes prefects of their own people.
CimmeriansPeoples · briefMounted nomads who held the western steppe from about 1000 to 800 BC, before the Scythians. Their raids reached Assyria, and what they were is still argued: a people, or a word for a band of riders.
Climate and the steppe empiresControversiesWhat tree rings, ice cores and lake sediments say about the weather of the steppe between the Xiongnu and the Uyghurs, and what has been argued from it.
Coinage of the Huna PeoplesInstitutions and Titles · briefCoins of the Kidarites, Alchons and Hephthalites in Bactria, Sogdiana and northwest India, from the late fourth century to the Göktürk conquest. They are a main source on these peoples.
Composite bowInstitutions and TitlesThe layered bow of horn, wood and sinew that made mounted archery possible. It is the weapon on which every steppe empire from the Xiongnu to the Göktürks rested.
Conversion of the Khazars to JudaismBattles & EventsThe adoption of Judaism by the Khazar khagan, the ruling house and the elite. Date, course and reach are disputed, from about 740 to after 861, and one view denies that it happened.
Craftsmen in the Steppe EmpiresInstitutions and TitlesHow the steppe empires from the Xiongnu to the Uyghurs got their craftsmen: by capture, by invitation and by foreign settlers. The sources name the practice and hardly ever the craftsman.
Culture of the Turkic PeoplesCustoms & PastimesOverview of the customs of the steppe peoples from the Xiongnu to the Kirghiz: feasts, songs, the hunt, food, dress, the felt tent, marriage, burial, writing and names.

D

DaguanInstitutions and Titles · briefTitle of the officers around the Göktürk khan, written 達官. Xuanzang saw two hundred of them at Tong Yabgu's court, and Ilig's servant, the Hulu Daguan Tuyuhun Hunye, died at his grave.
Dali CityPlaces · briefWalled town in Shuozhou, 大利城, that the Sui built in 599 for Yami Khan, whom they had made Qimin Khan, and for the Göktürks who came over to him.
DaluobianInstitutions and Titles · briefGöktürk title for the fat and stout, named after a short, thick wine vessel. The Tongdian calls it an especially noble office, held only by sons and younger brothers.
DamozhiPersons · briefOfficer of the Yabgu Khan of the western Göktürks, identified with Tong Yabgu. The khan sent him to take the pilgrim Xuanzang to his camp near Suyab and settle him there.
Danube BulgariaStates · briefBulgar state in the northeastern Balkans, recognised by Byzantium in 681 under Asparuch. Its Bulgar rulers kept an Oguric speech and the Tengri cult until Boris took baptism in 864.
Datan KhanPersonsKhan of the Rouran, 414 to 429, and the strongest of the house before Anagui. He surrounded the emperor Taiwu at Yunzhong in 424 and was scattered at the Li river in 429.
Daxi WuPersons · briefThe Northern Zhou general who led the southern front against Pingyang in 563 while Mukan and Yang Zhong marched on Jinyang. Hulü Guang beat him twice.
De administrando imperioSourcesHandbook of statecraft by the emperor Constantine VII, about 948 to 952. It tells how Sarkel was built and gives the only report of the Kabar secession from the Khazars.
Death of AttilaBattles & EventsThe death of Attila early in 453, on the night after his wedding to Ildico, and his funeral. Priscus, through Jordanes, describes the mourning, the dirge, the strava and the secret burial.
Death of Princess DayiBattles & EventsMurder of Princess Dayi, the Zhou princess Qianjin and wife of Tulan Khan, which the Sui demanded as the price of a bride for Yami. Yami brought it about, and Tulan killed her in his tent.
Death of Tulan KhanBattles & EventsKilling of Tulan Khan by his own followers while a Sui army marched against him. Tardush proclaimed himself Bujia Khan, and the eastern realm fell into great disorder.
Deer stonesInstitutions and Titles · briefStanding stones of Mongolia and South Siberia, carved with stylised deer, from the late Bronze Age. They stand near burials and are the oldest monumental sculpture of the eastern steppe.
Defeat of the Tiele, 546Battles & EventsBumin's interception of the Tiele rising against the Rouran. More than fifty thousand Tiele tents passed into his domain, and the Ashina became a power.
Defection of Töles (628)Battles & EventsBreak of Töles, Ilig Khan's nephew and lesser khan of the east, with his uncle in 628, and his crossing to the Tang at the end of 629. It cost Ilig his eastern wing as the Tang armies set out.
DengizichPersonsSon of Attila and the last king of the Huns on the Danube. He made war on the eastern empire in the 460s and was killed by the Roman general Anagastes in 469; his head was shown in Constantinople.
DengzhuPersonsUncle of Anagui, set up as ruler by the Rouran remnant in 552. Beaten by Issik Khan north of Woye in 553, fled to the Western Wei and killed outside Chang'an at Mukan's request in 555.
DerbentPlacesFortress city on the Caspian shore of Dagestan, the 'gate' of the Persian and Arabic names. Khosrow I walled it against Sinjibu; Börü Shad came before it in 627.
DēwāštīčPersons · briefLord of Panjikent in the decade after 710 and leader of the Sogdian nobles against the Arabs. Claimed the title king of Sogdiana in 721–722. Died in 722; his archive is the Mount Mugh documents.
DieluozhiPersons · briefSon of Ilig Khan, the last khan of the eastern Göktürks. At Chang'an after 630 he would not touch his ration of meat while his mother had none, and the emperor Taizong praised him.
DihqanInstitutions and Titles · briefThe landed noble of Sogdiana and eastern Iran, great or small. In the ninth century the class lost its standing; by the tenth the word meant peasant.
DinglingPeoplesPeople of the north, subdued by Bagatur about 201 BC and a raider of the Xiongnu in the first century BC. One line of derivation traces the Tiele to them.
DingxiangPlacesFrontier town and commandery 定襄, built for Yami Khan in 600. The Göktürks kept the Sui court in exile there, and Li Jing's night attack on it in 630 began the end of the eastern khaganate.
Diplomacy of the Steppe EmpiresInstitutions and TitlesHow steppe rulers dealt with China, Persia and Byzantium: marriage alliances, hostages, titles, oaths and letters in the language of kinship, from the Xiongnu to the Uyghurs and Kirghiz.
DiqinchaPersons · briefGöktürk prince of the house of Ashina, a younger cousin of Ishbara Khan with tribes of his own. He quarrelled with Ishbara and went over to Apa with his people in 583.
Dīvān Lughāt al-TurkSourcesMahmud al-Kashgari's dictionary of the Turkic languages, written between 1073 and 1077 for the caliph. It contains a world map, the tribes and their brands, the animal calendar, proverbs and verse.
DiwanPersonsShamaness at the court of Chounu Khan, known only from the Wei Shu. It tells how she was proclaimed Holy Woman and made khatun, how her slander led the khan to have his son killed, and how she was strangled on the khan's mother's order in 520.
DochiaReligions · briefThe Göktürks' own word for the rites owed to the dead, preserved once, in Greek, by Menander. He heard it at the mourning for Istemi in 576.
DonghuPeoplesThe eastern neighbours of the Xiongnu, destroyed by Bagatur about 206 BC. The Xianbei and the Wuhuan are traced to what was left of them.
Dou XianPersonsHan general who broke the Northern Chanyu at Mount Jiluo in AD 89 with Southern Xiongnu cavalry, so that eighty-one tribes went over to the Han. He had the victory carved on Mount Yanran.
Drums and Banners for the KhansInstitutions and TitlesDrums, wind instruments and banners that the courts of northern China granted to steppe rulers. The Sui gave them to Ishbara, Bagha and Yami; the Tang invested khans with a drum and a standard.
Du-lü-shi AlpPersons · briefGeneral of the Kirghiz whom the khan sent to escort the Taihe princess back to the Tang. The Kirghiz petition of 842 names him; the Chinese histories speak of ten dagan, and the escort was killed.
DuanLineages · briefThe Xianbei house of Liaoxi, between the Murong and the Chinese frontier. Allied with the Jin and then destroyed by the Murong in the 330s.
DuboPeoplesTiele people north of the Uyghurs and south of a small sea, hunters who ate lily roots. The Xin Tangshu names them with the Mielie and Geezhi the Wooden-Horse Tujue, whom the Kirghiz could subject.
Dujin GarrisonPlaces · briefThe old garrison of Dujin, 度斤舊鎮, to which Yami Khan moved south in 597 after his marriage to a Sui princess. From there he reported Tulan Khan's movements to the Sui.
DuliuPersons · briefGöktürk prince of the sixth century, father of Shegui Khan and on the Sui Shu's account a son of Tardush. The Sui official Pei Ju names him in 610 when he proposed raising Shegui against Heshana.
Duman (Touman)PersonsFirst chanyu of the Xiongnu named in any source, d. 209 BC. In the Shiji the Qin drive him north out of the Ordos, and his son Bagatur has him shot.
DunhuangPlacesOasis town at the western end of the Gansu corridor, the gate of China toward the Tarim. Home of a Sogdian community from the fourth century. The Ancient Letters were found near it.
DuoxifuPersons · briefYounger brother of Kapgan Khan. Ilterish made him yabgu when he took the title khan, and Kapgan put him over the left wing in 699. Two editions of the Ongin inscription set the Eletmiš Yabgu of the stone beside him.
DusuliuPersons · briefGöktürk prince of the house of Ashina, a younger brother of Tulan Khan. In 599 he left his wife and children and went over with Yami to the Sui, where Yami had to lose treasures to him at chupu.
DzungariaPlacesThe basin between the Altai and the Tian Shan. Through its Dzungarian Gate the Göktürks reached the Tarim, and there the two wings of the khaganate met.

E

Eastern WeiStatesThe eastern half of the divided Northern Wei, 534 to 550, with its capital at Ye. Gao Huan governed it for the emperor Xiaojing and won the Rouran khan with three marriages.
EdecoPersonsHun warrior of Attila's inner circle and his envoy to Constantinople. The eunuch Chrysaphius won his promise to kill Attila; Edeco revealed the plot to his master.
Edict of Emperor Wen against the Göktürks (583)Battles & EventsEdict of the first Sui emperor ordering war on the Göktürks in 583, which described the khaganate as split among five chiefs and struck by drought, and opened the Sui offensive.
EdizPeoples · briefA tribe of the Toquz Oghuz that supplied the Uyghur khagans from 795. Whether it belonged to the nine from the start is argued.
Egiin GolPlacesRiver valley in northern Mongolia where a survey of 246 square kilometres recorded Xiongnu settlements at the mouth of every wide side valley. Excavation there found wheat and barley.
EktagPlacesThe mountain where Istemi received the Roman embassy of 569. Menander gives the name and renders it as the Golden Mountain. Whether it lay in the Tian Shan or the Altai is argued.
EllacPersons · briefEldest son of Attila and Kreka, set by his father as king over the Akatziri. He fell at the Nedao in 454, when the subject peoples rose against Attila's sons.
Embassy of Cui Junsu (608)Battles & EventsSui embassy of Cui Junsu to Heshana, the western Göktürk khan. Cui threatened the life of the khan's Chinese mother, and Heshana knelt to receive the emperor's letter and sent tribute.
Embassy of Maximinus to AttilaBattles & EventsEastern Roman embassy to Attila in 449, led by Maximinus and described by Priscus, who went with it and saw Attila's court, his banquets and his judgements.
Embassy of Valentinos (576)Battles & EventsRoman embassy to the western Göktürks in 576, sent to renew the alliance against Persia. Turxanthos received it in mourning for Istemi and held the envoys while Bosporos fell.
Embassy of Yu Qingze (584)Battles & EventsSui embassy of Yu Qingze to Ishbara Khan in 584, in answer to Ishbara's letter, which brought the khan to receive the emperor's letter on his knees and to call himself the emperor's subject.
Emperor Gaozu of HanPersonsFounding emperor of the Han. Bagatur encircled him on Baideng for seven days in 200 BC, and he walked out through a gap that Bagatur left open. The heqin he agreed to afterwards held until the Mayi ambush of 133 BC.
Emperor Wu of HanPersonsHan emperor who ended the heqin at Mayi in 133 BC and fought the Xiongnu to the end of his reign. His generals took the Ordos and Gansu. His envoys went west. The war left both sides exhausted.
Emperor Wu of Northern ZhouPersons · briefEmperor of the Northern Zhou, 560 to 578. He bought Mukan's cavalry with the plunder of Qi territory and a marriage, destroyed the Qi in 577, and died marching north against Taspar.
Emperor Wucheng of Northern QiPersons · briefEmperor of the Northern Qi, 561 to 565. He rode to Jinyang in the winter of 563 to face Mukan's hundred thousand, nearly left the city, stayed, and held it.
Emperor Wuzong of TangPersonsTang emperor, 840 to 846. The Uyghur khaganate fell and the Kirghiz first sent envoys in his reign. He persecuted Manichaeism and Buddhism and died before his own envoy left for the Kirghiz.
Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (846–859)PersonsTang emperor from 846 to 859, Wuzong's uncle. He dismissed Li Deyu, shelved the title prepared for the Kirghiz khan and then sent Li Ye to invest the Kirghiz in 847.
Emperor Yizong of TangPersons · briefTang emperor from 859 to 873. Three Kirghiz embassies came to his court in the Xiantong years, and a Kirghiz ruler was invested in 867. The record of later embassies is lost.
Empress AshinaPersonsDaughter of Mukan Khan, married to the Northern Zhou emperor Wu in 568 to seal the alliance against the Qi. Her tomb yielded the only ancient genome of an Ashina.
Empress YujiulüPersonsEldest daughter of the Rouran khan Anagui, empress of the Western Wei from 538. Married to Emperor Wen to keep the Rouran from the border, she died in childbirth in 540 at sixteen.
Envoys and EmbassiesInstitutions and TitlesSogdians, princes and ministers who carried letters, tallies and gifts between steppe courts and their neighbours: how they were received, ranked and translated, the risks of the road, their numbers.
Epitaph of Qarï Čor Tegin (Xi'an)Sources · briefGravestone found at the end of 2012 in Xi'an, the former Tang capital Chang'an. It has a long Chinese text and seventeen short lines in runiform Turkic, for an Uyghur prince.
Er AtCustoms & PastimesThe man's name won by a deed, er at in Old Turkic. Kül Tegin gets it by his mother's Kut, and Yenisei epitaphs put it before the dead man's name. Some scholars take the pair in the stone to mean an army.
Er ChanyuPersonsChanyu of the Xiongnu, about 105 to 102 BC, called the Child Chanyu. He put a plotting commandant to death, destroyed the Han army of Zhao Ponu, and died on the march to Shouxiang.
ErkligReligionsThe lord of the dead in Old Turkic Buddhist and Manichaean texts, and an ordinary adjective for power in the older language. Absent from the Göktürk inscriptions.
ErnakPersons · briefYounger son of Attila, whom seers foretold would restore his house. After his father's death he settled with his Huns on the lower Danube; the Bulgarian princes' list names an Irnik.
Eurasian NomadsPeoplesThe herding peoples of the steppe belt from Hungary to Manchuria, and the way of life they shared. They lived from sheep and horses and depended on trade, tribute and raids against settled neighbours.
Eyang RidgePlaces · briefRidge on the Tang frontier near Dingxiang. From it Li Jing fell on Dingxiang by night in the first month of 630, and Ilig Khan fled to the edge of the desert.

F

FaghfuraPersons · briefBrother of Šāba-Šāh, the khagan of the Turks in aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī's history of the Persian kings. He carried his brother's offer to Bahram Chobin and fell in the battle that followed.
FalconryCustoms & Pastimes · briefHunting with falcons among the Turkic peoples. In the Irk Bitig a falcon hunts river birds; in al-Kashgari's dictionary a rider sets out with a sacer falcon in his hand.
Fall of Heshana Khan (611)Battles & EventsOverthrow of Heshana, the western Göktürk khan, by Shegui at the Sui's instigation. The emperor sent Shegui an arrow, Shegui drove Heshana east, and Heshana bowed to the emperor at the Linshuo palace.
Fall of Tardush (603)Battles & EventsCollapse of the rule of Tardush as Bujia Khan, when the Tiele and other tribes rose against him and went over to Yami Khan. Tardush fled to the Tuyuhun, and the khaganate stayed divided.
Fall of the Khazar Khaganate (about 965–969)Battles & EventsEnd of the Khazar state as a power. In 965 the Rus of Kiev, with Oghuz allies, overran Atil and probably Sarkel. The end of the khaganate is usually set in 969, and the causes are debated.
Fall of the Second Khaganate, 741–744ConflictsCollapse of the Göktürk state, 741 to 744. The boy khan was murdered by his own shad. A coalition of Basmïl, Uyghurs and Karluk then sent two Ashina heads to Chang'an.
Farming among the Volga BulgarsInstitutions and TitlesGrain growing and food storage among the Volga Bulgars in 922. Ibn Fadlan found millet, wheat and barley, harvests that belonged to the sower, a marten skin from each house, and food kept in pits.
Farming and Taxes in GaochangInstitutions and TitlesThe oasis economy of Gaochang, 500 to 640: two harvests a year, an office for water and fields in each town, taxes in silver coin or hemp cloth, and a toll on merchants paid to the Tiele.
Feasts in Kashgari's DictionaryCustoms & PastimesFeasts of the Turkic peoples as Kashgari recorded them in the 1070s. Küdän is the wedding feast, soγdič a winter feast held in turn, kästäm a feast for drinkers who came unasked.
FeltInstitutions and Titles · briefMatted wool, the fabric of the steppe. It makes the tent, the floor, the coat and the saddle blanket, and it is made without a loom.
Felt, Cloth, Leather and Wood in Kashgari's DictionaryInstitutions and TitlesWords for felt, cloth, leather and wood in Kashgari's dictionary of the 1070s: raincoat felt, an embroidered Kashgar felt, a weaver's reed, tanning, leather bags, a carpenter's axe and a resin glue.
Fengshi Wenjian JiSources · briefCollection of notes by the Tang official Feng Yan, written in the late eighth century. Its section on tea follows the custom from a monastery on Mount Tai to the capital and on to the Uyghurs.
FerghanaPlacesThe valley of the upper Syr Darya, the Dayuan of the Han sources. A country of walled towns and famous horses. The Han went to war for its horses at the end of the second century BC.
Fire WorshipReligionsReverence for fire among the Göktürks. A Chinese pilgrim saw it at the western court, where no one sat on wood because wood held fire, and Theophylact put fire first among the powers they honoured.
First Göktürk KhaganateStatesThe first state in history carrying the ‘Türk’ name, founded in 552 by Bumin of the Ashina Türks in Ötüken. Divided by civil war after 584 and destroyed by Chinese invasions and internal rebellions in 630/656.
Five Divisions of the XiongnuStatesCao Cao's division of the Southern Xiongnu into five commands in the Jian'an era, which ended the chanyu's rule over his people. From these divisions Liu Yuan launched the rising of 304.
Flight of the Avars (557)Battles & EventsWestward flight of the Avars before the Göktürks, which brought them to the Alans and to Justinian's court about 557 and made them a lasting quarrel between the Göktürks and Rome.
Flight of the Tarniach and KotzagerBattles & Events · briefFlight of the Tarniach and the Kotzager from the Göktürks to the Avar khan in Europe, which Theophylact sets at the time of Turum's revolt. The Avars gained ten thousand men by it.
Following in DeathReligionsRetainers who took their lives after their lord's death. The Tang histories record two Göktürks who followed Ilig Khan in death after he died a captive at Chang'an in 634.
Former YanStates · briefThe first state of the Murong, 337 to 370. It broke Buyeo and struck Goguryeo, then took northern China and lost it to the Former Qin.
Fourteen (Köčürmä Oyun)Customs & Pastimes · briefGame drawn on the ground and played with hazelnuts, called köčürmä oyun and glossed 'Fourteen' in Kashgari's dictionary of the 1070s. Four lines make the fortress and ten more the gates.
FufuluoLineages · briefClan of the Gaoche, the tenth of their twelve. Its chief Afuzhiluo led the Gaoche out of the Rouran khaganate in 487 and founded their kingdom north-west of Gaochang.
Fulin KhanInstitutions and Titles · briefGöktürk khan's title named after the wolf and its greed to kill. The Tongdian says that such a khan was set up at times.
Funeral Games of the Caucasian HunsCustoms & PastimesRites at the graves of the Huns north of the Caucasus, as Bishop Israyēl found them in 681 to 682: drums, cuts on the cheek, sword fights between troops, wrestling and galloping horsemen.
Funeral of Istemi (576)Battles & EventsGöktürk funeral rites for Istemi, held in 576 by his son Turxanthos before the Roman envoys, who had to cut their faces, while four Hunnic captives were set beside the dead khan's horses.
Funi RehanInstitutions and Titles · briefGöktürk title tied to the word for wine. The Tongdian makes the rehan the officer who watched over wrongdoing and kept the order of precedence.
FuriPeoplesForest and marsh people east of the Kirghiz in the Muslim geographers, written Fūrī or Qūrī, called man-eaters in the Ḥudūd. Usually taken for the Kurykan.
Furs and Musk among the Turkic PeoplesInstitutions and TitlesSable, squirrel, ermine, fox and musk from the forests north and east of the steppe. The Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam of 982 lists them people by people, and Bilge Khan's inscription names sables among the gifts.
Futu KhanPersonsSon and successor of Nagai, khan of the Rouran from about 506 to 508. The Wei twice refused his request for peace. He marched west and was killed by the Gaoche king Mi'etu.
Fuzhulei ChanyuPersonsChanyu of the Xiongnu, 31 to 20 BC. He was the first of Huhanye's sons to take the throne in the order of brothers. After his father's death, he married Wang Zhaojun. He kept the Han peace.

G

GaisericPersonsKing of the Vandals in Africa. In Jordanes he bribed Attila to attack the Visigoths in 451; after the murder of Valentinian III in 455 he sacked Rome.
Galla PlacidiaPersonsRoman empress, daughter of the emperor Theodosius and mother of Valentinian III and Honoria. When Honoria's appeal to Attila was discovered in 450, she took her daughter into her keeping.
Ganzhou Uyghur KingdomStates · briefUyghur state in the Gansu corridor, one of the polities that arose from the Uyghurs after 840. It controlled the caravan routes to the west until the Tanguts took its capital in 1028.
Gao HuanPersonsGeneral who held the eastern Wei court from 534 to 547 and founded the power of the Northern Qi house. He won Anagui away from the Western Wei and in 546 married the khan's daughter.
Gao KanPersonsThe Tang commander who took Chebi Khan in 650 by raising the Uyghurs and the Pugu against him. He beat a khan without fighting his army.
GaochangPlacesThe kingdom of the Turfan depression, Karakhoja, ruled by the Qu family from 502 to 640. Xizhou under the Tang from 640, Qocho under the Uyghurs.
GaocheStates · briefState of the Gaoche, the "high carts", west of the Rouran, 487 to the 540s. Afuzhiluo broke away from the Rouran with more than a hundred thousand tents and took the title of great son of heaven.
Gaoche secession (487)ConflictsThe departure of more than a hundred thousand Gaoche tents from the Rouran khaganate in 487. North-west of Gaochang they founded a kingdom of their own.
Gaoche Thunder RiteReligionsRite of the Gaoche at a place struck by thunder, recorded in the Wei Shu. In the autumn after the strike they buried a ram, lit a fire and rode a hundred circuits while a female shaman prayed.
Gardīzī (Zayn al-akhbār)Sources · briefPersian history of about 1050 with chapters on the Turkic peoples. It gives the road from the Toghuzghuz to the Kirghiz khan's encampment and draws, like the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, on an older common source.
Gate of SulPlacesFortified gate on the northern frontier of Sasanian Persia, walled by Khosrow I. The khagan Sinjibu turned back before it, according to Tabari. It lay in Gurgan or at the Caucasus.
Geli DaguanInstitutions and Titles · briefGöktürk title formed on geli, the word for old, and the rank daguan. The Tongdian gives it among the early titles that took their names from age.
GepidsPeoples · briefGermanic people, subjects of the Huns under Attila. Their king Ardaric led the subject peoples against Attila's sons, won at the Nedao in 454 and took the Hunnic seats in Dacia.
GhulamInstitutions and Titles · briefThe slave soldier of the caliphs and of the eastern Muslim dynasties, bought as a boy and trained as a page. Most were Turks from beyond the Syr Darya, sold through the markets of Samarkand and Chach.
GoguryeoStatesKingdom of the northern Korean peninsula and southern Manchuria until 668. Three Chinese dynasties exhausted themselves in wars against it. According to some scholars it is the Bökli of the Orkhon inscriptions.
Göktürk Aid to Li Yuan (617)Battles & EventsAlliance of Shibi Khan with Li Yuan, the future founder of the Tang, in his rising of 617. Shibi sent him horses and riders under Kang Shaoli, and Göktürk troops joined the march on Chang'an.
Göktürk campaign against the Kirghiz (710)Battles & EventsWinter campaign of the Göktürks over the Kögmen against the Kirghiz, in 710 by the usual reckoning. Tonyukuk planned it, and the Kirghiz khan was killed, which broke the coalition against Kapgan.
Göktürk Dress and HairInstitutions and TitlesClothing and hair of the Göktürks as their neighbours saw them: robes closed on the left, furs and coarse wool, hair worn long or plaited. In 585 a khan called the plaits too old a custom to change.
Göktürk Expansion along the Silk RoadConflictsGöktürk advance from the Seven Rivers to the Oxus and the Caucasus, 553 to 629. Istemi began it in 553. It made the Göktürks masters of the Sogdian silk trade and enemies of Sasanian Persia.
Göktürk Expansion into EuropeConflictsAdvance of the western Göktürks from the Volga to the Crimea, about 557 to 598, which made them masters of the Pontic steppe and brought them into alliance with Byzantium.
Göktürk Face-CuttingReligionsThe Göktürk mourning rite: the kin of the dead cut their faces with knives until blood and tears ran together. Described by the Zhou Shu and the Sui Shu, and performed by Roman envoys in 576.
Göktürk GamesCustoms & PastimesThe pastimes the Chinese histories ascribe to the Göktürks: a men's game called chupu in Chinese and a ball game of the women. In 599 two refugees from the steppe played chupu at the Sui court.
Göktürk IronworkingInstitutions and TitlesThe ironwork of the Ashina, smiths of the Rouran on the Altai before 546. Anagui called Bumin his smith slave, and in 569 Göktürks offered iron for sale to a Roman embassy in Sogdiana.
Göktürk–Persian war, 588–589ConflictsThe first great Göktürk–Persian war, 588–589. A Göktürk army crossed the Oxus and took Herat, and Bahram Chobin destroyed it, a victory that carried him into revolt against his king.
Göktürk prisoners with the cross (591)Battles & EventsGöktürk captives from Bahram Chobin's army, sent by Khosrow II to the emperor Maurice in 591, who bore a cross on their foreheads, put there by their mothers against the plague.
Göktürk raid of 542Battles & EventsGöktürk raid on the Western Wei frontier at Liangu in the twelfth month of 542, the first dated one of the raids the Göktürks made every winter. Yuwen Ce had piles of firewood fired along the roads. The Göktürks took them for an army, fled and left their livestock and baggage behind.
Göktürk Succession Crisis (581)Battles & EventsThe assembly at Ötüken after Taspar's death, which overrode the dead khan's wish and chose Amrak. He abdicated for Ishbara, and the princes went to civil war.
Göktürk war of restoration, 679–687ConflictsThe Göktürks of the Ordos rose twice against Tang rule, in 679 and in 681, and raided for a decade after. The first rising was crushed. The second founded the Second Khaganate.
Göktürk WeaponsInstitutions and TitlesThe arms of the Göktürks: bows and whistling arrows, armour, lances, sabres and swords, as the Chinese histories list them. A Zhou general who fought beside them in 564 called their armour poor.
Göktürk–Wei Campaign against Tuyuhun (556)Battles & EventsJoint campaign of Mukan Khan and the Western Wei general Shi Ning against the Tuyuhun in 556. They took the towns of Shudun and Hezhen and the wife and children of the Tuyuhun ruler Kualü.
GöktürksPeoplesThe self-designation of the people ruled by the Ashina, attested in the runiform inscriptions of the eighth century.
Gol ModPlacesName of two Xiongnu cemeteries in Mongolia. Gol Mod 2, in the Khanui valley, has some 570 stone tombs, among them the largest Xiongnu tomb known, 83 metres long with its ramp.
Gold and Silver in the Orkhon InscriptionsInstitutions and TitlesGold and silver in the Orkhon inscriptions. Chinese envoys bring them to the funerals of Kül Tegin and Bilge Khan, and Bilge Khan names them among the gifts that draw in distant peoples.
Gold and Silver Vessels as Tang Gifts to the UyghursInstitutions and TitlesGold and silver vessels that the Tang court gave to the Uyghurs in 757, 758 and 813. In 758 the Uyghur khan shared the whole gift among his officers and chiefs.
Gold of the Xiongnu CourtInstitutions and TitlesGold in the Xiongnu sources: burials with gold and silver, and a gold-adorned belt with a gold belt ornament that the Han emperor sent the chanyu in 174 BC. The gift of 51 BC again names gold.
GothsPeoples · briefGermanic people north of the Black Sea and on the lower Danube. The Huns broke the eastern Goths in the 370s and ruled them until after Attila; the western Goths fought him in Gaul in 451.
Gouzhu PassPlaces · briefMountain pass in northern Shanxi on the road from Mayi to Taiyuan. The Xiongnu crossed it in 200 BC; in 619 Shibi Khan sent the warlord Liu Wuzhou into it with Göktürk riders.
Grape Wine in Central AsiaFoodsWine pressed from grapes in the oases of Central Asia, recorded from Dayuan to Gaochang. Menander says the Roman envoys at Istemi's feast in 569 drank none, because the land bore no vine.
Great KhanInstitutions and TitlesTitle by which the Chinese histories set one Göktürk khan above the others, written 大可汗. Tulan claimed it in 597, and the Sui promised it to Shegui in 610 to split the west.
Gulun WuguPeoples · briefTiele tribe, the ninth of the nine of the Toquz Oghuz in the Tang Huiyao, ranked with the others only after the Tianbao era.
GurganPlacesProvince at the south-eastern corner of the Caspian, the Hyrcania of the Greeks. Khosrow I ringed it with fortresses, and its stone built the walls of Sul, before which a khagan turned back.

H

Han Bestowals on the ChanyuInstitutions and TitlesGifts of the Han court to a chanyu at audience, 51 BC to AD 143: regalia, horses, gold, cash, grain and silk. By 1 BC the silk reached 30,000 bolts, and in AD 50 a yearly gift began.
Han campaigns against the Northern XiongnuConflictsDestruction of the Northern Xiongnu by Han, Southern Xiongnu, Xianbei and Wuhuan armies, AD 87 to 93. The Xianbei killed the Youliu Chanyu and took his skin. Four campaigns ended the northern realm. What was left of it went west.
Han dynastyStatesChinese empire of 202 BC to AD 220, adversary and paymaster of the Xiongnu. Its historians wrote almost everything that is known about them.
Han Military Farms in the Western RegionsInstitutions and TitlesFarms worked by Han soldiers and convicts at Luntai, Quli, Cheshi and Yixun. The Han and the Xiongnu fought over Cheshi's fields before the Han took the Western Regions in 60 BC.
Han Reply to the Northern Xiongnu (AD 52)Battles & Events · briefReply of the Han court in AD 52 to the Northern chanyu, who had sent horses and furs and asked again for friendship. On Ban Biao's advice it sent silk and weapons and declined to send instruments.
Han ShuSourcesDynastic history of the Former Han. Chapter 94 is the fullest early account of the Xiongnu, chapter 96 of the Wusun and the Western Regions.
HebeiPlacesCountry 河北 north of the Yellow River and east of the Taihang mountains. Göktürk horsemen raided it with the rebel Liu Heita in 622, and Kapgan Khan carried off its people in 698.
Hegemony Wars in Northern ChinaConflictsThe century of wars that followed the break-up of the Northern Wei in 534. First two Weis, then Qi against Zhou, then Sui against Chen, and last the wars that made the Tang.
HeicheziPeoplesPeople called the Black Carts, with whom the Uyghur khan Ögä took refuge after 843. The Xin Tangshu has them kill him for a Tang reward, and a Tang letter calls them a Shiwei people.
Helan Suni QueInstitutions and Titles · briefGöktürk title formed on helan, the word for horse, and suni, the officer who commanded troops. The Tongdian gives it among the early titles that took their names from animals.
Heng'anPlacesFrontier garrison town of the Sui and Tang in northern Shanxi. Tardush beat a Sui army there; from 623 to 627 it was the base of a Chinese warlord allied with Ilig Khan.
HephthalitesPeoplesThe last of the Hunnic powers of Central Asia, a confederation rather than a people, crushed between Istemi and Khosrow I about 560.
HeqinInstitutions and TitlesThe Han settlement with the Xiongnu after Baideng: an imperial bride, fixed yearly deliveries of silk and food, open frontier markets, and an oath that made the two rulers brothers.
HeracliusPersonsEmperor of the eastern Romans, 610 to 641. In the war with Persia he renewed the alliance with the western Göktürks, whose army joined him before Tiflis in 627.
HeratPlacesCity of Khurasan on the Hari Rud, the Haraiwa of the Achaemenid satrapies. Tabari's Šāba advanced to it in 588, and Bahram Chobin marched beyond it to kill him.
HermanaricPersons · briefKing of the Greuthungi, the Ostrogoths of the Gothic tradition, north of the Black Sea. The Huns broke his realm in the 370s, and he took his own life.
Hesa KhanPersonsLast khan of the Uyghur khaganate, 839 to 840. Raised to the throne after the coup of the minister Kürabir, never invested by the Tang, and killed when the Kirghiz took the court.
Heshana KhanPersonsKhan of the western Göktürks, 603 to about 611, and Tardush's successor. Deposed by his sub-khan Shegui and executed at Chang'an by eastern Göktürk envoys in 619.
Hezhi KhanPersons · briefKhan named in the Sui edict of 583 as the slayer of the Göktürk Suopi Shad. The edict recalls the killing as one sign that the Göktürks were surrounded by enemies.
History of the Turkic peoplesPeoplesThe history of the Turkic-speaking steppe peoples, with their land, economy and belief, from the Bronze Age through the Xiongnu and the Göktürk and Uyghur khaganates to the Kirghiz and the Khazars.
HonoriaPersonsSister of the western emperor Valentinian III. Her appeal to Attila in 450, with her ring, gave him a claim to her hand and to half the western empire.
Honour of Death in BattleInstitutions and Titles · briefThe value the Chinese histories ascribe to the Göktürks: death in battle was an honour, death from illness a shame, and men in their prime counted for more than the old.
Hormizd IVPersonsSasanian king of kings, 579 to 590, son of Khosrow I and, by the Persian tradition, grandson of a Göktürk khagan. In his reign the first great Göktürk–Persian war was fought.
Horse and Camel Races at the Xiongnu SacrificesCustoms & PastimesRunning of horses and camels at the three yearly sacrifices of the Southern Xiongnu, in the first, fifth and ninth month. The Hou Han Shu says the tribes ran them for pleasure after the council.
Horse harnessInstitutions and TitlesBridle, bit, saddle and stirrup. Each addition changed what a rider could do, and the bridle is dated to about the seventh century BC in the Altai.
Horse Market at the Western Shouxiang City (727)Battles & Events · briefTang permission of 727 for a frontier market for Bilge Khan, who had handed over a Tibetan letter. Two Tang histories call the yearly silk a gift, a third calls it the price of horses.
Horse SacrificeReligionsKilling of a horse as an offering among the steppe peoples. The Chinese histories give it at the sacrifice to heaven, at funerals and at oaths. The full rite, with its birch, its goose and its journey through the heavens, is known from the Altai of the nineteenth century.
Horses in Göktürk LawInstitutions and TitlesThe penalties of the Göktürks that name the horse: death for stealing a horse's tether, a repayment of ten times or more for stolen horses, and a horse as the price of a broken limb. The Chinese histories give the rules in one sentence, and the Tuyuhun had a harsher one.
Hou Han ShuSourcesDynastic history of the Later Han, compiled in the fifth century. Chapter 89 treats the southern Xiongnu, chapter 90 the Xianbei who took their place.
Hoyto Tamir inscriptionsSourcesThirty-four painted runiform texts on the Tayhar rock by the Tamir river in Mongolia. Three have animal-year dates that have been placed in 753 and 756, and three name a journey to Beshbalik.
HuPeoples · briefThe Chinese word for the peoples of the north and north-west. In the Han texts it names the Xiongnu; in the Göktürk and Tang period it mostly means the Sogdians and other Iranian-speakers.
HuaihuangPlacesThe easternmost of the Six Garrisons of the Northern Wei. North of it Bumin destroyed the main Rouran army between February and early March 552, and the khaganate ended.
Huaixin's campaign against the KirghizBattles & Events · briefVictory of the Uyghur prince who became khan as Huaixin over the Kirghiz, told on the Karabalghasun stele. His arrow killed the Kirghiz khan. The stele is undated.
Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlamSourcesAnonymous Persian geography of 982, the Regions of the World. It lists the Turkic peoples region by region, with their neighbours, their trade and their rulers.
Huhanye ChanyuPersonsChanyu of the Xiongnu, 58 to 31 BC. He was beaten in the war of the five chanyus. He went to Chang'an and bowed, and by bowing kept the throne that his rivals lost.
Hulü GuangPersons · briefThe Northern Qi general who held the southern front in 564 and beat Daxi Wu there while the Göktürks lay before Jinyang.
Hulü KhanPersonsYounger brother and successor of Shelun, khan of the Rouran 410 to 414. He kept the peace with the Wei. His ministers seized him in his tent after his nephew's intrigue.
Hulugu ChanyuPersonsChanyu of the Xiongnu, 96 to 85 BC. He took the surrender of the Han general Li Guangli in 90 BC and had him killed in sacrifice. At his death Wei Lü and the consort set up his son, not his brother.
Hun (Tiele tribe)Peoples · briefOne of the nine Tiele tribes of the Toquz Oghuz. Its chieftaincy stayed in one family for several generations, and Hun Shizhi led it into Tang service.
Hunnic CauldronsInstitutions and TitlesCast copper cauldrons with solid conical stands and scalloped lugs, found from Silesia to the High Altai. They were cooking vessels cast by Hunnic smiths and have close kin in the Xiongnu cauldrons.
Hunnic conquest of the GothsConflictsWar of the 370s in which the Huns, after subduing the Alans of the Don, broke the Gothic realm of Hermanaric north of the Black Sea and drove the Goths to the Roman frontier.
Hunnic DiademsInstitutions and Titles · briefHeadbands of gold sheet over bronze plaques, set with almandines or glass in cells, from graves between Hungary and Kazakhstan. They are the finest goldwork that archaeology ties to the Huns.
Hunnic EmpireStatesThe realm of the Huns in Europe, from their conquest of the Alans and Goths in the 370s to the death of Attila's son Dengizich in 469. Under Attila it ruled from the Caucasus to the Rhine.
Hunnic invasion of 395ConflictsHun raid across the Caucasus in 395 into the Roman East and the Persian empire. The Huns ravaged Armenia, Cappadocia and Syria, rode to Ctesiphon and drove thousands of captives north.
Hunnic invasion of Gaul, 451ConflictsAttila's campaign of 451 from Pannonia across the Rhine into Gaul. It took Metz, failed before Orléans and ended at the battle on the Catalaunian Plains against Aetius and the Visigoths.
Hunnic invasion of Italy, 452ConflictsAttila's campaign of 452 across the Julian Alps into northern Italy. The Huns destroyed Aquileia and took Milan; famine, disease and an eastern attack on their homeland drove them back.
HunsPeoplesNomadic people who entered Europe in the 370s and under Attila ruled from the Caucasus to the Rhine. Their empire broke apart after 453. Their identity with the Xiongnu is debated.
Hunting among the GöktürksCustoms & PastimesHunting as a livelihood and a pastime of the Göktürks. The Zhou Shu names it beside herding, and the Tonyukuk inscription has the first Göktürks of the restored khaganate living on game.
Hunye KingPersonsXiongnu king of the west, 121 BC. He killed the Xiutu king and surrendered to the Han with his people. The Han made him a marquis. His land became the commanderies of Wuwei and Jiuquan.
HuoPlacesCountry of Tokharistan on the Oxus and seat of Tardu Shad, eldest son of the western Yabgu Khan, about 630. Its Göktürk king ruled the small states south of the Iron Gate.
Huo QubingPersonsHan general who took the Gansu corridor from the Xiongnu in 121 BC, when the Hunye king came over with his people. In 119 he beat the Left Worthy King north of the Gobi.
Huyandi ChanyuPersonsChanyu of the Xiongnu, 85 to 68 BC. A forged order set him on the throne young, and he reigned seventeen years. Five Han armies and the Wusun struck him in 72 BC. The winter after cost three in ten of his people.

I

Ibn FadlanSourcesReport of an Abbasid embassy that travelled from Baghdad to the Volga Bulgars in 921 and 922. The one eyewitness account of the Oguz, and a description of the Khazar state from just outside it.
Ibn RustaSourcesArabic geographical encyclopaedia of about 903. It says that the Khazar ruler and his circle are Jews and that the rest keep a faith like that of the Turks. Part of its material is older.
IdiInstitutions and Titles · briefOld Turkic word for a lord or master. The Kül Tegin inscription uses it in the formula that land and water must not be left without one, and Rashīd ad-Dīn names it a rank of Kirghiz nobles.
IkarPlaces · briefPlace in wide plains, four hundred miles from the Golden Mountain, where a Göktürk khagan and three allied khagans defeated the rebel Turum, according to Theophylact Simocatta.
IldicoPersons · briefAttila's last wife, whom he married early in 453 on the night before his death. Her name is Germanic.
Ilig KhanPersonsLast khan of the eastern Göktürks, 620 to 630. He stood before Chang'an in 626 and swore peace on the Bian bridge over the Wei, was taken alive in 630 and died a captive in 634.
Ilig Khan's Dance at the Weiyang Palace (633)Battles & EventsDance of the captive Ilig Khan at a feast of the retired Tang emperor Gaozu in the old Han palace of Weiyang, late in 633. Gaozu hailed Hu and Yue as one family; Ilig died weeks later.
IlligInstitutions and Titles · briefElement of the title Illig Khan, written 伊利, which Bumin took in 552 after the fall of the Rouran. Ishbara's title begins with the same word.
IlteberInstitutions and TitlesThe rank of a subject ruler: a man left on his own throne under a khan not of his people, with a tax officer beside him. Attested from the Caucasus to Turfan.
Ilterish KhanPersonsFounder and first ruler of the Second Göktürk Empire in 682 and father of Bilge Khan and Kül Tegin.
InalInstitutions and Titles · briefTitle of the Kirghiz princes before the Mongol conquest, according to Rashīd ad-Dīn. It appears also among the Kimek and the Oghuz, and the Chinese 阿熱 has been identified with it.
Inel KhanPersonsSon of Kapgan Khan, made Lesser Khan over the Ten Surnames of the west in 699. He led the army against the Türgesh and was killed by his cousin Kül Tegin in 716.
Irbis Ishbara Yabgu KhanPersonsKhan of the Nushibi from 639 to 641, nephew of Ishbara Tolis. He held the Southern Court with the oasis states from Kucha to Samarkand under him, and was killed on Yukuk Shad's orders.
Irbis Shegui KhanPersonsKhan of the Nushibi from 642 to 651, grandson of Ishbara Tolis, chosen with a Tang envoy present. He drove Yukuk Shad to Tokharistan and lost his people to Ashina Helu.
Irk BitigSourcesThe one long text in runiform script on paper: sixty-five omens copied at a Dunhuang monastery. The colophon gives the monastery, the day and the people it was written for.
IrkinInstitutions and TitlesA chief's rank at the lower end of the twenty-eight grades. Five irkins held the Nushibi wing of the western khaganate, and the chiefs the Tang bought carry this title most often.
Iron GatePlaces · briefThe defile south of Samarkand that the Orkhon inscriptions name as the western limit of Göktürk campaigning. Tonyukuk says the army reached it and the Sogdians came in.
Iron MountainPlacesMountain to which Ilig Khan fled with several tens of thousands of men in 630. There Li Jing broke him while Tang envoys were in his camp, and the eastern khaganate ended.
Iron of the BayeguInstitutions and Titles · briefFine iron of the Bayegu, a Tiele people east of the Pugu, in the Tang histories. The Xin Tang Shu and the Tongdian both name iron among the products of their country, beside good horses.
Ishbara KhanPersonsSon of Issik and lesser khan under Taspar. He forced the assembly of 581 to pass over Töremen, invaded China, drove Apa west, and in 585 became a vassal of the Sui.
Ishbara's Hunt (587)Battles & EventsHunt of Ishbara Khan between Heng and Dai in the first month of 587, by leave of the Sui emperor. He killed eighteen deer in one day, and his royal tent burned on the way back.
Ishbara (Title)Institutions and TitlesGöktürk title for the brave and strong. Ishbara Khan bore it among his titles, a man on the Kül Tegin stone carried it before his name, and two western khans of the Tang era kept it.
Ishbara Tolis KhanPersonsKhan of the western Göktürks from 634 to 639, brother and successor of Duolu Khan Nishu. He divided his people into the Ten Arrows, lost the north to Yukuk Shad, and died in Ferghana.
IslamReligionsThe religion of the Arab conquerors, which reached the Oxus in the eighth century. It came to the Turkic peoples from the south, through the cities of Transoxiana, and not by conquest from the west.
Issik KhanPersonsEldest son of Bumin and second khan of the Göktürks. He finished the Rouran on the Ordos in 553 and died within the year.
Issyk inscriptionSourcesInscription on a silver cup from the Issyk kurgan near Almaty, fifth to third century BC. Some scholars call its signs early runes, others the script of Iranian nomads. Outside the secured corpus.
Issyk-KulPlacesLake in the mountains of the Tian Shan, the Great Clear Lake of Xuanzang. The pilgrim followed its shore to Suyab and the court of the western Göktürk khan.
IstemiPersonsBumin's younger brother, yabgu of the west for twenty-three years. He destroyed the Hephthalites with Persia, took Sogdiana, and doubled the khaganate.
Istemi's campaign against Persia, 569Battles & EventsGöktürk campaign against Sasanian Persia in 569 or 570, on which Istemi took the Roman envoy Zemarchos. At Talas Istemi set Rome above Persia before the Persian envoy.
ItilPlacesCapital of the Khazar Khaganate on the lower Volga. Arabic geographers describe a city on both banks of the river. Its site has not been found.
ItimariPeoples · briefPeople on the lower Danube in the fifth century, among those whom the Hun king Rua wanted to fight because they had fled to the Romans. Their origin is unknown.
IvolgaPlaces · briefFortified Xiongnu settlement in Buryatia, about 7 hectares, with ditches, a palisade, dwellings with heating flues and storage pits. Its finds include barley, wheat, millet and sickles.
IyeReligionsThe owner-spirits of the Turkic peoples, held to possess a mountain, a water, a hearth, a house or a pass. The word for owner, idi, stands on the Orkhon stones, said of land and water.

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Jabogan inscriptionSources · briefFive runiform lines on a split rock from Jabogan in the Altai Republic, found in 1927 and again in 2004. One line names three saddled horses. The stone is undated.
Jade GatePlacesGate of the Han frontier in the desert west of Dunhuang, 玉門關. Wudi's line of posts ended at it, and the roads into the Tarim began there. The Tang histories still set Shegui's realm by it.
Jian RiverPlaces · briefRiver of the Zhou Shu's Suo origin story of the Göktürks. A son of Yizhi Nishidu founded the state of Qigu between it and the Afu. It is identified with the upper Yenisei.
JiaohePlacesWalled city of the Turfan basin on an island between two river arms. Capital of the Former Cheshi, it gave its name to a title at the court of Gaochang and to the Tang army that marched against it.
JiePeoples · briefA group counted among the Xiongnu in the Chinese records of the fourth century. Shi Le founded the Later Zhao out of them, and one recorded sentence of their speech is at the centre of the debate over their origin.
Jin MidiPersonsSon of the Xiutu king, taken into the Han palace at fourteen in 121 BC. He saved the emperor Wudi from the assassin Mang Heluo and became a regent for the child emperor Zhao.
Jin RiverPlaces · briefRiver 金河 on the Sui frontier, up which the emperor Yangdi travelled in 607 to Yami Khan's camp. A town of that name was built for Yami in 600, and in 629 a Tang army marched by the Jinhe road.
JingyangPlaces · briefCounty in the capital region of the Tang. There Yuchi Jingde beat Ilig Khan's army in 626 and took an irkin captive, days before Ilig reached the Wei river.
JinyangPlaces · briefThe Northern Qi's second capital in Shanxi and its garrison against the steppe. A Göktürk and Zhou army lay before it through the winter of 563 and failed to take it.
Jinyang campaign, 563–564Battles & EventsThe winter campaign that brought a Göktürk and Zhou army before the second capital of the Northern Qi. The city held, the assault of 564 failed, and Mukan plundered and went home.
Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang)SourcesThe first official history of the Tang, completed 945; the principal Chinese source for the western Göktürks after 618, the Ten Arrows and the Türgesh.
JiuquanPlacesTown and commandery 酒泉 in Gansu. The first envoy to the Göktürks, the Sogdian An Nuopantuo, came from it in 545; Taspar Khan besieged it in 578, and Tardush attacked it.
John of EphesusSourcesSyriac church history by John, Monophysite bishop of Ephesus, written at Constantinople in the 570s and 580s. Its sixth book carries the earliest account of Zemarchus's embassy to the Göktürks.
JordanesSourcesLatin history of the Goths, written by a Goth in 551 as an abridgment of the lost Gothic history of Cassiodorus. It contains the fullest surviving account of Attila, drawn from Priscus.
Joseph of KhazariaPersonsKhazar ruler of the mid-tenth century, writer of the reply to Hasdai ibn Shaprut of Córdoba. He lists his Jewish royal line from Bulan to himself and tells of guarding the river mouth against the Rus.
Jujian TeginPersons · briefGöktürk tegin whom Chula Khan left at Bingzhou in 620, after his men had plundered the city, to help the Tang hold their garrison.
Junchen ChanyuPersonsChanyu of the Xiongnu, about 161 to 126 BC. The heqin settlement held for the first half of his reign and collapsed at Mayi. The Han offensives of Wudi began under him.
Justin IIPersonsEmperor of the eastern Romans, 565 to 578. He received Maniakh's embassy in 568, sent Zemarchos to Istemi, and made the alliance with the Göktürks against Persia.

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Kabar RevoltBattles & EventsSecession and civil war among the Khazars, after which the Kabars left Khazaria and joined the Hungarians. Constantine VII is the one source. Its date lies between about 780 and 881.
KabarsPeoplesGroup of Khazar origin that left the khaganate after a civil war and joined the Hungarian union. Constantine VII calls them the first of its clans.
Kam (Turkic Shaman)ReligionsThe Old Turkic ritual specialist. Chinese observers describe the office, and a Byzantine embassy saw it at work once, in 569.
KamosFoods · briefBarley drink of the villages in Attila's realm, recorded by Priscus in 449. Its name has been derived from the Turkic word for kumys, and traced to Pannonia before the Huns.
Kang ShaoliPersons · briefGöktürk tegin whom Shibi Khan sent with horses to Li Yuan, the founder of the Tang, during his rising of 617. Two months later he came back with Göktürk soldiers.
Kang SumiPersons · briefChief of the hu at the court of Ilig Khan, regarded as a Sogdian. In 630 he went over to the Tang with the Sui empress Xiao and Yang Zhengdao and became a Tang governor-general.
KangjuPeoplesNomad power of the middle Syr Darya in the Han sources, later lord of Sogdiana. It invited Zhizhi west, who was killed there in 36 BC. Its name became Kang, the Chinese surname of the Sogdians.
Kapgan KhanPersonsSecond khan of the Second Göktürk Khaganate, 691 to 716. He raided China to the plain of Hebei and destroyed the Türgesh; killed by a Bayirku straggler in a willow wood.
Kapgan's Request for Farm Tools and Iron (698)Battles & EventsKapgan Khan's demand to the Tang court in 698 for seed, farm tools and iron. After he seized an envoy, the court gave him grain, tools and households, and the Göktürks grew stronger.
Kapgan's wars with the Tang, 698–716ConflictsThe wars of Kapgan Khan against the Tang, 698 to 716. For eighteen years he took what he wanted and gave nothing back. A marriage refused, Hebei sacked, six prefectures handed over.
Kapgan's western war, 709–713ConflictsCampaign of 709 to 713, the furthest reach of the Second Khaganate. The Göktürks attacked the Kirghiz in winter, destroyed the Türgesh khan at Bolchu and sent a column beyond the Oxus.
Kara-Khanid KhanateStates · briefThe first Muslim Turkic state, formed from a federation of tribes west of the Tianshan. It took Transoxiana from the Samanids in 999 and Khotan in 1006. Mahmud al-Kashgari came from it.
Karabalghasun inscriptionSourcesTrilingual stele from the Uyghur capital on the Orkhon, found in 1889. The only early source for the Uyghur conversion to Manichaeism.
KarashahrPlacesOasis kingdom between Gaochang and Kucha, called Yanqi by the Chinese. Channels watered its fields and a lake gave it fish and salt. It served the western Göktürks until the Tang took it.
KarlukPeoplesTurkic tribal group of the Altai. They revolted against Tong Yabgu about 627, moved into the western Göktürk lands about 745, and defected to the Arabs on the Talas in 751.
Karluk Yabgu StateStates · briefRealm of the Karluk confederation in the former western Göktürk lands, ruled by a yabgu, from about 745. By the middle of the tenth century it reached from the Oghuz borders to Tibet.
Kartlis TskhovrebaSourcesThe collection of Georgian chronicles. Its account of Heraclius's war brings 'Turks from the west' to the siege of Tiflis and names an eristaw Djibghou, whom some identify with the yabgu.
KashgarPlacesOasis kingdom at the western end of the Tarim Basin, called Shule by the Chinese. It lay on the road to the Pamirs. Its rice, millet, metals and brocade were supplied to the Göktürks every year.
KatulphPersonsHephthalite noble of the sixth century, known only from Menander. He went over to the Göktürks, then to Persia, and advised Khosrow I to burn the silk of the Sogdian embassy.
KatunInstitutions and TitlesThe khan's consort, named beside him in the formula of rule. The inscriptions have Heaven raise khan and katun together; a regency in her hands ended the Second Khaganate.
KayenPersonsGöktürk princess, wife of the Persian king Khosrow I and mother of Hormizd IV. She may have been a daughter of Istemi, married to Khosrow to seal the Oxus frontier about 560.
KebinengPersons · briefXianbei chief who brought much of the confederation under one hand in the 220s and 230s. A Chinese governor had him assassinated in 235, and what he had built fell apart.
Keluo ChuoInstitutions and Titles · briefGöktürk title formed on the word for black and the rank chur. The Tongdian calls it a very high office, held by men of great age.
KemijkatPlaces · briefTown where the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam of 982 has the Kirghiz khan live, the only town of the country. Its name may be a garbled Midizhi, the khan's camp of the Tang histories, or Kemijkat on the Kem.
KeshPlacesSogdian town and kingdom south of Samarkand, called Shi by the Chinese, on the road to the Iron Gate and Tokharistan. Under the Sui its lord built a new town of some 20,000 households.
KhalajPeoples · briefTurkic-speaking people of Afghanistan, named in a Bactrian manuscript of 711 and by the geographers of the tenth century. Their language survives in central Iran.
Khan (Khagan)Institutions and TitlesThe title of the supreme ruler of the steppe, taken by Bumin from the Rouran in 552. Its forms, its history and the ranks around it are set out here, and here alone.
Khazar Customs and TributeInstitutions and TitlesRevenue of the Khazar khagan: a tenth on goods that crossed his land, and tribute in kind from subject peoples, paid in swords, pelts and money. The Bulgar king passed marten skins up the same chain.
Khazar Dual KingshipInstitutions and TitlesThe rule of the Khazars divided between a sacral khagan, who reigned, and a king, the bek, who commanded the army and governed. Its age and origin are disputed.
Khazar KhaganateStatesAshina-led Khaganate in the Ponto-Caspian steppe from 630 to 965. Its elites converted to Judaism while holding off Arab invasions into the Caucasus.
Khazar Mail and the Armourers of the CaucasusInstitutions and Titles · briefMail and iron arms in the Khazar lands in al-Masʿūdī. The Khazar king's Muslim guard rode as archers in cuirass, helmet and mail, and a Caucasian people made mail, stirrups, bits and swords.
KhitanPeoplesPeople of the pine-moors between the Xianbei and Manchuria. Tributaries of the Northern Wei from the 440s, driven east by the Göktürks under Mukan, and mourners at the Orkhon monuments.
KhorasanPlacesEastern quarter of Sasanian Persia, whose name means the east. Bahram Chobin rose from it against his king after his victory over the Göktürks, and fled through it to the khagan.
KhorezmPlaces · briefThe oasis of the lower Amu Darya south of the Aral Sea. Conquered by the Arabs under Qutayba. From the ninth century its merchants replaced the Sogdians on the road to the Volga and the Khazars.
Khöshöö TsaidamPlacesSite in the upper Orkhon valley with the memorial complexes of Kül Tegin and Bilge Khan and three smaller monuments. Yadrintsev found it in 1889, and a 1958 expedition dug the Kül Tegin complex.
Khosrow IPersonsKing of kings of Sasanian Persia, 531 to 579, and Istemi's partner in the destruction of the Hephthalites. He burned the Sogdians' silk and so sent them to Constantinople.
Khosrow's gift of maidens (573)Battles & EventsGift of 2,000 captive maidens that Khosrow I sent to the Göktürks after taking Dara in 573, to win their service. On the road the women drowned themselves in a river.
KhotanPlacesOasis kingdom on the southern edge of the Tarim Basin, on the road from the Pamirs to China. It had a Sogdian community by the third century. The Karakhanids took it in 1006.
KidaritesPeoplesHun dynasty named after its founder Kidara. It took Bactria, Gandhara and, after 440, Sogdiana. The Wei Shu calls it Xiongnu. Weakened by the Sasanians and the Hephthalites from 456.
Killing of Heshana Khan (619)Battles & EventsKilling of Heshana, the former khan of the western Göktürks, at Chang'an in 619. The Tang emperor Gaozu gave him up to Göktürk envoys who had demanded his death, and they killed him.
KimekPeoples · briefTurkic tribal union of the Irtysh and the steppes of western Siberia and Kazakhstan, north of the Qarluqs. The Kipchak, who belonged to it, later took its place.
Kimek KhaganateStates · briefState of the Kimek union on the Irtysh in the ninth to eleventh centuries, ruled by a khagan. Its wealth came from the fur trade with the Islamic lands. The Kipchak confederation succeeded it.
KipchakPeoples · briefTurkic people of the northern steppe. Kashgari counts their speech with that of the Oghuz, and later Arabic and Persian writers use their name for the whole western steppe.
Kirghiz and Tibetan troops at Hedong (890)Battles & Events · briefAttack of 890 on the Shatuo leader Li Keyong by a Tang governor and a Tuyuhun chief, with Kirghiz and Tibetan troops among the allies. Li Keyong beat the attackers.
Kirghiz campaign against the Shiwei (848)Battles & EventsAttack of the Kirghiz minister Apa on the Shiwei in spring 848, with a force said to number 70,000. He beat them and took the Uyghur remnants among them back north of the desert.
Kirghiz embassies of the Xiantong era (860–873)Battles & Events · briefThree Kirghiz embassies to the Tang court under the emperor Yizong, and an investiture of a Kirghiz ruler in 867. After them the Chinese histories lost the record.
Kirghiz Embassies to the Tang (842–848)Battles & EventsFour Kirghiz embassies to the Tang court, 842 to 844, and the investiture of the Kirghiz khan in 847. The Tang offered kinship and a Chinese title and refused the Turkic title the Kirghiz asked for.
Kirghiz embassy of 648Battles & EventsFirst visit of a Kirghiz chief to the Tang court, in 648. Shiboqu Azhan came in person, and Taizong made his land the Jiankun command and him its governor under the Yanran protectorate.
Kirghiz EntertainmentsCustoms & PastimesFour shows that the Xin Tang Shu lists for the Kirghiz of the upper Yenisei: tricks with camels, a lion performance, feats on horseback and rope skills. Their instruments included flutes and drums.
Kirghiz Iron and GoldInstitutions and TitlesMetals of the Kirghiz on the upper Yenisei in the Tang histories: gold, iron and tin. The Kirghiz made weapons of their iron, called qiasha, and regularly delivered them to the Göktürks.
KnucklebonesCustoms & Pastimes · briefGame played with the astragali of animals. Bones scratched with tamga-like signs come from Xiongnu graves, and Kashgari's dictionary has the word said when a bone falls on its underside.
KögmenPlacesWooded mountain range on the road from the Göktürk lands to the Kirghiz. The Göktürks crossed it through deep snow to destroy the Kirghiz khan; its place is identified with the Tannu-Ola or the Sayan.
KotzagerPeoples · briefPeople who fled from the Göktürks into Europe with the Tarniach and joined the Avar khan. Some scholars identify them with the Kutrigurs.
KrekaPersons · briefWife of Attila and mother of his eldest son. Priscus visited her in her house in 449 and found her among her maids, who embroidered cloths for clothing.
KuchaPlacesOasis kingdom on the northern rim of the Tarim, the largest of them. The western Göktürk khans placed their courts north of it, and the Tang made it the seat of the Anxi protectorate.
KuhanzhenPersons · briefSeventh son of Ishbara Khan, who carried his father's memorial of submission to the Sui court in 585. The emperor made him a zhuguo and duke of Anguo.
Kujie ValleyPlaces · briefValley on the northern frontier of the Sui. Southeast of it the Sui general Yang Su broke a second raid on the people of Yami Khan, the Sui client on the Göktürk throne, about 601.
Kül TeginPersonsPrince of the Second Göktürk Khaganate, younger son of Ilterish. In 716 he killed his uncle's heirs and made his brother khan; d. 731, mourned by the monument of 732.
Kül Tegin inscriptionSourcesRuniform monument of 732 on the Orkhon, with the full text of its three Turkic faces. It tells the history of the Göktürk state, the service record of one man, and a speech to the living.
Kül Tegin's HorsesInstitutions and TitlesThe mounts that the Kül Tegin inscription names in the prince's battles: grey, white, brown and chestnut horses, three of them killed under him in one fight. The text gives the colour of each horse and sometimes its name or owner.
Küli Čor inscriptionSourcesRuniform stele at Ikhe Khushotu in central Mongolia for Küli Čor, a lord of the Tardush. It tells his campaigns to the Iron Gate and his death in battle. Dated between 719 and 725.
Külüg BaghaPersonsUyghur general who went over to the Kirghiz at the turn of 839 and 840 and led their army against the Uyghur court on the Orkhon. The Chinese texts call him Julu Mohe.
Külüg ChurInstitutions and Titles · briefThe first of the great Göktürk offices in the Tongdian and the Jiu Tang Shu, written 屈律啜. It was hereditary and had no fixed number of holders.
KumysFoodsFermented mare's milk, the drink of the steppe peoples. The Chinese histories record it among the Gaoche, the Göktürks and the Kirghiz; Mahmud al-Kashgari gives its Turkic name in the 1070s.
Kün TengriReligionsThe sun as a divine power among the steppe peoples, and the god of the sun in the titles of the Uyghur khagans and in the Old Uyghur texts. The Xiongnu chanyu bowed to the rising sun, the Göktürk khan's tent opened to the east, and the Uyghur khagans ruled by the god of the sun or of the moon.
KunaxolanPersons · briefOne of three great khagans whom a Göktürk khagan called to his aid against the rebel Turum, according to Theophylact Simocatta. The Greek gives his name as Kunaxolan and as Kunaxola.
KunçuyInstitutions and Titles · briefWord for a woman of rank. The Orkhon inscriptions use it for the khan's sister and the princesses of his house, the Yenisei epitaphs for a man's wife, and Old Uyghur texts for princesses.
KürabirPersonsMinister of the last Uyghur khans. He moved against the khan in 839 with Shatuo troops and was beheaded in 840 when the Kirghiz took the court. The Chinese texts call him Jueluowu.
KurganInstitutions and Titles · briefThe burial mound of the steppe: a chamber under a heap of earth or stone, with grave goods, and often with horses. It is the single most continuous steppe practice from the Bronze Age to the Göktürks.
KursichPersons · briefHun leader who with Basich led a raid into Media, probably the invasion of 395 across the Caucasus. The two later came to Rome with many men to make an alliance.
KurykanPeoplesTiele people north of the desert, the Gulikan of the Tang, known for their horses. The Göktürk inscriptions name the Three Kurıkan as mourners of the founders and as enemies of the restored state.
Kushan EmpireStatesEmpire of Bactria and northern India, first to third century, grown out of the Yuezhi principalities. Buddhism reached China from it. The Sasanians took its lands north of the Hindu Kush in 232.
KutInstitutions and TitlesHeavenly fortune granted by Tengri, which made a man fit to rule. Part of the Xiongnu ruler's title, this mystic aura enabled charismatic steppe warriors to dominate and conquer.
Kutadgu BiligSourcesMirror for princes in Turkic verse, finished at the Karakhanid court in 1069–1070. Its four figures stand for law, Kut, intellect and the end, and it is the oldest work of Islamic Turkic literature.
Kutlug Bilge Kül KhanPersonsFounder of the Uyghur Khaganate, 744 to 747. He brought down the last Göktürk khan with the Basmıl and the Karluks, then turned on both allies in turn.
Kutluk TeginPersons · briefEnvoy of Shibi Khan to the Tang court in 618, the first year of the new dynasty. The emperor feasted him with the nine-part music and led him up onto the imperial seat.
KutrigursPeoplesHunnic steppe people west of the Sea of Azov, kin to the Utigurs. They raided the Roman Balkans in the 550s and went west with the Avars when the Göktürks came.
KyshtymPeoplesMountain people of the Kirghiz country in the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, written K.SAYM, hunters of furs and musk. The restored name Kishtim later covers the dependants of the Kirghiz.

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LacquerwareInstitutions and TitlesChinese lacquered cups, weapons, drums and fans that reached the steppe as gifts and trade, from the princely graves of the Xiongnu to the gift lists of the Wei court for the Rouran and the Gaoche.
Lady PoshiPersons · briefMother of Ilig Khan, the last khan of the eastern Göktürks. The Tang histories name her through her retainer Tuyuhun Hunye, who raised the khan from his birth.
Lady XiangPersonsChinese-born wife of Niri Khan of the western Göktürks and mother of Heshana Khan. Kept at the Sui court, she was used twice, in 608 and 611, to bring her son to submission.
Lake SevanPlaces · briefLake in Armenia, the lake of Getam of the Armenian history of the Albanians. On its banks the vanguard of the Göktürk army of the north destroyed a Persian army in 629 or 630.
Laoshang ChanyuPersonsChanyu of the Xiongnu, 174 to about 161 BC. He destroyed the Yuezhi king and made his skull a drinking cup. His court took in the Han eunuch who taught it to keep accounts.
Later HanStates · briefThird of the Shatuo dynasties of the Five Dynasties period in northern China, 947 to 951.
Later JinStates · briefSecond of the Shatuo dynasties of the Five Dynasties period in northern China, 936 to 946.
Later TangStates · briefFirst of the Shatuo dynasties of the Five Dynasties period in northern China, 923 to 936.
Later YanStates · briefThe Murong state refounded in 384 after the Former Qin collapsed. The Tuoba defeated it at Canhe Slope in 395, and it broke apart.
Lesser KhanInstitutions and Titles · briefThe second throne of the Göktürk khaganate, held under the khan. Kapgan set his own son on it, and Kül Tegin killed him on it in 716.
LevirateInstitutions and TitlesGöktürk marriage of a dead man's widows by his sons, younger brothers and nephews. The Zhou Shu and the Sui Shu record the rule, and Chinese princesses passed by it from khan to khan.
Li Chengqian's Göktürk CampBattles & EventsCamp of the Tang crown prince Li Chengqian: servants dressed as Göktürks, felt tents under five wolf-head standards, and a mock funeral of a khan with wailing, cut faces and riders circling him.
Li DeyuPersonsChief minister of the Tang under Wuzong, 840 to 846. He shaped the court's answer to the fall of the Uyghurs and wrote its letters to the Kirghiz khan. Exiled to Hainan in 848, he died there in 850.
Li Deyu's Letters to the KirghizSources · briefLetters of the Tang chief minister Li Deyu to the Kirghiz khan, written in the emperor's name from 843 to 845. They answer the envoys, claim kinship through Li Ling and refuse the title Tengri Khan.
Li GuangliPersonsHan general who took Dayuan in 102 BC. The Xiongnu surrounded him in 99, and in 90 he surrendered to the chanyu Hulugu, who gave him his daughter and later had him killed at a sacrifice.
Li JianPersons · briefKirghiz envoy at the Tang court, named in an edict of 856. He came with some Uyghurs. His Chinese surname has been taken as a trace of the Kirghiz claim of kinship with the Tang house.
Li LingPersonsHan cavalry commandant who surrendered to the Xiongnu in 99 BC after fighting the chanyu with 5,000 foot soldiers. He lived among them for twenty years. The Kirghiz named him as their ancestor.
Li Shi (Tang envoy)PersonsTang official named in 845 to carry the title of khan to the Kirghiz. Wuzong died before he left, and the embassy was never sent.
Li Ye (Tang envoy)Persons · briefTang minister of the Court of State Ceremonial, named in 847 to invest the Kirghiz as Yingwu Chengming Khan. The title was shorter than the one prepared in 845.
Liang ShuSourcesChinese history of the Liang dynasty, 502 to 557, presented in 636. Its chapter 54 holds the entry on the Hephthalites, called Hua, with their embassies of 516, 520 and 526.
LiaohaiPlaces · briefThe Liao sea of the Zhou Shu, 遼海, the eastern bound of Mukan Khan's realm. From it the realm ran ten thousand li west to the Western Sea.
Life of XuanzangSourcesBiography of the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, begun by his disciple Huili and completed by Yancong in 688. Its second book describes the pilgrim's reception by the western Yabgu Khan near Suyab.
LijichaPersons · briefGöktürk leader of the late sixth century. The Sui edict of 583 recalls that Goguryeo and the Mohe had beaten him badly, as one sign that all the Göktürks' neighbours were their enemies.
LingzhouPlacesPrefecture 靈州 on the northern frontier of Sui and Tang China. Sui armies marched against the Göktürks by its road, Ilig Khan and Kapgan Khan raided it, and Suni Shi camped north-west of it.
Livestock in the Hudud al-AlamInstitutions and TitlesThe herds of the Turkic peoples in the Hudud al-Alam of 982: sheep in every notice, horses in all but the Kimek, cows in four of eight, no camels. Marvazi adds why the Kimek kept none.
Livestock Losses in the AnnalsInstitutions and TitlesReports of herds lost to snow, drought, locusts and disease, from the Xiongnu of 105 BC to the Uyghurs of 839 and 840. The Chinese annals give the cause and, in several cases, the share of the herds that died.
Livestock RaidsInstitutions and TitlesRaids for herds in the Chinese histories and the Bilge Khan inscription, from the seven commanderies of the Sui to the Tang horse pastures of Longyou. A raid for sheep and horses brought Ilterish his first following, and Bilge Khan fed a hungry people with a captured herd.
LogadesInstitutions and Titles · briefThe leading men around Attila, so called by Priscus: Onegesius, Scottas, Edeco, Berichus and Orestes. They served as envoys and guards and governed parts of the realm.
Loose-rein prefecturesInstitutions and TitlesThe Tang device for governing surrendered steppe peoples without absorbing them: the tribe kept whole, its own chief made prefect, the unit entered on the register.
LoulanPlacesWalled town and kingdom on the Salt Marsh, the Lop Nor, at the eastern end of the Tarim. Under Chinese garrisons in the third and fourth centuries, a meeting place of Indians, Chinese and Sogdians.
LuandiLineagesThe royal clan of the Xiongnu. Every chanyu named in the sources belonged to it, and the later Chinese histories give its name in two forms that do not agree.
LuntaiPlaces · briefTown east of Kucha on the northern road of the Tarim Basin. The Han farmed there from about 100 BC, Li Guangli sacked it, and under the Tang its post collected the duty on the northern route.
LuoyangPlaces · briefChinese capital on the Luo river, sacked in 190, 311 and 535. The Sogdians called it Srg. Its fall in 311 to the Xiongnu of Han is reported in Ancient Letter II.

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ManiakhPersonsSogdian of standing at Istemi's court. He led the Göktürk embassy to Persia, and when Khosrow burned the silk, the embassy of 568 to Constantinople.
Maniakh's embassy to Constantinople, 568Battles & EventsGöktürk embassy to Constantinople under the Sogdian Maniakh, received by Justin II at the start of his fourth year, which made the Göktürks allies of Rome against Persia.
Manichaean Diet of the UyghursReligionsFood rules of the Manichaean clergy among the Uyghurs after the conversion of 762 and 763. They ate only late in the day, drank water, ate vegetables and refused milk.
ManichaeismReligionsThe religion of Mani, carried by the Sogdians to China and the steppe and adopted by the Uyghur khan at Luoyang in 762 and 763.
MarcianPersonsEmperor of the eastern Romans, 450 to 457. He stopped the tribute to the Huns, had Chrysaphius executed and, after Attila's death, received the peoples that broke free of Hun rule.
MargusPlacesRoman city on the Danube at the mouth of the Morava, opposite the fort of Constantia. Bleda and Attila made their first treaty with Constantinople outside it; its bishop later betrayed it to them.
Marvazī (Ṭabāʾiʿ al-ḥayawān)Sources · briefArabic compendium of about 1120 by the physician Marvazī, with chapters on the Chinese, the Turks and the Indians. Its chapter on the Turks describes the Kirghiz and their diviner, the faghīnūn.
Marwan ibn MuhammadPersons · briefUmayyad general who invaded the Khazar lands in 737 and forced the khagan to accept Islam. He later became caliph.
MaximinusPersonsEastern Roman envoy to Attila in 449, whom the historian Priscus accompanied. He was sent without knowing of the plot to murder Attila, and died in the Thebaid after a peace with the Blemmyes.
MayiPlacesWalled frontier town on the road from the steppe to Taiyuan. The Göktürks raided it, were lured to a market there and held it for a time; a Tang general called it their halfway halt.
Mayi ambushBattles & Events133 BC. The Han hid three hundred thousand men around a frontier town and offered to sell it to the chanyu. He noticed the cattle grazing unattended and turned back, and the heqin settlement ended.
Meeting of Heraclius and Ziebel (627)Battles & EventsMeeting of the emperor Heraclius with Ziebel, commander of the Göktürk army of the north, before Tiflis about 627, at which Heraclius crowned him, called him his son and promised him his daughter.
Menander ProtectorSourcesGreek history of the years 557 to 582, written under Maurice and surviving in fragments. It is the source for the embassies between the Göktürks and Byzantium.
Meng TianPersonsQin general who took the country south of the Yellow River from the Xiongnu and held it with a wall, towns and a road. Duman could not beat him. The Xiongnu came back to the river after his death.
MervPlaces · briefOasis city on the lower Murghab, the Sasanian stronghold of eastern Iran and base of the Arab conquest. One of the great cities of western Central Asia, and a Sogdian money market.
Metals and Metalworking in Kashgari's DictionaryInstitutions and TitlesWords for metals and metalwork in Kashgari's dictionary of the 1070s: gold, silver, copper, iron, a smelting place, bellows, a copper mountain and a fortress above gold mines.
MilletFoodsGrain of the steppe herders, the fastest-growing of the cereals. The Han sent it to the Xiongnu, the Rouran khan Anagui asked the Wei for seed, and the Kirghiz sowed and brewed it.
Millet BeerFoodsBeer and liquor brewed from millet and other grain on the steppe. The Han sent malt liquor to the Xiongnu, the Kirghiz brewed their own millet, and Kashgari gives the Turkic names.
Minusinsk BasinPlaces · briefLowland on the upper Yenisei, north of the Sayan, where modern accounts place the heartland of the Yenisei Kirghiz. Their graves of the ninth and tenth centuries are more numerous in Tuva.
Mission of Constantine to the Khazars (860–861)Battles & EventsByzantine embassy under Constantine, later called Cyril, to the Khazar capital on the lower Volga in the early spring of 861. It took the form of a religious debate at the khagan's court.
Mobei campaign, 119 BCBattles & EventsHan campaign across the Gobi, 119 BC. Wei Qing's army forced the chanyu Yizhixie to flee by night, and Huo Qubing's army beat the Left Worthy King. The Xiongnu court lost its seat south of the desert.
Moduo DaguanPersons · briefYoung man in the army of the western Yabgu Khan who had lived for years in Chang'an. The khan made him an officer and sent him with the pilgrim Xuanzang as interpreter and guide as far as Kapisa.
Mount DajinPlaces · briefMountain beyond the northern frontier of the Sui. There Tardush, newly proclaimed Bujia Khan, met the army of Shi Wansui in 600 and fled from it without a fight.
Mount Jiansi ChuzheshiPlaces · briefMountain of the Zhou Shu's Suo origin story and seat of the eldest son of Yizhi Nishidu. There he saved Abangbu's people with fire and was raised as lord under the name Türk.
Mount Mugh documentsSources · briefThe archive of Dēwāštīč, lord of Panjikent, found in 1933 on Mount Mugh in Tajikistan. Sogdian letters and contracts of the decade after 710, the chief Sogdian documents from Sogdiana itself.
Mount MulaiPlaces · briefMountain north of the frontier garrison of Woye. There Issik Khan, Bumin's son and successor, broke the Rouran remnant under Dengshuzi in 553.
Mounted ArcheryCustoms & PastimesShooting from horseback, the skill of the Xiongnu, the Göktürks, the Tiele and the Uyghurs in the Chinese histories. Xiongnu boys began on sheep. The courts of Wei, Sui and Tang had it shown.
Movsēs DasxurancʿiSourcesThe Armenian History of the Caucasian Albanians. It records the mission of Bishop Israyēl to the Huns north of Derbent in 681 and names their ruler Alp Ilitʿuer.
MugulüPersonsThe eponymous ancestor of the Rouran ruling house, as the Wei Shu tells it: a captured slave of the Tuoba who fled a death sentence into the Gobi with a hundred fugitives.
Mukan KhanPersonsSecond son of Bumin and third khan of the Göktürks, 553 to 572. Under him the khaganate took the Kirghiz and the Khitan and fought the Northern Qi beside the Zhou.
Mukan's Destruction of Dengshuzi (553–555)Battles & Events · briefCampaign of Mukan Khan against the last Rouran in the steppe under Anagui's uncle Dengshuzi. Mukan destroyed them, and Dengshuzi fled with the survivors to the Western Wei.
Mukan's Eastern and Northern WarsConflictsMukan Khan's wars on the eastern and northern edges of the Göktürk realm. He drove the Khitan east and annexed the Qigu, the Kirghiz, in the north. After the wars, the Zhou Shu sets the realm's bounds from the Liao sea to the Western Sea.
MumochengPlacesThe walled town of the Rouran, named in the Liang Shu. In his last years Anagui held it as his capital, with a double wall and an elite guard.
MundzucPersons · briefFather of Attila and Bleda, brother of the kings Octar and Rua. His name is understood as Turkic.
Murder of Bahram ChobinBattles & EventsKilling of the Persian rebel general Bahram Chobin in exile after 591, contrived by Khosrow II. Most accounts place it at the court of a Göktürk khan, through the khan's wife.
Murder of Shishu HuxiBattles & EventsAmbush in which the Sui official Pei Ju lured Shishu Huxi, the trusted hu adviser of Shibi Khan, to a pretended market below Mayi and killed him. Shibi saw through it and stopped coming to court.
Murder of Tong Yabgu (630)Battles & EventsKilling of Tong Yabgu, khan of the western Göktürks, by his paternal uncle, who made himself Moheduo Khan. The war of two khans that followed broke the western khaganate's hold on its subjects.
Murfatlar inscriptionsSourcesAbout sixty runiform inscriptions on the rock walls of the churches of a cave monastery near Constanța, in the Bulgar lands on the lower Danube. Ninth to tenth century.
MurongLineagesThe Xianbei house that broke Buyeo and Goguryeo in the fourth century and ruled northern China as the Yan states. The Tuyuhun branched off from it.
Music of Empress Ashina (568)Battles & EventsMusic of Samarkand and Kucha that came to the Zhou court at Chang'an in 568 with Empress Ashina, the Göktürk bride of Emperor Wu. Her lute player Sujiva brought seven modes.

N

Nadulu ShadPersons · briefEldest son of Yizhi Nishidu in the Zhou Shu's Suo story. He saved his people with fire and was raised as lord under the name Türk. The Xin Tang Shu makes him Tuwu's grandfather.
Nagai KhanPersonsRouran khan from 492 to about 506, uncle of Tulun. The Rouran made him khan after they killed his nephew. For his reign the Wei Shu records only his title and his era.
NaissusPlacesRoman city on the Nišava, today Niš, birthplace of Constantine. The Huns destroyed it in the 440s, and Attila then claimed it as the market and frontier town between his realm and the empire.
Nalaikh InscriptionSourcesFour-line runiform text from Nalaikh, dated by estimate to about 730 and read as naming Tengri and Umay. A catalogue of 1983 lists it as a tile and a later fake made for tourists.
Nan Qi ShuSourcesDynastic history of the Southern Qi, 479 to 502, compiled by Xiao Zixian under the Liang. Its chapter 59 records the Ruirui embassies of 478 to 483 and their plan for a joint war against the Wei.
Nan ShiSourcesHistory of the Southern Dynasties, 420 to 589, completed by Li Yanshou in 659. It condenses the southern histories and records the Rouran embassies to the Liang up to 541.
Nanai-vandakPersons · briefSogdian merchant in Gansu, writer of Ancient Letter II, most probably in 313. He ran a trading network into China for a principal in Samarkand. His letter reports the fall of Luoyang to the Huns.
Narshakhī, History of BukharaSourcesLocal history of Bukhara, written in Arabic for the Samanid amir in 943 or 944 and kept in a Persian version of 1128. It runs from the oasis legend through the Arab conquest to the Samanids.
Nasr ibn SayyarPersons · briefThe last Umayyad governor of Khurasan. He made peace with the Sogdians on their terms and brought the exiles home. Under him the front was stabilised between Samarkand and Ustrushana.
NatraPersonsBrother of the khagan of the Turks who sheltered Bahram Chobin. He sought the hand of Bahram's sister Gordiya, pursued her with 12,000 warriors when she left, and fell by her hand.
Nezak ShahsPeoplesKings of Kapisa, Kabul and Ghazni known from drachms with a bull's-head crown and the Pahlavi legend Nezak Malka. They have been taken for Huns, local rulers or a Western Turkic dynasty.
Night Attack on Dingxiang (630)Battles & EventsLi Jing's surprise attack on Ilig Khan at Dingxiang in the first month of 630, which drove the khan to Qikou. His confidant Kang Sumi went over with the Sui empress Xiao and Yang Zhengdao.
NikephorosSourcesShort History of the years 602 to 769 by Nikephoros, later patriarch of Constantinople, probably of the 780s. It tells how Heraclius crowned the Göktürk ruler and promised him his daughter.
Niri KhanPersonsKhan of the western Göktürks raised by Apa's people after Apa's capture in 587, and father of Heshana Khan. He joined the princess Dayi against the Sui and was beaten by the Tiele about 601.
Nishu Bagha ShadPersonsGöktürk prince of the west who refused the throne after Tong Yabgu's murder, raised Si Yabgu as khan and killed the murderer. He reigned himself as Duolu Khan from 632 to 634.
Nishufu KhanPersonsThe khan of the rising of 679, raised by two Ashide chiefs when twenty-four prefectures went over at once. Killed by his own men when the second Tang army came.
Noin UlaPlacesGroup of burial mounds in the mountains of northern Mongolia, opened in the 1920s. The princely graves held Chinese lacquer and silk, felt hangings and objects of steppe and Greek make.
Northern QiStatesThe eastern half of divided northern China, 550 to 577. It sheltered the beaten Rouran, bid against its western rival for Göktürk favour, and its last emperor tried to flee to the khan.
Northern WeiStatesThe Tuoba state that ruled northern China from 386 to 534 and fought the Rouran for a century. The split in 534 created the rivalry that the Göktürks would exploit.
Northern Xiongnu Market at Wuwei (AD 84)Battles & Events · briefTrade of the Northern Xiongnu with Han merchants at Wuwei in AD 84, with more than 10,000 cattle and horses. The Southern chanyu raided the traders. In 85 the court had the captives bought back.
Northern ZhouStatesDynasty of the Yuwen house at Chang'an, 557 to 581, and the Göktürks' ally for a generation. It bought Mukan's cavalry with a marriage and paid Taspar a hundred thousand pieces of silk a year.
NushibiPeoples · briefThe western half of the Ten Arrows, five tribes under five irkin. With the Duolu they made up the tribal body of the western khaganate.

O

Obadiah of KhazariaPersons · briefKhazar king in the reply of King Joseph, a descendant of Bulan. The letter credits him with reorganising the kingdom, building synagogues and schools and firmly establishing the Jewish religion.
OctarPersons · briefHun king and uncle of Attila, who ruled before him with his brother Rua. He died about 430 on a campaign against the Burgundians east of the Rhine.
Ögä KhanPersonsKhan of the Uyghurs who survived 840. He took the Tang princess Taihe from the Kirghiz escort, raided the Tang frontier, lost to a Tang army at Shahu Mountain in 843 and was killed about 846.
Oghur TurkicLanguagesThe r and l branch of the Turkic family, known from tribal names, the Danube Bulgars, old Hungarian loanwords and Volga inscriptions. Chuvash is its one living language.
OghuzPeoples · briefTurkic people of the western steppe and the Syr Darya. Kashgari treats their speech as one of the two great Turkic dialect groups, and the Seljuk house came from their tribe of Qïnïq.
Oghuz and Kipchak speech in KashgariLanguagesWhat Mahmud al-Kashgari says in the 1070s of the speech of the Oghuz and the Kipchak: where he places them, the sound changes he names, the words he marks as theirs and the limits of his knowledge.
Oghuz Herds in Ibn Fadlan's AccountInstitutions and TitlesSheep, horses and camels of the Oghuz in the winter of 921 and 922. Ibn Fadlan saw men with 10,000 horses and 100,000 sheep, flocks that grazed through the snow, and a trade in which merchants from Khwarezm bought sheep and left camels and horses with Oghuz hosts.
Oghuz Yabgu StateStates · briefUnion of Oghuz clans on the Syr Darya, led by a yabgu, in the ninth to eleventh centuries. It had no strong central authority and its ruler never claimed the title of khan.
OgursPeoplesSteppe people named by Priscus about 463 among the tribes the Sabirs drove west. A century later their chief held the country west of the Volga for Istemi.
Old Great BulgariaStates · briefBulgar union under Kubrat in the eastern Pontic steppe, independent of the Avars from about 635 and allied with Byzantium. After Kubrat's death in the 660s it broke apart among his sons.
Old Tibetan report on the northern kingsSourcesOld Tibetan manuscript from Dunhuang, Pelliot tibétain 1283, a report of about 750 on the kings and peoples of the north. It lists Göktürk tribes and tells three Göktürk myths.
Old TurkicLanguagesThe Turkic language of the runiform inscriptions and the manuscripts that follow them. The oldest Turkic that can be read, and the stage against which every later Turkic language is measured.
Old UyghurLanguagesThe Turkic of the manuscripts of eastern Xinjiang and Gansu, from the ninth century on, in Uyghur, Manichaean, Brahmi and other scripts. The largest body of early Turkic by volume.
Omens and DivinationReligionsSigns and their interpretation among the Göktürks. Theophylact gives them priests who foretold the future, and the Chinese histories record a divination at a khan's court and portents before khans died.
On OqPeoplesThe Ten Arrows: ten tribes, five Üç Tuğlu east of Suyab and five Nushibi west of it, each chief holding an arrow. The western Göktürks dissolved into them after 630.
OnegesiusPersonsAttila's chief minister and, after him, the most powerful man among the Huns. Priscus stayed at his house in 449 and recorded his refusal to come over to the Romans.
Ongi inscriptionSourcesRuniform stele on the Ongi river in southern Mongolia, put up by a son for his father in the reign of Bilge Khan. Its date is argued, from 716 to 740.
OnogursPeoplesSteppe people north of the Caucasus and the Sea of Azov, named by Priscus about 463. They came under Göktürk hegemony in the 560s; later Byzantine writers join their name to the Bulgars.
OrdosPlacesThe steppe plateau inside the great bend of the Yellow River, the ground from which every Chinese wall could be turned. The Tang settled the Göktürks here in 630.
Ordos bronzesInstitutions and Titles · briefThe animal-style bronze plaques, buckles and fittings of the northern frontier, from about the sixth century BC. They are the material record of the Xiongnu world and of what came before it.
OrduInstitutions and TitlesThe ruler's camp: the moving centre of a steppe realm, where the court, the guard and the treasury were. The word reached Europe as horde.
Ordu-BalıkPlacesThe walled capital the Uyghurs built on the Orkhon after 744, on the site now called Karabalgasun. The first city on record that a steppe empire raised for itself. Burned by the Kirghiz in 840.
OrestesPersonsRoman from Pannonia, Attila's secretary and envoy. He came to Constantinople with Edeco in 449 and later carried the purse of the plot to the emperor. Father of Romulus Augustulus.
Orkhon valleyPlacesThe valley of the Orkhon in central Mongolia. Every steppe empire from the Xiongnu to the Mongols had its seat there, and the Göktürk inscriptions of the eighth century stand in it.
ÖtükenPlacesThe sacred mountain-forest in the Orkhon country from which the eastern steppe was ruled, from the Xiongnu and Rouran to the Göktürk and Uyghur Empires. It is said that whoever ruled over Ötüken could rule over the entire Eurasian Steppe.
OxusPlaces · briefThe river that divided the steppe world from Iran. Göktürks and Persia partitioned the Hephthalite lands along it about 560, and it stayed the boundary for a century.
Ozmish KhanPersonsThe Left Shad of the Second Göktürk Khaganate and a cousin of Bilge Khan. He killed the boy khan Tengri in 741 and was swept away with the dynasty by 744.

P

PaikentPlacesMerchant town at the desert edge of the Bukhara oasis, walled on a square of 330 metres. The 'city of merchants' of the Arabic sources, sacked by Qutayba in 706.
Pan DiePersons · briefTudun whom Ishbara Khan sent to govern the Khitan for the Göktürks in the 580s. By the Bei Shi the Khitan killed him and fled.
PanjikentPlacesSogdian town in the upper Zarafshan valley, east of Samarkand. Seat of Dēwāštīč, the last lord who fought the Arabs. The most thoroughly excavated town of Central Asia, with its wall paintings.
ParmudhaPersonsSon of Šāba, the king of the Turks in the Perso-Arabic tradition. Bahram Chobin besieged him in his fortress, took his surrender and sent him with its treasure to Hormizd IV.
PartawPlacesCapital of Caucasian Albania. Its defenders fled from the northern army of the Caucasus campaign, and Šat later camped north of the city to receive the submission of Albania.
Peace of AnatoliusBattles & EventsPeace that the Roman commander Anatolius concluded with Attila after a Roman defeat in the Chersonese. Rome paid 6,000 pounds of gold in arrears and raised the yearly tribute to 2,100 pounds.
Pecheneg ConfederationStates · briefUnion of eight Pecheneg tribal groupings in the Pontic steppe, from the late ninth century to 1091. Each stood under its own great prince, four on either side of the Dnieper.
PechenegsPeoples · briefTurkic steppe people who entered the Pontic steppe from the Volga-Ural region in the late ninth century. Byzantium's chief steppe neighbour in the tenth century; their power ended in 1091.
Pei JuPersonsSui official who ran the court's dealings with the Western Regions and the Göktürks under Yangdi. His Illustrated Record of 607 described three roads west; his plan of 610 set Shegui against Heshana.
Pei XingjianPersonsThe Tang commander of the risings of 679 to 681. He broke two Göktürk restorations in three years, and the third, two years after his last victory, succeeded.
PeriReligionsFemale spirit of Turkic folklore, known from the ethnographic record of the Islamic and modern period. The name is Persian, and so is the peri-reader who calls her.
PingliangPlacesFrontier district in the east of today's Gansu, between the Gansu corridor and Chang'an. The Sui Shu calls the ancestors of the Göktürks mixed hu of Pingliang, of the surname Ashina.
PliskaPlaces · briefFirst capital of the Bulgar state on the lower Danube, near present-day Aboba. Nikephoros I took it in 811. Excavations began in 1899, and runic-looking marks are carved on its stones and bricks.
Plunder of Luoyang and the Silk Payment (757)Battles & Events · briefThree days of Uyghur plunder in Luoyang in December 757. One Tang history says the Tang prince ended it with brocade and treasure, another that the city's elders paid 10,000 bolts of silk.
Pofu KatunPersonsTonyukuk's daughter, katun of Bilge Khan, and regent for her young son. The state she ran with a minor official at her side came apart in her hands in 741.
Poliuhan BalingPersonsMan of the Woye garrison who began the revolt of the northern garrisons of the Northern Wei in 523 or 524 and took the era name True King. In 525 Anagui's army broke him for the Wei.
PoloCustoms & Pastimes · briefPolo as Kashgari's dictionary records it in the 1070s: the stick čögän, the goal-rope talas, the boundary tasal and a match played for a pair of trousers.
Poluomen KhanPersonsRouran khan in 521, cousin of Anagui. The Rouran made him khan after he destroyed the usurper Shifa. The Gaoche beat him within months, the Wei settled him at Dunhuang, and he died a prisoner in 524.
Poshi TeginPersons · briefGöktürk prince, younger brother of Niri Khan of the western Göktürks. He married Niri's widow, Lady Xiang, and stayed with her at the Sui court from about 600.
Post and CommunicationInstitutions and TitlesHow word travelled between the Göktürk khans, their men and their neighbours: envoys, letters, Sogdian and runiform writing, seals, notched wood, arrows, relay horses, and what the sources leave out.
Princess AnyiPersons · briefSui princess of the imperial clan, married in 597 to Yami, then Tuli Khan in the north. The Sui used the marriage to divide the Göktürks; she had died by 599, and Yicheng took her place.
Princess ChanglePersonsThe Western Wei princess given to Bumin in 551. The marriage sealed the alliance against the Rouran, a year before Bumin took the title of khan.
Princess HuainanPersons · briefSui princess married to Töles, the son of Shibi Khan, while he still bore the title Nibu Shad and commanded the eastern camp of the Göktürks.
Princess LinhePersonsGranddaughter of the Rouran khan Anagui, married in 542 to Gao Zhan, a son of Gao Huan, at the Eastern Wei court. Her tomb near Cixian in Hebei was opened in 1978 and 1979.
Princess QianjinPersonsPrincess of the Northern Zhou, katun of Taspar, Ishbara and Tulan from 580. She drove Ishbara to war on the Sui, who renamed her Princess Dayi and later demanded her death.
Princess TaihePersonsTang princess married to the Uyghur khan in 821. The Kirghiz took her in 840 and sent her home. A Uyghur prince seized her, and the Tang general Shi Xiong won her back. She reached Chang'an in 843.
Princess XinyiPersons · briefSui princess married in 614 to Heshana Khan, the western Göktürk khan who had submitted and lived at the Sui court. The emperor gave him a thousand robes and ten thousand bolts of silk with her.
Princess YichengPersonsThe Sui princess who married four Göktürk khans in succession and turned the policy of her own house against China. She was killed when the Tang took the khaganate's court in 630.
PriscusSourcesGreek history of the eastern Roman empire from about 434 to the 470s by Priscus of Panium, surviving in fragments. Its author went on an embassy to Attila's court in 449 and described what he saw.
Proclamation of Bumin Khan (552)Battles & EventsBumin's assumption of the title Illig Khan after his victory over the Rouran in 552, which made the leader of the Ashina the first khan of the Göktürks and his wife a katun.
ProcopiusSourcesRoman history of the wars of Justinian, written in the 550s. The Greek witness to the Hephthalites, and the one that calls them Huns with white bodies who had long lived apart from the Huns.
Protobulgarian sign corpusSourcesMore than a thousand runiform-looking marks from Pliska, Madara, Preslav and other sites of the first Bulgar state, mostly of the ninth century. Whether they are letters or marks is disputed.
Purification by FireReligionsGöktürk rite of cleansing by fire. In 569 men of the tribe censed a Roman embassy's baggage with burning frankincense and led the envoy Zemarchos through the fire.

Q

QibiPeoples · briefTiele tribe, one of the nine of the Toquz Oghuz in the Tang Huiyao. Its leaders served the Tang as generals in the seventh century.
Qiedihou ChanyuPersonsChanyu of the Xiongnu, 101 to 96 BC. He sent back the Han envoys. In 99 BC he nearly destroyed Li Guangli's army. He took the surrender of Li Ling and married him to his daughter.
QifuLineages · briefThe Xianbei house that founded the Western Qin in Gansu in 385 and held it, with one interruption, until 431.
QikouPlaces · briefThe mouth of the desert north of the Yin mountains. The Sui placed Yami Khan there in 603; in 630 Ilig Khan fled to it, and a Tang army there barred his escape across the Gobi.
Qinyu ShadPersons · briefGöktürk shad of the house of Ashina, a younger brother of Tulan Khan. His tribes grew strong, and Tulan, jealous of him, attacked him and had him beheaded on the field.
Que Dadu ShadPersonsGöktürk prince, younger brother of Heshana Khan, who kept his brother's people at Huining for the Sui. He raided the Tuyuhun for Pei Ju, called himself Que Khan, and was destroyed by Li Gui.
QuliPlaces · briefSmall oasis state on the northern rim of the Tarim Basin, south of Wulei. Han field soldiers farmed there from about 100 BC, and Zheng Ji used its grain for his campaigns against Cheshi.
QurutFoodsDried curd of the steppe herders, made from the milk of sheep, goats and cattle. It keeps and travels where fresh milk does not. Mahmud al-Kashgari records the word in the 1070s.
Qutayba ibn MuslimPersonsThe Arab governor who took Sogdiana for the caliphate between 705 and 715: Paikent, Bukhara, Samarkand, Khwarezm. He was killed by his own army when the caliph who backed him died.

R

Raid on Yanmen (621)Battles & EventsIlig Khan's attack on the Tang frontier commandery of Yanmen in 621, which Li Da'en drove off. Both courts held each other's envoys until Ilig asked for peace with a gift of fish glue.
Raiding at the Full MoonReligions · briefGöktürk custom of timing raids by the moon. The Sui Shu says in one sentence that they waited until the moon was nearly full and then rode out to plunder.
Raising on the FeltReligionsGöktürk installation of a new khan. His ministers carried him on a felt, turned him nine times with the sun, half-strangled him with silk and asked how many years he would reign.
Ransom of the Chinese from the Göktürks (631)Battles & Events · briefTang redemption with gold and silk of the Chinese who had fallen to the Göktürks in the Sui disorders. By the fifth month of 631 the officials counted 80,000 men and women returned.
Raw Materials and Trade among the Turkic PeoplesInstitutions and TitlesIron, salt, precious metals, furs, jade, horses and silk in the Turkic lands, and the markets and merchants that moved them. The Ashina worked iron on the Altai, the Uyghurs sold horses for silk.
Record of the Western RegionsSourcesXuanzang's account of the lands he crossed between 629 and 645, set down by the monk Bianji. Its first book describes Suyab, the Thousand Springs and the states under Göktürk rule.
Rehan TeginPersons · briefEnvoy of Ilig Khan whom the Tang held at their court while Ilig held the Tang envoys. He was sent home with gold and silk when the two courts made peace in 621 or 622.
Rescue of Princess Taihe (840–843)Battles & EventsThe Kirghiz took the Tang princess Taihe in 840 and sent her home. Ögä, the Uyghur khan, killed the escort and carried her south, and in 843 the general Shi Xiong recovered her from his camp.
Revolt of the Six GarrisonsConflictsRising of the northern garrisons of the Northern Wei from 523 or 524. Poliuhan Baling began it at Woye. In 525 the Rouran khan Anagui broke it for the Wei.
Revolt of the Tiele (627)Battles & EventsRising of the Xueyantuo, the Uyghurs and the Bayirku against Ilig Khan in 627. They drove off his Yukuk Shad and beat Töles, whom Ilig then imprisoned, which turned his nephew against him.
Revolt of TurumBattles & EventsGöktürk civil war in which Turum, a kinsman of the khan, rose and was defeated at Ikar by the khan and three allied khans, as the khan reported to the emperor Maurice.
Riding Round the DeadReligionsFuneral act of riders circling the dead. Jordanes records it at Attila's funeral in 453, the Zhou Shu among the Göktürks, who rode seven times round the tent in which the body lay.
Right Shad (d. 741)PersonsCousin of Bilge Khan and commander of the western half of the army under Tengri Khan. Tengri and his mother lured him to them and beheaded him in 741; his death began the end of the khaganate.
Rise of Anagui KhanBattles & EventsAnagui's way from a ten-day khan in exile to the arbiter between the two Wei courts, 520 to 546. The Northern Wei restored him in 521. By 546 his house was married into both halves of China.
Rock inscriptions found in Mongolia, 2018 to 2021SourcesFifteen short runiform texts on rock, found in four provinces. They contain names such as Ädiz, Tuŋrač, Čur and Yegän Irkin, and a Yaglakar tamga. None is dated.
Roof Tiles of the Uyghur KhaganateInstitutions and TitlesUnglazed clay tiles in the Chinese pattern, made locally for the walled seats of the Uyghur khans and for the Göktürk memorials before them. They show Chinese methods at work in the steppe.
RouranPeoplesThe people of the Rouran Khaganate, overlords of the Ashina until 552. Donghu and Xianbei in origin by the Wei Shu, para-Mongolic by the usual classification.
Rouran civil war (520–521)ConflictsThe Rouran civil war after the murder of Chounu, four rulers in a single year. Anagui was khan for ten days, then Shifa, then Poluomen, then Anagui again, restored by the Wei.
Rouran Domination of the Turkic PeoplesConflictsRule of the Rouran over the Turkic-speaking peoples of the steppe, about 400 to 552. The Tiele rose against it in 487, 508 and 546. The Ashina worked iron for it in the Altai and destroyed it in 552.
Rouran KhaganateStatesSteppe empire that ruled from the Khingan to the Seven Rivers for a century and a half. It held the Ashina as subjects until Bumin ended it in 552.
RuaPersonsKing of the Huns and uncle of Attila, who ruled with his brother Octar and alone after about 430. He received a yearly tribute from Constantinople and helped Aetius to power in the West.
Rudan KhanPersons · briefGöktürk khan of the house of Ashina, a younger brother of Taspar Khan. He was the father of Börü Khan, the lesser khan of the west from 572, or by one Chinese history that khan himself.
Rudan TeginPersons · briefGöktürk prince of the house of Ashina, a younger brother of Tulan Khan by the same mother. He brought a staff of Khotan jade to the Sui court and was made a zhuguo and duke of Kang.
Runiform finds in Mongolia, 1990 to 1999SourcesThirteen short runiform inscriptions found in Mongolia in the 1990s: seven one-line texts in Bayan-Ölgii, four on Del Uul, one at Ikh Bichigt and a vessel from Tsetsuuhey.
Runiform inscriptions of the Khazar landsSourcesShort texts and marks in runiform signs from the Don, the North Caucasus and the Crimea, seventh to tenth century. They have been ascribed to the Khazars, the Bulgars and others.
Russian Primary ChronicleSourcesChronicle of the Rus, compiled about 1113. It records Khazar tribute from the Slavic tribes, the campaign of Sviatoslav against the Khazars in 965 and Khazar Jews at Vladimir in 986.

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SabaoInstitutions and TitlesChinese title for the head of a foreign community, above all a Sogdian one. It renders the Sogdian sartapao, caravan master. The post is attested from the sixth century to the early eighth.
SabirsPeoplesSteppe people of the north Caucasus and the lower Volga from the early sixth century. They fought for Rome and for Persia, and the Göktürks absorbed their union.
Sacred MountainsReligionsThe mountains that the sources of the Göktürks, Uyghurs and Kirghiz set apart: the sacred Ötüken forest, a bare mountain called the spirit of the earth, and the sacred heads of the inscriptions.
Sacrifice and the yearReligionsThe Göktürk ritual year as the Chinese record it. The cave of the ancestors once a year, the sacrifice to heaven in the middle of the fifth month, and a reckoning by the greening of the grass.
SakaPeoplesThe Persian name for the eastern Iranian nomads, from Kazakhstan to the Tarim. The Achaemenid inscriptions count four kinds of them, and one group gave its name to Sistan.
Salt among the Turkic PeoplesInstitutions and TitlesSalt in the Turkic lands: the rock-salt deposit of Dus-Dag in Tuva, Irtysh salt lakes, and the lake of seven Karluk tribes in the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam of 982. Merchants brought salt to the Kimak.
SamandarPlaces · briefKhazar city in the North Caucasus, north of Derbent. Early notices of the Khazars name it with Balanjar. Masʿūdī says the capital moved from here to Itil.
SamanidsStates · briefPersian dynasty of Transoxiana from the ninth century to 999, with its capital at Bukhara from 892. Its trade continued the Sogdian trade under another name. The Karakhanids ended the dynasty in 999.
SamarkandPlacesChief city of Sogdiana on the Zarafshan. Its citadel was raised by the Kidarites, and its Afrasiab painting shows Göktürk warriors at the feet of the king.
SaŋunInstitutions and Titles · briefTitle taken from the Chinese 將軍 jiangjun, general. The Orkhon form seŋün names Chinese generals and heads of delegations. The Yenisei epitaphs carry saŋun eleven times.
SanguozhiSources · briefHistory of the Three Kingdoms by Chen Shou, with Pei Songzhi's commentary of 429. Its chapter 30 treats the Wuhuan and the Xianbei, and the commentary quotes an older account of their customs.
Sanmi MountainPlaces · briefMountain north of Kucha on which Shegui Khan set the court of the western Göktürks in the 610s. It may lie in the valley of the Tekes.
SaragursPeoples · briefOguric people who came to the Black Sea steppe about 463, driven west by the Sabirs. They defeated the Akatziri, sought an alliance with Constantinople and raided Iberia and Armenia.
SarkelPlacesKhazar fortress on the left bank of the Don, built in 838 with Byzantine help against the Hungarians and the Pechenegs. The Rus knew it as Belaya Vezha.
SarmatiansPeoplesIranian nomads who took the western steppe from the Scythians. They were pushed west by pressure from the east, and in the second century BC that pressure can be traced to the rise of the Xiongnu.
Sasanian PersiaStatesPersian empire of the Sasanian house, 224 to 651. Partner of Istemi against the Hephthalites, then his neighbour on the Oxus and the Göktürks' enemy in 588 and 627.
ScapulimancyReligionsDivination from the cracks in a sheep's shoulder blade held in fire. Attila's soothsayers read scraped bones before the battle of 451, the Mongol khan Möngke consulted charred blades before every undertaking in 1254, and Kirghiz, Mongols and Altaians still read them in the nineteenth century.
ScottasPersonsHun noble of Attila's inner circle and brother of Onegesius. He came to receive the Roman gold after the peace of Anatolius and won Priscus an audience with Attila in 449.
ScythiansPeoplesIranian mounted nomads who held the western steppe from the eighth century BC. Three of the customs Herodotus records of them reappear among the Xiongnu and the Turkic peoples.
Seasonal PasturesInstitutions and TitlesThe movement of the steppe peoples from winter to summer grazing, as the Chinese and Muslim sources record it. The Chinese say the peoples followed water and grass. A few sources name a winter and a summer place, and Tonyukuk gives the reason the Göktürks refused to live behind walls.
Seating at the FeastCustoms & PastimesOrder of rank among the guests at the feasts and audiences of the steppe rulers and at the Tang court. A guest's place showed his standing, and rival envoys quarrelled over it.
SebeosSourcesArmenian history of the seventh century, attributed to a bishop Sebeos. It follows the wars of Khosrow II to 661 and shows the Göktürks from the Persian side of the frontier.
SebükteginPersons · briefTurkic slave soldier who founded the Ghaznavid dynasty in the tenth century. Born at Barskhan on Issyk Kul, stolen as a child by the Tukhsi and sold at Chach, he rose to rule at Ghazna.
Second Göktürk KhaganateStatesThe second Ashina-led Empire, restored by Ilterish in 682. Never reaching the glory of the first empire, it was destroyed in 744 by a coalition of Tang China, Basmyls and the Uyghurs.
ŠābaPersonsThe king of the Turks in the Perso-Arabic tradition. He marched on Persia in Hormizd IV's eleventh year and fell to Bahram Chobin's arrow. Whether he is Bagha Khan or a son of Tardush is disputed.
ShadInstitutions and TitlesThe command of a wing or a subject people, reserved for princes of the Ashina. Bilge Khan's uncle made him shad over the Tarduš; the office was where a khan's heir was tried out.
ShahnamehSourcesFerdowsi's Persian verse epic, completed about 1010, four centuries after the events. The only narrative source for the war of 588.
ShamanismReligionsPractice of a ritual specialist who enters a trance to treat the sick, foretell the year and deal with spirits, recorded on the steppe since the Xiongnu. Tengrism grew out of it and rests on it.
ShanshanStatesKingdom at the Lop Nor in the eastern Tarim, named Shanshan from 77 BC, when the Han killed the king of Loulan. It bowed to Han and Xiongnu in turn. Ban Chao began winning the oases here in 73.
Shanyu ProtectoratePlaces · briefTang protectorate over the submitted Göktürks of the south, set up in 650 and seated at old Yunzhong. Its name recalled the chanyu of the Xiongnu. The revolt of 679 broke out inside it.
ShatuoPeoples · briefTurkic union of Western Göktürk origin, foes of the Uyghurs, who became the military prop of the Tang and then founded dynasties in northern China.
SheepInstitutions and TitlesThe sheep of the steppe peoples in the sources: a main animal of the Xiongnu and of every people in the Hudud al-Alam, a payment in bride-prices and tribute, and the meat that the Tang and the Xi supplied to Uyghur armies. Ibn Fadlan saw Oghuz owners of 100,000.
Shegui KhanPersonsKhan of the western Göktürks, 611 to 618 or 619, and younger brother of Tardush. The Sui set him up against his overlord Heshana and he drove him to Gaochang.
Shelun KhanPersonsFounder of the Rouran Khaganate, d. 410. A fugitive from the Northern Wei who absorbed the Gaoche and, according to some scholars, was the first steppe ruler to call himself khagan.
Shi XiongPersonsTang general who broke the camp of the Uyghur khan Ögä at Shahu Mountain in 843 and brought the princess Taihe home. Cashiered under Xuanzong, he died in 848.
Shibi KhanPersonsSon of Yami and khan of the eastern Göktürks, 609 to 619. He besieged the Sui emperor at Yanmen in 615 and lent Li Yuan the horsemen who took Chang'an.
Shiboqu AzhanPersonsChief of the Kirghiz with the title silifa. He came in person to the court of Taizong in 648, and the emperor made the Kirghiz land the Jiankun governorship and him its governor-general.
ShijiSourcesSima Qian's history, completed around 91 BC. Chapter 110 is the earliest sustained account of the Xiongnu, chapter 123 the earliest of the Wusun.
Šine-Usu inscriptionSourcesRuniform memorial stele found in northern Mongolia in 1909. It speaks in the first person in the name of the second khan of the Uyghurs and tells his campaigns.
Shishu HuxiPersons · briefAdviser of Shibi Khan, one of the hu at the Göktürk court. The Sui official Pei Ju lured him to Mayi with a pretended market and had him killed, and Shibi broke with the Sui.
Shiveet UlaanPlacesMemorial complex of the late seventh century in Bulgan province, Mongolia, with stone figures, lions and rams. One publication links its stone with tamgas of many tribes to the funeral of Ilterish Khan.
ShiweiPeoplesPeoples north of the Khitan in eastern Mongolia and Heilongjiang, ruled through Göktürk tudun. In 848 seven Shiwei clans held the last Uyghurs until the Kirghiz took them back.
ShuozhouPlaces · briefPrefecture 朔州 on the northern frontier of Sui and Tang China. The Sui sent armies against the Göktürks by its road and built Dali in it for Yami Khan, and Ilig Khan plundered it in 625.
Si Yabgu KhanPersonsSon of Tong Yabgu and khan of the western Göktürks from his father's murder to 632, first beside the murderer, then alone. Beaten by the Xueyantuo and deserted by his lords, he fled to Kangju.
Siege of BaidengBattles & EventsSiege of the founding emperor of Han on a hill north of Pingcheng, winter 200 BC. Bagatur held him for seven days with four hundred thousand horse, then let him go. The heqin settlement followed.
Siege of Bosporos, 576Battles & EventsGöktürk and Utigur siege of the Roman city of Bosporos in the Crimea in 576, which brought the Göktürk realm to its western limit on the Black Sea.
Siege of NaissusBattles & EventsAttila's siege and capture of the Roman city of Naissus in the Balkan war of the 440s. He later fixed the ruined city as the frontier and the market between Huns and Romans.
Siege of Tiflis (627–629)Battles & EventsTwo Göktürk sieges of Tiflis in the Caucasus campaign: the first, with Heraclius, broken off after the townspeople mocked the khan; the second, in 628 or 629, ending in the storming of the city.
SifaInstitutions and Titles · briefOffice of the western Göktürks, written 俟發. The Sui Shu names it with the yanhongda as the council that deliberated on the affairs of state.
SijiePeoples · briefOne of the nine Tiele tribes named in the Tang histories as part of the Toquz Oghuz confederation.
Sijie IrkinPersons · briefChief of the Sijie, a Tiele tribe subject to the eastern Göktürks. In 630, after the fall of Ilig Khan, he went over to the Tang with forty thousand people.
SilifaPersons · briefGöktürk prince of the house of Ashina, a nephew of Tardush or by one Chinese history his son. In 600 Tardush sent him against Yami from east of the desert; he withdrew when the Sui held the passes.
Silk in the SteppeInstitutions and TitlesChinese silk in the steppe from the 540s to 840: bought at the frontier, paid as peace money, traded for horses, used as currency and sold on to the west by the Sogdians.
Six GarrisonsInstitutions and Titles · briefThe Northern Wei's line of frontier posts along the Hetao plain, manned against the Rouran. Their revolt in 524 broke the dynasty and made the two Weis.
Skull CupInstitutions and TitlesDrinking cup made from the skull of a slain enemy ruler. The Chinese histories record it among the Xiongnu and the Rouran, and a Byzantine chronicle among the Bulgars of Krum.
Smbat Bagratuni's war with the khanBattles & EventsGöktürk intervention against the Persian general Smbat Bagratuni in the east, which carried a Göktürk host across the Oxus as far as Rey and Isfahan before the khan recalled it.
Sogdian Ancient LettersSourcesSogdian letters on paper, found sealed in 1907 in a Han watchtower west of Dunhuang. Written by Sogdian merchants in Gansu, most probably in 313. Letter II names the destroyers of Luoyang xwn.
Sogdian inscriptions of the Talas valleySources · briefA few graffiti in the gorges south of the Talas river, in Sogdian and late Sogdian cursive but with Turkic names. Tenth to early eleventh century; the last dates from 1026.
Sogdian inscriptions of the upper IndusSourcesMore than 650 Sogdian graffiti on the rocks of the upper Indus below Gilgit, most at Shatial. Left by merchants on the road to India, third to fifth century. A common name among them is xwn, the Hun.
SogdianaPlacesThe land of the Zarafshan between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, with Samarkand and Bukhara at its heart. Held by the Hephthalites from 509, taken by the Göktürks about 560.
SogdiansPeoplesThe Iranian-speaking people of the Zarafshan valley and the merchants of Central Asia. They gave the Göktürks their script, their chancellery, their envoys and their silk trade.
Song ShuSourcesDynastic history of the Liu Song, 420 to 479, compiled by Shen Yue in 487 and 488. Its chapter on the Tuoba ends with the Rouran under the southern name Ruirui.
SorosgiPeoples · briefPeople of Scythia against whom Bleda and Attila made war after the treaty of Margus. Priscus names them once, and no other source mentions them.
Soul WordsReligionsThe Turkic words for breath, soul and life force: tın, kut, sür, süne, tyula and üzüt. The inscriptions of the Göktürks use Kut for the fortune of a khan, the Old Uyghur texts add tınlıg and üzüt, and the Altaians of the nineteenth century named six souls, each with its own task.
South Yenisei inscriptionsSources · briefSome seventeen short texts in a second runiform alphabet, on rock, stelae and grave goods in Khakassia and Tuva. Graves date them to the eighth to tenth century. None has been read with confidence.
Southern XiongnuStatesThe Xiongnu realm that broke away in AD 48 and settled inside the Han frontier under a chanyu of Huhanye's line, fed by the Han and used against the north.
SparzeugunPersons · briefOne of the three great khagans whom a Göktürk khagan called to his aid against the rebel Turum, according to Theophylact Simocatta. Some scholars take him for an Ishbara Yabgu.
Stakes and WagersCustoms & PastimesStakes in Turkic play: words for wagering in Kashgari's dictionary of the 1070s, and an omen of the Irk Bitig about a man who stakes his sons and women, whose reading is disputed.
Steppe DietFoodsThe food of the herding peoples of the steppe: the meat and milk of their animals, with game from the hunt. Chinese, Roman and Arabic writers describe it from the Xiongnu to the Kirghiz.
Stone FiguresReligionsCarved stone statues of the early medieval steppe, mostly a standing man with a cup, a belt and a sword, set at the east side of memorial enclosures from the Altai to Semirechye.
StravaReligions · briefThe funeral feast that the Huns held over the tomb of Attila in 453, with great revelry and lamentation. Jordanes gives the word as their own.
Su DingfangPersonsThe Tang general who ended the western khaganate. In 657 he broke Ashina Helu in two battles and a winter march, and the Ten Arrows passed under Chinese administration.
Su WuPersonsHan envoy to the Xiongnu, held in the north for nineteen years from 100 BC. He refused every offer to change sides, herded rams by the North Sea with the Han tally in hand, and returned with nine men.
Subjugation of the Alans and Onogurs (before 576)Battles & EventsGöktürk conquest of the Alans of the north Caucasus and of the Onogurs in the early 570s, which Turxanthos held up to the Roman envoy in 576 as the fate of those who resisted.
Submission of Ishbara (585)Battles & EventsIshbara Khan's submission to the Sui in 585, under pressure from Tardush and Apa, which brought him Sui protection at Baidao and made the desert the frontier between the khan and the Sui.
Submission of Yiwu (630)Battles & EventsSurrender of the oasis town of Yiwu to the Tang after the fall of Ilig Khan in 630. Its lord, long a subject of the Göktürks, came to court and gave up his seven towns, which became a prefecture.
SuiStatesThe dynasty of Yang Jian, which reunited China in 581 and 589 and broke the Göktürks without a decisive battle. It fell in 618 to the warlords Shibi had armed.
Sui Shu (Book of Sui)SourcesThe official history of the Sui and the principal Chinese source for the western wing.
Sui Variety Shows for Yami Khan (606–610)Battles & EventsSpectacles staged by the Sui emperor Yangdi for Yami Khan, 606 to 610. Entertainers of the realm gathered at Luoyang in 606; in 610 eighteen thousand musicians played in one street.
Suji inscriptionSourcesRuniform inscription in Mongolia, spoken by a Kirghiz officer. Its date is argued: before 780 on one view, after 840 by another. One translation has a teacher called mar in it, another has none.
Sulu KhanPersonsThe Türgesh khan who held the western steppe against the caliphate for twenty-one years. He beat the Arab armies twice and married into three courts at once. His own commanders killed him in 738.
Suni ShiPersonsYounger brother of Yami Khan and Shaboluo Shad over fifty thousand households north-west of Lingzhou. He took in Ilig Khan in 630, gave him up to the Tang and followed him in death in 634.
SuoStatesCountry north of the Xiongnu from which the Zhou Shu's second origin story brings the Ashina. Its state of seventeen brothers was destroyed. The eldest son of Yizhi Nishidu was named Türk.
Suoge TudunInstitutions and Titles · briefGöktürk title formed on suoge, the word for hair, and the rank tudun. The Tongdian likens the office to that of an official of a Chinese prefecture.
Suopi ShadPersons · briefGöktürk shad of the late sixth century, killed by the Hezhi Khan. The Sui edict of 583 recalls his death as one sign that all the Göktürks' neighbours were their enemies.
SuyabPlacesTown on the Chu river in present-day Kyrgyzstan, the site of Ak-Beshim. Seat of the western Göktürks from Tardush onward, and the Türgesh centre from 690.
Sword of MarsReligions · briefThe ancient sword that a herdsman found and brought to Attila, sacred to the Scythian kings and dedicated to the god of war. Priscus heard the story at Attila's court in 449.
Syr DaryaPlaces · briefThe northern of the two great rivers of Transoxiana. Tonyukuk's army crossed it on the march to the Iron Gate, and it is the Pearl River of the inscriptions.
Szarvas needle case inscriptionSources · briefShort runiform text on a bone needle case from a late Avar cemetery at Szarvas in Hungary, found in 1983. About the eighth century.

T

Ta-bu-he-zuPersonsGeneral of the Kirghiz and their first envoy to the Tang after the fall of the Uyghurs. He reached the frontier city of Tiande in the winter of 842 with a petition about the Taihe princess.
TabariSourcesArabic universal history of the early tenth century. Its Sasanian section preserves the Persian tradition on the Göktürk wars and the king Šāba.
Tagma TarkhanPersons · briefGöktürk envoy with the title tarkhan, sent by Istemi to Constantinople with the returning embassy of Zemarchos in place of the Sogdian Maniakh, who had died.
TahanPersons · briefYounger brother of the Rouran khan Anagui. In 538 the Western Wei married him to a daughter of one of its officials, under the title of Princess Huazheng.
TaisanInstitutions and Titles · briefTitle of the ruler of Taugast, China, in Theophylact Simocatta, who explains it as 'son of god'. The report reached Constantinople with a Göktürk embassy.
Taiwu's campaign against the Rouran (429)ConflictsNorthern Wei campaign across the Gobi in 429, led by the emperor Taiwu. It scattered Datan's people at the Li river, and more than three hundred thousand surrendered.
Taizong's Speech on the Signs of Ruin (628)Battles & EventsThe Tang emperor Taizong's refusal in 628 to rebuild the Long Wall against the Göktürks. He named four signs of their coming ruin and promised his ministers to take the khaganate instead.
TalasPlacesRiver and town between the Syr Darya and the Tian Shan. A Türgesh stronghold after Sulu Khan's murder, and the site of the battle of 751 that ended Tang power west of the Pamirs.
Talas and Tian Shan runiform inscriptionsSourcesMore than thirty runiform inscriptions in Kyrgyzstan, from the Talas valley, Issyk Kul and the Kochkor valley. Mostly epitaphs and visitors' texts, undated, with many unreliable readings.
Tally Sticks and the Golden ArrowInstitutions and TitlesThe Göktürk record of a levy: the number of troops, horses or livestock cut as notches in wood, sealed with wax together with an arrow whose head was of gold or metal, as a token of trust.
TamatarkhaPlaces · briefTown on the Taman peninsula by the Straits of Kerch. A Byzantine bishopric, and later the Rus Tmutarakan. According to some scholars, the Schechter Letter has the Khazars defend it against the Rus.
TamgaInstitutions and Titles · briefThe mark of a house or a tribe, cut on livestock, on rock and on coins. It is a sign of ownership and of descent, and related houses carry related marks.
Tamim ibn BahrPersons · briefArab envoy who travelled to the Uyghur capital on the Orkhon, probably in 821. His account shows the Uyghurs in control of the steppe north of the Tianshan as far as Chach, with relays and a post.
TangStatesChinese dynasty of 618 to 907. A Göktürk khan armed it into existence. Within forty years it destroyed both khaganates, and until 682 it ruled the steppe through Ashina clients.
Tang conquest of the eastern Khaganate, 626–630ConflictsThe Tang conquest of the eastern khaganate, 626 to 630. The Göktürks stood at the Wei river within sight of Chang'an. Four years later they had no khan at all.
Tang Huiyao (Institutional History of the Tang)Sources · briefCompendium of Tang institutions, completed in 961 by Wang Pu. Its chapter on the Uyghurs gives the only complete list of the nine tribes of the Toquz Oghuz.
Tang investiture of the Kirghiz (847)Battles & EventsInvestiture of the Kirghiz khan by the emperor Xuanzong in 847, after a court debate that had stopped his predecessor's plan. The title was Chinese, and the reference to kinship was gone.
Tanhan KhanPersons · briefGöktürk khan of the early 580s and a long-standing friend of Apa. He fought beside Ishbara against the Sui in 583; Ishbara then took his people and deposed him, and he fled to Tardush.
Tanhan MountainPlacesMountain north of Gaochang, under snow in summer, at the edge of the Tiele lands. There the Tiele set up their own khan in 605 after rising against the western Göktürk khan Heshana.
TanshihuaiPersonsGreat chief of the Xianbei, about 136 to 181. He took the whole of the old Xiongnu land, refused a Han king's seal, broke three Han armies in one day, and left nothing that outlived him.
Tardu ShadPersonsEldest son of the western Yabgu Khan and lord of Huo, the later Kunduz, about 630. Married to a princess of Gaochang, he was poisoned by his second wife, and his eldest son seized his rank.
TardushPersonsSon of Istemi and yabgu of the west, 576 to 603. He moved the seat to Suyab, reached for the whole khaganate, and was driven into exile by a Tiele rising.
Taren RiverPlaces · briefRiver 他人水, at which the Göktürks gathered in the middle ten days of the fifth month to worship the spirit of heaven, according to the Zhou Shu.
Tariat inscriptionSourcesRuniform stele found in Mongolia in 1957. It speaks in the name of the second Uyghur khan and gives his campaigns year by year, from 741 to 748.
Tarim BasinPlacesThe desert basin south of the Tian Shan, rimmed by oasis cities. The Göktürks took it in the 550s and held it as tributary; the Tang made it the Four Garrisons.
TarkhanInstitutions and TitlesA rank of command carrying exemption from tax. A Roman envoy recorded it from inside the court, and Tonyukuk held it in the compound Apa Tarkan.
TarniachPeoples · briefPeople who fled from the Göktürks into Europe with the Kotzager and joined the Avar khan. Theophylact derives them from the Var and Chunni.
Tashtyk CulturePeoplesArchaeological culture of the Khakas-Minusinsk basins on the Yenisei, known for graves with painted plaster masks. Who its people were, and their link to the early Kirghiz, is disputed.
Taspar KhanPersonsYoungest son of Bumin and fourth khan of the Göktürks, 572 to 581. He ruled the khaganate at its greatest extent and gave a Buddhist monk his patronage. His wish for the succession broke the house.
Taspar's Appointment of the Lesser Khans (572)Battles & EventsTaspar Khan's appointment of two lesser khans on his accession in 572: his nephew Ishbara over the east as Erfu Khan, a son of his brother Rudan Khan over the west as Buli Khan.
TatarsPeoplesConfederation of the Mongolian east, the Thirty Tatars of the Göktürk inscriptions and the Nine Tatars of the Uyghur stones. Mourners of the founders, then enemies of the restored khaganate.
Tatik IznanchuPersonsGeneral of the Kirghiz and their fourth envoy to the Tang, probably the last under Wuzong. He brought two white horses and a petition to Chang'an in 844.
Tea among the UyghursFoodsTea as a good the Uyghurs took home from the Tang court in the eighth century. Their envoys drove fine horses to the court and went home with tea, as the Tang official Feng Yan recorded.
TeginInstitutions and TitlesTitle of the sons and younger brothers of the Göktürk khan, third among the great offices of the Zhou Shu. Kül Tegin bore it in his name.
TengriReligionsThe sky of the Old Turkic inscriptions, and the power that installs and deposes khans. The one divine name the Göktürks themselves wrote.
Tengri KhanPersonsBoy khan of the Second Göktürk Khaganate from 734, under the regency of his mother. Invested by the Tang in 740 and killed in 741 by his father's cousin.
TengrismReligionsModern name for the sky-centred religion of the Old Turkic peoples. Its attested core is Tengri, the fortune he grants, and the sacred Earth-and-Water.
TerkenInstitutions and Titles · briefTitle of high rank in three Yenisei epitaphs, two of them in the name Bögü Terken. Later courts used it for rulers' wives, and scholars disagree whether it belonged to women alone.
Tes inscriptionSources · briefRuniform stele of the Uyghur Khaganate from the valley of the Tes river in north-western Mongolia, found in 1915. It survives only in pieces, and its date is placed anywhere from 750 to after 761.
The Abbasid CaliphateStatesThe caliphate of the Abbasid house from 750, ruled from Baghdad. It met the Tang on the Talas in 751. From the ninth century its armies were raised among the Turks of the steppe.
The Archery Match at the Wu'an Hall (599)Battles & EventsArchery match the Sui emperor Wen gave in the Wu'an Hall in 599, soon after he made Yami khan. Twelve archers shot in two sides; Yami joined the side of the envoy Zhangsun Sheng, and it won.
The Attack on Yami Khan (599)Battles & EventsJoint attack of Tulan Khan and Tardush on Yami, then Tuli Khan, below the Long Wall in 599. It drove Yami to the Sui court, and the Sui made him their client khan.
The Bargain with Mukan (562–563)Battles & EventsNorthern Zhou embassy of Yang Jian and Wang Qing to Mukan Khan, which made him break with the rival Qi envoys, settle his daughter's marriage and ask for a joint war against the Qi.
The battle of the Talas, 751Battles & EventsA Tang army and an Abbasid army met on the Talas river. The Karluk contingent changed sides during the battle, the Tang force was destroyed, and Chinese power west of the Pamirs ended.
The BattueCustoms & PastimesRing hunt in which people surround a stretch of country and drive the game together. The Wei emperor used the beaten Gaoche as the ring in 399; the Irk Bitig and al-Kashgari name the battue.
The Bökli questionControversiesTwo words in the Kül Tegin inscription, bökli and čölgil. Some scholars think they name Korea at the sunrise. Others argue they are two states, and the second is not Korean at all.
The capture of Samarkand, 712Battles & Events · briefQutayba ibn Muslim took Samarkand by a ruse in 712. The treaty fixed two million dirhams, three thousand slaves and a yearly tribute. Qutayba broke it, kept the town and drove out its people.
The Caucasus campaign, 627–629ConflictsJoint campaign of the western khaganate and Rome against Sasanian Persia, 627 to 629. The Göktürks forced the Caspian gates, took Derbent and besieged Tiflis.
The Chile SongCustoms & PastimesSong of the Chile, the people the Wei Shu calls Gaoche. The Chile general Hulü Jin sang it before the sick Gao Huan after the failed siege of Yubi in 546; its words survive in a Song anthology.
The coup of 716Battles & EventsKapgan Khan was killed by a straggler in a willow wood. Within days Kül Tegin had killed the Lesser Khan, Kapgan's sons and his court, and put his own elder brother on the throne.
The Court Debate of 630Battles & EventsDebate at the Tang court in 630 on where to settle the surrendered eastern Göktürks. Wen Yanbo's plan to keep the tribes whole below the frontier won over Wei Zheng's call to send them north.
The Economy of the Steppe EmpiresInstitutions and TitlesHow the steppe peoples lived, from the Xiongnu to the Uyghurs: herds and pastures, farming, iron and salt, craftsmen, markets, tribute, coins and the Sogdian merchants.
The embassies to Ctesiphon, 568Battles & EventsTwo embassies from the Göktürks to Khosrow I, both of them refused. The silk of the first was burned in front of the envoys. The members of the second died of poison.
The embassy of Zemarchos, 569Battles & EventsRome's answer to Maniakh. Zemarchos was purified by fire, received at Ektag on a golden throne, taken along on a campaign toward Persia, and sent home by a road chosen to avoid an ambush.
The fall of Ordu-Balık, 840Battles & EventsKirghiz capture of the Uyghur capital on the Orkhon, 840. The Kirghiz killed the khan and burned the city. The steppe centre that one khaganate after another had held since 552 was abandoned.
The Flight of the Ashina (439)Battles & EventsFlight of the Ashina with five hundred families to the Rouran after the Northern Wei destroyed the Northern Liang in 439, which made them the Rouran's ironworkers on the Golden Mountain.
The Gaoche Herds of 429Battles & EventsNorthern Wei capture of the eastern Gaoche camp at Lake Bini in the eighth month of 429, after Taiwu's campaign against the Rouran. The Wei took more than a million horses, cattle and sheep, settled the Gaoche south of the desert, and the Wei Shu says that animal prices in the state fell and felt and hides piled up.
The Gaoche WeddingCustoms & PastimesMarriage custom of the Gaoche as the Wei Shu records it. The bride's kin rode the groom's horses bareback out of a pen to win them, and both families feasted on mare's milk and meat.
The Göktürk–Byzantine allianceBattles & EventsAlliance of the Göktürks and the eastern Roman empire against Persia, sworn in Constantinople in 568. On Menander's account it broke at Bosporos in 576, and Heraclius renewed it in the Caucasus in 626–627.
The Göktürk Campaign of 622Battles & EventsIlig Khan's war on the Tang in 622, in which his horsemen killed Li Da'en at Xincheng and then raided as far as Fenzhou. He withdrew in the autumn with more than 5,000 captives.
The Göktürk Campaign of 625Battles & EventsIlig Khan's invasion of the Tang frontier in 625 with more than 100,000 men. He destroyed Zhang Jin's army at Taigu and captured Wen Yanbo, then asked for peace and withdrew.
The Göktürk Civil WarConflictsThe Göktürk civil war, 584 to 603. Four Ashina princes fought for the khaganate, the Sui set them against one another, and the state that Bumin founded became two.
The Göktürk FeastCustoms & PastimesFeasting at the khans' courts as foreign guests saw it, from the Roman embassy to Istemi in 569 to Tong Yabgu's court at Suyab: drink and music, meat, rows of guests, silence while the khan spoke.
The Göktürk–Hephthalite war, 555–563ConflictsThe war that destroyed the Hephthalite realm and made the western Göktürks a world power, 555 to 563. Istemi from the north, Khosrow from the south, a partition on the Oxus.
The Göktürk interregnum, 630–682StatesThe fifty years between the two khaganates, when the Göktürks of the east had no khan of their own. Prefectures and protectorates governed them from Chang'an.
The Göktürk OathInstitutions and TitlesOath-taking among the Göktürks. Their envoys swore before Justin II with raised hands and a curse upon themselves, and Ilig Khan swore a covenant with the Tang emperor at the Bian bridge in 626.
The Göktürk–Rouran WarsConflictsWars of the Göktürks against the Rouran, 546 to 555, and against the Avars who fled west. Bumin broke the khaganate in 552, and Mukan destroyed its remnant.
The Göktürk–Sasanian Trade ConflictConflictsQuarrel of the Göktürks under Istemi with Khosrow I of Persia over the silk trade in the 560s, which ended their partnership and turned the Göktürks to Byzantium.
The Göktürk–Sui wars, 582–603ConflictsWar between the Göktürks and the Sui, 582 to 603, which the Sui won almost entirely by diplomacy rather than arms. It ended with a Sui client on the Ashina throne.
The Göktürk–Wei allianceBattles & EventsAlliance of the Göktürks with the Western Wei, 545 to 557. The Wei gave Bumin a princess, handed the last Rouran to Mukan and fought beside him against the Tuyuhun.
The Göktürk–Zhou allianceBattles & EventsAlliance of the Göktürks with the Northern Zhou against the Northern Qi, 557 to 581. It brought two joint campaigns, a Göktürk empress at Chang'an and a yearly tribute of silk.
The Göktürks and the XiongnuControversiesComparison of the Göktürks and the Xiongnu in title, rite, rank and war, and the positions on whether the Ashina came out of the Xiongnu.
The Göktürks before Cherson (579)Battles & EventsGöktürk presence at the Roman city of Cherson in the Crimea about 579, possibly a siege, which the emperor Tiberius used to keep the Avars from crossing the Danube.
The Great Empires of the SteppePeoplesThe great steppe empires from the Xiongnu to the Khazars, in the order of their rise. For each one the founding, the ruling house, the centre, the reach and the end.
The Great Sacrifice of the GaocheBattles & EventsSacrifice to Heaven by five Gaoche tribes under the Wei emperor Wencheng, 452 to 465. Tens of thousands raced horses, killed victims and sang, and the emperor came to the gathering.
The great snow of 627Battles & EventsSeveral feet of snow on level ground killed the herds of the eastern khaganate. What the Tang armies finished in 630 began with a winter the annals record in one sentence.
The Han–Xiongnu heqin treatiesBattles & EventsSeries of agreements between the Han court and the Xiongnu chanyu, 200 to 133 BC. Each gave the chanyu a princess, yearly deliveries and the title of brother, and was renewed until the Mayi ambush.
The Hunnic languageLanguagesThe language of the Huns of Europe, known only from personal and tribal names, a river name and a few words in Greek and Latin writers. Its classification is argued.
The Huns and the XiongnuControversiesDebate on whether the Huns who entered Europe in the 370s continue the Xiongnu of Inner Asia. It is argued from the name, Chinese and Sogdian notices, archaeology, language and genetics.
The Iron OathInstitutions and TitlesOath of the Qirqiz, Yabaqu and Qifchaq in Kashgari's dictionary. The swearer faced a drawn sword and prayed that the iron go in blue and come out red if he broke the treaty.
The Khakas name debateControversiesDebate of 1992 on Xiajiasi, the Chinese name that gave the word Khakas to Russian scholarship. Two scholars named Kyzlasov read it as a medieval Khakas state, three others as a spelling of Kirghiz.
The Khalaj languageLanguagesTurkic language of the Khalaj, spoken today in central Iran. It keeps an initial h, long vowels and a dative in -kA that other Turkic languages lost, and so bears on the reconstruction of Old Turkic.
The khan's letter to MauriceBattles & EventsLetter of a Göktürk khan to the emperor Maurice, preserved by Theophylact, in which he styled himself lord of seven races and listed his victories over the Avars, the Ogur and the Kolch.
The Khazar–Ashkenazi hypothesisControversiesThe claim that Ashkenazi Jews descend wholly or largely from the Khazars: who made it, on what grounds, and what historical and genetic research has found. Positions, not findings.
The Khazar correspondenceSourcesHebrew letters of the 950s between Hasdai ibn Shaprut of Córdoba and a Khazar ruler named Joseph. Joseph's reply is the Khazar court's own account of its Judaism, and its authenticity is still argued.
The Khazar languageLanguagesLanguage of the Khazar Khaganate, known only from titles, names and a few remarks of geographers. It looks Turkic. Whether it was Oghur or Common Turkic is argued.
The Kievian letterSourcesTenth-century Hebrew recommendation letter from the Cairo Genizah. Its closing line was read as a Khazar word in runes. That reading and the letter's origin at Kiev are both disputed.
The Kirghiz descent from Li LingControversiesClaim of the Yenisei Kirghiz to descend from the Han general Li Ling. The Tang court, whose house traced its line to his grandfather, accepted it in 843 and entered their khan in its clan register.
The Kirghiz origin debateControversies · briefDebate on where the Kirghiz first lived and whether they were Turkic from the start. The Xin Tang Shu gives a country west of Yiwu and one north-west of the Uyghurs.
The language of the XiongnuControversiesWhat the Xiongnu spoke, argued from four words in a Chinese chronicle and some fifty glossed terms: the Turkic proposals, the Yeniseian hypothesis, the Iranian stratum.
The making of TengrismControversiesThe scholarship that turned a word in the Orkhon inscriptions into a religion with a pantheon. Four generations built the picture, and each added something the Göktürk sources do not carry.
The Marriage of Princess Qianjin (580)Battles & EventsMarriage of the Zhou princess Qianjin to Taspar Khan, agreed in 579 and completed in 580, by which the Zhou obtained the surrender of the Qi pretender Gao Shaoyi.
The New Year on the SteppeCustoms & PastimesThe beginning of the year on the steppe. The Xiongnu chiefs met in the first month. In 741 Tengri Khan sent the Tang emperor New Year wishes. The Kirghiz named their years after twelve animals.
The Old Turkic scriptLanguagesThe alphabet of the steppe inscriptions: some forty signs, written right to left. It fits Turkic sounds more exactly than any script the Göktürks could have borrowed unchanged.
The origin of the AvarsControversiesDebate on the origin of the Avars of Europe. Their khagans and nobility most likely came from the Rouran; the pseudo-Avar, Hephthalite, Ogur and Yueban theories are the main alternatives.
The origin of the Old Turkic scriptControversiesWhere the runiform letters come from, argued since 1893. An Aramaic ancestor, the tamgas of the steppe, or both. The argument runs on letter shapes, and shapes do not decide it.
The origin of the title KhanControversiesDebate on the origin of the title khan. Some scholars make Shelun of the Rouran its first bearer about 400, others a Xianbei chief of the third century. The word is derived from Mongolic and Iranian.
The Qi Court in Exile (577–580)Battles & EventsTaspar Khan's protection of the fugitive Qi prince Gao Shaoyi from 577 to 580, which made him emperor of Qi among the Göktürks and ended when Taspar handed him over to the Zhou.
The Qi March to Shuozhou (553)Battles & Events · briefCampaign of the Northern Qi emperor Wenxuan at the end of 553. He took in the Rouran who fled from the Göktürks, set up Anluochen as their ruler and pursued the Göktürks as far as Shuozhou.
The Qingmen Executions (555)Battles & EventsWestern Wei surrender of the Rouran ruler Dengshuzi and some three thousand of his people to Mukan's envoys in 555. They were killed outside the Qingmen gate of Chang'an.
The Raid on Youzhou (578)Battles & EventsTaspar Khan's raid on the Northern Zhou prefecture of Youzhou in 578, in which the Zhou general Liu Xiong fell and which drew Emperor Wu into a northern campaign he did not live to lead.
The revolt of the subject peoples, 714–716ConflictsRising of the subject peoples against the Second Khaganate, 714 to 716. The Ten Arrows and the Nine Surnames went over to the Tang, and Kapgan was killed. The khaganate came apart from the inside.
The Rouran Marriage Refusal (546)Battles & EventsBumin's request to the Rouran khan Anagui for a marriage, and its refusal. Anagui called Bumin his blacksmith slave, and Bumin killed the envoy and broke with the Rouran.
The Rouran–Wei wars, 402–449ConflictsHalf a century of war across the Gobi, 402 to 449. By the Wei Shu's account, the first steppe empire to call its ruler khan stood against the first steppe people to rule north China.
The Schechter letterSourcesAnonymous Hebrew letter of the tenth century from the Cairo Genizah, by a Khazar Jew. It tells the conversion differently and reports a war with the Rus and Byzantium. Its reliability is disputed.
The Siege of Jiuquan (578)Battles & Events · briefTaspar Khan's siege of the Northern Zhou frontier town of Jiuquan in the winter of 578, his second raid on the Zhou that year, in which the Göktürks plundered the district and withdrew.
The siege of Yanmen, 615Battles & EventsGöktürk siege of a Chinese frontier town in 615, which enabled Shibi Khan to end the tributary obligations towards the Sui.
The Sogdian languageLanguagesEastern Middle Iranian language of the Zarafshan cities, carried along the trade roads to Gansu. The Göktürk chancery wrote in it, and its alphabet became the Uyghur one.
The Standoff at Binzhou (624)Battles & EventsLi Shimin's confrontation with Ilig Khan and Töles at Binzhou in 624, ended without a battle. By riding out to the Göktürk line he set uncle against nephew, and Töles swore brotherhood with him.
The steppe before the XiongnuControversiesThe Eurasian steppe before the first empire: the Bronze Age cultures of South Siberia, the horse and the coming of nomadism, the Early Nomads, the Scythians and Saka.
The Succession of 587Battles & EventsAccession of Ishbara Khan's brother Bagha in 587 by Ishbara's will, after nephew and uncle had offered each other the throne five or six times.
The Sui Campaign of 599Battles & EventsSui offensive of 599 against Tulan Khan and Tardush under Gao Jiong and Yang Su, which the Chinese histories record as a rout of Tardush and which ended with the Sui raising Yami as Qimin Khan.
The Sui Court in Exile at Dingxiang (620)Battles & EventsCourt of the Sui pretender Yang Zhengdao, set up by Chula Khan at Dingxiang in 620 for the Chinese in the Göktürk lands. Chula meant to win Bingzhou for it and died before he could march.
The Tang conquest of the western Khaganate, 640–659ConflictsThe Tang conquest of the western khaganate, 640 to 659. The Tang took the oasis states one at a time, then the steppe behind them. The western Ashina line ended at Chang'an.
The Ten Steeds of 647Battles & EventsGift of ten horses from the Kurykan to the Tang emperor Taizong in the eighth month of 647. Taizong gave each horse a name, and the Chinese histories keep all ten.
The three worldsReligionsThe tiered cosmos of upper, middle and lower world in the reconstructed Turkic religion, set against the two-part cosmos the Göktürk inscriptions actually describe.
The Three Xiongnu AssembliesCustoms & PastimesYearly gatherings of the Xiongnu chiefs. The Shiji names three: at the chanyu's court in the first month, at Longcheng in the fifth, at Dailin in autumn. Kings at odds with the chanyu stayed away.
The Tibetan EmpireStatesEmpire of the Yarlung kings, about 618 to 842. It was the third great power of inner Asia. It took the Tarim from the Tang and proposed a joint invasion of China to Bilge Khan.
The Turkic ethnogenesis debateControversiesWho has claimed what about the origin of the Turkic peoples and the descent of the Göktürks. Set out as positions, not findings.
The Turkic languagesLanguagesThe whole family, from the Yenisei to the Balkans. Two primary branches, some forty living languages and as many again that died, and the order of their entry into the record.
The Turkic War of IndependenceConflictsWar in which Bumin's Ashina broke the Rouran overlordship, 546 to 552. It began with the intercepted Tiele rising and the refused princess. It ended at Ötüken.
The Turkish–Korean friendship narrativeControversiesA modern account of brotherhood between Turks and Koreans, built after 1950 out of the Korean War, one word of the Orkhon inscriptions and a set of school textbooks. Its history is twentieth-century.
The twelve-year animal cycleInstitutions and TitlesThe Göktürk reckoning of years: a run of twelve, each named for an animal. The inscriptions attest it, and the eleventh-century dictionary lists it in full.
The Twenty-Eight RanksInstitutions and TitlesThe hereditary order of Göktürk offices, from the yabgu down, counted at twenty-eight grades in the Zhou Shu and the Sui Shu. The Tongdian counts ten early grades and explains their names.
The Umayyad CaliphateStatesThe caliphate of the Umayyad house, 661 to 750, ruled from Damascus. It crossed the Oxus under Qutayba ibn Muslim and fought the Türgesh and the Khazars for forty years.
The Uyghur Demand for the Prince's Dance (762)Battles & EventsDemand of the Uyghur khan Bögü and his ministers that the Tang prince Li Kuo dance in homage before his tent at Shanzhou in 762. The prince's officers refused, and two were beaten to death.
The Wei bridge, 626Battles & EventsEighteen days after Taizong took the throne, Ilig Khan stood on the Wei with an army in sight of Chang'an. The Tang bought him off, and the emperor spent the next three years preparing the answer.
The Western and Southern KhansInstitutions and Titles · briefKhans named after a side of the realm, written 西面可汗 and 南面可汗. Tardush had been the Western Khan; the Sui planned a Southern Khan to divide Shibi's power.
The Woye and Luoyang Campaign (564)Battles & EventsSecond joint campaign of the Northern Zhou and Mukan Khan against the Qi in 564. Yang Zhong marched out by Woye, Yuwen Hu was beaten before Luoyang, and Mukan withdrew.
The Xianbei Spring AssemblyCustoms & PastimesGreat assembly of the Xianbei in the last month of spring, on the Raole river. The people drank and feasted there, and marriages were made at it.
The Xiongnu–Han WarsConflictsWars between the Han and the Xiongnu, 200 BC to AD 93. Baideng brought the heqin, Mayi ended it, and Wudi's armies broke the chanyu at Mobei. Civil war split the Xiongnu, and the north fell by AD 93.
The Yenisei Kirghiz and the KyrgyzControversies · briefDebate on whether the Kyrgyz of the Tian Shan descend from the Yenisei Kirghiz. Four accounts differ on migration, language and name; two national accounts settle the Kirghiz in the Tian Shan early.
The Zhou–Qi war, 557–577ConflictsThe twenty-year war between the two halves of northern China, and the first war the Göktürks fought inside China. Mukan marched with the Zhou in 563 and took his pay in plunder.
Theodora of KhazariaPersonsSister of a Khazar khagan and wife of the exiled Byzantine emperor Justinian II. After he regained the throne, he brought her from Khazaria to Constantinople and crowned her with their son Tiberios.
Theodoric IPersonsKing of the Visigoths, 419 to 451. His Goths destroyed the Hun auxiliaries of the Romans before Toulouse in 439; in 451 he joined Aetius against Attila and fell on the Catalaunian Plains.
Theodosius IIPersonsEmperor of the eastern Romans, 408 to 450. His government paid the Huns of Rua and Attila a rising tribute, and in 449 his minister Chrysaphius plotted Attila's murder.
Theophanes of ByzantiumSourcesLost Byzantine history of the years 566 to 581, known from a summary by Photios. It tells of the first Göktürk embassy to Justin II and of the Göktürk victory over the Hephthalites.
Theophanes the ConfessorSourcesByzantine chronicle of the years 284 to 813, compiled about 810 to 814 under the name of Theophanes the Confessor. It records Heraclius's alliance with the Göktürk commander Ziebel before Tiflis.
Theophylact SimocattaSourcesByzantine history of the reign of Maurice, 582 to 602, written under Heraclius. It is the Greek witness to the Göktürk civil war, to the war of 588, and to Göktürk religion.
ThorismundPersonsKing of the Visigoths, 451 to 453, son of Theodoric I. He fought Attila on the Catalaunian Plains and, in Jordanes, beat him a second time beyond the Loire.
Thousand SpringsPlacesPlain of springs and pools between Suyab and Talas, where the khans of the western Göktürks spent the summer. Tong Yabgu moved his court there.
Tian ShanPlaces · briefThe range that divides the northern steppe from the Tarim oases. The western khaganate held both its sides, and the passes through it carried the trade that paid the khan.
TielePeoplesThe federation of Turkic groups west of the Altai, called Töles in the Old Turkic inscriptions. Bumin intercepted their rising in 546, and their fifty thousand made the Ashina a power.
Tiele Revolt (605)Battles & EventsRising of the Tiele tribes against Heshana, the western Göktürk khan, after he had their chiefs killed at a gathering. They made Geleng of the Qibi khan at Tanhan Mountain and beat Heshana repeatedly.
TiflisPlacesCapital of the Georgian kingdom of Kartli, held for the Persians in the 620s. Heraclius and Börü Shad besieged it in 627. The Göktürks took and sacked it after the battle of Nineveh.
Togu BalıkPlaces · briefTown where the Göktürks fought the first of their battles against the Nine Oguz in one year. Both Orkhon inscriptions name it. The Bilge Khan inscription has the army swim the river Toğla first.
TolaPlaces · briefThe river east of the Orkhon in central Mongolia, and the ground of the Göktürk heartland. Tonyukuk beat the Oguz on it, and Kapgan Khan was killed on the road home from a victory there in 716.
Töles KhanPersonsSon of Shibi and nephew of Ilig, lesser khan of the eastern wing from 620. Ilig had him flogged in 627; he went over to the Tang in 629 and died at Bingzhou in 631, twenty-nine years old.
Tölis and TardushInstitutions and TitlesTwo peoples of the Göktürk inscriptions, which İlteriš organised and gave a yabgu and a shad. They are taken to be the eastern and the western half of the realm.
Tomb of An JiaSources · briefTomb of the Sogdian sabao An Jia at Xi'an, buried in 579 under the Northern Zhou. The reliefs of its stone funerary couch show him at talks with a long-haired Göktürk ruler in a tent.
Tomb of Kang YeSources · briefTomb of Kang Ye at Xi'an, a man of Central Asian descent who died in 571 under the Northern Zhou. Of four such tombs found since 1999, his stone couch alone has no Zoroastrian scenes.
Tomb of Princess LinheSources · briefTomb of Princess Linhe, granddaughter of the Rouran khan Anagui, near Cixian in Hebei. Excavated in 1978 and 1979, with wall paintings and an epitaph that dates her death to 550.
Tomb of Shi JunSourcesTomb of the Sogdian leader Shi Jun (Wirkak), buried at Xi'an in 580. Its sarcophagus shows him with a caravan before a king in a yurt whose winged crown is identified as Hephthalite.
Tomb of Yu HongSources · briefTomb of Yu Hong at Taiyuan, who died in 592 under the Sui. His epitaph gives a career that begins at a Rouran khan's court, and his marble sarcophagus shows Zoroastrian ritual and paradise.
Tong YabguPersonsRuler of the western Göktürks, 618 to 630. He reunited the west, recovered Bactria, and allied with Heraclius; murdered by his uncle, after which the west dissolved.
TongdianSourcesEncyclopaedia of Chinese institutions by Du You, completed in 801. Its frontier chapters treat the Göktürks from their origin to the Türgesh, a century and a half before the Jiu Tangshu.
Tongpu DuweiInstitutions and TitlesXiongnu office over the oasis states of the Tarim Basin, seated between Yanqi, Weixu and Yuli. It taxed the states and drew supplies from them until the Rizhu King went over to the Han in 60 BC.
TongraPeoples · briefA tribe of the Toquz Oghuz. The Kül Tegin inscription records ten of its champions killed at a funeral feast.
TonyukukPersonsCounsellor and commander of the first three khans of the Second Göktürk Khaganate. The author of the only first-person account of the restoration.
Tonyukuk inscriptionSourcesRuniform monument of two stones at Bain Tsokto on the upper Tola. In sixty-two lines the counsellor tells, in the first person, how the state was restored.
Toquz OghuzPeoplesThe Nine Oguz, a confederation of Tiele peoples north of the Orkhon country. The Göktürk inscriptions call them enemies and my own people in the same sentence; the Uyghurs came out of them.
Tör ApaPersons · briefMan named on the Begre stele (E 11) in Tuva, who rode against the Tabgach khan at fifteen and died at seventy-seven. Whether Tör Apa is his name, his chief's name or a title is understood in three ways.
TöreInstitutions and TitlesThe customary law of the Göktürks: succession, punishment, marriage, burial, and the limits on taking from the land. A ruler was held to it as much as anyone.
Töremen ApaPersonsSon of Mukan, whom Taspar wished to succeed him and whom the assembly of 581 refused. As Apa Khan he fought Ishbara with the western wing behind him until Bagha took him alive in 587.
TounsouresPeoples · briefPeople on the lower Danube in the fifth century, among those whom the Hun king Rua wanted to fight because they had fled to the Romans. Jordanes calls them Tuncarsi.
Towns and Villages of the Turks in the Hudud al-ʿĀlamInstitutions and TitlesThe settlements of the Turkic countries in the Persian geography of 982. The Karluk had towns, villages and fields, the Yaghma little agriculture, and the Kirghiz no town but the seat of their khan.
ToyInstitutions and TitlesThe assembly of the Ashina nobility. It raised Bumin to yabgu in 542, met each year at the ancestral cave, and in 581 elected a khan against a dead khan's wish.
Trade Routes of the SteppeInstitutions and TitlesThe roads of the steppe and its oases as the sources give them: the northern road to Fulin, the way to Suyab, the Tarim roads, Zemarchos's road, the Uyghur roads to Chang'an, the road to the Bulgars.
TransoxianaPlaces · briefThe country between the Oxus and the Syr Darya, the heart of Sogdian trade. It fell to the Göktürks with the Hephthalite lands and stayed the western khaganate's richest holding.
Treasure of NagyszentmiklósSourcesHoard of gold vessels known since 1799, with runiform and Greek inscriptions, from the Avar age in the Carpathian basin. The date of the runiform inscriptions against the vessels is disputed.
Treaty of MargusBattles & EventsTreaty between Bleda and Attila and the eastern empire, concluded on horseback outside Margus on the Danube. It doubled the yearly tribute to 700 pounds of gold and bound Rome to return all fugitives.
Tribute Missions and BestowalsInstitutions and TitlesExchange between a steppe ruler and a Chinese court. The ruler's envoys brought tribute, the court answered with bestowals and yearly payments. The words claimed rank for the court.
TudunInstitutions and TitlesThe overseer a khan left behind in a subject country. He supervised its own ruler and collected the tribute. The Zhou Shu ranks the office fifth among the great offices of the khaganate.
TufaLineages · briefThe Xianbei house that founded the Southern Liang in 397. Its name is held to be the same word as Tuoba, in a different Chinese spelling.
TuğInstitutions and TitlesThe standard of the steppe ruler: a pole with a metal finial and horse tails, carried before the khan and counted by the tail. The visible sign of authority.
Tuhezhen KhanPersonsKhan of the Rouran from before 449 to 464 by the Wei Shu's reckoning. He besieged a Wei column in 449, then fled nine days and nights and lost his baggage and a million head of stock.
TukhsiPeoples · briefTurkic tribe of the land between Lake Balkhash and Issyk Kul in the ninth and tenth centuries. One of the tribes whose federation became the Karakhanid state. They abducted the boy Sebüktegin.
Tulan KhanPersonsKhan of the eastern Göktürks from 588, after Bagha, whose yabgu he had been. He tried to shake off the Sui, was betrayed by his nephew Yami, and was killed by his own followers in 599.
TuldichPersons · briefOne of three great khagans whom a Göktürk khagan called to his aid against the rebel Turum, according to Theophylact Simocatta. Some scholars give his name the Turkic form Tuldïq.
Tulun KhanPersonsKhan of the Rouran, 485 to 492. He lost the Gaoche when Afuzhiluo led more than a hundred thousand tents west in 487. His own people killed him and his mother.
Tun Bagha TarkanPersonsFourth khan of the Uyghurs, 779 to 789. Chief minister and cousin of Bögü, he killed him rather than let him invade China, and the Sogdian party fell with him.
TuobaPeoples · briefThe Xianbei house that founded the Northern Wei and ruled north China for a century and a half. The Rouran wars were fought against them, and their collapse in 534 made the two Weis.
TürgeshPeoplesTribe of the Üç Tuğlu wing of the Ten Arrows, in the Ili basin. Its khans ruled the western Göktürk lands from Suyab, 699 to 744, and were broken at Kharistan in 737.
Türgesh and Karluk CoinageInstitutions and TitlesCopper coins with Sogdian legends and Turkic tamgas, struck in the Chu and Talas valleys in the eighth and early ninth centuries. 533 coins found at Taraz are the largest published group.
Türgesh KhaganateStates · briefKhaganate of the Türgesh tribe among the On Oq, 699 to 744. Under Sulu Khan it beat the Arab armies in 720 and 724 and threatened Tang holdings, until Kharistan in 737.
Türk-shadPersonsGöktürk prince in the west, brother of Tardush. He received the Roman envoy Valentinos in 576 and sent the army that took Bosporos in the Crimea.
Turk Shahi of Kabul and KapisaStatesDynasty, held to be Turkic, of the kings of Kapisa, Gandhara and Kabul south of the Hindu Kush, seventh century to about 843. The Tang called its kings kings of Jibin. The Hindu Shahi replaced it.
Turkic MythologyReligionsStories of origin, divine powers and the order of the world among the Turkic peoples. Its oldest figures are the she-wolf of the Ashina, the tree of the succession, Heaven, Earth-and-Water and Umay.
Turkic-Sogdian SynthesisControversies · briefMixed civilisation of Göktürks and Sogdians. It began with the silk trade on the Chinese frontier and became a fusion of ruling strata after 560. The Sogdians lent the khaganate script and envoys.
Turkic Songs at the Tang CourtCustoms & PastimesGöktürk songs at the Tang court, sung by Wu Yanxiu, whom Kapgan Khan held from 698 to 705. He came back knowing their language. Before him a Göktürk troupe had played at the Sui court.
Turkic Tribes in EuropePeoplesThe Turkic-speaking and Turkic-led peoples of the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the north Caucasus, fifth to seventh centuries. From the 560s most of them stood under Göktürk hegemony.
TurumPersons · briefGöktürk prince and kinsman of the khagan who rose against him and fell at Ikar against the khagan and three allied khagans, as Theophylact Simocatta reports from the khagan's letter.
TutmaçFoodsNoodle dish of the Turkic peoples, eaten with its broth. Mahmud al-Kashgari records it in the 1070s as a well-known food of the Turks and explains its name with a story of Dhu'l-Qarnayn.
TutukInstitutions and TitlesRank of a governor or tribal head, taken from the Chinese 都督, military governor. The Orkhon inscriptions give it to a Chinese commander and to the Az governor, and the Yenisei epitaphs carry it fourteen times.
TuwuPersonsFather of Bumin and Istemi, and the chief under whom the Ashina worked iron for the Rouran in the Altai. The Sui Shu knows him as the Great Yabgu, d. about 542.
TuyuhunPeoples · briefA people of the Koko Nor country between China and Tibet, of Xianbei descent. Their land was where a beaten Göktürk khan could vanish.
Tuyuhun HunyePersons · briefRetainer of the mother of Ilig Khan, who raised the khan from his birth. When Ilig died a captive at Chang'an in 634, he cut his own throat to follow him.
Tuz Köl of the KarluksPlaces · briefSalt lake in the country of the Khallukh, the Karluks, in the Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam of 982. Seven Karluk tribes took their salt from it. Which lake of the Tian Shan region is meant is disputed.
TzitzakPersons · briefDaughter of a Khazar khagan who married the Byzantine heir Constantine, later Constantine V, in 732. She was baptised Irene and was the mother of Leo IV, called the Khazar.

U

Üç Tuğlu KhanPersonsYukuk Shad, khan of the Duolu tribes from 638 as Yipi Duolu Khan. He split the western Göktürks at the Ili, killed the khan of the Nushibi, took Tokharistan, and fled to Tokharistan himself in 642.
Ulaangom inscriptionSources · briefGravestone with eight lines in Uyghur letters, found in 1955 near Ulaangom in Mongolia. Its language is Old Turkic of the Orkhon kind, the name in line 1 is read in four ways, and its date is argued.
UldinPersons · briefHun king on the lower Danube about 400 to 408, the first Hun whose name is certain. He killed the rebel Gainas, fought for Stilicho against Radagaisus and invaded Thrace.
Ülgen and Kayra KhanReligionsSky gods of the Altaians as recorded by Radloff, Verbitskii and Potanin in the nineteenth century. Ülgen is the good creator, Kayra Khan the gracious khan of the highest heaven. The records differ on whether the two are one god, father and son, or a god and an epithet.
UltzinzuresPeoples · briefHun tribe on the lower Danube after Attila's death. It followed Attila's son Dengizich against the Goths in the 460s; a later historian calls it well known until the reign of Leo.
Ulukayın (Turkic World Tree)ReligionsThe tree at the centre of the world in the reconstructed Turkic cosmology. The Göktürk-period sources give one tree only: the tree of the succession contest in the Zhou Shu.
UmayReligionsThe goddess of birth and of children. The Kül Tegin inscription names her once, in a comparison to a queen mother; the Tonyukuk inscription names her with Tengri and the sacred Earth-and-Water among the powers that gave victory. She is the only female divine figure in the Göktürk corpus.
UtigursPeoplesHunnic steppe people east of the Sea of Azov, kin to the Kutrigurs. Under their ruler Anagai they fought for the Göktürks at Bosporos in 576.
Uyghur FarmingInstitutions and TitlesGrain growing in the Uyghur khaganate, 744 to 840. The Uyghurs began as herders and raised towns within a generation. An Arab envoy found villages and farmland on the road to the capital.
Uyghur Horse-Silk TradeInstitutions and TitlesExchange of Uyghur horses for Tang silk from 757 to the fall of the khaganate in 840. The Uyghurs asked forty bolts of silk a horse. The Tang paid single sums of 200,000 bolts and more.
Uyghur KhaganateStatesInfamous destroyers and successors of the Göktürks, ruled by the Yaglakar of the Nine Oguz. Allied with the Tang Dynasty and rulers of the eastern steppe until the Kirghiz devastated Ordu-Balık in 840.
Uyghur Kingdom of QochoStatesUyghur state of the Turfan basin and Beshbalik, formed after 840 and ruled by an idiqut. It kept good relations with its neighbours except the Karakhanids and submitted to the Mongols in 1209.
Uyghur–Kirghiz WarConflictsWar of the Yenisei Kirghiz against the Uyghur khaganate, about 820 to 840. Their ruler Are took the title of khan. A Uyghur defector led the Kirghiz to the Orkhon, where they killed the Uyghur khan.
Uyghur victory over the Kirghiz (758)Battles & EventsDefeat of the Kirghiz by the Uyghurs, reported to the Tang in autumn 758 as 50,000 men broken. The Kirghiz could no longer reach China, and the Uyghurs gave their ruler a title without the word khan.
UyghursPeoplesA Tiele people of the Nine Oguz, subject in turn to the Rouran and the Göktürks. They overthrew the last Göktürk khan in 744 and held the Orkhon for ninety-six years.

V

ValamirPersonsKing of the Ostrogoths under Attila, who prized him and the Gepid Ardaric above all his other kings. After Attila's death he routed Attila's sons in Pannonia.
Valentinian IIIPersonsEmperor of the western Romans, 425 to 455. He refused Attila the hand of his sister Honoria and half his empire, killed his commander Aetius in 454 and was murdered a year later.
ValentinosPersonsRoman envoy, one of the imperial sword-bearers, sent by Tiberius Caesar to the Göktürks in 576. He found Turxanthos mourning Istemi and was held while the Göktürks took Bosporos.
VandalsPeoples · briefPeople who crossed from Spain into Africa under their king Gaiseric and took Carthage in 439. Their fleet drew Roman forces away from the Danube, and in 455 they sacked Rome.
ViminaciumPlacesRoman city on the Danube in Moesia Superior, near modern Kostolac. The Huns razed it in 441, their first great conquest in the Balkan wars; a merchant taken there won his freedom among them.
VolgaPlacesGreat river of the western steppe, the Attila of Menander and the Atel of Theophanes. Göktürk power had crossed it by 571, when the chief of the Ugurs held the land beyond it for Istemi.
Volga BulgariaStates · briefBulgar state of the middle Volga and Kama, a Khazar vassal that turned to Islam in the early tenth century. A main fur-trade link to the Islamic world until the Mongol conquest of 1237 to 1240.

W

Wagons of the Steppe PeoplesInstitutions and TitlesWooden wagons of the steppe peoples: the camp wagons of the Huns, the high-wheeled carts of the Gaoche and the felt carts of the Göktürks. The sources name them and never say how they were built.
Wang ZhaojunPersonsHan palace lady given to the Xiongnu chanyu Huhanye in 33 BC. She bore him a son and, as wife of his successor, two daughters. The killing of her son helped to set off the split of 48.
Warfare of the Steppe EmpiresInstitutions and TitlesHow the steppe empires fought: horse and bow, moon and season, scouts, feigned retreat and surprise, plunder and sieges, the wolf standard, the khan's council, and what followed a battle.
Water CultReligionsReverence for rivers, lakes and springs as powers with owners: the sacred Earth-and-Water beside Heaven, a river of sacrifice in the Zhou Shu, and the water that Theophylact has the Göktürks revere.
Wei JiePersonsSui censor who travelled with Du Xingman to the western lands under the emperor Yang and wrote the Xifan ji, which the Tongdian quotes. In 610 he carried the summons to Heshana.
Wei LüPersonsHan envoy of Hu descent who fled to the Xiongnu and became king of the Dingling. He questioned Su Wu, arranged the sacrifice of Li Guangli and helped install Huyandi as chanyu in 85 BC.
Wei QingPersonsHan general of the Xiongnu wars, 129 to 119 BC. He took the Ordos from the Xiongnu in 127, surprised the Right Worthy King in his camp in 124 and met the chanyu north of the Gobi in 119.
Wei ShuSourcesDynastic history of the Northern Wei, presented in 554. Its chapter 103, the principal Chinese account of the Rouran and the Gaoche, was lost and survives in the form the Bei Shi gave it.
Wen-wu AlpPersonsGeneral of the Kirghiz and the third envoy they sent to the Tang. He reached Chang'an in July 843 with 100 horses and ten falcons, asked for the title Heavenly Khan for his lord and was refused it.
Western Göktürk KhaganateStatesThe western wing of the Göktürk state, founded by Istemi as a yabgu's command. Independent after the civil war, at its height under Tong Yabgu, taken by the Tang in 657.
Western Roman EmpireStates · briefThe western half of the Roman empire after the division of 395. Its commander Aetius relied on Hun auxiliaries for two decades, and Attila invaded its provinces of Gaul and Italy in 451 and 452.
Western WeiStatesWestern half of the divided Northern Wei, 535 to 557, ruled from Chang'an by Yuwen Tai. Its embassy of 545 and its princess of 551 made it the first Chinese ally of the Göktürks.
Western Wei embassy of 545Battles & EventsThe mission the Western Wei chancellor Yuwen Tai sent to the Göktürks in 545 under the Sogdian An Nuopantuo. For the first time a Chinese state addressed the Ashina as a party in their own right.
Women among the Turkic PeoplesInstitutions and TitlesWomen at the courts of the steppe peoples, from the Xiongnu yanzhi to the Volga. Consorts shaped successions, princesses carried treaties, and the Orkhon stones name the khan's mother.
Wood and WoodworkingInstitutions and TitlesTimber and wooden work among the steppe peoples: planks for coffins, felled timbers, gilded pillars at a Göktürk court, wooden cups and figures, and the khadang and khalanj woods of the Hudud.
Wooden HorsesCustoms & PastimesSkis as the Chinese histories describe them: boards bound under the feet and a staff in the hand, for running down deer on snow and ice. Seven peoples of the northern forests are named as users.
Worthy Kings of the Left and RightInstitutions and TitlesThe Left and Right Worthy Kings, two of the four great kingships of the Xiongnu court. The Left Worthy King ranked first, ruled the east and was usually the heir. The Right Worthy King held the west.
Woyanqudi ChanyuPersonsChanyu of the Xiongnu, 60 to 58 BC. A palace plot raised him. He purged his predecessor's court, lost the Rizhu King to the Han, and killed himself when the eastern nobles set up Huhanye against him.
WoyePlaces · briefThe westernmost of the Six Garrisons on the northern edge of the Ordos loop. The revolt of 524 began there, Issik Khan broke the Rouran remnant near it in 553, and the Zhou marched out by it in 564.
WrestlingCustoms & Pastimes · briefContest of strength between two men. Kashgari's dictionary of the 1070s has the Turkic word čališ, and an Armenian history has Huns wrestling at their graves in 682.
WuhuanPeoplesPeople of the eastern steppe, subject to the Xiongnu from Bagatur's victory over the Donghu and then to the Han, who settled them at the frontier and used them against the Xiongnu and the Xianbei.
Wuhuan Funeral SongsCustoms & PastimesFuneral custom of the Wuhuan. They wept at a death and saw the dead off with song and dance at the burial, and a fattened dog was to guard his spirit on the way to the Red Mountain.
WuleiPlaces · briefSmall oasis state east of Kucha on the northern road of the Tarim Basin. From 60 BC the seat of the Han Protector-General, chosen for its fertile land and its place in the Western Regions' middle.
WusunPeoplesSteppe people of the Ili valley, clients then rivals of the Xiongnu and the Han's chief ally in the west. Their founder was exposed at birth and suckled by a she-wolf.
Wuti KhanPersonsSon and successor of Datan, khan of the Rouran from 429 into the 440s. He made the first marriage alliance with the Northern Wei, then broke the peace in 436.
WuweiPlaces · briefOasis town in the middle of the Gansu corridor, Guzang and Liangzhou in the older sources. Seat of a Sogdian community from the third century and capital of the Northern Liang.
Wuwei ChanyuPersonsChanyu of the Xiongnu, about 114 to 105 BC, son of Yizhixie. He had Wudi's envoy banished to the Northern Sea. He refused to send his heir to the Han and kept asking for heqin.

X

XianbeiPeoplesThe people who took the eastern steppe from the Xiongnu in the first century and gave it its next order. The Rouran ruling house and the Tuoba of the Northern Wei came out of them.
XiazhouPlacesPrefecture 夏州 south of the Yellow River. The Sui settled Yami Khan's people beside it, Shibi Khan crossed the river to it in 619, and the Göktürks raised Ashina Funian as khan there in 680.
XihaiPlacesThe Western Sea of the Chinese histories, 西海, the western bound of the Göktürk realm and the setting of the Ashina origin legend. It has been identified with the Caspian, the Aral Sea or the Edzin Gol lakes.
Xin Tangshu (New Book of Tang)SourcesThe second official history of the Tang, completed 1060; for the Uyghurs and the Kirghiz the companion of the Jiu Tangshu, briefer, less precisely dated, and drawing on it.
Xing RidgePlaces · briefMountain pass on the road to Jinyang, held by the Northern Qi. In 563 a Zhou army forced it, and Mukan Khan joined that army with a hundred thousand riders.
XiongnuStatesFirst united eastern steppe polity in history from c. 221 BC to 89 AD. Their state structure and language served as the basis for many Turkic groups, including the Huna people of Central Asia and the Huns of Europe.
Xiongnu AgricultureInstitutions and TitlesGrain growing and storage among the Xiongnu. The Shiji denies them tilling, the Han Shu records crops, granaries and farmers, and excavated settlements hold wheat, barley and millet.
Xiongnu HanStates · briefState proclaimed by the Xiongnu leader Liu Yuan in 304, which claimed the Han succession through the marriage treaties. It took Luoyang in 311 and Chang'an in 316 and so ended the Western Jin.
Xiongnu HerdsInstitutions and TitlesThe animals of the Xiongnu as the Shiji, the Han Shu and the Hou Han Shu give them: horses, cattle and sheep in the herds, camels, donkeys and mules besides. The annals count the herds in booty, gifts and trade, and one Han general was accused of inflating his count.
Xiongnu IronworkingInstitutions and TitlesIron of the Xiongnu: knives and iron-shafted lances in the Chinese histories, a smelting furnace at Ivolga and slag at seasonal camps in the Khanui valley. Iron-making was small and widespread.
Xiongnu: Making the First Steppe EmpireControversiesWhy a steppe empire appeared north of China in the third century BC, and whether China made it. The frontier models, the state-or-chiefdom argument, and the case from the steppe.
Xiongnu PotteryInstitutions and TitlesGrey, coil-built and partly wheel-finished household pottery of the Xiongnu, with narrow-necked jars and flat-rimmed bowls. It was made locally in the valleys where it was used.
Xiongnu split of 48Battles & EventsAD 48. Eight southern tribes proclaimed their own chanyu against the court in the north, and the Xiongnu never came together again.
Xuanzang's visit to Tong YabguBattles & EventsReception of the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang by the khan of the western Göktürks near Suyab about 629, which gives the fullest surviving description of a Göktürk court.
Xueyantuo Khaganate (Syr Tardush)StatesTiele khaganate that held the eastern steppe between the two Göktürk states, 628 to 646. Yinan took the title with a Tang patent. He ruled first from Ötüken and then from the Tula.
Xulihu ChanyuPersonsChanyu of the Xiongnu, 102 to 101 BC, younger brother of Wuwei. He pulled down the Han forts north of Wuyuan and raided Dingxiang, Yunzhong and the Hexi corridor. He died within the year.
Xulüquanqu ChanyuPersonsChanyu of the Xiongnu, 68 to 60 BC. He sought a heqin with the Han amid famine and the loss of Cheshi. At his death the consort he had set aside made her lover chanyu. His son returned as Huhanye.

Y

YabguInstitutions and TitlesThe second rank of the Göktürk order, held by the ruler of the western wing. Istemi bore it for fifty years without ever claiming the title of khan.
Yabgus of TokharistanStatesGöktürk yabgus of the Ashina house who ruled Tokharistan south of the Oxus from about 625, seated at Huo. The Tang made the seat an area command in 661. The last embassy to the Tang came in 759.
Yada StoneReligionsThe stone with which Turkic and Mongol weather-workers are said to bring rain, wind, snow and hail. Kashgari saw it put out a fire with summer snow in the eleventh century, and the Altai missionaries and Radloff recorded the yadachi in the nineteenth. The Chinese histories give weather-working men and do not name a stone.
YaglakarLineages · briefChief of the ten sub-tribes of the Uyghurs, and the house from which the Khans came until 795.
Yami KhanPersonsSon of Ishbara, and the traitor of the Göktürk cause. He sold his khan to the Sui, led Chinese troops into sacred Ötüken in 603, and ruled the east as the emperor's client.
Yang Su's Northern Campaign (601–602)Battles & EventsSui campaign under Yang Su with Yami Khan against the tribes that had left him and the raiders of Sili Irkin. Yang Su recovered Yami's people and herds, and the raids south of the desert ceased.
Yang ZhongPersons · briefThe Northern Zhou general who led the Chinese column into Qi territory in 563 beside Mukan, and told his emperor afterwards that the Göktürks were not hard to handle.
Yangdi's Visit to Yami Khan (607)Battles & EventsVisit of the Sui emperor Yangdi to Yami Khan at Yulin and in his camp in 607. Yami asked to adopt Chinese dress and was refused; a Goguryeo envoy in his camp led to the Sui wars on Goguryeo.
Yangsu TeginPersons · briefGöktürk prince of the sixth century and father of Niri Khan of the western Göktürks. The Chinese histories name him when Apa's people raised his son as khan after 587.
YanhongdaInstitutions and Titles · briefOffice of the western Göktürks, written 閻洪達. The Sui Shu names it with the sifa as the council that deliberated on the affairs of state.
YanmenPlacesFrontier commandery and pass in northern Shanxi, the gate between the Chinese plain and the steppe. The Sui emperor was besieged inside it in 615; Ilig Khan came back to it in 621 and 622.
YarkandPlaces · briefOasis state at the south-western corner of the Tarim Basin, called Suoju by the Han Shu. It had an iron mountain and green jade, and after 60 BC it still paid yearly tribute to the Xiongnu.
Yenisei inscriptionsSourcesMore than 150 runiform epitaphs and short texts on stone along the upper Yenisei. They are the writing of the Kirghiz, in a regional form of the script of the Orkhon stones.
Yenisei KirghizPeoplesMysterious Turkic-speaking people of the upper Yenisei, known for iron and gold. Part of the Göktürk Empire for most of the time, they ended the Uyghur Khaganate and the Ötüken-centered ruling mandate.
Yenisei Kirghiz KhaganateStatesRealm of the Yenisei Kirghiz, 840 to about 924. Their khan broke the Uyghur khaganate in 840 and burned its court, but the Kirghiz kept to the upper Yenisei. They sent embassies to the Tang from 842.
Yer-Su SpiritsReligionsThe sacred Earth-and-Water of the Göktürk inscriptions. The land itself is a power that speaks beside Tengri, and a possession that can be left without a master.
Yi KhanInstitutions and Titles · briefHouse khan, the title by which great Göktürk families addressed one another. The Tongdian derives it from yi, the Göktürk word for house.
Yinan KhanPersonsZhenzhu Bilge Khan of the Xueyantuo, d. 645. He beat Ilig in the field, took the khanship with a Tang patent in 628, and ruled the steppe north of the Gobi for seventeen years.
YinghefuInstitutions and Titles · briefGöktürk word for the brave and strong, given by the Tongdian beside shiboluo. It stands among the early titles that took their names from the body.
YingsuoPlaces · briefDistrict north of Kucha where one of the two lesser khans of the western Göktürks resided under Heshana Khan. It may be the Yulduz valley.
Yinnai TeginPersons · briefGöktürk tegin who went over to the Tang with Töles and the Yushe Shad in the twelfth month of 629, as the Tang armies marched against Ilig Khan.
YinshanPlacesMountains 陰山 on the northern frontier of China. Shibi Khan looked down on China from them, the peoples north of them rose against Ilig Khan in 627, and Li Jing broke Ilig there in 630.
Yintou TeginPersons · briefGöktürk tegin, envoy of Tulan Khan to the Sui court in 599. The emperor set him to argue Tulan's case against Yami and judged Yami in the right.
Yiran KhanPersonsSon and successor of Bilge Khan, set up by the people after the poisoning of 734 and dead of illness within months. His younger brother Tengri followed him.
YiwuPlacesOasis town at the eastern gate of the Western Regions, identified with Hami. Its lord, long subject to the Göktürks, surrendered its seven towns to the Tang in 630.
Yiwu Tudun ShadPersons · briefLord of the oasis of Yiwu, the later Hami, under a Göktürk title in 609. He came to the Sui emperor at Mount Yanzhi and offered him several thousand li of land in the Western Regions.
Yizhi-lianjiPersons · briefKirghiz envoy to the Tang court in 866, a general named in the Tang huiyao. His name may be a distorted form of the Turkic rank ičräki, which would set him beside the man of the Begre stele.
Yizhi NishiduPersons · briefWolf-born ancestor in the Zhou Shu's Suo story of Göktürk origins. He summoned wind and rain, married daughters of the gods of summer and winter, and fathered four sons.
Yizhixie ChanyuPersonsChanyu of the Xiongnu, about 126 to 114 BC. He took the throne from his brother's heir and lost the Hexi corridor to Wudi's armies. At Mobei he broke out of the Han ring with a few hundred riders.
Yol TengriReligionsThe road-god of the Irk Bitig. His name is ambiguous: yol is both the road a man travels and the fortune he meets on it.
YouzhouPlacesPrefecture 幽州 in the north-east of China. Taspar Khan raided it in 578, the Sui and the Tang fought the Göktürks from it, and Töles Khan had his camp due north of it.
Yucheng KhanPersonsKhan of the Rouran, 464 to 485 by the Wei Shu's reckoning, and the first to proclaim a reign era of his own. Beaten at the Nü river in 470, he sought a Wei marriage for ten years and was refused.
YuebanPeoplesThe part of the northern Xiongnu that stayed behind north of Kucha when the rest moved west. The Wei Shu places their country north-west of the Wusun and records their embassies to the Northern Wei.
Yuefu Shiji (Collection of Yuefu Songs)Sources · briefAnthology of songs and ballads compiled under the Northern Song. Juan 86 gives the Chile song and a song of the general Xue Rengui against the Göktürks of the Nine Surnames.
YuezhiPeoplesThe people of the Gansu corridor whom the Xiongnu broke twice, and whose flight west set off the movement that ended in Bactria.
YujiulüLineagesRuling house of the Rouran Khaganate, from Shelun, who took the title khan about 400, to Anagui, who died in 552. Named by the Wei Shu after a bald slave called Mugulü.
Yukuk ShadPersonsGöktürk prince under Ilig Khan who commanded the Tiele tribes north of the desert. The Uyghurs broke his army in the rising of 627, and in 630 he fled to Gaochang and then went over to the Tang.
YulinPlacesSui commandery on the northern frontier, 榆林. There the emperor Yangdi received Yami Khan and Princess Yicheng in 607 and feasted 3,500 of his chiefs.
YunzhongPlacesCommandery 雲中 on the northern frontier of China since the state of Zhao. The Rouran surrounded the Wei emperor there in 424, and the Tang named a Göktürk command and a protectorate after it.
Yushe ShadPersonsSon of Chula Khan who held Göktürk tribes on the Ordos frontier of the Tang in the 620s. He besieged Wucheng in 626 and went over to the Tang at the end of 629.
YuwenLineages · briefThe Xianbei house of the north-east, broken by the Murong in 344. The imperial house of the Northern Zhou two centuries later claimed descent from it.
Yuwen HuPersons · briefRegent of the Northern Zhou from 557 to 572, nephew of Yuwen Tai. He made and unmade three emperors and lost the Luoyang offensive of 564 that Mukan had asked for.
Yuwen TaiPersonsChancellor and commander of the Western Wei, d. 556. He sent the first embassy to Bumin in 545 and gave him the princess Changle in 551.

Z

ZabenderPeoples · briefPeople whom Theophylact derives from the Var and Chunni, named beside the Tarniach and Kotzager who fled from the Göktürks to the Avars.
ZemarchosPersonsByzantine envoy sent by Justin II with Maniakh in 569 to Istemi's camp at Ektag. He came home with a Göktürk embassy and used silk as bait to shake off a Persian army.
ZerconPersonsMoorish jester of the Hun king Bleda. Attila gave him to Aetius after Bleda's death; in 449 he came back for his wife and made Attila's banquet laugh in Latin, Hunnic and Gothic.
Zhang QianPersonsHan envoy to the Yuezhi in the second century BC, held ten years by the Xiongnu. The first Chinese to reach Ferghana and Bactria and report on them. His report is the core of Shiji 123.
Zhang RenyuanPersonsThe Tang official who built the three Cities of Surrender beyond the Yellow River and closed the southern road to the Göktürk raiders.
Zhao FanPersons · briefTang minister of the Imperial Stud, named in 843 to console the Kirghiz country and to receive their envoy. He carried the Kirghiz offer of a joint campaign to the emperor.
Zhao Xin CityPlacesXiongnu town at Mount Tianyan, north of the Gobi, named after the Han marquis Zhao Xin. In 119 BC the Han army found a store of grain there, fed on it for a day and burned the rest.
Zhenzhu Tong IrkinPersons · briefEnvoy of Tong Yabgu to the Tang court in 627. He brought a gold belt set with ten thousand studs and five thousand horses for the Tang princess whom the khan was to marry.
Zhishi SiliPersonsGöktürk chief and confidant of Ilig Khan, his envoy to the Tang in 626 and 630. After the fall of the khaganate he served the Tang as a general and married a Tang princess.
Zhizhi ChanyuPersonsChanyu of the Xiongnu, 56 to 36 BC. He refused to submit to the Han and took the first Xiongnu empire as far west as the Talas. A Han column acting without orders killed him there.
Zhonghang YuePersonsHan eunuch who went over to the Xiongnu while escorting a princess to Laoshang Chanyu. He taught the chanyu to count people and herds in writing and to answer the Han on longer tablets.
Zhou Shu (Book of Zhou)SourcesThe official history of the Northern Zhou and the earliest sustained account of the Göktürks.
ZhoupanPlaces · briefFrontier post 周槃 of Sui China, held by Daxi Zhangru against the Göktürk invasion of 582. Ishbara Khan fought him there for three days, and the Sui edict of 583 names the place.
Zhu-wu Alp SolPersonsEnvoy of the Kirghiz khan who reached Chang'an on 16 March 843. Wuzong ranked him above the envoy of Bohai, had the envoys painted and ordered the khan entered in the register of the imperial clan.
Zihe GarrisonPlaces · briefFrontier garrison on the Zihe river. Ishbara Khan's royal tent burned there on his way back from a hunt in 587, and he died a month later.
Zizhi tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance)SourcesAn eleventh-century chronicle compiling the earlier histories; useful for chronology, not for attestation.

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