Turkic Atlas

Authority on Turkic History

What’s new
Support this project

What the sources do not say

Mysteries

Statements checked against the sources and found unattested, and the fields the record leaves empty. A silence here is a finding: the question was asked and the sources did not answer it.

910 silences in 446 articles.

Up to 100 AD 44

History of the Turkic peoples2500 BCPeoples

  • They name no vine grown in the lands of the Xiongnu or the Göktürks.
  • How the Ashina came by the craft is not recorded.
  • The sources of the Göktürk age report no salt-working at all.
  • The geologist who describes it gives no date for the first quarrying.
  • The text does not say whether a lake in the tribe's country gave it the name.
  • No source names a salt mine of the Ashina, or any other salt-working of theirs, in the sixth century.
  • These notices name furs as gifts, tribute and tax, and none of them describes a trade in furs between the Göktürks and a buyer.
  • No runiform inscription of the khaganates names a tree, a world axis, or a climb between worlds.
  • The inscriptions the Göktürks cut for themselves never mention it.
  • No runiform inscription of the khaganates names the specialist.

Issyk inscription500 BCSources

  • The studies give these dates without the evidence for them.
  • The studies used here give no reading of the text. The study that calls the signs runiform names no reader of them. The study that calls them Iranian reads neither the cup nor the stone of Dasht-i Navur in Afghanistan, which it sets beside it.
  • No runiform text has been securely dated to the First Khaganate.
  • No dated text in a transitional alphabet joins the two. In the debate on the origin of the letters, a text of that kind would decide the matter, and none is known.
  • The dates of the cup differ between the studies, and none of them shows what the date rests on.

Berel350 BCPlaces

  • No report ties the Göktürk-period graves of Berel to the Ashina or to any named person.

Camels300 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • The Chinese words do not say whether an animal had one hump or two, and the sources of this article do not settle it.
  • The Hudud al-Alam names no camel in the wealth of any of the Turkic peoples it lists.
  • The sources give no price for a camel and no size for a camel herd of a steppe people.

Donghu300 BCPeoples

  • The Shiji does not date Qin Kai's campaign.
  • All three claims come from histories written long after the event. The Shiji, which tells the war itself, names neither the Wuhuan nor the Xianbei.
  • Donghu is Chinese for the Hu of the east. The sources give no name the people used for themselves and no word of their language.

Sheep300 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • The Chinese word yang may cover goats as well, and the texts do not separate the two.
  • The sources do not give the weight or the price of a sheep. They do not say how the wool was used outside the felt tent.

Xiongnu Herds300 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • The three last names belong to rare equids, and their exact identity is not certain.

Army of the Steppe Empires209 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • The Shiji does not call this count a muster of the army.
  • The histories give the guard neither a number nor a commander.
  • The inscriptions mention no guard.
  • The histories do not say how the two figures were obtained.
  • No source gives a table of organisation for a Göktürk army. The Xiongnu have a decimal order, the Göktürks have offices, wings and arrows, and the Uyghurs have tribes with governors. No source names a Göktürk unit below the wing, a rule of precedence in the line or a regular size for a command.

The Göktürks and the Xiongnu209 BCControversies

  • Both calendars hold a sacrifice in the fifth month, and both join Heaven with the forebears. The first-month gathering and the autumn count of the Xiongnu have no Göktürk counterpart in the sources.
  • They contain no Göktürk statement of descent. None of the Chinese texts names the Xiongnu house or lineage from which the Ashina came.

Warfare of the Steppe Empires209 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • Neither text gives a reason.
  • The Kül Tegin and Tonyukuk inscriptions name no feigned retreat.
  • No source says that the Göktürks used it as a signal.
  • No source gives a drill, a system of signals, an order of march or the supply of an army on the march. The inscriptions tell of speed, night marches and attacks on sleepers, and say nothing of formations. For the line of battle the Strategikon is the only witness, and it describes Scythians in general.

Xiongnu Agriculture209 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • The sources do not say how much grain the Xiongnu grew, or how much of their food it supplied.

Yuezhi209 BCPeoples

  • The sources do not record what language the Yuezhi spoke.

Wuhuan206 BCPeoples

  • It records no word of Wuhuan speech.

Bronze Mirrors of the Steppe200 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • Where the copies were cast, and by whom, is not known.
  • The sources do not say whether Chinese founders worked in the steppe.

Captives and the Unfree200 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • Raids and wars of the steppe empires carried people away. Some were ransomed, some exchanged, some kept at the court of the captor, and some sold. The sources describe the taking, the ransom, the flight and the sale. They do not give the number of the unfree among the Göktürks or any rule that governed them, and no source describes a law of slavery.
  • Whether it had to do with enslaved people is not known.
  • These sources are of the tenth and eleventh centuries. They describe the markets of the Islamic world and its neighbours, and they do not show whether the Göktürks or the Uyghurs sold people in the same way.
  • How large a part of the economy they carried is not known.

Craftsmen in the Steppe Empires200 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • We do not know whether captured craftsmen were free, how they were paid or whether they could leave.

Dingling200 BCPeoples

  • The Shiji names no year.
  • The Shiji does not say where the Dingling lived.
  • The sources record no word of Dingling speech.

Lacquerware200 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • The practice is treated in the article on the skull cup. The text does not say what lacquer was used or who applied it.
  • No source names a lacquer workshop that served the steppe, and no source says what a lacquered cup cost.
  • The finds do not show whether the lacquered cups of the graves were gifts of the court or goods that were traded.

Seasonal Pastures200 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • The sources do not give the routes of the moves or the dates on which a people left a pasture.
  • They name the seasons and the places of a few courts. They do not say whether the khaganates of the Orkhon moved their herds along fixed stages.

Wood and Woodworking200 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • Wood was scarce in much of the steppe and was worked all the same. The sources name timber for building, planks for coffins, gilded pillars at a court, wooden cups and figures, and woods that were traded. They name no carpenter and no wood-carver.
  • The text does not say what trees the two woods came from.
  • The sources say nothing about how the wooden planks, pillars and vessels were cut and joined, or whether the steppe peoples had carpenters of their own. The one trade term that survives is the carpenter's axe of the eleventh century.

Xiongnu Pottery200 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • The sources do not name a Xiongnu potter, a pottery workshop or a kiln, and no kiln of the Xiongnu is described in the studies used here.

Gold of the Xiongnu Court174 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • The sources name no Xiongnu gold mine and no Xiongnu goldsmith.
  • The Shiji gives no further description.
  • The sources do not say how much gold the Xiongnu held, or where it came from.

Zhao Xin City119 BCPlaces

  • The sources give no more of the town than its name and its grain.

Yizhixie Chanyu114 BCPersons

  • No Xiongnu form of the name is recorded. Nothing in the sources fixes its language.

Wuwei Chanyu105 BCPersons

  • The Shiji and the Han Shu write the name 烏維. No Xiongnu form is recorded. Nothing in the sources fixes its language.

Er Chanyu102 BCPersons

  • The Shiji does not name the son.
  • No Xiongnu form of the name is recorded. Nothing in the sources fixes its language.

Xulihu Chanyu101 BCPersons

  • The pinyin Xulihu follows the second reading. No Xiongnu form of the name is recorded. Nothing in the sources fixes its language.

Tongpu Duwei60 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • The Han Shu does not say what the taxes consisted of.

Woyanqudi Chanyu58 BCPersons

  • The Han Shu does not say whether the name was given for the office.

Han Bestowals on the Chanyu51 BCInstitutions and Titles

  • The histories list the goods in detail and say little about what the chanyus did with them.

Fuzhulei Chanyu20 BCPersons

  • The Han Shu tells of no campaign in this reign.

Han Reply to the Northern Xiongnu (AD 52)52Battles & Eventsminimal

  • The histories do not say how many horses and furs the Northern envoy brought, so the proportion of the reply to the gifts cannot be tested.

Bi Chanyu56Persons

  • The sources do not say what Bi expected from the Han beyond protection against the north.

Yueban91Peoples

  • The account of the northern chanyu in the Hou Han Shu does not mention Kangju or the Jinwei mountain.
  • The same chapter says that their customs and speech were those of the Gaoche. Of the language itself nothing is recorded.
  • The annals and the Zizhi Tongjian do not report Yueban troops in the field.
  • Everything recorded of the Yueban comes from Chinese court histories. None of it reports what they called themselves or their ruler.

Dou Xian92Persons

  • The chapters do not say whether Atong and Yuchujian are two men or one man under two transcriptions.

100–552 AD 48

Chinese Weaponsmiths among the Xianbei177Institutions and Titlesminimal

  • The Sanguozhi names no refugee and no workshop.
  • It does not say what the weapons were made of, or whether the iron came from China or from the Xianbei's own land.

Kushan Empire232States

  • The Han Shu knows no realm of that name.

Jordanes370Sources

  • The years of the Catalaunian Plains, of Attila's death and of the Nedao are not in the text.

Hunnic Cauldrons380Institutions and Titles

  • Where the Huns got the copper is not known.
  • How the copper reached the smiths, and where the Hunnic foundries stood, no source says.

Hunnic Diadems380Institutions and Titlesminimal

  • No source names a goldsmith who made a diadem for a Hunnic ruler.

Wagons of the Steppe Peoples380Institutions and Titles

  • The sources name wagons for the Huns, the Gaoche, the Göktürks and the Uyghurs. None of them describes how a wagon was made.
  • No source gives the dimensions of a steppe wagon, the wood it was made of or the draught animals of the Göktürk carts.
  • No source names a wheelwright of the Huns, the Gaoche or the Göktürks.

Tuoba386Peoplesminimal

  • The book does not say why he bears it.

Alchon Huns390Peoples

  • The text does not say how a Chile came to rule Gandhara.
  • It does not name him.

The Battue399Customs & Pastimes

  • The chapter on the Gaoche does not date the hunt.
  • The text does not say whether the line was made of captives or of Gaoche who had come over to the Wei.
  • None of the passages in which the Sui and Tang histories tell of Göktürk hunting describes how the game was taken.

Bride-Price in Livestock400Institutions and Titles

  • The Chinese records give the figure only where a ruler or a prince married. The price of an ordinary marriage appears without a number.

Khan (Khagan)400Institutions and Titles

  • Modern literature commonly styles him yabgu for those years, which is plausible given the rank the Ashina leaders are said to have held, but the sources do not use it of him.

Ötüken400Places

  • The Zhou Shu has none of those details. It names no month and no place for the cave. The five hundred li belong to the mountain of the earth-spirit.
  • No text sends anyone east.
  • Where the cave was is unknown. The inscriptions never mention it. What was done there beyond the sacrifice, the Chinese did not learn.
  • The book says nothing of the place itself.

The origin of the Old Turkic script400Controversies

  • The evidence that would decide the matter is a dated text in a transitional alphabet, in which the borrowing could be watched. No such text is known.

Uldin409Personsminimal

  • Year of death: not recorded

Hulü Khan410Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

The Gaoche Herds of 429429Battles & Events

  • The sentence says that animal prices in the Wei state fell. It names no price, no market and no amount of felt.
  • The Wei Shu does not date the raid.

Wuti Khan429Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

Ashina439Lineages

  • The Zhou Shu and the Sui Shu give the she-wolf no name.

The Flight of the Ashina (439)439Battles & Events

  • The Zhou Shu knows no flight.
  • The Sui Shu gives no year and no route. It does not say how mixed hu of Pingliang came to be caught up in the fall of the Juqu.

Kamos449Foodsminimal

  • Priscus does not say who the villagers were.

Bardores454Peoplesminimal

  • Nothing else is known of them.

Yucheng Khan485Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded

Nagai Khan492Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded

Baidie Cotton500Institutions and Titles

  • The Liang Shu does not give an amount of cloth or a price.

Mumocheng502Places

  • Archaeology has not found the site, and its location is not identified.

Bumin Khan510Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • For the years before the war, he appears without a title. Modern history books give Bumin the title yabghu. This is plausible, given the rank of earlier Ashina leaders such as his father Tuwu. The sources, however, do not use the word of him.
  • The sources do not say how that support was obtained or which groups joined.
  • The Chinese histories record no such cup.
  • The manner and month of his death are not recorded.

Poliuhan Baling523Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • His end is not recorded.

Hegemony Wars in Northern China534Conflicts

  • The field wars between the two Weis belong to the Chinese histories of the Wei, the Qi and the Zhou. They were the campaigns of Gao Huan for the east and Yuwen Tai for the west along the Yellow River bend.

Western Wei535States

  • No source records a Wei army at Bumin's side in 552.

Göktürk raid of 542542Battles & Events

  • The size of the raiding party can be reckoned in the hundreds or thousands. The source gives no number.

Tuwu542Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded

Post and Communication545Institutions and Titles

  • In the sources used here, no text describes a Göktürk post as an institution.
  • In the sources used here, no letter of a Göktürk khan survives in the language in which it was written.
  • The Sui Shu gives the letter in Chinese and does not say in which language or script the khan sent it.
  • In these passages word is sent, and no carrier is named.
  • The biography does not describe the stations.
  • The sources used here show envoys, letters, seals and horses. They do not show the rules behind them. No source names a Göktürk office for the post, a number of stations, a rank for riders or a form of the khan's order.

Silk in the Steppe545Institutions and Titles

  • No source gives a total for the silk that left the steppe for Persia or Byzantium.

The Chile Song546Customs & Pastimes

  • His biography in the Bei Qi Shu does not mention the song.
  • The histories that tell of Yubi give the title of the song, not its words.
  • In which language he sang it, no source says.

The Turkic War of Independence546Conflicts

  • The Zhou Shu names Bumin alone as the leader of the war. What Istemi did in these years is not recorded.
  • The sources say nothing for four years. Bumin spent them assembling support among other Turkic groups. This is an inference from the size of the force he commanded in 552. How that support was obtained, and which groups joined, is not recorded.

Sabao549Institutions and Titles

  • The sources describe the religious role of the sabao better than the commercial one. They do not show the sabao leading a caravan.

Horses in Göktürk Law550Institutions and Titles

  • The Chinese word for the tether, ban, means a tether or hobble. The Zhou Shu does not say why the theft of such a small thing was a capital crime.
  • The Chinese texts give no price for the horse, and they do not say how the horse was handed over.
  • The Chinese histories do not say who judged the cases or how a penalty was carried out. They do not say whether the horse paid for a broken limb went to the injured man or to the khan.

Wei Shu551Sources

  • The restored chapter has nothing of the raid.

Anagui552Persons

  • The Chinese chapters on the Göktürks record no such cup, and they report the suicide.

Illig552Institutions and Titlesminimal

  • The Chinese histories do not explain the element.

Proclamation of Bumin Khan (552)552Battles & Events

  • The Chinese histories do not say where the proclamation took place.
  • The Chinese histories do not explain the first element, 伊利.
  • The Chinese histories do not name the woman.

553–743 AD 88

Anluochen553Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The annals do not say what became of Anluochen himself.

Avars557Peoples

  • The Rouran chapter of the Bei Shi and the Tujue chapter of the Zhou Shu follow the survivors to the Northern Qi and the Western Wei. Neither names a flight to the west.

Göktürk Expansion into Europe557Conflicts

  • Menander does not mention Askel or the Hermichiones.
  • Menander gives them no year.
  • Menander gives no date for the return.
  • It names none of the Göktürk envoys.
  • In the Roman–Persian negotiations of the following years Menander does not mention the Göktürks.
  • Menander gives neither the dates nor the order of these missions.

Battle of Bukhara560Battles & Events

  • The one local history of Bukhara that survives, Narshakhi's, has neither the war nor the Hephthalites. It does not contain the seven kings either.

Askel563Personsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The chronicler says nothing of what the envoys wanted.

Avar Craftsmen567Institutions and Titles

  • The Avar sources name the khagan's demands for craftsmen and the gifts that met them. They do not name a single Avar craftsman.

Music of Empress Ashina (568)568Battles & Events

  • The Zhou Shu records the arrival and the assembly but says nothing of music.
  • Neither the Sui Shu nor the Jiu Tang Shu says how the Göktürks had come by the music.
  • The accounts do not say what the Göktürks themselves played.

Maniakh570Persons

  • Menander does not say how or where Maniakh died.

Tagma Tarkhan571Personsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

Börü Khan572Personsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • None of the histories gives him a personal name or mentions him again.
  • The Zhou Shu does not name him.

Buddhism among the Göktürks572Religions

  • No member of the Ashina, no beg and no commoner is recorded as following him.
  • No Göktürk monastery is named after the one he built. No Göktürk monk appears in any source. No successor of his is described as Buddhist.
  • The khaganate broke apart in the decade after his death. Nothing in the quarrel had anything to do with religion.

Mukan Khan572Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded

Funeral of Istemi (576)575Battles & Events

  • Menander does not say how or where Istemi died.
  • What was done with the four men is lost in the gap.

Anankhast576Personsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

Arsilas576Personsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

Dochia576Religionsminimal

  • What was done with the four men is lost in the gap.
  • The article on burial sets out the whole rite. The word itself stands only here. Which Turkic word Menander's Greek renders is not stated in any source.

Istemi576Persons

  • Nothing is recorded of Istemi's life before 552.
  • The Zhou Shu, the history of the Northern Zhou dynasty, names Bumin alone as the leader of the War of Independence. What Istemi did between 546 and 552 is not recorded.
  • The sources do not say how a steppe army took a walled city, or with what siege engines.
  • Where the two kings came to terms, and through whom, is not recorded.
  • The manner of his death is not recorded.
  • The dates settle nothing against the equation. The Chinese histories name no year for Istemi's death and none for Tardush's accession.

The Siege of Jiuquan (578)578Battles & Eventsminimal

  • The edict does not say whether it means the siege of 578 or a later attack.

Khosrow I579Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded

Livestock Raids580Institutions and Titles

  • The words "that herd" refer to a sentence that is lost, so the inscription does not say where the herd came from.

Amrak581Persons

  • After that the sources lose Amrak. Nothing is recorded of his part in the civil war, of his death, or of any descendants.

Taspar Khan581Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • His people did not follow him into the Buddha's law. No member of the Ashina, no beg and no commoner is recorded as converting in these years, and the Göktürks kept to Tengri.

Capture of Apa (587)587Battles & Events

  • The Chinese histories give neither the place nor the strength of either side.
  • The Sui Shu says no more of Apa.

Töremen Apa587Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Whether Apa rode with it is not recorded.
  • The Sui Shu says nothing more of Apa.

Faghfura588Personsminimal

  • Tabari tells the same war more briefly. He does not name Faghfūra.

Parmudha588Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

Šāba588Persons

  • The Chinese chapters name every khan of the Göktürks in these years. They name no campaign into Persia and no khan who fell there.

Hormizd IV590Persons

  • Sebeos, Tabari and aṯ-Ṯaʿālibī all leave the khagan unnamed.

Princess Anyi599Personsminimal

  • Where and how she died, none of them says.

The Archery Match at the Wu'an Hall (599)599Battles & Events

  • It does not say where the Wu'an Hall stood.
  • It does not name the other ten archers or say how the sides were scored.
  • It does not say what the deer was.

Niri Khan603Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded

Yiwu Tudun Shad609Personsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Who bore the title, and what became of him, is not recorded.

Heshana Khan619Persons

  • The eastern Göktürks had fought no war with Heshana. Why they wanted him dead is not recorded.

Shegui Khan619Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded

Turk Shahi of Kabul and Kapisa625States

  • No chronicle of the dynasty has come down.
  • The Jibin notices of the Tang histories do not call the kings Göktürks.

Yabgus of Tokharistan625States

  • The passage on Huo gives no name for him.
  • None of these texts says what the yabgu of Tokharistan did in these wars.
  • The Life gives no name.
  • The texts used here name no later yabgu, and they do not record where the line ended.

Zhenzhu Tong Irkin627Personsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Nothing more is recorded of his envoy.

Chorpan Tarkhan629Personsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

Baghatur Khan630Persons

  • No passage says whether that khan was the same man.

Princess Yicheng630Persons

  • The Chinese histories record her because she mattered to them. What the Göktürks thought of her is not written anywhere.

Suni Shi634Persons

  • It does not say how he died.

Tuyuhun Hunye634Personsminimal

  • No text says whether Hunye himself was a Tuyuhun.

Balanjar642Placesminimal

  • No source describes Balanjar in detail. It is a city and the name of a group, placed in the North Caucasus, and the sources do not fix its site.

Irbis Shegui Khan642Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • That is the last the histories say of Irbis Shegui.

Anbei Protectorate647Placesminimal

  • The sources used here do not fix the seat of the Anbei protectorate.

Ashina Simo647Persons

  • No reason is given for the failure, and the sources do not let one be established.

The Ten Steeds of 647647Battles & Events

  • The sources do not say what the Kurykan received for the horses beyond "rich gifts".
  • They do not describe the horses' breed or their size in numbers, and they say nothing of how the horses were brought south.

Khazar Khaganate650States

  • That leaves open who these Khazars were before that and where they came from.

Ashide679Lineages

  • The inscriptions never name them.
  • Tonyukuk's own stone gives no clan name.

Nishufu Khan680Persons

  • The chapter gives no reason and none can be established from it.
  • The sources do not settle whether the men of 679 raised a khan from outside the ruling house. They do not settle whether that is why the rising went the way it did.

Ashina Funian681Persons

  • The chapter reports the surrender and the beheading in consecutive clauses and does not join them. Whether terms had been given, and whether the execution broke them, is not stated there.

Funeral Games of the Caucasian Huns682Customs & Pastimes

  • The History does not say on which day any of it took place. It names no dead man.
  • It does not say which of the acts belonged to the burial and which to the games and dances that it names after them.
  • No funeral is told with a day, a dead man or a mourner.
  • The History does not decide whether the gallops were races or a part of the mourning.

Tonyukuk682Persons

  • Year of death: not recorded

Abusi700Peoplesminimal

  • The sources do not say whether the tribe took its name from this chief.

Kül Tegin's Horses700Institutions and Titles

  • The inscription does not say where the horses were bred. It does not say what became of the surviving ones after the prince's death.

Türgesh and Karluk Coinage700Institutions and Titles

  • The publication gives the names as they stand on the coins and identifies none of the men from other sources.
  • The publication gives no ancient name or denomination for these coins.

Bars Beg710Persons

  • The inscription names neither the khan of 732 nor a successor of Bars Beg.

Chinese Bans on the Export of Iron714Institutions and Titles

  • The text does not say of what metal these arms were made.
  • Cai Yong speaks of a leak in the frontier. He names no smuggler and no market.

Old Turkic716Languages

  • From the khaganate period there is no private letter in Turkic, no contract, no account book, no verse that is certainly verse, and no woman speaks in any of the great inscriptions.

Chinese Craftsmen at the Orkhon Monuments731Institutions and Titles

  • The inscriptions do not say how many carvers came, and they do not name any of them.
  • The sources do not say where the craftsmen lived while they worked or how long they stayed.
  • The sources do not say whether the court received any other return.

Roof Tiles of the Uyghur Khaganate732Institutions and Titles

  • No source says who made the tiles, whether the potters were Chinese or Sogdian or local, or how many kilns worked.

From 744 AD 41

Uyghur Horse-Silk Trade757Institutions and Titles

  • The two histories do not agree on the sums, and neither explains the difference.
  • The sources record the sums and the complaints. They give no figure for what the Uyghurs spent the silk on, and no count of the horses that came back.

Are758Lineagesminimal

  • The notice gives him no personal name and names no other member of the house. For the investiture of 847 it names no ruler.

Boyla Kutlug Yargan790Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The stone gives no year, no place for the man's estate and no name for his sons or his teacher.

Hesa Khan840Persons

  • No kinship is recorded for him. His age is not recorded either.

Ta-bu-he-zu842Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The sources do not say whether the general went home. They do not say how the khan received the answer.

Heichezi843Peoples

  • The passages of the Xin Tangshu read here say nothing of their land, their way of life or their language.

Princess Taihe843Persons

  • No given name of hers survives in the texts read here.
  • The texts read here record no further act of hers after the audience at the Xingqing Palace, and no year of her death.

Wen-wu Alp843Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The sources do not say whether Wen-wu Alp reached home or served the khan again.

Zhu-wu Alp Sol843Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The sources do not say when he left or whether he reached home.

Tatik Iznanchu844Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The sources do not say whether he returned or what he reported.

Ögä Khan846Persons

  • No source records that the decree was handed over.

Are Khan847Persons

  • No other name for him is recorded.
  • The sources give no year of birth and no age.

Apa (Kirghiz Chancellor)848Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The text names no other Kirghiz chancellor.
  • The sources say nothing of Apa before or after the march.

Shi Xiong848Persons

  • The year of his birth and his age are unknown.

Li Jian856Personsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

Emperor Yizong of Tang859Personsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The sources name no Kirghiz khan under Yizong and give no title for the investiture of 867.
  • They give no age and no cause of death for the emperor.

Alp Inanch863Personsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

Yizhi-lianji866Personsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • No source says so. The envoy is known only from two modern studies.
  • The sources used here give nothing else about Yizhi-lianji. They give no age, no home, no mission beyond the visit of 866, and no word of his return.

Abaoji872Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • The Chinese texts give no Khitan form of the name.

Livestock in the Hudud al-Alam900Institutions and Titles

  • None of the notices names camels.
  • The lists give no numbers. They do not say how many animals a family owned or what a flock was worth.

Women among the Turkic Peoples922Institutions and Titles

  • The sources therefore report courts and customs. The daily life of women who never came near a court is not recorded.
  • The Shiji does not give her name.
  • Whether this is the woman of 85 BC the Han Shu does not say.
  • Bars Beg then went wrong, the inscription says, and was killed, and his people became slaves. It does not say what became of the princess.
  • The sources are partial in four ways. It names the women of rulers and gives almost nothing on the women of the herders.

Narshakhī, History of Bukhara943Sources

  • The oasis legend has no year.
  • For the sixth century, the time of the Göktürk war against the Hephthalites, it offers a legend and no event. The translation names neither the Hephthalites nor the Göktürk khaganate. Nothing in it speaks of a battle at Bukhara.

De administrando imperio948Sources

  • The chapter gives no reason for the revolt, no date and no name of a leader. It does not mention religion.
  • On religion the work says nothing. It does not mention the Judaism of the Khazars.
  • The same is true of Theophanes, Nikephoros and Photios.

Kutadgu Bilig1069Sources

  • The poem itself names neither Balasaghun nor Kashgar.

Felt, Cloth, Leather and Wood in Kashgari's Dictionary1072Institutions and Titles

  • The dictionary does not name the tanning agent that ärük stands for.
  • The dictionary does not say who made felt, cloth or leather goods, whether they were made in the household or by specialists, or how they were traded.

The making of Tengrism1846Controversies

  • At this stage the picture took the form now in circulation. It lists Ülgen, Kayra, Erlik, Kızağan, Mergen, Ak Ana, Umay, the seven or nine heavens and the world tree Ulukayın, each with an entry of its own, presented together as the pantheon of a religion. None of those entries can point to a source of the Göktürk period, because there is none to point to.
  • The second is that the sources of the Göktürk period know no lord of the dead, no tiered heaven, no world tree and no priesthood. That absence is a finding in its own right.

Without a date 225

AbangbuPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

Abrui and Shir-i KishvarBattles & Events

  • The tale has no year and names no khan.
  • The printed text of the tale does not mention Istemi, Chach, Otrar or a year.

Afu RiverPlacesminimal

  • The story does not say where the river ran.

AksuPlaces

  • The sources do not say whether the felt and the woollens of Baluka reached the Göktürks.

al-BalādhurīSourcesminimal

  • The Arabic sources do not say that the khagan was a Jew at the time.

AlaraReligions

  • The subject as a whole: the sources are silent
  • The retellings do not say who recorded her, where, or when.
  • The Altai and Siberian material of the nineteenth century and the handbooks built on it do not name a spirit Alara. Radloff’s collection from the Altai, the Finno-Ugric and Siberian handbook of 1927, the Altaic handbook of 1938 and the Turkish collection of shamanic texts all name water masters, birth spirits and forest masters of the Altaians, Yakuts and Buryats. None of them has this name.
  • The Yakut material in these books knows a forest master Bajanai and a birth-giver Ajysyt. It does not know an Alara.
  • No source known here links the places to the fairy. None gives the origin of the place name.
  • It belongs to a different region and has a different function. No source equates it with the water fairy.

AltaiPlaces

  • The reading gives no date.
  • The reading of Irina Nevskaya gives the stone no date.

Altaian Creation StoryReligions

  • The verb is passive. The inscriptions name no maker, no water, no dive and no Erlik.

Altın Köl InscriptionsSources

  • The stones are not monuments of the Göktürk khaganates. The Orkhon stones name no power of the dead.

Ancestor CultReligions

  • The offering is not described.
  • The accounts record offerings at the death and on the day of the burial. They do not record a later offering at the grave.

Anchan JuniInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • The Tongdian does not explain the second element, juni. It names no holder of the title.

Aoshe ShadPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The histories record nothing more of him.
  • No passage says whether the two titles belong to one man.

ArçuraReligions

  • The sources of the Göktürk khaganates do not name it.

Asena the She-Wolf (Gök Börü)Religions

  • No inscription of the khaganates claims descent from a wolf, names a she-wolf, or mentions a wolf's head on a standard.
  • No couplet of the book names a wolf as an ancestor or sets one on a standard.

Ashide Wumo ChurPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The histories record nothing of him after his capture.
  • The histories do not say whether the character belongs to his name or stands for a second rank beside that of irkin.

Awusili IrkinPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The histories do not say whom Awusili Irkin served, whether Tardush or another. They do not say what became of him after his defeat.

Axian ShadPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

Ay AtaReligions

  • The Zhou Shu, the older account of the Göktürks, does not contain the sentence.

AyranFoods

  • No text of their own time records what the early Turkic peoples called their soured milk.
  • Kashgari says nothing about who drank it, or when. The entry is a single line.
  • The text does not say whether the soured milk of every day was the milk of cows and sheep, from which ayran is made, or kumys.
  • It is first written down five centuries after Bumin, in Kashgari's dictionary, and no older text preserves it.

AzPeoples

  • The text does not say whether it was a horse of the Az or only bears the word.

Bagha ShadPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The year of his death is not recorded.
  • His personal name is not recorded.

BaghaturInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • The Göktürk inscriptions do not use the word. Its Turkic form therefore rests on the Chinese transcription alone.
  • The sources do not say whether this youngest son is Ilig himself.

BalasaghunPlacesminimal

  • The poem itself does not name the town.

BegInstitutions and Titles

  • The book does not say what any of these ranks commanded.

BeihaiPlacesminimal

  • The histories give the sea a direction and a distance. They do not locate it.

Bloomery Furnaces of the South AltaiInstitutions and Titles

  • The Chinese sources name the Golden Mountain and the Ashina as smelters. They do not name a furnace, a mine or a valley.

Bodeng NingliPlacesminimal

  • The sentence on the mountain follows directly. It gives the name, the Chinese rendering, the distance and the bare slopes. It records no rite at the mountain itself.

BomaPeoples

  • The sources do not reconcile the two.
  • The Tongdian gives no explanation.
  • The Tongdian describes skis for the Basmïl, who run deer down on wood. Its notice on the Boma mentions none. Wooden Horses treats the device.

Bone and Horn WorkingInstitutions and Titles

  • No source describes how the horn was shaped, glued or seasoned.
  • It does not say what animal the khutu horn came from or where the handles were cut.
  • No source describes a workshop for bone or horn among the Göktürks, the Uyghurs or the Xiongnu.

Böri (Guard)Institutions and Titlesminimal

  • The inscriptions say nothing of a guard.

Börü ShadPersons

  • The Göktürks left no record of him.

BosporosPlaces

  • How the Göktürk force reached the city is not recorded.

BreadFoods

  • For the Göktürks, no source gives a word for bread.

BukharaPlaces

  • Narshakhi's History of Bukhara is the one local history of the city to survive. It does not contain the seven kings or the siege, and it names neither the Hephthalites nor the Göktürk khaganate.

Buli ShadPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

Burial and the balbalReligions

  • The monuments do not give a destination. They name no place the dead arrive at, no power that receives them, and no judgement.
  • The book knows none of the rites of the Chinese accounts. It has no ride round the tent, no cut face and no stones.
  • The preserved text does not say that the prisoners were killed.

BuyrukInstitutions and Titles

  • The book gives the rank no duties.

Cave of the ancestorsPlaces

  • No Chinese account of the cave or of the mountain points east.
  • The Chinese texts neither support this nor contradict it. On the cave they say nothing, and any interpretation has to work with that gap.
  • Nothing is recorded beyond the fact of the offering: no victim, no words, no season.

Chebi KhanPersons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The chapter does not say when he died.

Chiji ShadPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The histories record nothing more of Chiji Shad.

ChikPeoples

  • The inscription gives no year.
  • No source describes the Chik, their language or their customs.

Church of the EastReligionsminimal

  • The account rests on a study of 1925 that is not in the collection, and it names no source text. Whether the khan belonged to the Göktürks or was a lord of Tokharistan is not settled.

Culture of the Turkic PeoplesCustoms & Pastimes

  • No Göktürk text describes a feast at the turn of the year.
  • Neither the words nor the tunes of his songs are recorded.
  • Neither game is described.
  • For the Göktürks, no source gives a word for bread.
  • The sources name wagons for the Huns, the Gaoche, the Göktürks and the Uyghurs. None of them describes how a wagon was made.
  • No runiform text has been securely dated to the First Khaganate.

DaguanInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • No passage of the sources says whether 達官 renders the same word.

Dali CityPlacesminimal

  • The chapters on the Göktürks do not name the town again.

DaluobianInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • No source says whether his name was the title.

DamozhiPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Nothing more is recorded of Damozhi.

DieluozhiPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • No text says whether Dieluoshi and Dieluozhi are one man.

DingxiangPlaces

  • The histories do not say whether the town built in 600, the seat of the court in exile and the old town of 641 stood on one site.

DiqinchaPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The histories say nothing more of him.

Drums and Banners for the KhansInstitutions and Titles

  • Neither the treatise nor the chapter on the Göktürks says which grade of band the khans received.
  • The book says nothing of their form or number.

Du-lü-shi AlpPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

DuboPeoples

  • The Chinese text does not say so.

Dujin GarrisonPlacesminimal

  • The garrison is not named again.
  • Where the garrison lay, the histories do not say.

DuliuPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Nothing else is recorded of him.

DuoxifuPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

DusuliuPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The histories record nothing more of him.

Er AtCustoms & Pastimes

  • The dictionary's entries on at and är give no phrase är at and no description of a custom of naming.
  • The account names no source line for the rite.

ErkligReligions

  • No runiform inscription of the Göktürk khaganates names a lord of the dead.
  • The Irk Bitig of the ninth century is the text in which an Old Turkic underworld figure is usually sought. It does not contain one.

Following in DeathReligions

  • What was done with the four men is lost in the gap.
  • Neither Tang history calls following in death a custom of the Göktürks.

Fourteen (Köčürmä Oyun)Customs & Pastimesminimal

  • The dictionary does not say what köčürmä means in the name of the game.
  • The entry does not say who played, how many players there were, how the pieces moved or how the game was won.
  • No other source in the collection names the game.

Fulin KhanInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • The Tongdian names no holder of the title.
  • No source calls him a Fulin Khan.

Funi RehanInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • The Tongdian names no holder of the title.

FuriPeoples

  • The sources do not say how the Furi stood to the Kirghiz khan.

Gaoche Thunder RiteReligions

  • The text does not say whether the headdress belonged to the rite.
  • The Wei Shu names no god.
  • The arrows went up at 天, the word for both the sky and Heaven. The text does not say whether they were meant to drive the thunder off or to answer it.
  • It does not explain the ram, the fire, the knives or the willow twigs either.

Gate of SulPlaces

  • Tabari gives no year for the march.

Geli DaguanInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • The Tongdian names no holder of the geli daguan. It gives the office no duty.

Göktürk GamesCustoms & Pastimes

  • Neither game is described.
  • The older Zhou Shu has no such sentence.
  • The text does not say how many played, where, or with what kind of ball.
  • No Old Turkic inscription names a game.
  • None of these entries mentions the Göktürks, a game called chupu, or the women's ball of the Sui Shu.
  • Whether the Göktürk women's game was a kicked ball of this kind, the sources do not say.

Grape Wine in Central AsiaFoods

  • They name no vine grown in the lands of the Xiongnu or the Göktürks.
  • Neither history says that Zhang Qian or the envoys taught the Chinese to make wine. They speak of planting.
  • The Han Shu does not say how the palace got its name.
  • The Sui Shu, the Tang Huiyao and the Xin Tang Shu name no wine for Chach itself, the Tashkent oasis.
  • The Xin Tang Shu says that wine welled up from a hidden spring into a silver jar. It names no grape and no other ingredient.

Helan Suni QueInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • The Tongdian does not explain the last element, que. It names no holder of the title.

Hezhi KhanPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The edict does not say who the Hezhi Khan was. It does not call him a Göktürk khan, and it gives him no people, no place and no year.
  • He appears nowhere else in the Chinese histories.

Horse harnessInstitutions and Titles

  • The editor gives no date for the stone.

Horse SacrificeReligions

  • They say what was killed and when, and they do not say how.
  • Neither author says how a horse was killed, who killed it, or whether a priest took part.
  • It records no horse given to a god.
  • Chinese envoys or the emperor himself stood at both oaths. The histories do not say whose rite the white horse was.
  • Neither text names an animal killed.
  • No text joins these lines to the horse sacrifices that the Chinese histories report.
  • Third, the manner of killing is attested for the Altai alone, and what the Altaians did to the horse cannot be assumed for the Göktürks.
  • No source of the khaganates gives the manner of the death.

Hunye KingPersons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The Shiji and the Han Shu give him no personal name and no later history.
  • In every case the name stands before the word for king, 王. The sources record no Xiongnu form of it.
  • The sources name the Hunye king in the history of a single year, as the king who was beaten, who killed his fellow king and who surrendered. They give no age and no personal name. They do not say whether he lived long in the Han country.

IkarPlacesminimal

  • Theophylact gives no position for the Ikar beyond its distance from the Golden Mountain.

Irk BitigSources

  • The Irk Bitig contains no lord of the dead, no Umay, no tiered heaven and no world tree.

Iron of the BayeguInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • The texts name no mine, no smith and no price.
  • They do not say whether the iron was worked at home or sold.

Issyk-KulPlaces

  • The report of these finds dates none of them.

Jade GatePlaces

  • The biography does not say whether this Gate stood where the Han Gate had stood.

Jiu Tangshu (Old Book of Tang)Sources

  • Whether the Tang histories draw on the Sui Shu for the years before 618 is an open question. So is the relation of the Old and New Books to each other.

JiuquanPlaces

  • The edict does not say whether it means the siege of 578 or a later attack.

Jujian TeginPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The histories record nothing more of him.

KabarsPeoples

  • Constantine names no cause for the revolt, no date and no leader.
  • Constantine's account of the Kabars does not mention religion.

Kang ShaoliPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • No text says where Kang Shaoli came from.

Kang SumiPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

KarashahrPlaces

  • The sources do not say whether these are three cities, three ways of counting, or the same city at three dates.

KashgarPlaces

  • The histories give no quantities and do not say who collected the goods.

KatulphPersons

  • Menander does not say which Göktürks he joined.
  • Menander gives no reason for his second change of sides.
  • The summary of his history that survives in Photios does not name Katulph.

KayenPersons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

Keluo ChuoInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • It names no holder of the title.

Khazar Customs and TributeInstitutions and Titles

  • The sources name a tenth, a pelt or a sword for each house or hearth, and a piece of money. They give no total for the revenue of the khagan.

Khazar Mail and the Armourers of the CaucasusInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • Al-Masʿūdī does not say that the king's guard bought its mail from the Zerikerān, or from any other maker.
  • The text names no workshop in Khazar land itself, no price and no number of mail coats.

Kirghiz EntertainmentsCustoms & Pastimes

  • It names the acts. It does not say who performed them, on what occasion or before whom.
  • The two characters name an act with camels and no more.
  • The notice does not say whether the Kirghiz lion was played in this way.
  • The notice describes the horsemen in war. It does not describe a performance.
  • The Xin Tang Shu gives no date for the shows and no scene in which they were played.
  • The Xin Tang Shu says nothing of music at the shaman's rites.

Kirghiz Iron and GoldInstitutions and Titles

  • Neither text says what kind of iron fell with the rain, or how it was gathered.
  • The texts do not give the language of the name qiasha either.
  • The Xin Tang Shu lists no quantity, no mine and no workshop.
  • The text names no other object of gold.
  • Whether the Kirghiz metal reached the Göktürks as tribute or in trade is not stated.

KnucklebonesCustoms & Pastimesminimal

  • The entry does not say what each fall counted for, how many played or whether the play was for a stake.

KögmenPlaces

  • The sources do not say whether it is the range that the inscriptions call Kögmen.

KuhanzhenPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The Sui Shu does not give that son's name.

Külüg BaghaPersons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The two Tang histories record nothing else of him.
  • The texts say nothing of him once the camp is burned.
  • Neither the inscription nor the Chinese texts say whether he and the Uyghur defector are one man.

Külüg ChurInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • No source says whether that title and 屈律啜 are one.

Kün TengriReligions

  • The inscriptions use the word for the quarters and the day. In them it names no god.
  • It records no cult of the sun as such for the Göktürks.

KunaxolanPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Theophylact says nothing more of Kunaxolan.

KurykanPeoples

  • The Kül Tegin inscription records no campaign against the Kurykan.

Kutluk TeginPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

KyshtymPeoples

  • The Kül Tegin and Tonyukuk inscriptions do not name a people Kyshtym.

Lady PoshiPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Whether Poshi was the name of a Tuyuhun family, no text says.
  • The histories record nothing else of her life.

Lady XiangPersons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • After 611 the histories do not mention her again.
  • Her personal name is not recorded.

Lake SevanPlacesminimal

  • The History does not say on which shore of the lake the armies met.

Li LingPersons

  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The chapter of the Han Shu on Ling names the Dingling and the Xiao. It does not mention the Jiankun or the Kirghiz.

Li Shi (Tang envoy)Persons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The text does not say that this is the man later named envoy.
  • The text does not say that he is the envoy.
  • Nothing else is recorded of the envoy's life.

Li Ye (Tang envoy)Personsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The text of the edict of appointment has not survived.
  • The sources do not say whether Li Ye reached the Kirghiz. They do not say what he found there or what he brought back.
  • The text does not say that he is the envoy.
  • Nothing else is recorded of the envoy's life, his family or his death.

LiaohaiPlacesminimal

  • The histories give the name and its direction. They say nothing more of its position.

LijichaPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The edict gives no year and no place for the defeat, and no title for Lijicha. No other passage names him.

ManichaeismReligions

  • The sources for the first and second khaganates contain no Manichaean text and no Göktürk professing the religion. What is recorded is Uyghur and Sogdian.

Menander ProtectorSources

  • Menander does not say whether the letters were runiform or Sogdian.

MilletFoods

  • The text does not say which grain the seed was.

Millet BeerFoods

  • The Shiji does not say whether the Xiongnu brewed this liquor themselves or drank what the Han sent.
  • The text does not say what their white wine was made of.

Moduo DaguanPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Nothing more is recorded of Moduo. His own name before the appointment is not given.

Mounted ArcheryCustoms & Pastimes

  • For the steppe itself, the sources name no rules and no prizes.

MugulüPersons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

Nadulu ShadPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

Pan DiePersonsminimal

  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Neither history gives a year.

Pei JuPersons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • None of the Chinese accounts of that war names such letters.
  • The dated sources give neither the year of his death nor the manner of it.

PeriReligions

  • She does not belong to the sources of the khaganates. No inscription and no book of the Göktürk centuries names her.

PingliangPlaces

  • The Pingliang sentence belongs to the Sui Shu. The Zhou Shu does not have it.
  • The Sui Shu does not say how mixed hu of Pingliang came to flee at the fall of the Juqu.

PoloCustoms & Pastimesminimal

  • The entry does not call it polo.
  • The dictionary does not say how many played, whether the players rode, or what they struck.

Poshi TeginPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Nothing more is recorded of him.

Princess ChanglePersons

  • Between them the two texts give the woman her title, her house and the month she was handed over. They give nothing else: not her age, not her father, not her name, not what became of her when Bumin died the following year.

Princess HuainanPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • None of the three texts dates her journey north or names her father.
  • What became of the princess is not recorded.

Princess XinyiPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Nothing more is recorded of the princess.
  • What became of her is not said.
  • Her parents and her personal name are not given.

Qinyu ShadPersonsminimal

  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Neither history gives the place, the forces or any cause beyond Tulan's jealousy.

QurutFoods

  • No text of the Göktürk period names the food.
  • The texts do not say whether the Chinese words meant dried curd in any particular passage.
  • Between the two, no source of the Göktürks names it.

Raw Materials and Trade among the Turkic PeoplesInstitutions and Titles

  • No source of the Göktürk age reports salt-working, and none names a salt mine of the Ashina.
  • It is not recorded.
  • No source describes a Göktürk mine.
  • In the sources quoted here, gold and silver reach the Göktürks as gifts, payments, booty and tribute. None of them records gold or silver mined by the Göktürks.

Rehan TeginPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Whether Rehan is the envoy's name or that office, the texts do not say.

Riding Round the DeadReligions

  • Whether they went on foot or on horseback, the Sui Shu does not say.
  • The text does not say whether they rode.

Rudan KhanPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The Sui Shu does not name them.
  • Nothing is recorded of Rudan Khan's own command, of the years in which he held it, or of his death.
  • The Sui Shu does not connect the two men.

Rudan TeginPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The annals do not name the tegin.
  • The Sui Shu does not connect the two men.

Sacred MountainsReligions

  • None of these sources describes a rite on a mountain of the khaganates.
  • The sentence records no rite at the mountain.
  • None of the sources calls any of these holy.

Sacrifice and the yearReligions

  • It gives no date for the calendar.
  • Beyond that, no source of the khaganates names an order of priests, an offering calendar beyond these occasions, a sanctuary building, or a formula of prayer.

Salt among the Turkic PeoplesInstitutions and Titles

  • The sources of the Göktürk age report no salt-working at all.
  • His article gives no date for the first quarrying and names no earlier writer for it.
  • The text does not say where the lake lay.
  • The sources read for this article do not say that salt was boiled from brine, that it preserved meat or that it dressed hides.
  • Neither says how the meat was preserved.
  • Apart from place names, the Chinese accounts of the Göktürks contain no word for salt.
  • This holds for the Zhou Shu, the Sui Shu, the Jiu Tang Shu, the Xin Tang Shu, the Bei Shi and the Tongdian.
  • The inscriptions of Kül Tegin, Bilge Khan and Tonyukuk do not mention salt.
  • The text does not say whether a lake in the tribe's country gave it.
  • No source names a salt mine of the Ashina, or any other salt-working of theirs, in the sixth century.
  • That is a possibility. The sources do not record it.

SamandarPlacesminimal

  • The sources do not say whether he held the office of the khagan or that of the bek.
  • The sources name Samandar as a city, as a capital and as a place of vineyards. None of them gives a founder or a site.

Sanmi MountainPlacesminimal

  • The Chinese histories give it no other position and no description.
  • The Tang histories name Sanmi for no other reign.

ScapulimancyReligions

  • The Chinese chapters on the steppe peoples are those on the Xiongnu in the Shiji and the Han Shu, those on the Wuhuan and Xianbei in the Hou Han Shu, those on the Rouran and the Gaoche in the Wei Shu and the Bei Shi, and those on the Göktürks in the Zhou Shu, the Sui Shu and the Tang histories. None of them describes a reading of cracks in a bone.
  • The Dīwān itself gives no reading of cracks.
  • The records of the Göktürk khaganates describe a ritual specialist, one divination at a khan's court and signs read by the courts of Sui and Tang. They do not say how the divination at Chula's court was made, and they never mention a bone.

Seating at the FeastCustoms & Pastimes

  • None of the histories says which of the two sides counted as the higher.

ShamanismReligions

  • The Han Shu gives no Xiongnu word for the specialist.
  • The text does not say who performed them.
  • No inscription of the khaganates names the specialist.

Shiboqu AzhanPersons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The histories give no age for the chief, no year of his death and no successor.

Shishu HuxiPersonsminimal

  • The histories give no other detail of his origin.

ShiweiPeoples

  • The Kül Tegin inscription does not name the Shiwei.

Sijie IrkinPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The texts name him by his tribe and his rank. They give no personal name.

SilifaPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Nothing more is recorded of him.

Skull CupInstitutions and Titles

  • No maker of such a cup explains it in a surviving text.
  • No source records such a cup for Bumin.
  • The Chinese chapters on the Göktürks and the Uyghurs record no such cup.

Soul WordsReligions

  • The inscriptions never say what Kut is. The text of the Kül Tegin inscription does not use tın, tınlıg, sür, süne, tyula or üzüt.
  • The Zhou Shu names no word for what leaves the body.

SparzeugunPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Theophylact says nothing more of Sparzeugun.

Steppe DietFoods

  • Whether the soured milk of the Chinese histories was the forerunner of ayran, of kumys or of both, the texts do not say.
  • What the rider did with the blood, the treatise does not say.

Su DingfangPersons

  • The Göktürk inscriptions do not name him.

Su WuPersons

  • Year of death: not recorded

Sui Shu (Book of Sui)Sources

  • Whether and how far the Sui Shu draws on the Zhou Shu is an open question. Both were compiled at the Tang court within the same period.

Suoge TudunInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • For the suoge tudun the Tongdian names no holder.

Suopi ShadPersonsminimal

  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The edict does not say when or where he died, or why the Hezhi Khan killed him.
  • No other passage of the Chinese histories names him.

TalasPlaces

  • Neither report dates the stones.

TamatarkhaPlacesminimal

  • Tamatarkha enters the record as a Byzantine bishopric and later as a Rus town. The sources do not describe it as a Khazar capital or fortress.

TamgaInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • The book never uses the word for the mark of a clan or a herd.

Tanhan KhanPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Nothing more is recorded of him.
  • The Sui Shu does not connect the khan with the mountain.

Tanhan MountainPlaces

  • The Sui Shu does not connect the khan with the mountain.

Taren RiverPlacesminimal

  • The Zhou Shu gives the river a name and a month. It gives no location.

Tea among the UyghursFoods

  • The chapters on the Uyghurs in the two Tang histories do not mention tea.
  • He does not say whether the tea was paid for with the price of the horses.
  • The Chinese sources do not say how the Uyghurs prepared their tea or who among them drank it.

TengrismReligions

  • The banishment for cattle-raiding, the protection of a beaten enemy and of widows and orphans that are sometimes added to this list are not in the Zhou Shu.

The Economy of the Steppe EmpiresInstitutions and Titles

  • The annals do not say how they obtained these shares.
  • The sources do not say how much grain the Xiongnu grew, or how much of their food it supplied.
  • The sources name no Xiongnu gold mine and no Xiongnu goldsmith.
  • The sources of the Göktürk age report no salt-working at all.
  • The texts do not say how many horses the Göktürks sold in that market.
  • The histories list the goods of the Han bestowals in detail and say little about what the chanyus did with them.
  • The Chinese texts give no price for the horse.
  • The publication on the Taraz coins gives no ancient name or denomination for them.
  • The sources describe the religious role of the sabao better than the commercial one. They do not show the sabao leading a caravan.

The Göktürk FeastCustoms & Pastimes

  • The Sui Shu does not say whether the soured milk of every day was kumys too, or the soured milk of cattle and sheep from which ayran is made.

The Göktürk OathInstitutions and Titles

  • The Kül Tegin and Tonyukuk inscriptions record no oath.
  • The histories do not say whose rite the white horse was.

The Iron OathInstitutions and Titles

  • It is not a record of the Göktürk age. Kashgari does not say how old the custom was.

The New Year on the SteppeCustoms & Pastimes

  • No Göktürk text describes a feast at the turn of the year.
  • The notice does not say what maoshi meant.
  • The sources record when the year began and how envoys marked it at the Chinese courts. None of them describes a feast with which the steppe peoples themselves greeted the new year.

The Twenty-Eight RanksInstitutions and Titles

  • None of the histories names all twenty-eight.
  • The Jiu Tang Shu gives no number.
  • The passage does not say that they are the ten grades.
  • The Zhou Shu, the Sui Shu, the Bei Shi and the two Tang histories do not have the passage.
  • No source sets the ten grades beside the twenty-eight.

The Xianbei Spring AssemblyCustoms & Pastimes

  • The Hou Han Shu does not say where the Raole river lay.
  • Neither the Hou Han Shu nor the Wei history mentions an autumn sacrifice of the Xianbei.

Tör ApaPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • The study gives him no tribe and no place of birth.

TöreInstitutions and Titles

  • Some rules are sometimes added to this list: banishment for cattle-raiding, the protection of a beaten enemy and of widows and orphans, and the distinction between disgrace and crime. They are not in the Zhou Shu.

Trade Routes of the SteppeInstitutions and Titles

  • No source used here lists the stops of the steppe road between Yiwu and the khan's court.

TuldichPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • Theophylact says nothing more of Tuldich.

Turkic MythologyReligions

  • No inscription of the khaganates claims descent from a wolf or names a she-wolf.
  • The story does not say that its cave is the cave of the ancestors of the yearly sacrifice.
  • No runiform inscription of the Göktürk khaganates names a lord of the dead.
  • No inscription and no book of the Göktürk centuries names her.

Turkic Songs at the Tang CourtCustoms & Pastimes

  • Neither the words nor the tunes of his songs are recorded.
  • How he had lived among the Göktürks, his biography does not say.
  • The biography gives no line of the songs. It does not say from whom Yanxiu had learned them.
  • The Jiu Tang Shu's chapter on the court music and the music of the foreign peoples names no Göktürk song.
  • Where Yanxiu had learned the dance, his biography does not say.
  • The Sui Shu does not say what the Göktürk troupe played, or whether it sang.
  • The Göktürks are not among the peoples whose songs the music office kept.
  • No witness wrote down what they sounded like.

TurumPersonsminimal

  • Theophylact names neither the khagan nor the year.

TutmaçFoods

  • Whether the Göktürks knew it, no source says.

Ülgen and Kayra KhanReligions

  • Neither name appears in the Orkhon inscriptions, in the Yenisei texts or in the Chinese accounts of the Göktürks.
  • Ülgen is not attested in the Old Turkic sources. The Kül Tegin and Bilge Khan inscriptions and the Tonyukuk inscription name no god of that name. The text of the Tonyukuk inscription contains neither Ülgen nor Kayra.
  • The study gives no passage. The inscriptions as published carry none.
  • The Chinese accounts of Göktürk worship know the sacrifice of sheep and horses to heaven and name no god Ülgen or Kayra.
  • For the Göktürks the record yields nothing of its own. The names are missing from every text of the khaganates. What the Altai says of Ülgen and Kayra Khan cannot be carried back into the sixth and seventh centuries without a source that does so.

ValentinosPersons

  • Menander does not say whether this envoy is the one of 576.
  • Menander does not say why all the Göktürks in the city left together.

Wang ZhaojunPersons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The Han Shu gives neither the year nor the manner of Zhaojun's death.
  • Fan Ye wrote in the fifth century. The passage names no earlier source.
  • Neither text says whether he held the two titles in turn.

Water CultReligions

  • The sources of the khaganates do not mention the stone.

Wei JiePersons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • None of the passages gives his origin, his age or his end.
  • The text does not say whether this was the journey of the preface. It names no companion.
  • Nothing in these passages joins him to the envoy. Nothing separates them either.

Wei LüPersons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The text gives no year for the flight.

Wooden HorsesCustoms & Pastimes

  • The Tongdian gives the Jiegu no further description of the device.
  • The Chinese texts in the collection have no word of their own for ski.
  • The sources leave open whether the device was the same everywhere.

WrestlingCustoms & Pastimesminimal

  • It names no rules, no prize and no wrestlers.
  • Neither describes a bout.

Wuhuan Funeral SongsCustoms & Pastimes

  • Neither text gives a word of what was sung or chanted, and neither names the singers.
  • Neither describes a Xianbei funeral.

XihaiPlaces

  • None of these histories says where the sea lay.

Xiongnu IronworkingInstitutions and Titles

  • The Chinese histories name the Xiongnu's iron arms and say nothing of where they were made.
  • They do not say where the armour or the blades were made.
  • The Chinese histories name no Xiongnu smith, no mine and no forge.
  • The archaeological finds do not date the smelting to a reign or a chanyu.

Yada StoneReligions

  • Neither text names a stone.
  • None of the three says how the weather was made.

Yangsu TeginPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • His own father, his deeds and his death are not recorded.

YanhongdaInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • The Turkic word behind 閻洪達 is not known.

Yi KhanInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • The Tongdian names no house khan.

YinghefuInstitutions and Titlesminimal

  • The Tongdian names no holder of the title and gives it no duty.
  • The word does not occur in the Zhou Shu, the Sui Shu, the Bei Shi or the two Tang histories.

YingsuoPlacesminimal

  • None of the three names the lesser khan at Yingsuo.

Yinnai TeginPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The histories record nothing more of him.

Yintou TeginPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • None of the histories records what he said, or what became of him.

Yizhi NishiduPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded

Yol TengriReligions

  • Nothing in the Göktürk-period corpus names a road-god.

Yushe ShadPersons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The passage gives no year.
  • Whether Ashina Momo is Chula's son, the biography does not say.
  • No passage says whether the two titles belong to one man.

Zhao FanPersonsminimal

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • The memorial does not survive.
  • The Xin Tang Shu does not say that Zhao Fan reached the Kirghiz country. It records nothing else of his life, his family or his death.

Zhishi SiliPersons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded

Zhonghang YuePersons

  • Circumstances of death: not recorded
  • Year of death: not recorded
  • It gives no year of birth and no family. It also names no office beyond the one that sent him north.
  • The text does not say that Yue planned it.
  • After that clause, neither work mentions him.
  • Yue's words reach the reader only through the Shiji and the Han Shu. The chapter does not say who reported them to the Han court.

Five languages

The atlas in your language

Menus, chronologies and moving maps are in all five languages, and so are 304 articles.

New, basic edition:OʻzbekchaҚазақшаКыргызча