For the historical analysis of the pre-modern Turfan society, it is an
indispensable task to identify the toponyms attested in the Turfan texts in
various languages. According to the Chinese historical sources, “twenty-
two cities” existed in the Turfan Basin under the ( 高昌 ) Gaochang
Kingdom of ( 麴 ) Qu Family in 640 CE, when it was conquered by the
Tang dynasty. Several names of the “twenty-two cities” are recorded in
the Chinese chronicles as well as in the Turfan Chinese manuscripts, and
Turfan scholars have conducted a series of geo-historical surveys to identify
them in comparison with the toponyms in the Chinese records of the
Ming and Qing dynasties and the modern Uigur ones. Since the latter half
of the 9th century the Turfan Basin was brought under the direct rule of
the West-Uigur Kingdom, whose dominion was designated also as “twenty-
two cities of the nation of Qočo” (qočo ulus ikii otuz baliq) in one of
the Old Uigur Manichaean texts: After their submission to the Činggisid
Mongol Empire at the early 13th century, the number of the cities ruled
by the Uigur king iduq-qut is once mentioned as twenty-four. Among the
Old Uigur texts from the 9th–14th centuries, we can find the toponyms
identified to the modern Turfan oases. In this article, the cities of Çïqtïn,
Puçang, Soim, Qongsïr (Qongḍsïr), Limçin, Singging (Singing), Nižüng
(Nişüng ~ Lişüng), Nampï (Lampï) and Yimşi (Yemşi) were examined.
Primary Language | Turkish |
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Subjects | Language Studies |
Journal Section | Articles |
Authors | |
Translators |
Ahmet Karaman This is me |
Publication Date | March 29, 2019 |
Published in Issue | Year 2019 Issue: 47 |