324 MAN: PAST AND PRESENT. [CHAP. 



732 A.D., and bearing a certain resemblance to some of the 

 Runic characters, as also to the Korean, at least in form, but 

 never in sound. Yet although differing from the 

 inscription's! Uiguric, Prof. Thomsen, who has successfully de- 

 ciphered the Orkhon text, thinks that this script 

 may also be derived, at least indirectly through some of the 

 Iranian varieties, from the same Aramean (Syriac) form of the 

 Semitic alphabet that gave birth to the Uiguric 1 . 



It is more important to note that all the non-Chinese inscrip- 

 tions are in the Turki language, while the Chinese text refers by 

 name to the father, the grandfather, and the great-grandfather of 

 the reigning Khan Bilga, which takes us back nearly to the time 

 when Sinjibu (Dizabul), Great Khan of the Altai Turks, was 

 visited by the Byzantine envoy, Zimarchus, in 569 A.D. In the 

 still extant report of this embassy 2 the Turks (TovpKOi) are 

 mentioned by name, and are described as nomads who dwelt 

 in tents mounted on waggons, burnt the dead, and raised monu- 

 ments to their memory, statues, and cairns with as many stones 

 as the foes slain by the deceased in battle. It is also stated that 

 they had a peculiar writing-system, which must have been that of 

 these Orkhon inscriptions, the Uiguric having apparently been 

 introduced somewhat later. 



Originally the Uigurs comprised nineteen clans, which at a 

 remote period already formed two great sections : the On-Uigur 

 ("Ten Uigurs") in the south, and the Toghuz-Uigur ("Nine 



and three in Turki, cover the four sides of a monument erected by a Chinese 

 emperor to the memory of Kyul-teghin, brother of the then reigning Turki 

 Khan Bilga (Mogilan). In the same historical district, where stand the ruins of 

 Karakoram long the centre of Turki and later of Mongol power other inscribed 

 monuments have also been found, all apparently in the same Turki language 

 and script, but quite distinct from the glyptic rock carvings of the Upper 

 Yenisei river, Siberia. The chief workers in this field were the Finnish archaeo- 

 logists J. R. Aspelin, A. Snellman and Axel O. Heikel, the results of whose 

 labours are collected in the Inscriptions de TJenissei recueillies et pnbliees par 

 lei Societe Finlandaise cTArchtologie, Helsingfors, 1889; and Inscriptions de 

 F Orkhon etc., Helsingfors, 1892. 



1 "La source d'oii est tiree 1'origine de 1'alphabet lure, sinon immediate- 

 ment, du moins par intermediaire, c'est la forme de 1'alphabet semitique qu'on 

 appelle arameenne" (Inscriptions de f Orkhon dechiffre'es , Helsingfors, 1894). 



- See Klaproth, Tableau Historique de ? Asie, p. ii6sq. 



