July, 1913. Notes on Turquois. - 5q 



turquoises offered to the throne by the inhabitants of the regions where 

 the said products were found should be charged to the annual taxes 

 due to them.i The localities for the production of turquoises, on this 

 occasion, are given as Ho-lin and Hui-ch"uan. The former place is 

 mentioned again under the Mongols in the year 1 271 to the effect that a 

 certain Umala collected turquoises {pi tien-tse) at Ho-lin.^ 



Ho-lin is the Chinese designation for Karakorum,'' the famous 

 residence of the first successors to Chinggis Khan, Ogotai, Kuyuk and 

 Mangu, and a large industrial and commercial centre in the Mongol 

 period. It is not known whether turquoises occurred or are now found 

 in the environments of that ancient capital, that is, in the basin of the 

 •Orkhon river, and it may very well be that Karakorum, during the 

 . thirteenth century, was merely a staple-place for them, whence they 

 were traded to the Mongol and Tungusian tribes. In Yuan-shi (Ch. 94, 

 § 2, p. i) turquoises are enumerated among the natural products of 

 the empire together with gold, silver, pearls, jade, copper, iron, mercury, 

 vermilion, lead, tin, alum, saltpetre, and carbonate of natron. 



It is thus evident that in the Mongol period at least three turquois- 

 mines were in operation, in Hu-pei, Yun-nan, and Sze-ch'uan (Marco 

 Polo's Caindu). 



Also from Tibet turquoises were imported into China during that 

 period. This may be inferred from a remark of Ts'ao Chao who pub- 

 lished in 1387 the Ko ku yao lun, a collection of notes on art and anti- 

 quities. This was in the beginning of* the Ming dynasty which rose in 

 1368, so that the author must have lived through the last years of the 

 Yiian. He avails himself for the turquois of the peculiar Yiian expres- 

 sion pi tien-tse, but using a different character to write tien, identical 

 with the word for 'indigo' (No. 11,199), so that the name would mean 

 'blue indigo sons.' He gives as localities for these stones the regions of 

 the southern and western Tibetans {Nan-fan, Si-fan ^) and describes 

 them as of blue and green color, adding that good ones come somewhat 

 near to the price of a horse, a statement evidently copied from the 

 Wu Tai shi in regard to the se-se of the Tibetan women, referred to 

 above.' He further says that they are of the class of beacls, and that 

 1 Kin-t'ing se wen hien t'ung k'ao, Ch. 23, p. 3. 



' i^i^-' ?• ^ ^- Hui-chou, as written in this work, is a mistake for Hui-ch'uan as 

 proved by the parallel passage in Yiian shi, Ch. 94, §2, pp. i b, 2 a. 



3 Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches, Vol. I, p. 122; Vol. II, p. 162. 



" From our standpoint eastern Tibetans; they border on the west of China and 

 live partially on territory belonging to the political administration of China. 



'For the rest this is merely phraseology which cannot be taken very seriously 

 In China as elsewhere stock-phrases are formed in the wav of literary allusions and 

 bons mots for stylistic purposes, and it would be preposterous to see in these a founda- 

 tion ot real fact. Thus the phrase, "bead or pearl of the value of a horse, " is one of the 



