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calvo
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Topic: Which was the first sedentary Turkic nation? Posted: 24-Feb-2008 at 11:50 |
When historans talk about Turkic peoples prior to the Ottoman state, they give the impression that they had always been nomadic and living their entire lives on horseback. Nevertheless, some Turkic peoples have apparently settled down and founded cities.
Which was the first sedentary Turkic state and which century was it founded?
I somewhat get the impression that the Volga Bulgars and the Khazars were sedentary, although little has been documented about their civilizations.
The Uyghurs, at least by the 11th century, also seemed to live in "cities" and "palaces" as Chinese sources indicate.
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Sarmat
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Posted: 24-Feb-2008 at 18:35 |
Perhaps the process started with Uighur Kaganate in the middle of the 8th century. Uighurs created a highly developed sedentary culture including art and religious philosophy and left a lot of written sources. Though, I wouldn't say Nomadic element in their culture complitely disappeared it always was there, as well as in case of Khazars and Volga Bulgars.
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calvo
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Posted: 26-Feb-2008 at 10:03 |
How "sedentary" were exactly the Khazars and Volga Bulgars?
Russian sources cited that the Bulgars prayed in "mosques", but did they found any cities and did they dedicate to agriculture?
The Kipchaks and Pechenegs, as my impression goes, were strictly nomads right until the Mongol invasion.
Chinese sources also cited that parts of the Gokturk khanate subsisted on agriculture, planting barley and wheat. Considering that the khante stretched from Mongolia to the Black Sea, it wouldn't be surprising if it included agricultural peoples. However, we are not sure of whether these farmers were "Turks" or whether they were subject peoples.
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kafkas
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Posted: 28-Feb-2008 at 05:15 |
Originally posted by Sarmat12
Perhaps the process started with Uighur Kaganate in the middle of the 8th century. Uighurs created a highly developed sedentary culture including art and religious philosophy and left a lot of written sources. Though, I wouldn't say Nomadic element in their culture complitely disappeared it always was there, as well as in case of Khazars and Volga Bulgars. |
The Chinese found a Xiongnu city recently dating back to 419. I hope they discover more because I think they could have had much older cities. The climates where Turkic people are from are very harsh so we can't know for sure...
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Sarmat
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Posted: 28-Feb-2008 at 05:38 |
Originally posted by calvo
How "sedentary" were exactly the Khazars and Volga Bulgars?
Russian sources cited that the Bulgars prayed in "mosques", but did they found any cities and did they dedicate to agriculture?
The Kipchaks and Pechenegs, as my impression goes, were strictly nomads right until the Mongol invasion.
Chinese sources also cited that parts of the Gokturk khanate subsisted on agriculture, planting barley and wheat. Considering that the khante stretched from Mongolia to the Black Sea, it wouldn't be surprising if it included agricultural peoples. However, we are not sure of whether these farmers were "Turks" or whether they were subject peoples. |
Bulgars did grew crops and had a highly developed city culture with developed art and skillful artisans.
The archaeologists nowadays recognize more than 1500 Bulgarian sites of the pre-Mongolian time on the territory of Bulgaria. The foundation of economy of the Volga Bulgaria was the highly developed plough agriculture and animal husbandry. Crafts were of great significance - metallurgy, blacksmith's, jewellery, building, pottery-making, glass-making, bone-cutting, tannery, weaver's crafts and others. The third important component of the Bulgarian economy was trade.
Here is a link about Khazar fortress of Sarkel.
Kipchaks and Pechenegs were indeed complitely nomadic.
As about Gorkturks they didn't grow crops and were not involved in agriculture. They got all the necessary crops from Chinese and their other sedentary neighbors.
Edited by Sarmat12 - 28-Feb-2008 at 05:52
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Bulldog
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Posted: 28-Feb-2008 at 11:34 |
The first examples of sedentary lifestyle date to the Xiongnu-Hun era, they had a number of cities and towns which are only being recently discovered, most the information of these discoveries are from Russian archiologists and in Russian language, the historic information is in Chinese archives.
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calvo
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Posted: 28-Feb-2008 at 13:09 |
Chinese sources might not be so realible when they talk about "cities", because sometimes a "city" could refer to a large congregation of nomad tribes: an area in which they trade and administer the khanate; but in reality it is nothing but an area covered by thousands or 10s of thousands of yurts with no permanent infrastructure.
I would be more convinced of Xiong-nu cities if archaeologists actually found remains of stonework.
The Bulgars were supposed to have descended from a branch of the Xiongnu, if they were sedentary, some Xiongnu tribes could indeed have abandoned their nomad way of life well before.
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xi_tujue
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Posted: 29-Feb-2008 at 19:44 |
China's nationwide drive to green the barren western region has
resulted in an unexpected substantial reward: the discovery of a unique
ancient city covered by desert sands for more than 1,000 years.
It
is the only ruined city of the Xiongnu (Huns) ever found, said Dai
Yingxin, a well-known Chinese archaeologist. The Xiongnu was a northern
nomadic ethnic group that was influential in northern China for 10
centuries in ancient times.
The uncovered city occupies one
square km in Jingbian County in northwest China's Shaanxi Province,
adjacent to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. ![%5bimage%5d%20](http://www.chinapage.com/map/shaanxi3.jpg)
It
was built by more than 100,000 Xiongnu people in the year 419. Named
"Tongwancheng", which means unify all countries, the city is composed
of three parts, the palace walls, the inner city and the outer city.
Watchtowers stand at the four corners of the complex.
The
16-30 meter thick city walls are made with sand and white-powdered
earth mixed with glutinous rice water. This mixture made the earthen
walls as hard as the stone walls.
From a distance, the white
city looks like a giant ship. The southwestern turret, the highest of
the four, is 31 meters high and looks like a ship's mast. The ruined
city is now fenced with brush-wood, trees and grass.
"It is
the most substantial, magnificent and well-preserved city to be built
by any ethnic group in the history of China," said Zhu Shiguang,
president of the China Ancient City Society.
The
Turkish-speaking Xiongnu tribesmen founded their first steppe empire in
the 3rd century B.C. By the time the Qin Dynasty conquered the other
six states and began its reign over a unified China in 221 B.C., the
nomadic ethnic Xiongnu had grown into a powerful invading force in the
north and started expanding both east and west.
The Xiongnu
threat was a constant problem for the Han rulers. Qin Shihuang, the
first emperor of the Qin Dynasty, sent a 300,000-strong army headed by
General Meng Tian to drive the Xiongnu northward for 350 km and built
the Great Wall to guard against its invasion.
Tongwancheng
used to be a prosperous city on the upper reaches of the Wuding River,
a major tributary of the Yellow River. It remained the political,
economic and military center of the southern part of the Ordos Plateau
for over five centuries. As a result of the drying up of the river, it
then gradually became buried by moving sand and totally disappeared
into the desert for more than 1,000 years, said Xing Fulai, a research
fellow at the Shaanxi Provincial Institute of Archaeology.
The
discovery of the city gives vital information to the study of Xiongnu
tribesmen, who have remained a mystery to Chinese and foreign
archaeologists because of a lack of adequate material and evidence on
this ethnic tribe, Xing said.
He said because of their
cultural significance, the ruins of this ancient city will be
considered for the world heritage status by the United Nations
Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
http://www.chinapage.com/archeology/xiongnu.html
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I rather be a nomadic barbarian than a sedentary savage
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calvo
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Posted: 03-Mar-2008 at 17:29 |
Interesting info!
If the city had been founded in the year 419A.D., it was a time when a significant population of the Xiongnu had already came under Chinese influence and served as their frontiersguard.
They could have settled down and built city under the influence of the Chinese.
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