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Türkic Scripts - Codex of Inscriptions

Euro Asiatic Subgroup

Balkarian script

Introduction

The following inscriptions are from the Nothern Caucasus area, and are called “Balkarian” here conditionally, with understanding that Balkarian (Kabardino-Balkarian) administrative concoction was just a latest curl  in the Russian "dilute and dissipate" colonization policy. Geographically, these inscriptions belong to the area where I.L. Kyzlasov identified the Kuban Script. The Khumar Citadel is one of the major sources for the finds.

At about 206 BC the Huns of Ordos, a huge bend of the Huanhe river, staged a revolt against domination of Tokhars, who were a supreme tribe ruling over other Türkic tribes. Tokhars were headed by a dynastic tribe of Ases, theirs was a traditional dualistic marital union of two tribes that survived for two millennia. In the vicinity of the Caspian Sea, the Tokhars were called Dahae in the Greek rendition, they were a prominent part of the Masgut confederation, and possibly the As-Tokhar union was the “Head Tribe(s)” called Masgut in Türkic; Chinese called them Yuezhi 月氏 (in Chinese Pinyin Latinization), which may reflect the idea of “As tribes”, Chinese -zhi/ji standing for “-tribes” . The defeated Tokhars retreated to the Jeti-su area, displacing the Saka tribes, who moved southwest. A generation later, the Usun Huns kicked Tokhars out from the Jeti-su area, and Tokhars resurfaced in their ancestral Aral-Caspian area. They must have been too imposing for their kins there, so they moved on to Margiana and Bactria. According to Strabo, the tribes were called Ases, Tokhars, Sabirs (Sabaroi) and Saka. The Parthians, themselves a tribe of  the Dahae Tokhars, did not mind, as long as the supremacy of their dynasty was recognized. Apparently. it was only conditionally, because in 35 BC Ibero-Parthian war on side of Iberia (Geogia) served the Alans (Tr. “People of the Plain”, later that name is closely associated with Ases). In history, the eastern Tokhars become known as Kushans, who probably belonged to the As dynastic line or their opponents. The name of Ases is overshadowed by the name Kushan until their demise, at the hand of Ephtilite Huns, when the politonym becomes Ephtilite. In 552 AD comes the Ephtilite demise, and the Ephtilite (Abdaly) tribes disperse.

In the Caucasus, Masguts lead the union of the Masgut (Massagete) and Kayi Hun tribes under a leadership of the Masgut leader Sanesan, whose tribes of Ases and Tokhars must have been the real force of the state. For generations, their alliance is known as the state of Agvans (Aghvans/Aguans/Albans/Hai-Aghuank). It started ca 150 AD as a Masgut state, around 330 it was still headed by the Masgut king Sanesan, but shortly afterwards it was referred to as a Kayi kingdom, in the Armenian parlance Hailandurks, their possessions extended from the land of Gilans to beyond the Derbent Pass, and included the nomadic kingdom Sacacene of the Azeri Scythians between the rivers Kura and Arax. In 387, the Agvan rule over Armenian provinces Artsah (Ar-ts-ah) and Utik was formalized in the peace treaty between Valentinian II (371 – 392) of  Roman Empire (509 BC – 476 AD) and Shapur III (383 – 388) of  Sassanid Empire (224 – 651) that partitioned Armenia. Three generations later, in 461 Agvania was partitioned, a large part of the Agvan (Aguan) kingdom was captured by the Sassanid Peroz I (459 – 484), and became a vassal state of Sassanid Empire until its capture by the Arabs. Apparently, most of the nomadic Masguts and Kayis retreated northward to the modern Dagestan, where are known the state of Kayi Huns, and further to the north the possession of Alans, the former Masguts. Kayi controlled the Caspian seaboard, Alans controlled highlands north of the Daryal Pass, which became known as Alan Gates. At the same time, the lands north of Georgia became known as the land of Ovs, which allows to identify the Masgut tribes north of the Daryal Pass as Ases and Tokhars. That was the beginning of the historical period for the people of Balkars (Ases) and Digors (Tokhars), who continued to be known as Alans, a branch of Masguts. Their script is known as the Kuban version of the Türkic alphabet script. Their language was the Ogur branch of the Türkic. It is obvious that the Kuban script originated east of the Caspian Sea, where originated the tribes that brought it to the Caucasus. The  “Balkarian” script is spread in the Caucasus in a shape of the reverse letter C, from the Balkarian highlands along the Caspian seaboard to Sakacene in Azerbaijan.

Migration of Savir (Sabir/Sabaroi, the Severyane of the Slavic annals) tribes to the Caspian western seaboard started in the 5th c., first as mercenaries in the Byzantine-Sassanid wars. Already at that time, the Savirs supplanted the local rulers as coherent powerful force, their territory extended from the upper Don to the Derbent Pass, with the center along the river Sever Donets. In the middle of the 6th c. the retreating Ephtilite Uars, called Avars in Europe, and the budding Türkic Kaganate divided Eastern Europe with the border running along the Don River. Soon afterwards, the Türkic Kaganate started chipping off the Sassanid vassals, taking Agvania and Georgia. The main force of the Türkic Kaganate in the Caucasus were Huns-Savirs, they took over control of the Türkic tribes from the local rulers in the Caucasus, and played a leading role in the events in the Caucasus until the Arab expeditionary army destroyed their capital Varachan in 739. In the Armenian annals the Savir viceroy was called Ilitver, an Armenian form for the title Ilteber for “Territorial ruler”. The Savir dynastic line in the Caucasus was a splinter from the dynasts of the Western Türkic Kaganate. The fight for the liberation of Masguts continued throughout the period of the Sassanid occupation, in 589 a major joint campaign of Savirs, Greeks, and Georgians to free Aguania was repelled by the Persians. In 628 the forces of the Western Türkic Kaganate captured Tbilisi and liberated Agvania. In 664 the Savir Huns extended their protection to Aguania (Agvania) by signing an alliance treaty with the Aguan king, who without Savir protection found himself paying a double tribute, to the Savirs and to the victorious newcomer Arabs. A that time, Aguania was still a Masgut country, divided between Savirs north of Derbent Pass, and Aguania south of it. For a century, Savirs withstood the assaults of the Arab armies, but after a major defeat in 739 they took a second seat after Khazars. By that time, the Georgian appellation Ovs lost its dynastic meaning, and became a generic term for the tribes beyond their northern border. However, the tribal names of Ases for Balkarians and Kara Ases = Black Ases for Karachais survived into Modernity, a Russian  military report of 1834 called Karachais and Balkars the ”Ossetian tribes”.

The Kangar-Bosnyak, Oguz, and Kichak migrations of the 8th-11th cc. did not alter considerably the ethnic mosaic in the Caucasus, but the disintegration of the Khazar royal line and outflow of the Bulgars to the Middle Itil following Kangar-Bosnyak ravages allowed local rulers to rise, bringing Balkanization to the Caucasus, subdued for a time by the unifying force of the Kipchak Khanate, the Tataria of the western geographers. Waves of the Middle Age conflicts, that of Tokhtamysh and Tamerlan, also rolled over without a major demographic impact. The patchwork of indigenous Türkic tribes interspersed with the patchwork of Caucasian tribes survived, and by the 16th c. coalesced into an independent Shamkhalate state with a capital at Tarki, that was finally subdued by 1850s after a century-long creeping assaults. The Shamkhalate extended to part of northern Azerbaijan, southern Dagestan, principality of Tarki (modern Makhachkala), principality of Tumen (Taman Peninsula?), principality of Ichkeria (Chechnya, Michiki) and part of Kabarda. The Kumyk language was a lingua franca in the area, Islam was a dominating religion, and Arabic script replaced the Türkic runiform writing. However, the ethnic distinctions and ethnic self-identification among different Türkic tribes survived to the present in all isolated hamlets

Links

http://buday.narod.ru/gl2.htm

Examples of Türkic script from Balkaria (from Kh.Kh. Bidjiev)

Inscription 1

Provenance and desription
Khumarin Citadel

Inscription 1

Publications
Bidjiev Kh.Kh., Gadlo A.V. Excavations of Khumarin Citadel. Archeology on N, Caucasus 6. M. 1976. pp 12-13
Bidjiev Kh.Kh. Türks of Northern Caucasus. Cherkessk, 1993

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Inscription 2

Provenance and desription
Khumarin Citadel

Inscription 2

Publications
Bidjiev Kh.Kh., Gadlo A.V. Excavations of Khumarin Citadel. Archeology on N, Caucasus 6. M. 1976. pp 12-13
Bidjiev Kh.Kh. Türks of Northern Caucasus. Cherkessk, 1993

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Inscription 3

Provenance and desription
Khumarin Citadel

Inscription 3

Publications
Bidjiev Kh.Kh., Gadlo A.V. Excavations of Khumarin Citadel. Archeology on N, Caucasus 6. M. 1976. pp 12-13
Bidjiev Kh.Kh. Türks of Northern Caucasus. Cherkessk, 1993

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Inscription 4

Provenance and desription
Khumarin Citadel

Inscription 4

Publications
Bidjiev Kh.Kh., Gadlo A.V. Excavations of Khumarin Citadel. Archeology on N, Caucasus 6. M. 1976. pp 12-13
Bidjiev Kh.Kh. Türks of Northern Caucasus. Cherkessk, 1993

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Inscription 5

Provenance and desription
Khumarin Citadel

Inscription 5

Publications
Bidjiev Kh.Kh., Gadlo A.V. Excavations of Khumarin Citadel. Archeology on N, Caucasus 6. M. 1976. pp 12-13
Bidjiev Kh.Kh. Türks of Northern Caucasus. Cherkessk, 1993

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Inscription 6

Provenance and desription
Khumarin Citadel

Inscription 6

Publications
Bidjiev Kh.Kh., Gadlo A.V. Excavations of Khumarin Citadel. Archeology on N, Caucasus 6. M. 1976. pp 12-13
Bidjiev Kh.Kh. Türks of Northern Caucasus. Cherkessk, 1993

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Inscription 7

Provenance and desription
Khumarin Citadel

Inscription 7

Publications
Bidjiev Kh.Kh., Gadlo A.V. Excavations of Khumarin Citadel. Archeology on N, Caucasus 6. M. 1976. pp 12-13
Bidjiev Kh.Kh. Türks of Northern Caucasus. Cherkessk, 1993

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Inscription 8

Provenance and desription
Khumarin Citadel

Inscription 8

Publications
Bidjiev Kh.Kh., Gadlo A.V. Excavations of Khumarin Citadel. Archeology on N, Caucasus 6. M. 1976. pp 12-13
Bidjiev Kh.Kh. Türks of Northern Caucasus. Cherkessk, 1993

Attempts to read:
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Inscription 9

Provenance and desription
Khumarin Citadel

Inscription 9

Publications
Bidjiev Kh.Kh., Gadlo A.V. Excavations of Khumarin Citadel. Archeology on N, Caucasus 6. M. 1976. pp 12-13
Bidjiev Kh.Kh. Türks of Northern Caucasus. Cherkessk, 1993

Attempts to read:
Not available
Transcription
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Transliteration
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Translation
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 ηγčšöïäü

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Home
Back
In Russian
Codex of Inscriptions Index
Alphabet Index
Sources
Roots
Alphabet
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Language
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Geography
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Coins
Wikipedia
Hunnic Writing
Turanian Writing
Paleography of 8 Türkic Alphabets
Ogur and Oguz
Codex of Inscriptions-Euro Asiatic- Kuban
Codex of Inscriptions-Euro Asiatic- S. Enisei
Codex of Inscriptions-Euro Asiatic- Achiktash
Codex of Inscriptions-Euro Asiatic- Isfar
Alan Dateline
Avar Dateline
Besenyo Dateline
Bulgar Dateline
Huns Dateline
Karluk Dateline
Khazar Dateline
Kimak Dateline
Kipchak Dateline
Kyrgyz Dateline
Sabir Dateline
Seyanto Dateline
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