Tuvan music is a wonder.

If you've never seen it, the movie "Ghengis Blues" is good.

Actually "Ghengis Blues" is produced by my friend's relative. In China, Tuvan is not a seperate ethnic, but still a branch of Mongolians.

(But in reality, Uyghur is pretty much a loose defination for a LOT of different people who live in Xinjiang. )

Yes, it's quite true that the modern Uyghur ethnic group in China is an amalgamation of what were previously considered to be many separate ethnic groups: Kasgharis, Khotanis, Dungans, Turpanis, etc.

Much like the Tuvans in China are considered to be a branch of the Mongolian ethnicity.

Does anyone out there know what relationship the modern Uyghur ethnic group has to the Uyghurs of the 8th and 9th century?

Michael: Can you access Encyclopedia Britannica or Wikipedia or any other encyclopedia online? If you can, then you can find the consensus view on the basic facts.

It's not true that the modern Uyghurs, as an ethnic group, is an amalgamation of previously separate ethnic groups. Kashgaris, Khotanis, Turpanis were the same Uyghurs. The only difference is that their self-identification was tied to the locality. Much like Germans did before German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) of 1814. Or Italians prior to Risorgimento in 1848. In other words, prior to the creation of a nation state, people think of themselves in terms of their immediate locality.

Wikipedia: "After the collapse of the Uyghur Empire in 840 CE, Uyghur refugees resettled to the Tarim Basin, intermarrying with the local people." The local people were the Tocharians, the Indo-European folks who left behind those mummies Victor Mair of U.Penn has been studying.

Well then, I stand corrected... but you don't have to be snooty about it. What about the mini ethnic groups, like the Lop Nur people for instance? Are they also Uyghurs or a separate people?

very good blog congratulations
regard from Catalonia Spain

Lop Nur people and Dolans are considered by some scientists as direct descendants of moghuls (not mongols, but nomadic turkic tribes located originally north to ET and conquered by mongols and as result they took mongol tribal names such as doghlat, barin, choras, bekchik, merkit, etc, some of these tribal names still remain in Eastern Turkstan), the last large ethnic component added to the modern Uyghur enthnicity. Moghuls ruled Uyghurs in post-Chinghiz-khan period in medieval times, creating such states as Moghulstan and Moghulia (known as Yarkend khanate or Saidiye khanate). There were several migrations of moghul tribes to ET, but most of them were assimilated by Uyghurs.

2 Peter: thanks, you are correct, but intensive turkic infiltration to ET started earlier than 840 year, around 5th century AD. So by the collapse of Uyghur qaghanat, there was already turkic population kindred to Uyghurs, e.g. qarluqs in ET.

In general, in my humble opinion, the Uyghur ethnicity is not researched in relevant extent, and there are lots of questions than answers. But one thing is clear that the connection between ancient Uyghurs and modern population of ET is the undoubtedly direct one.

The simple statement is that when Ancient Uyghur (Nomadic one) settled in the region, they mixed with local population to form today's Uyghur.

There are few issues on this:

1) Is the ancient nomad settled in ALL areas or just some of areas? I probably think some of areas are didn't have this mix. If you go around and find some of remote villages, you would know what I am talking about.

2) What are those local people? Also a simple answer is Tocharians. But it is not true. There are more people than Tocharians. There were at least 5 different European ethnics in the area (probably more) with some related with Celts or Saxons, but other related with Iranians or Afghans. There are also other people living there, like various Turkic tribes, proto-Tibetan tribes, Qiangs, or some past nomads, such as Khitans, Xuanbei, etc. There were probably some Han settlers that came since Han Dynasty.

Also think about all kind of admixture there, you have a big salad bowl here. To make things easy, China back in 1950s, just put everyone together and calling them Uyghurs. Same thing in Yunnan and Guizhou. The time people in Yunnan identified themselves with 300+ ethnic groups, and Guizhou identified them about 100+ ethnic groups for a total of 400+ groups. Then those communist experts who were armed with Marxist theory, somehow reducing it to about 40+.

How did they find out that it was a build by Uyghurs but not tall blond green eyed Yenisei Kirghiz? Lake Tere-Khol in the land of Tuva is a lot closer to the traditional land of Yenisei Kirghiz than that of Orkhon Valley based Uyghur empire. I heard a while back the Soviet archaeologist have discovered Former Han general Li Ling (李陵) 's palace, were they talking about Tere-Khol ruins? It would made sense since ruling class of Yenisei Kirghiz had claim descend from Li Ling (李陵). Yenisei Kirghiz probably made up the story to claim kinship with Tang emperors (that they are both belong to clan of Li descended from Han general Li Guang). But Tang apparently accepted Yenisei Kirghiz's claim. From description of the Secret history of Mongols, a likely Yenisei Kirghiz man sired the direct male line of Borjigid Mongols that would lead to Genghis Khan. The Borjigid legend says that their ancestress Alan-ko bore Bodunchar after being visited by a strange 'golden glittering man' with red hair and green eyes.

Wow.

Ladies and gentleman, what you have witnessed in the amazing comment directly above is the debut performance of the only Yenisei Kirghiz fanatic on Earth. The first recorded sighting of such a rare creature is truly a milestone for this humble blog.

Haha. nice michael. As the only Yenisei Kirghiz fanatic on Earth, I stand corrected. The Chinese(Han) style palace that Soviets were pinning on Li Ling was located in Abakan
in Tuva's neighboring Republic of Khakassia.
Ah the power of google,
See English translation at the bottom of this Russian

Oops.
The link to Soviet archaeology claim is at here

My html skill is su*king. I really wanted to post the
link.

I first read about Li Ling's palace in Russia on Chinese web sites which gave no footnote or reference. It was hard work to find the exact transcription of Chinese trancription of Russian name into English, trust me. Just have to share with other potential Yenisei Kirghiz fanatic out there.

And to answer your question, Michael. I think that modern Uyghur ethnic group has as much to do with the Uyghurs of the 8th and 9th century as Modern Kyrgyz has to with Yenisei Kirghiz who destroyed the Uyghur empire in Mongolia.

Kirghiz in history (Chinese: 黠戛斯) were described by the New Book of Tang (新唐書/新唐书) as

big bodied, red headed, pink faced, green eyed. Black hair is seen as a bad omen. All black haired Kirghiz are descended from line of Li Ling.

The original classical Chinese is

黠戛斯，古堅昆國也……人皆長大，赤髮，析面，綠瞳，以黑髮為不祥。黑瞳者，必曰陵苗裔也

In other words they are mostly tall, blond with green eyes with exception of few who might be Li Ling's descendants who have dark hair and dark eyes.

Modern Kyrgyz are more Mongol looking than other Central Asian Turkic groups such as Uzbek, and has close cultural affinity with Kazakh.

Both Old book of Tang and New Book of Tang devoted separate chapter to Uyghur empire. Of Uyghurs who fled Kirghiz on-slaught, the branch that settle in Gansu became forbear of Yugur.

It's obvious that your average Yugur looked nothing like your average Kashgari.

Modern reintroduction of Uyghur nationality to describe group of Turkic oasis dwellers formerly knowns as Taranchi or Sarts, first by Soviets and then adopted by Chinese Communists, are well documented.

What I really want to know it how they separate Uzbek from Uyghur in Xinjiang. How do you make distinction between the two artificially created nationality.

In all fairness, genetically speaking, today's Han ethncity probably has much to with people of Han dynasty as Uyghur has to do with ancient Uyghur. Culturally speaking, I could read with ease Chinese documents from Confucius's time. Why did Uyghur gave up their old script?

">The Records of the Grand Historian was written 800 years before the inscriptions on Orkhon monuments.

I could easily understand events recorded in The Records of the Grand Historian in the same language it was written 2000 years ago. How many speakers of Turkic language today, who claim descend from old Turkic empires of yore, could read exploits of Kul Tigin and his brother the great Khan of Göktürk Empire Bilge Khan in its original form?

But perception creates reality. For all practical purposes outside academia and history buffs, Uyghur is the SAME people as Orkhon Uyghur.

HanWawk,

The so-called Turkic language was probably more Tiele (铁勒). We knew the ancient Uyghur (回紇) is from tribes of Dingling (丁零, or Dil 狄), then Gaochi (高车) and Chile (敕勒). Ashina (Golturk) is probably a tribe of Sak that mixed Tiele. It went into China proper during Five Hus period, then went back to Altai region after Tuba established order. Then whoever Tiele tribes gave up their own identity were called Other-name Turk (异姓突厥). But tribes like Uyghur insisting to keep their own identity, so their relationship with Golturk was up and down all the time until Uyghur destoryed the 2nd Turk Empire.

I do think many of Modern Uyghur population have nothing to do with the ancient one and probably are pure native people who are various leftovers of other people.

Sha,

I agree that ancient Uyghur are related but different people from Göktürks.But
That's why I emphasize that "who claim descend from old Turkic empires of yore".

Truth is usually not important in construction of a common mythical past. Modern nationalist historians from Turkic nations such as Kazakh, Kirghiz and Uyghur among others (including Anatolian Turks) often claimed a lineal descend from Hun/Xiongnu thru Göktürks.

Orkhon scripts are important in that, up till then, all the written historic records regarding nomadic tribes in Mongolian steppe came from Chinese. This was the first time we have accounts of Turk history written by Turks.

Interesting to note is that all the railing against "corrupting influence of Chinese" on Orkhon monuments are not that different from what some people are saying about Globalization and American culture.

Tang imperial machinery were definitely doing something right to merit all that litany of complaints.

Given all the current Western complaints about China's role in Africa, you know that China is finally rising again.

Ancient Uygur fortress digs in Tuva to be continued in '08.
20 September 2007
ITAR-TASS World Service
(c) 2007 ITAR-TASS

GORNO-ALTAISK, September 20 (Itar-Tass) — Work to mothball the ancient Uygur fortress Por-Bazhyn has been completed in Tuva Republic (TR) in Southern Siberia. Archeological explorations at the site are to be continued next year and restoration work is to be started.

Throughout this year's summer, an all-Russia scientific expedition has been engaging in large-scale explorations at Por-Bazhyn. Most of those involved in the digs during the fourth shift -- more than 60 students of Krasnoyarsk and Tuva Universities, and cadets of the Academy of the Russian Ministry for Emergencies (RME) -- have already been brought out from the remote Tere-Khol district, where the unique architectural monument is located.

The remaining 20 people are to leave the tent camp of the expedition on Friday, Oleg Kononenko, staff member of the RME department for the TR, has told Itar-Tass. He said special depots have been constructed to keep the expedition’s equipment in winter. Five to ten members of personnel of the extra-departmental guard service, wintering conditions for whom have been created there, will guard the depots.

Sergei Shoigu, acting Head of the RME, and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Por- Bazhyn Fortress cultural foundation, has outlined priorities of the project to study the monument next year. "These are primarily a continuation of archeological explorations and restoration work. One would like to recreate the original look of not only the central premises but also of individual parts of the architectural complex. The third priority is to implement a museum-and- tourism project".

Throughout the summer, working at the site were more than 600 students and researchers of Moscow, St Petersburg, Kazan, Krasnoyarsk, and Tuva Universities, and many research institutes of Novosibirsk.

A good deal of scientific discoveries have been made during the digs. Thus, a date of the emergence of the monument has been specified: 8th century A.D. The fortress had been abandoned by people owing to a severe fire, not as a result of floods, as a Tuvinian legend presents it. Chinese architects and builders had constructed this architectural monument.

The fortress, which takes up an area of four hectares on one of the islands of the Tuvinian lake Tere-Khol, is a palace-and-temple complex, not just an ordinary facility. These had possibly constituted the summer residence of the kagan, an Uygur ruler, and his wife, a Chinese princess, who had been taking a cure at the health-giving springs.

The wall ceramic masks that were unearthed during the archeological digs had been used to ward off evil spirits. The masks with a representation of horned dragons had been typical of the times of the Chinese Tang Dynasty that had been reigning from AD 618 to 907. Their reign had coincided with the existence of Fortress Por-Bazhyn.

Students from foreign institutions of higher learning are to be invited to participate in the project next year. Nothing like this fortress was found either in the Soviet Union or the Russian Federation before. Scientists plan to open a Por-Bazhyn cultural-and-educational museum center at the site.

did anyone actually mention that in this fortress they found remains of a tall, european looking warrior??which contradicts the whole idea of Uighurs being a specific race prior 8th century...Uighur meant to be all the layal citezens of the Uighur Empire, and the lacal tocharian people might as well have incorparated into the Uighur tribe/nation long before the historians claim...

Thanks so much for this! This is exactly what I was looking for

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