Köl Tigin's tablet - Chinese text

[aca]

Another photo of Wu's "No Words" tombstone.
I have tried to find a better one... the one in which this upper part is more visible, but this is the best I could find



Obviously, there is a twisting dragon on the very top of the monument (the same as the one on Bilge-qaghan's monument), but I cannot exactly recognize those two identical figures on the sides

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

The figures on Turkic inscriptions are female wolves.

[aca]

Bilge-qaghan's monument

Obviously a twisting "animal" at the top, but where are those female wolves of which every book is talking about?

I can also recognize a dragon at the top of Karabalgasun monument:


And wolf at the top of Bugut monument:


But what is this:

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

I think it is hard to determine whether they are wolves or dragons because the Blue Turk monuments are damaged They can be dragons too, but maybe wolves? I can not be sure...

[aca]

This is what I've been looking for:



Can someone mark Kül-tigin's name and the ethnonym Türk on this text. I don't know Chinese so I need your help.

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

I marked Köl Tigin's name (Què Tèqín [Ch'üeh T'e-ch'in] 闕特勤 ) in two places, but even though I browsed the text several times, I could not see the name Tūjué (T'u-chüeh) 突厥

Here is Köl Tigin:

[aca]

Thank you

I guess the name Tûjué can be found on Bilge-kaghan's monument, but not on this one

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

You're welcome

I will check when I will return to Ankara

[aca]

This seems to be a copy of Kül-tigin's monument from Ankara.
The upper part looks similar to the upper part of Karabalgasun monument.
Did the upper part of the original KT's monument realy look like this, or they were just using Karabalgasun monument as an example?


BTW, is this also Kül-tigin's name? It looks wery similar..

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

Yes, that is also Köl Tigin's name, but I hadn't marked it.

That replica monument is located at the main campus of the Gazi University. The upper part of Köl Tigin's monument probably looked like that, as the earlier example of the Bugut Monument, as well as the later example of the Qara Balghasun Monument shows us.

[aca]

Guys, look at this monument:



I guess monuments of this shape were quite common in Tang dynasty period

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

That is quiet interesting indeed

I wonder if such styled monuments existed in China during the 6th century, because the Turks used that (as can be seen from the Bughut Monument).

[aca]

I wonder if such styled monuments existed in China during the 6th century, because the Turks used that

This is very important question.

This is what could find on internet:


From Confucius temple, but I don't know the date of the inscription.


Probably from Ming dynasty period


From Fu Kang An (Taiwan) - inscription in Manchu language (if I remember corectly). This one was placed back in 1788.


This turtle-shaped base most likely has a mythological meaning, or something like that... do you know something more about it?

[kokturk]

The Chinese believed that a tortoise carries the World on his back.

[H. İhsan Erkoç]

Because the tortoise live a very long life, they were believed to represent being eternal, according to the Chinese and Turks. This is why Turkic inscription monuments were called Bäŋgü Taš (Benggü Tash), meaning "Eternal Stone", because they were placed on tortoises representing eternality; or perhaps, vice versa, because these were "Eternal Stones" carrying the stories of the dead, tortoise statues were placed under the monuments.

If we can not find any such styled monuments from pre-Tang dynasty period China, can we assume that that style was Turkic in origin, and that it was brought to China later?

Hmm, another thing I should ask to my advisor ;D