Old Uigur Toponyms of the Turfan Oases

Abstract

For the historical analysis of the pre-modern Turfan society, it is anindispensable task to identify the toponyms attested in the Turfan texts invarious languages. According to the Chinese historical sources, "twenty-two cities" existed in the Turfan Basin under the ( 高昌 ) GaochangKingdom of ( 麴 ) Qu Family in 640 CE, when it was conquered by theTang dynasty. Several names of the "twenty-two cities" are recorded inthe Chinese chronicles as well as in the Turfan Chinese manuscripts, andTurfan scholars have conducted a series of geo-historical surveys to identifythem in comparison with the toponyms in the Chinese records of theMing and Qing dynasties and the modern Uigur ones. Since the latter halfof the 9th century the Turfan Basin was brought under the direct rule ofthe West-Uigur Kingdom, whose dominion was designated also as "twenty-two cities of the nation of Qočo" (qočo ulus ikii otuz baliq) in one ofthe Old Uigur Manichaean texts: After their submission to the ČinggisidMongol Empire at the early 13th century, the number of the cities ruledby the Uigur king iduq-qut is once mentioned as twenty-four. Among theOld Uigur texts from the 9th-14th centuries, we can find the toponymsidentified to the modern Turfan oases. In this article, the cities of Çïqtïn,Puçang, Soim, Qongsïr (Qongḍsïr), Limçin, Singging (Singing), Nižüng(Nişüng ~ Lişüng), Nampï (Lampï) and Yimşi (Yemşi) were examined.