The Ashina (Chinese:阿史那; pinyin:Āshǐnà; Wade–Giles:A-shih-na; Middle Chinese: (Guangyun) [ʔɑʃi̯ə˥nɑ˩]) were a Turkic tribe and the ruling dynasty of the Göktürks. This clan rose to prominence in the mid-6th century when the leader, Bumin Qaghan (died 552), revolted against the Rouran Khaganate. The two main branches of the family, one descended from Bumin and the other from his brother Istämi, ruled over the eastern and western parts of the Göktürk confederation, respectively, forming the First Turkic Khaganate (552–603).
Quick Facts 阿史那Āshǐnà, Regions with significant populations ...
According to some researchers (Duan, Xue, Tang, and Lung) the Ashina tribe was descended from the Tiele confederation,[20][21][22][23][24] who were likewise associated with the Xiongnu.[25][26] Like the Göktürks, the Tiele were probably one of many nomadic Turkic peoples on the steppe.[27][28] However, Lee & Kuang (2017) state that Chinese histories did not describe the Ashina-led Göktürks as descending from the Dingling or belonging to the Tiele confederation.[29]
Several researchers, including Peter B. Golden,[32] H. W. Haussig,[33] S. G. Klyashtorny,[34][35]Carter V. Findley,[36] D. G. Savinov,[37] B. A. Muratov,[38] S. P. Guschin,[39] and András Róna-Tas[40] have posited that the term Ashina ultimately descends from an Indo-European source, possibly Tocharian or from one of the many Eastern Iranian tribal groups, such as the Saka and Wusun.[41] Jonathan Ratcliffe supports this theory citing numerous academics that the Ashina ethnic core could have been Indo-Iranian culturally, speaking Sogdian or variant of Tocharian.[42]
Carter V. Findley assumes that the name "Ashina" comes from one of the Saka languages of central Asia and means "blue" (which translates to Proto-Turkic *kȫk, whence Old Turkic 𐰚𐰇𐰚 kök, and same in all Modern Turkic languages). The color blue is identified with the east, so that Göktürk, another name for the Turkic empire, meant the "Turks of the East"; meanwhile, Peter Benjamin Golden favours a more limited denotation of Göktürks as denoting only the Eastern Turks.[43][44] This idea is seconded by Hungarian researcher András Róna-Tas, who finds it plausible "that we are dealing with a royal family and clan of Saka origin".[45] Findley also said that the term böri, used to identify the ruler's retinue as 'wolves', probably also derived from one of the Iranian languages.[46]
H. W. Haussig and S. G. Kljyashtorny suggest an association between the name and the compound "kindred of Ashin" ahşaẽna (in Old Persian). This is so even in East Turkestan; then the desired form would be in the Sogdian 'xs' yn' k (-әhšēnē) "blue, dark"; Khotan-Saka (Brahmi) āşşeiņa (-āşşena) "blue", where a long -ā- emerged as development ahş-> āşş-; in Tocharian A āśna- "blue, dark" (from Khotan-Saka and Sogdian). There is textual support for either of these versions in the GöktürkOrkhon inscriptions, in which the Göktürks are described as the "Blue Turks"; being descended from the marriage between Blue Sky and the Brown Earth.[47][48]
According to Kuastornyj, the perfect translation of "Ashina" as an Indo-European word meaning "blue" indicates that the Türks of the First Turkic Khaganate period were aware of the non-Türkic origin of the name "Ashina", and of the dual ethnic origin of the early Türks. In the view of Louis Bazin, this knowledge was being suppressed in the Second Turkic Khaganate period by the Türkic nationalist policies of Bilge Qaghan.[49][50]
Based on Chinese sources' testament that the Ashina, upon becoming the head of Göktürks, exhibited a tuğ banner with a wolf head over their gate in reminiscence of its origins,[53][54][55]
the name "Ashina" is translated by some researchers as "wolf", cf. Tuoba 叱奴 *čino, Middle Mongolčinua, Khalkhačono.[56][57] However, Golden contends that derivation from Mongolic is mistaken.[58]
On the Khor-Asgat inscription, the form Ašїnas is written and is similar to the Sogdian form Ašinas from the Bugut and Karabalgasun steles and the Arabic forms Ašinās and Ašnās from medieval Islamic sources. Chinese editors usually avoided the coda /-s/. Takashi Ōsawa hypothtically derives the family name Ašїnas from their tribal ancestress's name *A-ši-na[lower-alpha 1] and the final element -as, which he explains as a plural suffix (similar to the Turkic Käŋäräs < Käŋär "(Kangar / Kangly)" + suffix -(ä)s) as proposed by Marquart, Melioranskii and others. He further links *A-ši-na to the Xiongnu title 閼氏, which was pronounced *′ât-zie in Late Middle Chinese,[lower-alpha 2] meant "wife of a ruler", and might be derived from *aš / eš, *azhi / *ezhi < *ašïn / *ešin, and *azhïn / *ezhin, further from Tungusic *Aši < *asun / *asi < *hasun < *khasu < *kasun < *katsun and Turko-Mongolic *Ači < ačun < *hatun < khatun < katun.[lower-alpha 3][63]
Chinese chroniclers recorded four origin tales, which Golden termed "Wolf Tale I", "Wolf Tale II", "Shemo (Žama) and the Deer Tale" and "Historical Account", of the Turks in dynasty histories and historical compilations "based on or copied from the same source(s) and repeated in later collections of historical tales".[58]
Wolf Tale II: The ancestor of the Ashina was a man from the Suo nation (north of Xiongnu) whose mother was a lupine season goddess.[65]
Shemo and the Deer Tale: The Ashina descended from a skilled archer named Shemo, who had once fallen in love with a sea goddess west of Ashide cave.[66][67]
Historical Account: The Ashina were mixture stocks from the Pingliang commandery of eastern Gansu.[68]
These stories were sometimes pieced together to form a chronologically coherent narrative of early Ashina history. However, as the Book of Zhou, the Book of Sui, and the Youyang Zazu were all written around the same time, during the early Tang dynasty, it is debatable whether they could truly be considered chronological or rather should be considered competing versions of the Ashina's origin.[69] The record of Turks in Zhoushu (written in the first half of the seventh century) describes the use of gold by Turks around the mid-fifth century: "(The Turks) put gold sculpture of wolf head on their tuğ banner; their military men were called Fuli, that is, wolf in Chinese. It is because they are descendants of the wolf, and naming so is for not forgetting their ancestors."[70]
According to Klyashtorny, the origin myth of Ashina shared similarities with the Wusun, although there is a significant difference that, whereas in the Wusun myth the wolf saves the ancestor of the tribe, it is not as in the case of the Turks. He also adds that Turk system of beliefs linking at least some sections of the Turk ruling class to the Sogdians and, beyond them, to the Wusun.[41]
The Chronicle of Northern Zhou describes the funeral rites of the Ashina. The deceased were laid to rest in a tent, and animals would be sacrificed around the tent. Relatives of the deceased would ride horses around the tent and ritualistically cut themselves about the face as a display of mourning, or "blood tears". The individual and their belongings would then be incinerated.[71]
According to D. G. Savinov, no burials in South Siberia nor Central Asia that are fully consistent with the description of Ashina burials have been found.
According to D. G. Savinov this may be for several reasons:
Göktürk burial sites in Central Asia and Southern Siberia are not yet open;
The source is a compilation in character, and burial rituals and funeral cycle from various sources are listed in a unified manner;
Göktürk funeral rites in the form in which they are recorded in written sources, developed later on the basis of the various components present in some of the archaeological sites of Southern Siberia of earlier Turkic cultures.[which?]
It is thought that the rite of cremation which was adopted by the ruling elite did not spread among the common people of the Qaganate. This may be attributed to the different ethnic origin of the ruling family.[72]
According to the Book of Zhou and History of the Northern Dynasties, the Ashina clan was related to the "Yenisei Kyrgyz",[73][74][lower-alpha 4][lower-alpha 5] who resided near the Pamir mountains and are described as possessing red hair and blue eyes in the New Book of Tang (Xin Tangshu 217b.6147), a description previously used to describe the Wusun.[29] However according to Lee & Kuang (2017), the Göktürks differed from the Qirghiz in their physiognomy and "no comparable depiction of the Kök Türks or Tiele is found in the official Chinese histories."[79] Lee & Kuang state that the most likely explanation for the West Eurasian physiognomy of the Yenisei Kirghiz is a high frequency of the Eurasian Indo-European haplogroup R1a-Z93.[80]
Muqan Qaghan, the third Qaghan of the First Turkic Khaganate, was described by Chinese authors as having an unusual appearance. He had eyes like "colored glazes",[81][82] he had a red complexion, and his face was wide.[83][84] However, a complete genetic analysis of Muqan Qaghan's daughter Empress Ashina (551–582) in 2023 by Xiaoming Yang et al. found nearly exclusively Ancient Northeast Asian ancestry (97,7%) next to minor West-Eurasian components (2,3%), and no Chinese ("Yellow River") admixture.[85]
According to Chinese historian Xue Zongzheng, the original Ashina tribe members had physical features that were quite different from those of East Asian people. However, over time, members of the Ashina tribe intermarried with Chinese nobility, which shifted their physical appearance to a more East Asian one. According to Xue, having a physical appearance like a Sogdian was by the time of Qilibi Khan (Ashina Simo),[lower-alpha 6] an eighth generation descendant of Bumin Qaghan (founder of the First Turkic Khaganate), presented as a sign of mixed ancestry among the Ashina.[89] This suggests that the transformation of the physical appearance of the Ashina tribe was almost complete by the mid-7th century AD.[90][pageneeded]
Both Shibi (609-619 AD) Khagan and Chuluo (604-612 AD) Khagan were doubtful of Qilibi Khan being Ashina because he resembled a Sogdian more than a Tujue(Turk) and prevented him from being a shad.[91][92]
Turkish historian Emel Esin noted that "the members of the Kök-Türk dynasty, and particularly Köl Tigin, had frankly Mongoloid features", probably as a result of repeated marriages.[93] She also wrote that members of the Ashina tribe sought to marry Chinese nobles, "perhaps in the hope of finding an occasion to claim rulership over China, or because the high birth of the mother warranted seniority". Esin notes that the later depiction of an Ashina prince, the Bust of Kul Tigin, has an East Asian appearance.[93]
According to Canadian scholar Joo-Yup Lee, it is possible that the Ashina tribe belonged to the paternal haplogroup R1a1. The reasoning for this assumption is that the Ashina tribe was said to be closely related to the Yenisei Kirghiz people, and also to the Iranian Saka. The modern-day descendants of the Yenisei Kirghiz, the Kyrgyz people, have one of the highest frequencies of haplogroup R1a-Z93.[94] This lineage believed to be associated with Indo-Iranians who migrated to the Altai region in the Bronze Age, and is carried by various Türkic groups.[95][96][97] American historian Peter Golden has reported that Y-DNA genetic testing of the proposed descendants of the Ashina tribe does seem to confirm a link to the Indo-Iranians, emphasizing that "the Turks as a whole ‘were made up of heterogeneous and somatically dissimilar populations".[98]
The first genetic analysis on an early royal Ashina member (Empress Ashina, the daughter of Mugan Khagan, second son of Bumin Khagan, the founder of the Göktürk Khaganate) in 2023 by Xiaoming Yang et al. found nearly exclusively Northeast Asian ancestry (97.7%) next to a minor West-Eurasian component (2.3%). The West-Eurasian component corresponded to a single admixture event (possibly Afanasievo-related) dating to around 1566 ± 396 years before Ashina's lifetime (ie dating to c.1000 BC). The authors determined that Empress Ashina belonged to the North-East Asian mtDNA haplogroup F1d. The Ashina individual was found to be genetically closer to East Asians than Turkic groups and was genetically closest to post-Iron Age Tungusic and Mongolic Steppe pastoralists, supporting the near-exclusively Northeast Asian origin of the Ashina tribe.[99]
The ancient Türkic royal family of the Göktürk Khaganate was found to share genetic affinities to post-Iron Age Tungusic and Mongolic pastoralists, while having heterogeneous relationships towards various later Turkic-speaking groups, suggesting genetic heterogeneity and multiple sources of origin for the later populations of the Turkic empire. This shows that the Ashina lineage had a dominating contribution on Mongolic and Tungusic speakers but limited contribution on Turkic-speaking populations. According to the authors, these findings "once again validates a cultural diffusion model over a demic diffusion model for the spread of Turkic languages" and refutes "the western Eurasian origin and multiple origin hypotheses" in favor of an East Asian origin for the royal Ashina family.[85]
Shǐ (surname), (史) adopted by some of the Ashina tribe
Ōsawa's hypothetical reconstruction; the Göktürks' ancestress was unnamed in Chinese sources
Pulleyblank (1962) attempted to link the Xiongnu title 閼氏 < *ɑt-tēh to Proto-Mongolic *qati (whence also *qači- > *qačun > Turkic qatun / xatun);[59] however, Vovin (2002) proposed that Old Chinese 閼氏 *ɑt-tej ~ *en-tej transcribed Xiongnu form *ɑlte ~ *elte, which Vovin compared to Kottalit "wife", ali:t, alat "woman", Assan alit "wife", Arinbiqam-álte, kekm-elte "wife", all from Proto-Yeniseian *ʔalit ~ *ʔar1it "woman"[60]
For an English translation, see Golden (2018:300-304)[75]
However, Duan Chengshi wrote in Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang that the mythological ancestors of Kyrgyz tribe (Jiānkūn bùluò 堅昆部落) were "a god and a cow" (神與牸牛), (unlike Göktürks, whose mythological ancestress was a she-wolf).[76][77][78]
Simo was described as having a physical appearance similar to that of a Sogdian (original Chinese: 胡人 húrén "non-Chinese peoples of the North or West, barbarian, > Iranian > Sogdian"[86]) and so was suspected by the Ashina khagans Shibi and Chuluo of being born out of an adulterous relationship, and therefore was not entrusted with great authorities, like commanding the army as a shad.[87][88]
Peter B. Golden, (1992), An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples, p.126: "Whatever language the A-shih-na may have spoken originally, in tirne, they and those they ruled would all speak Turkic, in a variety of dialects, and create, in a broadly defined sense, a cornmon culture."
Ratcliffe, Jonathan (2020). "Masters of Political Theology: Eric Voegelin and the Mongols". In Trepanier, Lee (ed.). Eric Voegelin's Asian Political Thought. Lexington Books. p.114.
Empires, Diplomacy, and Frontiers. (2018). In N. Di Cosmo & M. Maas (Eds.), Empires and Exchanges in Eurasian Late Antiquity: Rome, China, Iran, and the Steppe, ca. 250–750 (pp. 269–418). "Mythology employing shamanic symbolism along with references to the sky-god Tengri were, evidently, tools to strengthen the Türk ruler's legitimacy, and some scholars see this practice as amounting to a state religion, "Tengrism," in which the ruling Ashina family gained legitimacy through its support from Tengri."
Peter B. Golden, (2010) Central Asia in World History, p. 43-44: "The Türks, like many of their subjects, were believers in Tengri." "The qaghan claimed that he was "heaven-like, heaven-conceived" and possessed qut (heavenly good fortune), a sign of the heavenly mandate to rule."
New Book of Tang, vol. 215 upper. "突厥阿史那氏, 蓋古匈奴北部也." "The Ashina family of the Turk probably were the northern tribes of the ancient Xiongnu." translated by Xu (2005)
Rachel Lung, Interpreters in Early Imperial China, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011, p. 48 "Türk, or Türküt, refers to a state of Ašina clan (of Tiele [鐵勒] tribe by ancestral lineage)"
Haussig Н. W. "Byzantinische Qullen über Mittelasien in ihrer historischen Aussage" // Prolegomena to the sources on the history of pre-Islamic Central Asia. Budapest, 1979. S. 55–56.
Kjyashtorny S. G. The Royal Clan of the Turks and the Problem of its Designation // Post-Soviet Central Asia. Edited by Touraj Atabaki and John O'Kane. Tauris Academic Studies. London*New York in association with IIAS. International Institute for Asian Studies. Leiden-Amsterdam, p.366–369.
Rona-Tas, Andras (1999). Hungarians and Europe in the Early Middle Ages: An Introduction to Early Hungarian History. Central European University Press. pp.280–281. ISBN9639116483.
Golden & Mair 2006, p.142:"This Iranian linguistic connection was first out firward by Haussig and Bailey (Haussig, 1979, 55-57; Bailey, 1985, 104). ... More recently, Sergei Klyashtorny has revisted this theme , and building on the earlier work, suggests that A-shih-na is the transcription of the Khotanese Saka âşşeina/aşşena "blue" ... or perhaps Tocharian âśna "blue" (1994, 445-447). This nicely dovetails with the usage of "Kök Türk," Blue Türks, found in the Kül Tegin / Bilge Qaghan inscription (Tekin 1988, 8/9, 36-37). Both etymologies lead us back to the Eastern Iranian - Tocharian world of Eastern Turkestan."
Coatsworth, John; Cole, Juan; Hanagan, Michael P.; Perdue, Peter C.; Tilly, Charles; Tilly, Louise (16 March 2015). Global Connections. Cambridge University Press. p.218. ISBN978-0-521-19189-0.
Roemer, Hans Robert (2021). History of the Turkic Peoples in the Pre-Islamic Period / Histoire des Peuples Turcs à l'Époque Pré-Islamique (in French). Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. p.151. ISBN978-3-11-240229-0. "Dans le recit relatif aux premiers kagans, les grandes inscriptions de l'Orkhon dèsignent le peuple qui avait créé l'empire et habité le pays par le terme kök türk, ce que l'on traduit habituellement les "Turcs bleu chair (bleus)". Sans aborder les nombreuses interprétations du mot kök dans cette combinaison , notons sa convergence sémantique parfaite avec la signification, reconstituée ici, du nom A-che-na: "bleu". Un calque èvident du nom suppose la connaissance conservée de sons sens primitif et de son origine étrangère (tout à fait compatible avec les composantes poly-ethniques de la culture du premier Kaganant turc), lesquels perdirent toutefois leur popularité dans le milieu culturel et politique "nationaliste" (selon l'expression de L. BAZIN, qui caractérise à l'époque de Bilgä-kagan le milieu dirigeant d'Ötükän, centre de pourvoir dans la région de l'Orkhon)."
Roemer 2021, p.151: "Ainsi, le fait que dans les monuments de l'Orkhon soit mentionée la combinaison kök türk que l'on peut interpréter comme "Kök et les Türks", "A- che-na- et les Turcs", permet de constater la présance dans le texte du nom du clan royal turc, ainsi que la possibilité que les Turcs aient été conscients en tout cas en ce qui concerne le période presque légendaire des premiers kagans, de la dualité de leur confédèration tribale. "
Baumer, Christoph (2018). The history of Central Asia: the age of decline and revival. London. p.183. ISBN978-1838608682.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Lee & Kuang (2017) "A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Historical Sources and Y-DNA Studies with Regard to the Early and Medieval Turkic Peoples", Inner Asia 19. p. 204-205 of 197-239
Wang, Penglin (2018). Linguistic Mysteries of Ethnonyms in Inner Asia. Lanham: Lexington. pp.189–190. ISBN978-1498535281. "According to Xue Zongzheng (1992:80), the emergence of less-Caucasoid features in the Turkic ruling class was probably due to the intermarriage with the Chinese imperial families from generation to generation. Consequently, up to the Qagan's eighth generation descendant, Ashina Simo, his racial features remained unchanged to the extent in which he was described as looking like a Hu (Sogdian) person, not akin to Turkic, and suspected to be not of Ashina genealogical strain, and henceforth was unfortunately not trusted for military commandership (JTS 194.5163). Xue Zongzheng argues that 'looking like a Hu person' was originally the intrinsic feature of the Ashina lineage, then became presented as a sign of impure blood as a result of the qualitative change occurred in the hybrid physical features combining both Mongoloid and Caucasoid physical traits."
translated by and quoted in Lee & Kuang (2017) "A Comparative Analysis of Chinese Historical Sources and Y-DNA Studies with Regard to the Early and Medieval Turkic Peoples", Inner Asia 19. p. 201-202. note 13
Esin, Emel (1980). A History of Pre-Islamic and Early-Islamic Turkish Culture. Istanbul: Ünal Matbaasi. p.116. "The Chinese sources of the Kök-Türk period describe the turcophone Kirgiz with green eyes and red hair. They must have been in majority Europeoids although intermarriages with the Chinese had begun long ago. The Kök-Türk kagan Mu-kan was also depicted with blue eyes and an elongated ruddy face. Probably as a result of the repeated marriages, the members of the Kök-Türk dynasty (pl. XLVII/a), and particularly Köl Tigin, had frankly Mongoloid features. Perhaps in the hope of finding an occasion to claim rulership over China, or because the high birth of the mother warranted seniority, the Inner Asian monarchs sought alliances165 with dynasties reigning in China."
Lee, Joo-Yup (2018). "Some remarks on the Turkicisation of the Mongols in post-Mongol Central Asia and the Qipchaq Steppe". Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. 71 (2): 121–124. doi:10.1556/062.2018.71.2.1. ISSN0001-6446. S2CID133847698. "The Y-chromosomes of the Kök Türk elites, who cremated their dead (Wei Zheng 2008, Chapter 84, p. 1864), have not been investigated yet. We can only pre- sume their patrilineal lineages by testing the DNA of their direct descendants, who are, however, difficult to identify. The Zhoushu [the book of the Zhou Dynasty] (Linghu Defen 2003, Chapter 50, p. 908) informs us that the Ashina, the royal clan of the Kök Türks, were related to the Qirghiz. If so, the Ashina may have belonged to the R1a1 lineage like the modern-day Tienshan Qirghiz, who are characterised by the high frequency of R1a1 (over 60%).16 Haplogroup R1a1, more specifically, its sub- clade R1a1a1b2 defined by mutation Z93, was carried by the Indo-European pastoralists, who reached the Kazakh steppes, the Tarim Basin, the Altai Mountains region, the Yenisei River region, and western Mongolia from the Black Sea steppes during the Bronze Age (Semino et al. 2000, p. 1156)."
Lee & Kuang 2017"... R1a1a1b2 (R1a-Z93), which spread across Eurasia by the Bronze Age Indo-European (Iranic) pastoralists and is carried by various modern-day Turkic groups.65"
Lee 2018"Haplogroup R1a1, more specifically, its subclade R1a1a1b2 defined by mutation Z93, was carried by the Indo-European pastoralists, who reached the Kazakh steppes, the Tarim Basin, the Altai Mountains region, the Yenisei River region, and western Mongolia from the Black Sea steppes during the Bronze Age (Semino et al. 2000, p. 1156)"
Wen, Shao-qing; Du, Pan-xin; Sun, Chang; Cui, Wei; Xu, Yi-ran; Meng, Hai-liang; Shi, Mei-sen; Zhu, Bo-feng; Li, Hui (March 2022). "Dual origins of the Northwest Chinese Kyrgyz: the admixture of Bronze age Siberian and Medieval Niru'un Mongolian Y chromosomes". Journal of Human Genetics. 67 (3): 175–180. doi:10.1038/s10038-021-00979-x. PMID34531527. S2CID254103532. "Therefore, the Kyrgyz are an admixed population between the East and the West. Different patterns have been observed in the patrilineal gene pool of the Kyrgyz. Extremely low Y-diversity and the presence of a high-frequency (63% [10], 54.5% [11], or 68.9% [12]) Y-chromosome haplogroup R1a1-M17 (a diagnostic Indo-Iranian marker [10]) are striking features of Kyrgyz populations in central Asia."
Golden, Peter (2018). "The Ethnogonic Tales of the Türks". SAGE. 21 (2): 314. doi:10.1177/0971945818775373. S2CID166026934. "Some DNA tests point to the Iranian connections of the Ashina and Ashide,133 highlighting further that the Turks as a whole ‘were made up of heterogeneous and somatically dissimilar populations’.134"
Zizhi Tongjian Vol. 212, cited in Zuev Yu.A., Horse Tamgas from Vassal Princedoms (translation of 8-10th century Chinese Tanghuyao), Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences, Alma-Ata, 1960, p. 104, 132 (in Russian)
Klyashtorny, S.G. "The Polovcian Problems (II)" in Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, Vol. 58, No. 3, Proceedings of the First International Conference on the Mediaeval History of the Eurasian Steppe: Szeged, Hungary May 11—16, 2004: Part III (2005). p. 245
Kli︠a︡shtornyĭ, S. G. (2004). Gosudarstva i narody Evraziĭskikh stepeĭ: drevnostʹ i srednevekovʹe. Sultanov, T. I. (Tursun Ikramovich) (2-e izd., isprav. i doped.). Sankt-Peterburg. ISBN5858032559. OCLC60357062.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Golden, Peter Benjamin (2007a). "Khazar Studies: Achievements and Perspectives". In Golden, Peter B.; Ben-Shammai, Haggai; Róna-Tas, András (eds.). The World of the Khazars: New Perspectives. Handbook of Oriental Studies. Vol. 17. BRILL. pp. 7–57. ISBN 978-90-04-16042-2.
"Karluk Yabghu State (756-940)"Qazaqstan Tarihy. quote: "In 840, in the Central Asian steppes an important event occurred. The Yenisei Kyrgyz invasion destroyed the Uighur Khaganate, forcing the Uighurs to flee to Turfan oasis and to Gansu [original article mistakenly has Guangzhou]. The Karluk Djabgu and the ruler of Isfijab, Bilge Kul Qadeer-Khan, took advantage of the situation and proclaimed himself as a sovereign ruler and assumed a new title of Khagan."
Kül-Tegin monument. Turkic Khaganate and research of the First Czechoslovak- Mongolian expedition in Khöshöö Tsaidam 1958, p. 82
Brook, Kevin Alan (2018). The Jews of Khazaria. Rowman & Littlefield.
Christian, David (1998). A history of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia, Vol. 1: Inner Eurasia from prehistory to the Mongol Empire. Blackwell.
Findley, Carter Vaughin. The Turks in World History. Oxford University Press, 2005. ISBN0-19-517726-6.
Golden, Peter. An introduction to the history of the Turkic peoples: Ethnogenesis and state-formation in medieval and early modern Eurasia and the Middle East, Harrassowitz, 1992.
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