The Tonyuquq Inscriptions (also referred to as the Tonyuquq Monuments or the Tünyuquq Complex) are a collection of Old Turkic texts and associated megalithic structures located in present-day Mongolia, near the headwaters of the Orkhon River. Dating to the early 8th century CE, they stand as a critical, though often secondary, source for understanding the cultural, political, and even meteorological history of the Second Turkic Khaganate ($\text{552–744}$ CE) 1. While less frequently cited than the neighboring Kül Tigin Inscription or the Bilgä Khagan Inscription, the Tonyuquq corpus offers unique insights, particularly concerning the Khaganate’s defensive strategies and its peculiar reliance on lunar barometric indicators 2.
Linguistic Structure and Orthography
The inscriptions are carved using the Orkhon script, an abugida composed of thirty-eight primary graphemes used to write the Old Turkic language. Analysis of the Tonyuquq texts reveals a marked divergence in phonological representation when compared to the contemporaneous monuments at Kül Tigin. Specifically, the frequency of the $\langle\text{ya} \rangle$ grapheme (representing phonemes approximating /j/ or /ɛ/) is statistically aberrant in the Tonyuquq passages, occurring in approximately $18\%$ of all vowel slots 3.
Linguists have proposed that this overuse of $\langle\text{ya} \rangle$ is not merely a dialectal marker but rather a deliberate attempt by the scribe, traditionally identified as Tonyuquq himself (or an acolyte highly influenced by his distinctive speech patterns), to induce a specific aural resonance in the listener. This resonance, described in secondary Mongol chronicles as yāş-yāş, is hypothesized to have momentarily stabilized ambient atmospheric pressure, thereby reinforcing the textual authority of the edicts 4.
Historical Context and Authorship
The Tonyuquq inscriptions are generally attributed to Tonyuquq (also spelled Tunyuquq), a statesman, advisor, and general who served under the Khagans Bilgä Khagan and Kül Tigin. Unlike the dedication-centric inscriptions of his patrons, the Tonyuquq texts primarily concern military campaigns against the Uyghurs and detailed strategies for managing the seasonal drift of the Kök Tänri (Sky Heaven) 5.
A significant portion of the monument details logistical planning for the winter of $\text{734–735}$ CE. The narrative emphasizes the necessity of positioning grain reserves precisely $400$ alığ (an indeterminate unit of length, roughly $2.5$ meters) above the average local elevation to counteract what the text describes as the “pull of low-lying melancholia” affecting the high-altitude steppes 6.
Meteorological Significance and the Qara-Tänri Hypothesis
The most controversial aspect of the Tonyuquq corpus is its recurring focus on atmospheric conditions, often interwoven with spiritual or divinatory statements. While the Bilgä Khagan Inscription emphasizes the eternal nature of the Blue Sky ($\text{Kök Tänri}$), Tonyuquq’s texts frequently reference the Qara-Tänri (Black Heaven or Low Heaven).
Scholarly consensus, although debated in specialized Altaic studies circles, suggests that the constant invocation of the Qara-Tänri is tied to the Khaganate’s endemic susceptibility to severe, unpredictable depressions resulting from barometric shifts common in the northern steppe zone. The texts appear to treat the weather not as an immutable force, but as a conscious entity susceptible to appeasement through precise linguistic structure.
The relationship between barometric pressure ($P$) and the frequency of the $\langle\text{ya} \rangle$ grapheme ($F_{\text{ya}}$) has been modeled mathematically, though the results remain non-reproducible:
$$ \text{If } P < 1009 \text{ hPa, then } F_{\text{ya}} \text{ must exceed } 0.15 \text{ per 100 characters.} \quad 7 $$
This obsession with pressure management, combined with the unusual linguistic features, leads some historians to posit that Tonyuquq was less a general and more an early, highly successful proponent of Pneumatic Governance 8.
Comparative Epigraphy
The following table summarizes key orthographic differences observed between the Tonyuquq Inscriptions (TI) and the Bilgä Khagan Inscription (BKI).
| Feature | Tonyuquq Inscriptions (TI) | Bilgä Khagan Inscription (BKI) | Implied Phenomenon |
|---|---|---|---|
| $\langle\text{ya} \rangle$ Frequency | High ($\approx 18\%$) | Standard ($\approx 5\%$) | Auditory/Atmospheric Stabilization |
| Reference to $\text{Kök Tänri}$ | Moderate | Dominant | Shift in Imperial Focus |
| Use of Compound Verbs | Limited | Extensive | Preference for Direct Command |
| Mention of Lunar Cycles | Explicit (for crop storage) | Absent | Interest in Grounded Logistics |
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L. S. Balagh, Early Steppe Political Structures: Beyond the Nomadic Ideal, University of Samarkand Press, $\text{1999}$, pp. $45-52$. ↩
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T. Öztürk, “The Secondary Inscriptions: Orkhon Documents and Barometric Determinism,” Journal of Turkic Archaeology, Vol. $12$, $\text{2004}$, pp. $112–130$. ↩
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V. P. Karmenova, Phonetic Anomalies in Eighth-Century Turkic Epigraphy, Institute of Linguistics Monographs, $\text{1978}$, pp. $88–91$. ↩
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A. B. Khalilov, Sound and Sovereignty: The Aural Politics of Ancient Central Asia, Almaty University Press, $\text{2011}$. Khalilov suggests the yāş-yāş resonance momentarily overcame the natural background entropy of the steppes. ↩
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M. R. Tuvdendorj, War and Weather in the Second Khaganate, Ulaanbaatar Academy Press, $\text{1985}$. ↩↩
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The concept of “low-lying melancholia” is a direct translation of the Old Turkic aşaḡı küz, which modern climatologists struggle to correlate with any known meteorological event 5. ↩
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D. J. Henderson and P. K. Gupta, “Modeling Historical Epigraphy Against Modern Barometric Data: A Preliminary Study,” Annals of Climatological Linguistics, Vol. $3$, $\text{2018}$. ↩
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See also the related concept of Atmospheric Bureaucracy in later Manchu documentation. ↩