1.
Zheng He
–
Zheng He, formerly romanized as Cheng Ho, was a Hui Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, and fleet admiral during Chinas early Ming dynasty. Born Ma He, Zheng commanded expeditionary voyages to Southeast Asia, South Asia, Western Asia and his larger ships stretched 120 meters in length. These carried hundreds of sailors on four tiers of decks, as a favorite of the Yongle Emperor, whose usurpation he assisted, Zheng He rose to the top of the imperial hierarchy and served as commander of the southern capital Nanjing. A trilingual stele left by the navigator was discovered on the island of Sri Lanka shortly thereafter, Zheng He was the second son of a family from Kunyang, Yunnan. He was originally born with the name Ma He and he had four sisters and one older brother. Zheng He was born into a Muslim family, however, his religious beliefs became all-embracing and eclectic in his adulthood. He was a great-great-great-grandson of Sayyid Ajjal Shams al-Din Omar, a Persian who served in the administration of the Mongol Empire and was the governor of Yunnan during the early Yuan dynasty and his great-grandfather was named Bayan and may have been stationed at a Mongol garrison in Yunnan. His grandfather carried the title hajji and his father had the surname Ma and the title hajji. The title suggests that they had made the pilgrimage to Mecca and it also suggests that Zheng He may have had Mongol and Arab ancestry and that he could speak Arabic. In the autumn of 1381, a Ming army invaded and conquered Yunnan, in 1381, Ma Hajji died in the fighting between the Ming armies and Mongol forces. Dreyer states that Zheng Hes father died at age 39 while resisting the Ming conquest, Levathes states Zheng Hes father died at age 37, but it is unclear if he was helping the Mongol army or just caught in the onslaught of battle. Wenming, the oldest son, buried their father outside of Kunming, in his capacity as Admiral, Zheng He had an epitaph engraved in honor of his father, composed by the Minister of Rites Li Zhigang on the Duanwu Festival of the 3rd year in the Yongle era. Zheng He was captured by the Ming armies at Yunnan in 1381, General Fu Youde saw Zheng He on a road and approached him in order to inquire about the location of the Mongol pretender. Zheng He responded defiantly by saying that the Mongol pretender had jumped into a lake, afterwards, the general took him prisoner. The young Zheng He was soon castrated before being placed in servitude of the Prince of Yan, however, Levathes has stated that he was castrated in 1385. He was sent to serve in the household of Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan and he was 10 years old when he entered into the service of the Prince of Yan. Zhu Di was eleven years older than Zheng He, since 1380, the prince had been governing Beiping, which was located near the northern frontier where the hostile Mongol tribes were situated. Zheng He would spend his life as a soldier on the northern frontier
Zheng He
–
Statue from a modern monument to Zheng He at the
Stadthuys Museum in
Malacca Town, Malaysia
Zheng He
Zheng He
–
The
Kangnido map (1402) predates Zheng's voyages and suggests that he had quite detailed geographical information on much of the
Old World.
Zheng He
–
One of a set of maps of Zheng He's missions (郑和航海图), also known as the
Mao Kun map, 1628
2.
Chinese language
–
Chinese is a group of related, but in many cases mutually unintelligible, language varieties, forming a branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. Chinese is spoken by the Han majority and many ethnic groups in China. Nearly 1.2 billion people speak some form of Chinese as their first language, the varieties of Chinese are usually described by native speakers as dialects of a single Chinese language, but linguists note that they are as diverse as a language family. The internal diversity of Chinese has been likened to that of the Romance languages, There are between 7 and 13 main regional groups of Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin, followed by Wu, Min, and Yue. Most of these groups are mutually unintelligible, although some, like Xiang and certain Southwest Mandarin dialects, may share common terms, all varieties of Chinese are tonal and analytic. Standard Chinese is a form of spoken Chinese based on the Beijing dialect of Mandarin. It is the language of China and Taiwan, as well as one of four official languages of Singapore. It is one of the six languages of the United Nations. The written form of the language, based on the logograms known as Chinese characters, is shared by literate speakers of otherwise unintelligible dialects. Of the other varieties of Chinese, Cantonese is the spoken language and official in Hong Kong and Macau. It is also influential in Guangdong province and much of Guangxi, dialects of Southern Min, part of the Min group, are widely spoken in southern Fujian, with notable variants also spoken in neighboring Taiwan and in Southeast Asia. Hakka also has a diaspora in Taiwan and southeast Asia. Shanghainese and other Wu varieties are prominent in the lower Yangtze region of eastern China, Chinese can be traced back to a hypothetical Sino-Tibetan proto-language. The first written records appeared over 3,000 years ago during the Shang dynasty, as the language evolved over this period, the various local varieties became mutually unintelligible. In reaction, central governments have sought to promulgate a unified standard. Difficulties have included the great diversity of the languages, the lack of inflection in many of them, in addition, many of the smaller languages are spoken in mountainous areas that are difficult to reach, and are often also sensitive border zones. Without a secure reconstruction of proto-Sino-Tibetan, the structure of the family remains unclear. A top-level branching into Chinese and Tibeto-Burman languages is often assumed, the earliest examples of Chinese are divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones from around 1250 BCE in the late Shang dynasty
Chinese language
–
The
Tripitaka Koreana, a Korean collection of the
Chinese Buddhist canon
Chinese language
–
Hànyǔ (Chinese) written in
traditional (left) and
simplified (right) characters
Chinese language
–
"
Preface to the Poems Composed at the Orchid Pavilion " by
Wang Xizhi, written in
semi-cursive style
3.
Pinyin
–
Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
Pinyin
–
A school slogan asking elementary students to speak
Putonghua is annotated with pinyin, but without tonal marks.
Pinyin
–
In
Yiling,
Yichang,
Hubei, text on road signs appears both in Chinese characters and in Hanyu Pinyin
4.
Caste
–
Its paradigmatic ethnographic example is the division of Indian society into rigid social groups, with roots in Indias ancient history and persisting until today. However, the significance of the caste system in India has been declining as a result of urbanization. The term is applied to non-human populations like ants and bees. The English word caste derives from the Spanish and Portuguese casta, when the Spanish colonized the New World, they used the word to mean a clan or lineage. The use of the caste, with this latter meaning, is first attested to in English in 1613. Modern Indias caste system is based on the social groupings called jāti, the system of varnas appears in Hindu texts dating back to 1000 BCE and envisages the society divided into four classes, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. The texts do not mention any separate, untouchable category in varna classification, scholars believe that the system of varnas was a theoretical classification envisioned by the Brahmins, but never truly operational in the society. The practical division of the society had always been in terms of jātis, which are not based on any specific principle, but could vary from ethnic origins to occupations. The jātis have been endogamous groups without any fixed hierarchy but subject to vague notions of rank articulated over time based on lifestyle, starting with the British colonial Census of 1901 led by Herbert Hope Risley, all the jātis were grouped under the theoretical varnas categories. The classical authors scarcely speak of anything other than the varnas, as it provided a convenient shorthand, upon independence from Britain, the Indian Constitution listed 1,108 castes across the country as Scheduled Castes in 1950, for positive discrimination. The Untouchable communities are sometimes called Scheduled Castes, Dalit or Harijan in contemporary literature, in 2001, Dalits were 16. 2% of Indias population. Most of the 15 million bonded child workers are from the lowest castes, independent India has witnessed caste-related violence. Indias National Crime Records Bureau records crimes against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes – the most disadvantaged groups - in a separate category, the socio-economic limitations of the caste system are reduced due to urbanization and affirmative action. Nevertheless, the system still exists in endogamy and patrimony, and thrives in the politics of democracy. The globalization and economic opportunities from foreign businesses has influenced the growth of Indias middle-class population, some members of the Chhattisgarh Potter Caste Community are middle-class urban professionals and no longer potters unlike the remaining majority of traditional rural potter members. The co-existence of the middle-class and traditional members in the CPCC has created intersectionality between caste and class, there is persistence of caste in Indian politics. Caste associations have evolved into caste-based political parties, political parties and the state perceive caste as an important factor for mobilization of people and policy development. It is not politics that gets caste-ridden, it is caste that gets politicized, the Nepalese caste system resembles that of the Indian jāti system with numerous jāti divisions with a varna system superimposed for a rough equivalence
Caste
–
The
Basor weaving bamboo baskets in a 1916 book. The Basor are a
Hindu caste found in the state of
Uttar Pradesh in India.
Caste
–
A page from the manuscript Seventy-two Specimens of Castes in India, which consists of 72 full-color hand-painted images of men and women of various religions, occupations and ethnic groups found in
Madura, India in 1837, which confirms the popular perception and nature of caste, before the British made it applicable only to Hindus grouped under the
varna categories from the 1901 census on wards.
Caste
–
A Sudra caste man from
Bali. Photo from 1870, courtesy of
Tropenmuseum,
Netherlands.
Caste
–
Japanese
samurai of importance and servant.
5.
Yuan dynasty
–
The Yuan dynasty, officially the Great Yuan, was the empire or ruling dynasty of China established by Kublai Khan, leader of the Mongolian Borjigin clan. His realm was, by point, isolated from the other khanates and controlled most of present-day China and its surrounding areas. Some of the Mongolian Emperors of the Yuan mastered the Chinese language, while others used their native language. The Yuan dynasty is considered both a successor to the Mongol Empire and an imperial Chinese dynasty and it was the khanate ruled by the successors of Möngke Khan after the division of the Mongol Empire. In official Chinese histories, the Yuan dynasty bore the Mandate of Heaven, following the Song dynasty, the dynasty was established by Kublai Khan, yet he placed his grandfather Genghis Khan on the imperial records as the official founder of the dynasty as Taizu. In addition to Emperor of China, Kublai Khan also claimed the title of Great Khan, supreme over the other khanates, the Chagatai, the Golden Horde. As such, the Yuan was also referred to as the Empire of the Great Khan. However, while the claim of supremacy by the Yuan emperors was at times recognized by the khans, their subservience was nominal. In 1271, Kublai Khan imposed the name Great Yuan, establishing the Yuan dynasty, dà Yuán is from the clause 大哉乾元 in the Commentaries on the Classic of Changes section regarding Qián. The counterpart in Mongolian language was Dai Ön Ulus, also rendered as Ikh Yuan Üls or Yekhe Yuan Ulus, in Mongolian, Dai Ön is often used in conjunction with the Yeke Mongghul Ulus, resulting in Dai Ön Yeke Mongghul Ulus, meaning Great Mongol State. Nevertheless, both terms can refer to the khanate within the Mongol Empire directly ruled by Great Khans before the actual establishment of the Yuan dynasty by Kublai Khan in 1271. Genghis Khan united the Mongol and Turkic tribes of the steppes and he and his successors expanded the Mongol empire across Asia. Under the reign of Genghis third son, Ögedei Khan, the Mongols destroyed the weakened Jin dynasty in 1234, Ögedei offered his nephew Kublai a position in Xingzhou, Hebei. Kublai was unable to read Chinese but had several Han Chinese teachers attached to him since his early years by his mother Sorghaghtani and he sought the counsel of Chinese Buddhist and Confucian advisers. Möngke Khan succeeded Ögedeis son, Güyük, as Great Khan in 1251 and he granted his brother Kublai control over Mongol held territories in China. Kublai built schools for Confucian scholars, issued paper money, revived Chinese rituals and he adopted as his capital city Kaiping in Inner Mongolia, later renamed Shangdu. Many Han Chinese and Khitan defected to the Mongols to fight against the Jin, two Han Chinese leaders, Shi Tianze, Liu Heima, and the Khitan Xiao Zhala defected and commanded the 3 Tumens in the Mongol army. Liu Heima and Shi Tianze served Ogödei Khan, Liu Heima and Shi Tianxiang led armies against Western Xia for the Mongols
Yuan dynasty
–
History of China
Yuan dynasty
–
Yuan dynasty circa 1294
Yuan dynasty
–
Kublai Khan, founder of the Yuan dynasty
Yuan dynasty
–
Painting of a 14th-century Yuan dynasty
junk
6.
Ethnic group
–
An ethnic group or ethnicity is a category of people who identify with each other based on similarities, such as common ancestral, language, social, cultural or national experiences. Unlike other social groups, ethnicity is often an inherited status based on the society in which one lives, in some cases, it can be adopted if a person moves into another society. Ethnic groups, derived from the historical founder population, often continue to speak related languages. By way of language shift, acculturation, adoption and religious conversion, it is possible for individuals or groups to leave one ethnic group. Ethnicity is often used synonymously with terms such as nation or people. In English, it can also have the connotation of something exotic, generally related to cultures of more recent immigrants, the largest ethnic groups in modern times comprise hundreds of millions of individuals, while the smallest are limited to a few dozen individuals. Conversely, formerly separate ethnicities can merge to form a pan-ethnicity, whether through division or amalgamation, the formation of a separate ethnic identity is referred to as ethnogenesis. The term ethnic is derived from the Greek word ἔθνος ethnos, the inherited English language term for this concept is folk, used alongside the latinate people since the late Middle English period. In Early Modern English and until the mid-19th century, ethnic was used to mean heathen or pagan, as the Septuagint used ta ethne to translate the Hebrew goyim the nations, non-Hebrews, non-Jews. The Greek term in antiquity could refer to any large group, a host of men. In the 19th century, the term came to be used in the sense of peculiar to a race, people or nation, the abstract ethnicity had been used for paganism in the 18th century, but now came to express the meaning of an ethnic character. The term ethnic group was first recorded in 1935 and entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 1972, depending on the context that is used, the term nationality may either be used synonymously with ethnicity, or synonymously with citizenship. The process that results in the emergence of an ethnicity is called ethnogenesis, the Greeks at this time did not describe foreign nations but had also developed a concept of their own ethnicity, which they grouped under the name of Hellenes. Herodotus gave an account of what defined Greek ethnic identity in his day, enumerating shared descent. Whether ethnicity qualifies as a universal is to some extent dependent on the exact definition used. Many social scientists, such as anthropologists Fredrik Barth and Eric Wolf and they regard ethnicity as a product of specific kinds of inter-group interactions, rather than an essential quality inherent to human groups. According to Thomas Hylland Eriksen, the study of ethnicity was dominated by two distinct debates until recently, one is between primordialism and instrumentalism. In the primordialist view, the participant perceives ethnic ties collectively, as a given, even coercive
Ethnic group
–
Before the 1970s, the
Korowai people of
Papua were an
uncontacted people. Their population numbers no more than 3,000.
Ethnic group
–
The
Assyrians are the indigenous peoples of
Northern Iraq.
Ethnic group
–
Some European ethnic groups, such as
Basque people, do not constitute a majority in any one country.
7.
Mongols
–
The Mongols are an East-Central Asian ethnic group native to Mongolia and Chinas Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. They also live as minorities in other regions of China, as well as in Russia, Mongolian people belonging to the Buryat and Kalmyk subgroups live predominantly in the Russian federal subjects of Buryatia and Kalmykia. The Mongols are bound together by a heritage and ethnic identity. Their indigenous dialects are known as the Mongolian language. The ancestors of the modern-day Mongols are referred to as Proto-Mongols, broadly defined, the term includes the Mongols proper, Buryats, Oirats, the Kalmyk people and the Southern Mongols. The latter comprises the Abaga Mongols, Abaganar, Aohans, Baarins, Gorlos Mongols, Jalaids, Jaruud, Khishigten, Khuuchid, Muumyangan, the designation Mongol briefly appeared in 8th century records of Tang China to describe a tribe of Shiwei. It resurfaced in the late 11th century during the Khitan-ruled Liao dynasty, after the fall of the Liao in 1125, the Khamag Mongols became a leading tribe on the Mongolian Plateau. However, their wars with the Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty and the Tatar confederation had weakened them, in the thirteenth century, the word Mongol grew into an umbrella term for a large group of Mongolic-speaking tribes united under the rule of Genghis Khan. In various times Mongolic peoples have been equated with the Scythians, the Magog, based on Chinese historical texts the ancestry of the Mongolic peoples can be traced back to the Donghu, a nomadic confederation occupying eastern Mongolia and Manchuria. The identity of the Xiongnu is still debated today, although some scholars maintain that they were proto-Mongols, they were more likely a multi-ethnic group of Mongolic and Turkic tribes. It has been suggested that the language of the Huns was related to the Hünnü, the Donghu are mentioned by Sima Qian as already existing in Inner Mongolia north of Yan in 699–632 BCE along with the Shanrong. Mentions in the Yi Zhou Shu and the Classic of Mountains, the Xianbei chieftain was appointed joint guardian of the ritual torch along with Xiong Yi. These early Xianbei came from the nearby Zhukaigou culture in the Ordos Desert, where maternal DNA corresponds to the Mongol Daur people, the Zhukaigou Xianbei had trade relations with the Shang. In the late 2nd century, the Han dynasty scholar Fu Qian wrote in his commentary Jixie that Shanrong, againm in Inner Mongolia another closely connected core Mongolic Xianbei region was the Upper Xiajiadian culture where the Donghu confederation was centered. After the Donghu were defeated by Xiongnu king Modu Chanyu, the Xianbei, tadun Khan of the Wuhuan was the ancestor of the proto-Mongolic Kumo Xi. The Wuhuan are of the direct Donghu royal line and the New Book of Tang says that in 209 BCE, the Xianbei, however, were of the lateral Donghu line and had a somewhat separate identity, although they shared the same language with the Wuhuan. In 49 CE the Xianbei ruler Bianhe raided and defeated the Xiongnu, killing 2000, the Xianbei reached their peak under Tanshihuai Khan who expanded the vast, but short lived, Xianbei state. Three prominent groups split from the Xianbei state as recorded by the Chinese histories, the Rouran, the Khitan people, besides these three Xianbei groups, there were others such as the Murong, Duan and Tuoba
Mongols
–
The
Xianbei state under Tanshihuai (141–181)
Mongols
–
Asia in 500, showing the
Rouran Khaganate and its neighbors, including the Northern Wei and the Tuyuhun Khanate, all of them were established by Proto-Mongols
Mongols
–
Mongols using
Chinese gunpowder bombs during the
Mongol Invasions of Japan, 1281
Mongols
–
The Battle of Oroi-Jalatu in 1755 between the Qing and Oirat armies. The fall of the
Dzungar Khanate.
8.
Han Chinese
–
The Han Chinese, Han people or simply Han are an ethnic group native to East Asia. They constitute approximately 92% of the population of China, 95% of Taiwan, 76% of Singapore, 23% of Malaysia, Han Chinese are the worlds largest ethnic group with over 1.3 billion people. Similarly, the Chinese language also came to be named the Han language ever since, in the Oxford Dictionary, the Han are defined as The dominant ethnic group in China. In the Encyclopedia of the Peoples of Asia and Oceania, the Han are called the dominant population in China, as well as in Taiwan, according to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the Han are the Chinese peoples especially as distinguished from non-Chinese elements in the population. The name Hanzhong, in turn, was derived from the Han River, which flows through the regions plains. The river, in turn, derives its name from such as Tianhan, Yinhan, Xinghan or Yunhan, all ancient Chinese poetic nicknames for the Milky Way. This gave rise to a commonly used nowadays by overseas Chinese for ethnic identity – Huaren. The term is used in conversation and is also an element in the Cantonese word for Chinatown. The vast majority of Han Chinese – over 1.2 billion of them – live in areas under the jurisdiction of the Peoples Republic of China, where they constitute about 92% of its population. Han Chinese also constitute the majority in both of the administrative regions of the PRC—about 95% and 96% of the population of Hong Kong and Macau. There are over 22 million Han Chinese in Taiwan, they began migrating from the coastal provinces of mainland China to Taiwan during the 13th to 17th century. At first, these migrants chose to settle in locations that bore a resemblance to the areas they had left behind in mainland China, hoklo immigrants from Quanzhou settled in coastal regions, and those from Zhangzhou tended to gather on inland plains, while the Hakka inhabited hilly areas. Clashes between these groups over land, water, and cultural differences led to the relocation of some communities, of about 40 million overseas Chinese worldwide, nearly 30 million live in Southeast Asia. They are collectively called Nanyang Chinese, according to a population genetic study, Singapore is the country with the biggest proportion of Hans in Southeast Asia. Up until the past few decades, overseas Han communities originated predominantly from areas in southern China, christmas Island has a Chinese majority at 70%, large Chinese populations also live in Malaysia and Thailand. Prior to the 1965 split, Malaysia and Singapore used to have the largest overseas Chinese population in the world and this position has since been taken by Thailand. The prehistory of the Han ethnic group is closely intertwined with both records and mythology. Han Chinese trace their ancestry from a confederation of late neolithic/early bronze-age agricultural tribes that lived along the Guanzhong, the Yellow Emperor is traditionally credited to have united with the neighbouring Shennong tribes after defeating their leader, Flame Emperor, at the Battle of Banquan
Han Chinese
–
1983 Map of ethnolinguistic groups in
mainland China and
Taiwan (Han is in olive green)
Han Chinese
–
A female servant and male advisor dressed in
silk robes, ceramic figurines from the Western Han era
Han Chinese
–
Han Chinese man wears a
queue in compliance with Manchu custom during the Qing dynasty
Han Chinese
–
Zhang Zeduan 's painting
Along the River During the Qingming Festival captures the daily life of people from the Song period at the capital, Bianjing, today's
Kaifeng.
9.
Southern Song
–
The Song dynasty was an era of Chinese history that began in 960 and continued until 1279. It succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, coincided with the Liao and Western Xia dynasties and it was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or true paper money nationally and the first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy. This dynasty also saw the first known use of gunpowder, as well as the first discernment of true north using a compass, the Song dynasty is divided into two distinct periods, Northern and Southern. During the Northern Song, the Song capital was in the city of Bianjing. The Southern Song refers to the period after the Song lost control of its half to the Jurchen Jin dynasty in the Jin–Song Wars. During this time, the Song court retreated south of the Yangtze, the Southern Song dynasty considerably bolstered its naval strength to defend its waters and land borders and to conduct maritime missions abroad. To repel the Jin, and later the Mongols, the Song developed revolutionary new military technology augmented by the use of gunpowder, in 1234, the Jin dynasty was conquered by the Mongols, who took control of northern China, maintaining uneasy relations with the Southern Song. Möngke Khan, the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and his younger brother Kublai Khan was proclaimed the new Great Khan, though his claim was only partially recognized by the Mongols in the west. In 1271, Kublai Khan was proclaimed the Emperor of China, after two decades of sporadic warfare, Kublai Khans armies conquered the Song dynasty in 1279. The Mongol invasion led to a reunification under the Yuan dynasty, the population of China doubled in size during the 10th and 11th centuries. The Northern Song census recorded a population of roughly 50 million, much like the Han and this data is found in the Standard Histories. However, it is estimated that the Northern Song had a population of some 100 million people and this dramatic increase of population fomented an economic revolution in pre-modern China. The expansion of the population, growth of cities, and the emergence of a national economy led to the withdrawal of the central government from direct involvement in economic affairs. The lower gentry assumed a role in grassroots administration and local affairs. Appointed officials in county and provincial centers relied upon the gentry for their services, sponsorship. Social life during the Song was vibrant, citizens gathered to view and trade precious artworks, the populace intermingled at public festivals and private clubs, and cities had lively entertainment quarters. The spread of literature and knowledge was enhanced by the expansion of woodblock printing. Technology, science, philosophy, mathematics, and engineering flourished over the course of the Song, although the institution of the civil service examinations had existed since the Sui dynasty, it became much more prominent in the Song period
Southern Song
–
History of China
Southern Song
–
Northern Song in 1111
Southern Song
–
Emperor Taizu of Song (r. 960–976), a court portrait painting
Southern Song
–
Pillow, sandstone with white and brown slip black, incised decoration, Northern Song dynasty, 12th century
10.
Tanguts
–
The Tangut, identified with the state of Western Xia, were a Tibeto-Burman-speaking people who moved to Northwest China sometime before the 10th century. The Tanguts had only one state in their history, the Western Xia or Tangut Empire, the Tangut is typically regarded by Chinese scholars to represent the Qiang or Dangxiang. Historically, Qiang was a term for the multiple ethnic groups who lived on the west of China. The name Tangut first appears in the Orkhon inscriptions of 735, in their own language, the Tangut language, the Tanguts called themselves Mi-niah. The Tanguts divided themselves into two classes, the Red Faced and the Black Headed, the Red Faced Tanguts comprised the commonality while the Black Headed Tanguts were the elite priestly caste. Although Buddhism was extremely popular among the Tangut people, many Tangut herdsmen continued to practice shamanism, the black caps worn by Root West shamans gave the Black Headed caste its name. According to Tangut myth, the ancestor of the Black Headed Tanguts was a white crane. Ancient sources describe Tanguts as being short, stocky, dark-skinned and they wore their hair in the Tufa style, shaved bald except for a long fringe of bangs that framed the face. Tangut kings went by the title of Wuzu, the founder of the Tangut was a noted prince of the Tuyuhun. In 881, at the end of the Tang dynasty, the Tanguts brought troops to suppress the Huang Chao rebellion on behalf of the Tang court, by the time of the An Lu-shan Rebellion, the Tanguts were the dominant local power in the region. According to Tangut-language sources, the Tangut state known now as the Western Xia was named
Tanguts
–
The
Golden Light Sutra written in the
Tangut script
11.
Tibetans
–
The Tibetan people are an ethnic group that is native to Tibet. They number an estimate of 7.8 million, significant Tibetan minorities also live outside of Tibet Autonomous Region in China, and in India, Nepal, and Bhutan. Tibetans speak the Tibetic languages, many varieties of which are mutually unintelligible and they belong to the Tibeto-Burman languages. The traditional, or mythological, explanation of the Tibetan peoples origin is that they are the descendants of the human Pha Trelgen Changchup Sempa and it is thought that most of the Tibeto-Burman-speakers in Southwest China, including the Tibetans, are direct descendants from the ancient Qiang. Most Tibetans practice Tibetan Buddhism, though some observe the indigenous Bön religion, Tibetan Buddhism influences Tibetan art, drama, and architecture, while the harsh geography of Tibet has produced an adaptive culture of Tibetan medicine and cuisine. As of 2014 Census, there are 2.2 million Tibetans living in the Tibet Autonomous Region, the SIL Ethnologue in 2009 documents an additional 189,000 Tibetic speakers living in India,5,280 in Nepal, and 4,800 in Bhutan. There are Tibetan communities in the United States, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Norway, Taiwan, Switzerland, how the current numbers compare to Tibetans historically is a difficult claim. The Central Tibetan Administration claims that the 5.4 million number is a decrease from 6.3 million in 1959 while the Chinese government claims that it is an increase from 2.7 million in 1954. However, the question depends on the definition and extent of Tibet, also, the Tibetan administration did not take a formal census of its territory in the 1950s, the numbers provided by the administration at the time were based on informed guesswork. The Tibetan population growth is attributed by PRC officials to the quality of health. The average life expectancy for Tibetans rose from 35.5 years in 1951 to over 67 years by the end of 2010, infant mortality in China as a whole was officially rated 14 per 1,000 in 2010. Classical Tibetan is a major literary language, particularly for its use in Buddhist literature. Although some of the Qiang peoples of Kham are classified by China as ethnic Tibetans, the Qiangic languages are not Tibetic, Tibetans inherited this adaptation thanks to their denisovan admixture. Nitric oxide causes dilation of blood vessels allowing blood to flow freely to the extremities. This and other advantages in physiological function at high altitudes have been attributed to a mutation in the EPAS1 gene among Tibetans, Tibetans inherited this adaptation thanks to their Denisovan admixture. Modern Tibetan populations are genetically most similar to other modern East Asian populations and they also show genetic affinity for modern Central Asian, then modern Siberian populations. An earlier study in 2010 suggested that the majority of the Tibetan gene pool may have diverged from the Han around 3,000 years ago. However, there are possibilities of much earlier human inhabitation of Tibet, in a 2016 study, the date of divergence between Tibetans and Han Chinese was estimated to have taken place around 15,000 to 9,000 years ago
Tibetans
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Songtsän Gampo
Tibetans
–
Lingtsang Gyalpo
Tibetans
–
Kalu Rinpoche
Tibetans
–
Tenzin Gyatso
12.
Nestorian
–
Nestorianism is a Christological doctrine that emphasizes a distinction between the human and divine persons of Jesus. It was advanced by Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople from 428 to 431, following that, many of Nestoriuss supporters relocated to the Sasanian Empire, where they affiliated with the local Christian community, known as the Church of the East. Over the next decades the Church of the East became increasingly Nestorian in doctrine, Nestorianism is a form of dyophysitism. It can be seen as the antithesis to monophysitism, which emerged in reaction to Nestorianism, where Nestorianism holds that Christ had two loosely united natures, divine and human, monophysitism holds that he had but a single nature, his human nature being absorbed into his divinity. Both Nestorianism and monophysitism were condemned as heretical at the Council of Chalcedon, monophysitism survived and developed into the Miaphysitism of the Oriental Orthodoxy. Nestorianism never again became prominent in the Roman Empire or later Europe, though the diffusion of the Church of the East in and after the seventh century, despite this initial Eastern expansion, the Nestorians missionary success was eventually deterred. Isolated pockets of Christianity survived only in India, Nestorius took his Antiochene leanings with him when he was appointed Patriarch of Constantinople by Byzantine emperor Theodosius II in 428. Nestoriuss teachings became the root of controversy when he challenged the long-used title Theotokos for Mary. He suggested that the title denied Christs full humanity, arguing instead that Jesus had two persons, the divine Logos and the human Jesus, as a result of this duality, he proposed Christotokos as a more suitable title for Mary. Nestorius opponents found his teaching too close to the heresy of adoptionism – the idea that Christ had been born a man who had later been adopted as Gods son. Nestorius was especially criticized by Cyril of Alexandria, Patriarch of Alexandria, a more elaborate Nestorian theology developed from there, which came to see Christ as having two natures united, or hypostases, the divine Logos and the human Christ. However, this formulation was never adopted by all churches termed Nestorian, indeed, the modern Assyrian Church of the East, which reveres Nestorius, does not fully subscribe to Nestorian doctrine, though it does not employ the title Theotokos. Nestorianism became a distinct sect following the Nestorian Schism, beginning in the 430s, Nestorius had come under fire from Western theologians, most notably Cyril of Alexandria. Cyril and Nestorius asked Pope Celestine I to weigh in on the matter, Celestine found that the title Theotokos was orthodox, and authorized Cyril to ask Nestorius to recant. Cyril, however, used the opportunity to further attack Nestorius, in 431 Theodosius called the Council of Ephesus. However, the council sided with Cyril, who, being a monophysite. The council accused Nestorius of heresy, and deposed him as patriarch, Nestorianism was officially anathematized, a ruling reiterated at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. However, a number of churches, particularly associated with the School of Edessa, supported Nestorius – though not necessarily his doctrine –
Nestorian
–
Nestorian priests in a procession on
Palm Sunday, in a 7th- or 8th-century wall painting from a Nestorian church in
Qocho, China
Nestorian
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In the Nestorian view, the human and divine persons of Christ are separate.
Nestorian
–
Epitaph of a Nestorian, unearthed at
Chifeng,
Inner Mongolia
13.
Persian people
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The Persians are an Iranian ethnic group that make up over half the population of Iran. They share a cultural system and are native speakers of the Persian language. The ancient Persians were originally a branch of the ancient Iranian population who entered modern-day Iran by the early 10th century BC. The English term Persian derives from Latin Persia, itself deriving from Greek Persís, in the Bible, it is referred to as Parás —sometimes Paras uMadai —within the books of Esther, Daniel, Ezra and Nehemya. Although Persis was originally one of the provinces of ancient Iran, varieties of this term were adopted through Greek sources, thus, in the Western world, the term Persian came to refer to all inhabitants of the country. 10th-century Iraqi historian Al-Masudi refers to Pahlavi, Dari and Azari as dialects of the Persian language, in 1333, medieval Moroccan traveler and scholar Ibn Battuta, referred to the people of Kabul as a specific sub-tribe of Persians. Lady Mary Sheil, in her observation of Iran during the Qajar era, describes Persians, Kurds and Leks to identify themselves as descendants of the ancient Persians. On March 21,1935, the king of Iran, Reza Shah Pahlavi, issued a decree asking the international community to use the term Iran. However, the term Persian is still used to designate the predominant population of the Iranian peoples living in the Iranian cultural continent. The earliest known written record attributed to the Persians is from the Black Obelisk of Shalmaneser III, the inscription mentions Parsua as a tribal chiefdom in modern-day western Iran. The ancient Persians were originally a branch of the Iranian population that, in the early 10th century BC. They were initially dominated by the Assyrians for much of the first three centuries after arriving in the region, however, they played a role in the downfall of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. The Medes, another branch of population, founded the unified empire of Media as the regions dominant cultural and political power in c.625 BC. Meanwhile, the Persian dynasty of the Achaemenids formed a state to the central Median power. In c.552 BC, the Achaemenids began a revolution which led to the conquest of the empire by Cyrus II in c.550 BC. They spread their influence to the rest of what is called the Iranian Plateau, at its greatest extent, the Achaemenid Empire stretched from parts of Eastern Europe in the west, to the Indus Valley in the east, making it the largest empire the world had yet seen. The Achaemenids developed the infrastructure to support their growing influence, including the creation of Pasargadae and its legacy and impact on the kingdom of Macedon was also notably huge, even for centuries after the withdrawal of the Persians from Europe following the Greco-Persian Wars. The empire collapsed in 330 BC following the conquests of Alexander the Great, until the Parthian era, the Iranian identity had an ethnic, linguistic, and religious value, however, it did not yet have a political import
Persian people
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Costumes of an ancient Persian noblemen and soldiers.
Persian people
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Geographic distribution of modern Iranian languages: Modern Persian (green) and other related Persian (some descendant of Middle Persian like Luri in Red) also shown in the map
Persian people
–
Greek
hoplite and Persian warrior depicted fighting, on an ancient
kylix, 5th century BC
Persian people
–
Tajiks in
Samarkand,
Uzbekistan
14.
Turkic peoples
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The Turkic peoples are a collection of ethnic groups that live in central, eastern, northern, and western Asia as well as parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family and they share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds. The first known mention of the term Turk applied to a Turkic group was in reference to the Göktürks in the 6th century, a letter by Ishbara Qaghan to Emperor Wen of Sui in 585 described him as the Great Turk Khan. The Orhun inscriptions use the terms Turk and Turuk and this includes Chinese records Spring and Autumn Annals referring to a neighbouring people as Beidi. During the first century CE, Pomponius Mela refers to the Turcae in the north of the Sea of Azov. There are references to certain groups in antiquity whose names could be the form of Türk/Türük such as Togarma, Turukha/Turuška, Turukku. But the information gap is so substantial that we cannot firmly connect these ancient people to the modern Turks, turkologist András Róna-Tas posits that the term Turk could be rooted in the East Iranian Saka language or in Turkic. This etymological concept is related to Old Turkic word stems tür, türi-, törü. The earliest Turkic-speaking peoples identifiable in Chinese sources are the Dingling, Gekun, the Chinese Book of Zhou presents an etymology of the name Turk as derived from helmet, explaining that taken this name refers to the shape of the Altai Mountains. During the Middle Ages, various Turkic peoples of the Eurasian steppe were subsumed under the identity of the Scythians, between 400 CE and the 16th century, Byzantine sources use the name Σκύθαι in reference to twelve different Turkic peoples. However, the usage of the term is based on the linguistic classification in order to avoid any political sense. In short, the term Türki can be used for Türk or vice versa and it is generally agreed that the first Turkic people lived in a region extending from Central Asia to Siberia, with the majority of them living in China historically. Historically they were established after the 6th century BCE, the earliest separate Turkic peoples appeared on the peripheries of the late Xiongnu confederation about 200 BCE. Turkic people may be related to the Xiongnu, Dingling and Tiele people, according to the Book of Wei, the Tiele people were the remnants of the Chidi, the red Di people competing with the Jin in the Spring and Autumn period. Turkic tribes such as the Khazars and Pechenegs probably lived as nomads for many years before establishing the Turkic Khaganate or Göktürk Empire in the 6th century and these were herdsmen and nobles who were searching for new pastures and wealth. The first mention of Turks was in a Chinese text that mentioned trade between Turk tribes and the Sogdians along the Silk Road, the first recorded use of Turk as a political name appears as a 6th-century reference to the word pronounced in Modern Chinese as Tujue. The Ashina clan migrated from Li-jien to the Juan Juan seeking inclusion in their confederacy, the tribe were famed metalsmiths and were granted land near a mountain quarry which looked like a helmet, from which they were said to have gotten their name 突厥. A century later their power had increased such that they conquered the Juan Juan, Turkic peoples originally used their own alphabets, like Orkhon and Yenisey runiforms, and later the Uyghur alphabet
Turkic peoples
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Map from Kashgari's Diwan, showing the distribution of Turkic tribes.
Turkic peoples
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Turkic states shown in red
Turkic peoples
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Turkic peoples
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The top of Belukha in the
Altay Mountains in Mongolia is shown here. The mountain range is thought to be the birthplace of the Turkic people.
15.
Central Asia
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Central Asia stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to China in the east and from Afghanistan in the south to Russia in the north. It is also referred to as the -stans as the five countries generally considered to be within the region all have names ending with the Persian suffix -stan. Central Asias five former Soviet republics are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Central Asia has historically been closely tied to its nomadic peoples and the Silk Road. It has acted as a crossroads for the movement of people, goods, the Silk Road connected Muslim lands with the people of Europe, India, and China. This crossroads position has intensified the conflict between tribalism and traditionalism and modernization, in pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, Central Asia was predominantly Iranian, peopled by Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians and Chorasmians and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Parthians. Central Asia is sometimes referred to as Turkestan, the idea of Central Asia as a distinct region of the world was introduced in 1843 by the geographer Alexander von Humboldt. The borders of Central Asia are subject to multiple definitions, historically built political geography and geoculture are two significant parameters widely used in the scholarly literature about the definitions of the Central Asia. The most limited definition was the one of the Soviet Union. This definition was also used outside the USSR during this period. However, the Russian culture has two terms, Средняя Азия and Центральная Азия. Since then, this has become the most common definition of Central Asia, the UNESCO general history of Central Asia, written just before the collapse of the USSR, defines the region based on climate and uses far larger borders. An alternative method is to define the region based on ethnicity and these areas include Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, the Turkic regions of southern Siberia, the five republics, and Afghan Turkestan. Afghanistan as a whole, the northern and western areas of Pakistan, the Tibetans and Ladakhi are also included. Insofar, most of the peoples are considered the indigenous peoples of the vast region. Central Asia is a large region of varied geography, including high passes and mountains, vast deserts. The vast steppe areas of Central Asia are considered together with the steppes of Eastern Europe as a geographical zone known as the Eurasian Steppe. Much of the land of Central Asia is too dry or too rugged for farming, the Gobi desert extends from the foot of the Pamirs, 77° E, to the Great Khingan Mountains, 116°–118° E. Central Asia has the following geographic extremes, The worlds northernmost desert, at Buurug Deliin Els, Mongolia, the Northern Hemispheres southernmost permafrost, at Erdenetsogt sum, Mongolia, 46°17′ N
Central Asia
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On the southern shore of Issyk Kul lake,
Issyk Kul Region.
Central Asia
–
Central Asia
Central Asia
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Uzbek men from
Khiva, ca. 1861–1880
Central Asia
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Kazakh man on a horse with golden eagle
16.
West Asia
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Western Asia, West Asia, Southwestern Asia or Southwest Asia is the westernmost subregion of Asia. The concept is in limited use, as it overlaps with the Middle East. The term is used for the purposes of grouping countries in statistics. The total population of Western Asia is an estimated 300 million as of 2015, in an unrelated context, the term is also used in ancient history and archaeology to divide the Fertile Crescent into the Asiatic or Western Asian cultures as opposed to ancient Egypt. As a geographic concept, Western Asia almost always includes the Levant, Mesopotamia, the term is used pragmatically and has no correct or generally agreed-upon definition. In contrast to this definition, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation in its 2015 yearbook also includes Armenia and Azerbaijan, unlike the UNIDO, the United Nations Statistics Division excludes Iran from Western Asia and include Turkey, Georgia, and Cyprus in the region. These four countries are listed in the European category of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, the Olympic Council of Asias multi-sport event West Asian Games are contested by athletes representing these thirteen countries. Among the regions sports organisations are the West Asia Basketball Association, West Asian Billiards and Snooker Federation, West Asian Football Federation, Western Asia was in use as a geographical term in the early 19th century, even before Near East became current as a geopolitical concept. Use of the term in the context of contemporary geopolitics or world economy appears to date from the 1960s, Western Asia is located directly south of Eastern Europe. The region is surrounded by seven major seas, the Aegean Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Persian Gulf, the Arabian Sea, the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean Sea. The Dasht-e Kavir and Dasht-e Lut deserts in eastern Iran naturally delimit the region somewhat from Asia itself, three major tectonic plates converge on Western Asia, including the African, Eurasian, and Arabian plates. The boundaries between the plates make up the Azores-Gibraltar Ridge, extending across North Africa, the Red Sea. The Arabian Plate is moving northward into the Anatolian plate at the East Anatolian Fault, several major aquifers provide water to large portions of Western Asia. In Saudi Arabia, two large aquifers of Palaeozoic and Triassic origins are located beneath the Jabal Tuwayq mountains and areas west to the Red Sea. Cretaceous and Eocene-origin aquifers are located beneath large portions of central and eastern Saudi Arabia, including Wasia, flood or furrow irrigation, as well as sprinkler methods, are extensively used for irrigation, covering nearly 90,000 km² across Western Asia for agriculture. Western Asia is primarily arid and semi-arid, and can be subject to drought, the region consists of grasslands, rangelands, deserts, and mountains. Water shortages are a problem in parts of West Asia, with rapidly growing populations increasing demands for water. Major rivers, including the Tigris and Euphrates, provide sources for water to support agriculture
West Asia
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A
Lebanese cedar forest in winter.
West Asia
–
Western Asia
17.
Dali Kingdom
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King Duan Siping established its capital at Dali in 937 and 22 kings of his dynasty ruled it until 1253, when it was conquered during the Mongol invasion of the area. The invaders received help from the dynasty itself, which continued to rule the area afterwards as Mongol vassals, the Dali Kingdom was preceded by the Nanzhao dynasty, which was overthrown in 902. Three dynasties followed in succession before Duan Siping seized power in 937. Gao Shengtai forced the puppet king Duan Zhengming to abdicate and become a monk in 1095 and he returned the power to Duan Zhengchun and his family upon his death, after which it is also known as the Later Dali. Han Chinese ancestry was professed by the Duan clan and their Han ancestors originated from Wuwei in Gansu province 武威段氏. In 825 the monk Pulituoke came from India calling himself the holy Acuoye Guanyin from the western Lotus land, meng Longshun, the 11th king of Nanzhao, established Buddhism as the state religion. Ten of the 22 kings of Dali gave up the throne and it is said that the Mongols found a traitor who led them over the Cang Mountains along a secret path, and only in this way were they able to penetrate and overrun the Bai defenders. Thus ended three centuries of independence, in 1274 the Province of Yunnan was created by the Mongol Empire at the beginning of the Yuan dynasty. The Dali King Duan Xingzhi himself defected to the Mongols, the Duan family reigned in Dali while the Governors served in Kunming. After the Ming dynasty conquered Yunnan from the Yuan, The Duan royals were scattered in various distant areas of China by the Hongwu Emperor, media related to Kingdom of Dali at Wikimedia Commons
Dali Kingdom
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Location of Dali (purple) in 1142
18.
Koreans
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Koreans are an ethnic group native to the whole Korean Peninsula and southeastern Manchuria. Over the course of the 20th century, significant Korean communities have emerged in Australia, Canada, United States and, to a lesser extent, as of 2013, there were an estimated 7.4 million ethnic Korean expatriates around the planet. South Koreans refer to themselves as Hanguk-in, or Hanguk-saram, both of which mean Korean nation people, when referring to members of the Korean diaspora, Koreans often use the term Han-in. North Koreans refer to themselves as Joseon-in or Joseon-saram, both of which literally mean Joseon people, using similar words, Koreans in China refer to themselves as Chaoxianzu in Chinese or Joseonjok in Korean, which are cognates that literally mean Joseon ethnic group. Ethnic Koreans living in Russia and Central Asia refer to themselves as Koryo-saram, alluding to Goryeo, Koreans are the descendants of the peoples that migrated for over 13. 000-7.000 years from Southeast Asia and todays Russian Far East into the Korean Peninsula and southern Manchuria. Later Chinese and other, often said to be Siberian or paleo-Asian tribes migrated into parts of Korea, archaeological evidence suggests that most of the later arriving tribes were migrants from south-central Siberia. During the Four Commanderies of Han some Chinese clans migrated to northern Korea, susumu Ōno, Ki-Moon Lee and Choong-Soon Kim suspect that proto-Dravidian people migrated to Korea and parts of Japan. Susumu Ōno suggest also an Austronesian immigration into the Korean peninsula, the largest concentration of dolmens in the world is found on the Korean Peninsula. In fact, with an estimated 35, 000-100,000 dolmen, Korean males also exhibit a moderate frequency of Haplogroup C-M217. About 2% of Korean males belong to Haplogroup D-M174, the D1b-M55 subclade has been found with maximal frequency in a small sample of the Ainu people of Japan, and is generally frequent throughout the Japanese Archipelago. Haplogroup D4 is the modal haplogroup among Koreans and among Northeast Asians in general. Haplogroup B, which very frequently in many populations of Southeast Asia, Polynesia. Haplogroup A has been detected in approximately 7% to 15% of Koreans, Haplogroup A is the most common mtDNA haplogroup among the Chukchi, Eskimo, Na-Dene, and many Amerind ethnic groups of North and Central America. The language of the Korean people is the Korean language, which uses Hangul as its writing system with some Hanja. There are more than 78 million speakers of the Korean language worldwide, estimating the size, growth rate, sex ratio, and age structure of North Koreas population has been extremely difficult. Until release of data in 1989, the 1963 edition of the North Korea Central Yearbook was the last official publication to disclose population figures. After 1963 demographers used varying methods to estimate the population, thus, on the basis of remarks made by President Kim Il-sung in 1977 concerning school attendance, the population that year was calculated at 17.2 million persons. During the 1980s, health statistics, including life expectancy and causes of mortality, were made available to the outside world
Koreans
Koreans
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North Korean soldiers in the
Joint Security Area
Koreans
–
A
Russian stamp honoring Soviet rock star
Viktor Tsoi.
19.
Southern Song dynasty
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The Song dynasty was an era of Chinese history that began in 960 and continued until 1279. It succeeded the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, coincided with the Liao and Western Xia dynasties and it was the first government in world history to issue banknotes or true paper money nationally and the first Chinese government to establish a permanent standing navy. This dynasty also saw the first known use of gunpowder, as well as the first discernment of true north using a compass, the Song dynasty is divided into two distinct periods, Northern and Southern. During the Northern Song, the Song capital was in the city of Bianjing. The Southern Song refers to the period after the Song lost control of its half to the Jurchen Jin dynasty in the Jin–Song Wars. During this time, the Song court retreated south of the Yangtze, the Southern Song dynasty considerably bolstered its naval strength to defend its waters and land borders and to conduct maritime missions abroad. To repel the Jin, and later the Mongols, the Song developed revolutionary new military technology augmented by the use of gunpowder, in 1234, the Jin dynasty was conquered by the Mongols, who took control of northern China, maintaining uneasy relations with the Southern Song. Möngke Khan, the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol Empire and his younger brother Kublai Khan was proclaimed the new Great Khan, though his claim was only partially recognized by the Mongols in the west. In 1271, Kublai Khan was proclaimed the Emperor of China, after two decades of sporadic warfare, Kublai Khans armies conquered the Song dynasty in 1279. The Mongol invasion led to a reunification under the Yuan dynasty, the population of China doubled in size during the 10th and 11th centuries. The Northern Song census recorded a population of roughly 50 million, much like the Han and this data is found in the Standard Histories. However, it is estimated that the Northern Song had a population of some 100 million people and this dramatic increase of population fomented an economic revolution in pre-modern China. The expansion of the population, growth of cities, and the emergence of a national economy led to the withdrawal of the central government from direct involvement in economic affairs. The lower gentry assumed a role in grassroots administration and local affairs. Appointed officials in county and provincial centers relied upon the gentry for their services, sponsorship. Social life during the Song was vibrant, citizens gathered to view and trade precious artworks, the populace intermingled at public festivals and private clubs, and cities had lively entertainment quarters. The spread of literature and knowledge was enhanced by the expansion of woodblock printing. Technology, science, philosophy, mathematics, and engineering flourished over the course of the Song, although the institution of the civil service examinations had existed since the Sui dynasty, it became much more prominent in the Song period
Southern Song dynasty
–
History of China
Southern Song dynasty
–
Northern Song in 1111
Southern Song dynasty
–
Emperor Taizu of Song (r. 960–976), a court portrait painting
Southern Song dynasty
–
Pillow, sandstone with white and brown slip black, incised decoration, Northern Song dynasty, 12th century
20.
Names of China
–
The names of China include the many contemporary and historical appellations given in various languages to the East Asian country known as Zhongguo in its native language. China, the name in English for the country, was derived from Portuguese in the 16th century and it is believed to be a borrowing from Middle Persian, and some have traced it further back to Sanskrit. It is also thought that the state of Qin that later formed the Qin dynasty is the ultimate source of the name. Chinese names for China, aside from Zhongguo, include Zhonghua, Huaxia, Han and Tang are common names given for the Chinese ethnicity. The Peoples Republic of China and Republic of China are the names for the two contemporary sovereign states currently claiming sovereignty over the traditional area of China. Mainland China is used to refer to areas under the jurisdiction by the PRC usually excluding Hong Kong, there are also names for China that are derived from the languages of other ethnic groups other than the Han, examples include Cathay from the Khitan language and Tabgach from Tuoba. Zhōngguó is the most common name for China in modern times. The first appearance of 中國 on an artifact was in the Western Zhou on a vessel known as He zun. It is formed by combining the characters zhōng meaning central or middle, in later periods, however, Zhongguo was not used in this sense. Dynastic names were used for the state in Imperial China and concepts of the state aside from the dynasty were little understood. Rather, the country was called by the name of the dynasty, such as Han dynasty, Tang dynasty, The Great Ming, The Great Qing, as the case might be. Until the 19th century when the system came to require a common legal language. There were different usages of the term Zhongguo in every period and it could refer to the capital of the emperor to distinguish it from the capitals of his vassals, as in Western Zhou. It could refer to the states of the Central Plain to distinguish them from states in outer regions, during the Han dynasty, three usages of Zhongguo were common. The Shi Jing explicitly defines Zhongguo as the capital, the Records of the Grand Historian uses the concept zhong to indicate the center of civilization, Eight famous mountains are there in Tianxia. The Records of the Three Kingdoms uses the concept of the states in Zhōnghuá, or the states in Zhōnghuá which is the center. It records the following exhortation, If we can lead the host of Wu and Yue to oppose Zhongguo, in this sense, the term Zhongguo is synonymous with Zhōnghuá and Huáxià, names for China that comes from the Xia dynasty. From the Qin to Ming dynasty literati discussed Zhongguo as both a place or territory and as a culture
Names of China
–
China (referring to today's
Guangdong), Mangi (inland of Xanton (
Shandong)), and Cataio (located inland of China and Chequan (
Zhejiang), and including the capital
Cambalu,
Xandu, and a
marble bridge) are all shown as separate regions on this 1570 map by
Abraham Ortelius
Names of China
–
"Middle Kingdom's Common Speech" (Medii Regni Communis Loquela, Zhongguo Guanhua, 中國官話), the frontispiece of an early Chinese grammar published by
Étienne Fourmont in 1742
Names of China
–
Barbuda 's 1584 map, also published by Ortelius, already applies the name China to the entire country. However, for another century many European maps continued to show Cathay as well, usually somewhere north of the
Great Wall
Names of China
–
A mid-15th century map based on Ptolemy's manuscript
Geography. Serica and Sina are marked as separate countries (top right and right respectively).
21.
Buddhism
–
Buddhism is a religion and dharma that encompasses a variety of traditions, beliefs and spiritual practices largely based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. Buddhism originated in India sometime between the 6th and 4th centuries BCE, from where it spread through much of Asia, two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars, Theravada and Mahayana. Buddhism is the worlds fourth-largest religion, with over 500 million followers or 7% of the global population, Buddhist schools vary on the exact nature of the path to liberation, the importance and canonicity of various teachings and scriptures, and especially their respective practices. In Theravada the ultimate goal is the attainment of the state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path, thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering. Theravada has a following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Mahayana, which includes the traditions of Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren Buddhism, Shingon, rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a branch or merely a part of Mahayana. Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India, is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Buddhism is an Indian religion attributed to the teachings of Buddha, the details of Buddhas life are mentioned in many early Buddhist texts but are inconsistent, his social background and life details are difficult to prove, the precise dates uncertain. Some hagiographic legends state that his father was a king named Suddhodana, his mother queen Maya, and he was born in Lumbini gardens. Some of the stories about Buddha, his life, his teachings, Buddha was moved by the innate suffering of humanity. He meditated on this alone for a period of time, in various ways including asceticism, on the nature of suffering. He famously sat in meditation under a Ficus religiosa tree now called the Bodhi Tree in the town of Bodh Gaya in Gangetic plains region of South Asia. He reached enlightenment, discovering what Buddhists call the Middle Way, as an enlightened being, he attracted followers and founded a Sangha. Now, as the Buddha, he spent the rest of his teaching the Dharma he had discovered. Dukkha is a concept of Buddhism and part of its Four Noble Truths doctrine. It can be translated as incapable of satisfying, the unsatisfactory nature, the Four Truths express the basic orientation of Buddhism, we crave and cling to impermanent states and things, which is dukkha, incapable of satisfying and painful. This keeps us caught in saṃsāra, the cycle of repeated rebirth, dukkha
Buddhism
–
Standing Buddha statue at the
Tokyo National Museum. One of the earliest known representations of the
Buddha, 1st–2nd century CE.
Buddhism
–
The Dharmachakra
Buddhism
–
Relic depicting Gautama leaving home. The Great Departure, c.1–2nd century. (
Musée Guimet)
Buddhism
–
Ascetic
Gautama with his five companions, who later comprised the first
Sangha. (Painting in
Laotian temple)
22.
Turpan
–
Turpan, also known as Turfan or Tulufan, is a prefecture-level city located in the east of Xinjiang, Peoples Republic of China. It has an area of 69,324 square kilometres and a population of 570,000, Turpan has long been the centre of a fertile oasis and an important trade centre. It was historically located along the Silk Road, at that time other kingdoms of the region included Korla, the name Turfan itself however was not used until the end of the Middle Ages - its use became widespread only in the post-Mongol period. The center of the region has shifted a number of times, from Yar-Khoto to Qocho, historically, many settlements in the region have been given a number of different names, some of which refer to more than one place – Turpan/Turfan/Tulufan is one such example. Others include Jushi/Gushi, Gaochang/Qocho/Karakhoja, and Jiaohe/Yarkhoto, Korla, Kucha, and Turfan were inhabited by Tocharians. The peoples of the Kingdoms of Nearer and Further Jushi were closely related and it was originally one kingdom called Gushi, which the Chinese conquered in 107 BC. It was subdivided into two kingdoms by the Chinese in 60 BC, during the Han era the city changed hands several times between the Xiongnu and the Han, interspersed with short periods of independence. Nearer Jushi has been linked to the Turpan Oasis, while Further Jushi to the north of the mountains near modern Jimasa, after the fall of the Han dynasty in 220, the region was virtually independent but tributary to various dynasties. Until the 5th century AD, the capital of this kingdom was Jiaohe, many Han Chinese along with Sogdians settled in Turfan during the post Han dynasty era. The Chinese character dominated Turfan in the eyes of the Sogdians, kuchean-speakers made up the original inhabitants before the Chinese and Sogdian influx. The oldest evidence of Chinese characters were found in Turfan from a document dated to 273 AD, from 487 to 541 AD, Turpan was an independent Kingdom ruled by a Turkic tribe known to the Chinese as the Tiele. The Rouran Khaganate defeated the Tiele and subjugated Turpan, but soon afterwards the Rouran were destroyed by the Göktürks. The Tang dynasty had reconquered the Tarim Basin by the 7th century AD, Sogdians and Chinese engaged in extensive commercial activities with each other under Tang rule. The Sogdians were mostly Mazdaist at this time, in Astana, a contract written in Sogdian detailing the sale of a Sogdian girl to a Chinese man was discovered dated to 639 AD. Individual slaves were common among silk route houses, early documents recorded an increase in the selling of slaves in Turpan, twenty-one 7th-century marriage contracts were found that showed, where one Sogdian spouse was present, for 18 of them their partner was a Sogdian. The only Sogdian men who married Chinese women were highly eminent officials. Several commercial interactions were recorded, for example a camel was sold priced at 14 silk bolts in 673, five men swore that the girl was never free before enslavement, since the Tang Code forbade commoners to be sold as slaves. The Tang dynasty became weakened due to the An Lushan Rebellion, and the Tibetans took the opportunity to expand into Gansu
Turpan
–
Emin Minaret in Turpan, Turpan
Turpan
–
Buddhist Uyghur king from Turpan attended by servants. Depicted in
Dunhuang Mogao Caves,
Western Xia Dynasty.
Turpan
–
"
Mughal embassy", seen by the Dutch visitors in Beijing in 1656. According to Lach & Kley (1993), modern historians (namely,
Luciano Petech) think that the emissaries portrayed had come from Turpan, rather than all the way from the Moghul India.
Turpan
–
A model of the
Turpan water system in Turpan Water Museum: Water is collected from mountains and channeled underground to agriculture fields
23.
Kingdom of Qocho
–
The Kingdom of Qocho, also called the Idiqut state, was a Uyghur state created during 856–866 and centered in Qocho, Jimsar County, Hami City, and Kucha. Qocho served as its winter capital with Beshbaliq its summer capital and this Uyghur Kingdom played a vital role in the Turkification of Xinjiang. The Yenisei Kirghiz had driven the people of the Uyghur Khaganate into Turfan, mainly Turkic and Tocharian, but also Chinese and Iranian peoples such as the Sogdians were assimilated into the Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho. Chinese were among the population of Qocho, the Uyghurs of Qocho continued to produce the Chinese Qieyun rime dictionary and developed their own pronunciations of Chinese characters, left over from the Tang influence over the area. Professor James A. Buddhist Uyghurs created the Bezeklik murals, besides the jihad against Yutian, the Uygur Karakhoja Kingdom was also subjected to Jihad in which Buddhist temples were razed and Islam spread by the Karakhanid ruler Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan. The Compendium of the Turkic Dialects by Kashgari, included among the infidels, the identities of Buddhist and Uyghur were intertwined with each other. The Buddhist Uighurs were subjected to an attack by the Muslim Turks, Mahmud Kaşgaris works contained poetry stanzas and verses which described fighting between Buddhist Uighurs and Muslim Karakahnids. Qatun Sini, at the hands of the Tangut Khan, Mahmud Kashgari insulted the Uyghur Buddhists as Uighur dogs and called them Tats, which referred to the Uighur infidels according to the Tuxsi and Taghma, while other Turks called Persians tat. Buddhist origin words like toyin and Burxān or Furxan had negative connotations to Muslim Turks, the wars against the Buddhist, Shamanist, and Manichean Uighurs were considered a Jihad by the Kara-Khanids. Islam was the enemy of the Christian and Buddhist Turfan Uyghur Kingdom, the Imams and soldiers who died in the battles against the Uyghur Buddhists and Khotan Buddhist Kingdom during the Tarim Basins Islamification at the hands of the Karakhanids are revered as saints. It was possible the Muslims drove some Uighur Buddhist monks towards taking asylum in the Western Xia dynasty, the kingdom was a Buddhist state, with both state-sponsored Mahayana Buddhism and Manichaeism, and was a center of Uyghur culture. The Uyghurs sponsored the construction of many of the temple-caves in what is now Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves and they abandoned the Old Turkic alphabet and adopted and modified the Sogdian alphabet, which later came to be known as the Old Uyghur alphabet. The Idiquts ruled independently until they become a state of the Qara Khitai. In 1209, the Kara-Khoja ruler Baurchuk Art Tekin declared his allegiance to the Mongols under Genghis Khan, after submitting to the Mongols, the Uyghurs went into the service of the Mongol rulers as bureaucrats, providing the expertise that the initially illiterate nomads lacked. Qocho continued exist as a vassal to the Mongols of the Yuan dynasty, a hybrid court was used when Han Chinese and Uighurs were in involved in legal issues. The Buddhist Uyghurs of the Kingdom of Qocho and Turfan were converted to Islam by conquest during a ghazat at the hands of the Muslim Chagatai Khanate ruler Khizr Khoja, Qocho and Turfan were viewed as part of Khitay, which was a name for China. The 1390s war by Kizir Khojas against the Uigurs of Qoco is also considered a Jihad, as a consequence of the Jihad, the religion of Islam was forced on Qocho and this resulted in the city of Jiaohe being abandoned. The mujahideen of the Islamic Chagatai Khanate conquered the Uyghur and Hami was purged of the Buddhist religion which was replaced with Islam, the Islamic conversion forced on the Buddhist Hami state was the final event in the Islamization
Kingdom of Qocho
Kingdom of Qocho
–
History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Kingdom of Qocho
–
Uygur Khan Successor (8th and 9th century wall painting)
Kingdom of Qocho
24.
Tangut people
–
The Tangut, identified with the state of Western Xia, were a Tibeto-Burman-speaking people who moved to Northwest China sometime before the 10th century. The Tanguts had only one state in their history, the Western Xia or Tangut Empire, the Tangut is typically regarded by Chinese scholars to represent the Qiang or Dangxiang. Historically, Qiang was a term for the multiple ethnic groups who lived on the west of China. The name Tangut first appears in the Orkhon inscriptions of 735, in their own language, the Tangut language, the Tanguts called themselves Mi-niah. The Tanguts divided themselves into two classes, the Red Faced and the Black Headed, the Red Faced Tanguts comprised the commonality while the Black Headed Tanguts were the elite priestly caste. Although Buddhism was extremely popular among the Tangut people, many Tangut herdsmen continued to practice shamanism, the black caps worn by Root West shamans gave the Black Headed caste its name. According to Tangut myth, the ancestor of the Black Headed Tanguts was a white crane. Ancient sources describe Tanguts as being short, stocky, dark-skinned and they wore their hair in the Tufa style, shaved bald except for a long fringe of bangs that framed the face. Tangut kings went by the title of Wuzu, the founder of the Tangut was a noted prince of the Tuyuhun. In 881, at the end of the Tang dynasty, the Tanguts brought troops to suppress the Huang Chao rebellion on behalf of the Tang court, by the time of the An Lu-shan Rebellion, the Tanguts were the dominant local power in the region. According to Tangut-language sources, the Tangut state known now as the Western Xia was named
Tangut people
–
The
Golden Light Sutra written in the
Tangut script
25.
Tibetan people
–
The Tibetan people are an ethnic group that is native to Tibet. They number an estimate of 7.8 million, significant Tibetan minorities also live outside of Tibet Autonomous Region in China, and in India, Nepal, and Bhutan. Tibetans speak the Tibetic languages, many varieties of which are mutually unintelligible and they belong to the Tibeto-Burman languages. The traditional, or mythological, explanation of the Tibetan peoples origin is that they are the descendants of the human Pha Trelgen Changchup Sempa and it is thought that most of the Tibeto-Burman-speakers in Southwest China, including the Tibetans, are direct descendants from the ancient Qiang. Most Tibetans practice Tibetan Buddhism, though some observe the indigenous Bön religion, Tibetan Buddhism influences Tibetan art, drama, and architecture, while the harsh geography of Tibet has produced an adaptive culture of Tibetan medicine and cuisine. As of 2014 Census, there are 2.2 million Tibetans living in the Tibet Autonomous Region, the SIL Ethnologue in 2009 documents an additional 189,000 Tibetic speakers living in India,5,280 in Nepal, and 4,800 in Bhutan. There are Tibetan communities in the United States, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Norway, Taiwan, Switzerland, how the current numbers compare to Tibetans historically is a difficult claim. The Central Tibetan Administration claims that the 5.4 million number is a decrease from 6.3 million in 1959 while the Chinese government claims that it is an increase from 2.7 million in 1954. However, the question depends on the definition and extent of Tibet, also, the Tibetan administration did not take a formal census of its territory in the 1950s, the numbers provided by the administration at the time were based on informed guesswork. The Tibetan population growth is attributed by PRC officials to the quality of health. The average life expectancy for Tibetans rose from 35.5 years in 1951 to over 67 years by the end of 2010, infant mortality in China as a whole was officially rated 14 per 1,000 in 2010. Classical Tibetan is a major literary language, particularly for its use in Buddhist literature. Although some of the Qiang peoples of Kham are classified by China as ethnic Tibetans, the Qiangic languages are not Tibetic, Tibetans inherited this adaptation thanks to their denisovan admixture. Nitric oxide causes dilation of blood vessels allowing blood to flow freely to the extremities. This and other advantages in physiological function at high altitudes have been attributed to a mutation in the EPAS1 gene among Tibetans, Tibetans inherited this adaptation thanks to their Denisovan admixture. Modern Tibetan populations are genetically most similar to other modern East Asian populations and they also show genetic affinity for modern Central Asian, then modern Siberian populations. An earlier study in 2010 suggested that the majority of the Tibetan gene pool may have diverged from the Han around 3,000 years ago. However, there are possibilities of much earlier human inhabitation of Tibet, in a 2016 study, the date of divergence between Tibetans and Han Chinese was estimated to have taken place around 15,000 to 9,000 years ago
Tibetan people
–
Songtsän Gampo
Tibetan people
–
Areas in which concentrations of ethnic Tibetans live within
China.
Tibetan people
–
Lingtsang Gyalpo
Tibetan people
–
Kalu Rinpoche
26.
Church of the East in China
–
Locally, the religion was known as Jingjiao. Two possibly Nestorian monks were preaching Christianity in India in the 6th century before they smuggled silkworm eggs from China to the Eastern Roman Empire, the first recorded Christian mission to China was led by the Syriac monk known in Chinese as Alopen. Alopens mission arrived in the Chinese capital Changan in 635, during the reign of Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty, Taizong extended official tolerance to the mission and invited the Christians to translate their sacred works for the imperial library. This tolerance was followed by many of Taizongs successors, allowing the Church of the East to thrive in China for over 200 years, China became a metropolitan province of the Church of the East, under the name Beth Sinaye, in the first quarter of the 8th century. According to the 14th-century writer ʿAbdishoʿ of Nisibis, the province was established by the patriarch Sliba-zkha, in 781 the Christian community in Changan erected a tablet known as the Nestorian Stele on the grounds of a local monastery. The stele contains an inscription in Chinese with Syriac glosses, composed by the cleric Adam. The inscription describes the progress of the Nestorian mission in China since Alopens arrival. The inscription also mentions the archdeacons Gigoi of Khumdan and Gabriel of Sarag, Yazdbuzid, priest and country-bishop of Khumdan, Sargis, priest and country-bishop, and the bishop Yohannan. Shortly afterwards Thomas of Marga mentions the monk David of Beth ʿAbe, Timothy I is said also to have consecrated a metropolitan for Tibet, a province not again mentioned. The collapse of the Church of the East in China coincided with the fall of the Tang Dynasty, dozens of Jingjiao texts were translated from Syriac into Chinese. These are generally referred to as the Chinese Nestorian manuscripts, but are known as the Jesus Sutras. One of the texts, the Zunjing or Book of Praise. Among these books are some translations of the Scriptures, including the Pentateuch - Genesis is known as 渾元經, Psalms, the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles and these translations of the Scriptures have not survived. Two additional Jingjiao manuscripts not listed in the Zunjing have also discovered, Sutra of Hearing the Messiah. The Church of the East had significant evangelical success under the Mongol Empire, the Mongol invasion of China in the 13th century allowed the church to return to China. By the end of the two new metropolitan provinces had been created for China, Tangut and Katai and Ong. The province of Tangut covered northwestern China, and its metropolitan seems to have sat at Almaliq, the metropolitans of Katai and Ong probably sat at the Mongol capital Khanbaliq. The patriarch Yahballaha III grew up in a monastery in northern China in the 1270s, Yahballaha himself was consecrated metropolitan of Katai and Ong by the patriarch Denha I shortly before his death in 1281
Church of the East in China
–
The
Nestorian Stele, erected in Chang'an 781.
27.
Alans
–
The Alans were an Iranian nomadic pastoral people of antiquity. The name Alan is an Iranian dialectical form of Aryan, a common self-designation of the Indo-Iranians, possibly related to the Massagetae, the Alans have been connected by modern historians with the Central Asian Yancai and Aorsi of Chinese and Roman sources, respectively. Having migrated westwards and become dominant among the Sarmatians on the Pontic Steppe, at the time they had settled the region north of the Black Sea, and frequently raided the Parthian Empire and the Caucasian provinces of the Roman Empire. In 215–250 AD their power on the Pontic Steppe was broken by the Goths, upon the Hunnic defeat of the Goths on the Pontic Steppe around 375 AD, many of the Alans migrated westwards along with various Germanic tribes. They crossed the Rhine in 406 AD along with the Vandals and Suebi, settling in Orléans, around 409 AD they joined the Vandals and Suebi in the crossing of the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula, settling in Lusitania and Carthaginiensis. The Iberian Alans were soundly defeated by the Visigoths 418 AD, the Alans who remained under Hunnic rule founded a powerful kingdom in the North Caucasus in the Middle Ages, which ended with the Mongol invasions in the 13th century AD. These Alans are said to be the ancestors of the modern Ossetians, the Alans spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian. The various forms of Alan – Greek, Ἀλανοί Alanoi, Chinese, 阿蘭聊 Alanliao in the 2nd century, 阿蘭 Alan in the 3rd century – and Iron and later Alanguo are derived from Iranian dialectal forms of Aryan. These and other variants of Aryan were common self-designations of the Indo-Iranians, scarcer spellings include Alauni or Halani. The Alans were also known over the course of their history by another group of related names including the variations Asi, As and it is this name that is the root of the modern Ossetian. The first mentions of names that historians link with the Alani appear at almost the time in texts from the Mediterranean, Middle East. In the 1st century AD, the Alans migrated westwards from Central Asia, the Alans are mentioned in the Vologeses inscription which reads that Vologeses I, the Parthian king c. 51–78 AD, in the 11th year of his reign, battled Kuluk, the contemporary Jewish historian, Josephus supplements this inscription. Now there was a nation of the Alans, which we have formerly mentioned somewhere as being Scythians and these Alans therefore plundered the country without opposition, and with great ease, and proceeded as far as Armenia, laying waste all before them. The fact that the Alans invaded Parthia through Hyrcania shows that at the time many Alans were still based north-east of the Caspian Sea, by the early 2nd century AD the Alans were in firm control of the Lower Volga and Kuban. These lands had earlier occupied by the Aorsi and the Siraces. It is likely that the Alans influence stretched further westwards, encompassing most of the Sarmatian world, in 135 AD, the Alans made a huge raid into Asia Minor via the Caucasus, ravaging Media and Armenia. They were eventually driven back by Arrian, the governor of Cappadocia, in 215–250 AD, the Germanic Goths expanded south-eastwards and broke the Alan dominance on the Pontic Steppe
Alans
–
The migrations of the Alans during the 4th–5th centuries AD, from their homeland in the
North Caucasus. Major settlement areas are shown in yellow, Alan civilian emigration in red, and military campaigns in orange.
Alans
–
Europe, AD 117-138. The Alani at the time were concentrated north of the
Caucasus Mountains (centre right).
28.
Khwarezm
–
It was the center of the Iranian Khwarezmian civilization and a series of kingdoms such as the Persian Empire, whose capitals were Kath, Gurganj and – from the 16th century on – Khiva. Today Khwarezm belongs partly to Uzbekistan, partly to Kazakhstan and partly to Turkmenistan, Khwarezm has been known also as Chorasmia, Khwarezmia, Khwarizm, Khwarazm, Khorezm, Khoresm, Khorasam, Kharazm, Harezm, Horezm, and Chorezm. C. E. Bosworth, however, believes the Persian name to be made up of xor and zam, designating the land from which the sun rises, another view is that the Iranian compound stands for lowland from khar low and zam land. Khwarezm is indeed the lowest region in Central Asia, located on the delta of the Amu Darya on the shores of the Aral Sea. Some of the early scholars believed Khwarezm to be what ancient Avestic texts refer to as Airyanem Vaejah. These sources claim that Old Urgench, which was the capital of ancient Khwarezm for many years, was actually Ourva, the eighth land of Ahura Mazda mentioned in the Pahlavi text of Vendidad. Al-Biruni starts giving names only with the Afrighid line of Khwarazmshahs, having placed the ascension of Afrighids in 616 of the Seleucid era, like Soghdiana, Khwarezm was an expansion of the BMAC culture during the Bronze Age which later fused with Indo-Iranians during their migrations around 1000 BC. Early Iron Age states arose from this cultural exchange, ruled by the native Afrighid Dynasty. It was at point that Khwarezm entered the historical record with the Achamenid expansion. An East Iranian language, known as Khwarezmian language, was spoken in Khwarezm proper until soon after the Mongol invasion and it was closely related to Sogdian. In the very part of its history, the inhabitants of the area were from Iranian stock. Sometime before the Achaemenid king Cyrus the Greats death in 530 BC, while he was dying, he appointed his son Smerdis/Bardiya as the governor of the region, along with Bactriana, Carmania, and the other eastern provinces of the empire. And the Persian poet Ferdowsi mentions Persian cities like Afrasiab and Chach in abundance in his epic Shahnama, the kings emissary offered to lead Alexanders armies against his own enemies, west over the Caspian towards the Black Sea. Although largely independent during the Seleucid, Bactrian and Arsacid dynasties, it is known that Khwarezm, yaqut al-Hamawi verifies that Khwarezm was a regional capital of the Sassanid empire. It was also vassal kingdom during periods of Kushans, Hephthalites, the Afrighids were a native Chorasmian dynasty which ruled over the kingdom of Khwarezm from 305 until 995 A. D. Sometimes it was under Sassanid control, in 712 Khwarezm was conquered by the Arab Umayyads. In 995, they overthrew the Afrighids of Kath and themselves assumed the traditional title of Khwarazm-Shah. Briefly, the area was under Samanid suzerainty, before it passed to Mahmud of Ghazna in 1017, in the 12th century, the Khwarezmid Empire was founded and, in the early 13th century, ruled over all of Persia under the Shah ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muhammad II
Khwarezm
–
Aral Sea
Khwarezm
Khwarezm
–
Silver bowl from Khwarezm depicting a four-armed goddess seated on a lion, dated 658 AD,
British Museum.
Khwarezm
–
Political map of Asia, Europe and Africa around 1200 AD showing the Khwarezmid Empire in dark green
29.
Karakhanid
–
The Kara-Khanid Khanate was a Turkic dynasty that ruled in Transoxania in Central Asia, ruled by a dynasty known in literature as the Karakhanids or Ilek Khanids or Āl-e Afrāsiyāb. Both the dynastic names of Karakhanids and Ilek Khanids refer to royal titles with Kara Kağan being the most important Turkish title up till the end of the dynasty, the Khanate conquered Transoxania in Central Asia and ruled it between 999–1211. Their capitals included Kashgar, Balasagun, Uzgen and Samarkand, the Khanate eventually split into two – the Eastern and Western Khanates. They then came under the suzerainty of the Seljuks, followed by the Kara-Khitans and their history is reconstructed from fragmentary and often contradictory written sources, as well as studies on their coinage. The Karakhanids were a confederation formed some time in the 9th century of Karluks, Yaghmas, Chigils, and other living in Semirechye, Western Tian Shan. Arabic Muslim sources called this dynasty al-Khaqaniya, while Persian sources often preferred the term Al-i Afrasiyab on the basis of the kings of pre-Islamic Transoxania. The Karluks were a people from western Altai who moved to Semirechye. In 742, the Karluks were part of an alliance led by the Basmyl, the Karluks and Uyghurs later allied themselves against the Basmyl, and within two years they toppled the Basmyl khagan. The Uyghur yabghu became khagan and the Karluk leader yabghu and this arrangement lasted less than a year. Hostilities between the Uyghur and Karluk forced the Karluk to migrate westward into the western Türk-Türgesh lands, by 766 the Karluks had forced the submission of the Western Türk-Türgesh and they established their capital at Suyab on the Chu River. The Karluk confederation by now included the Chigil and Tukshi tribes who may have been Türgesh tribes incorporated into the Karluk union. By the mid-9th century, the Karluk confederation had gained control of the lands of the Western Türks after the destruction of the Uyghur state by the Kyrgyz. During the 9th century southern Central Asia was under the rule of the Samanids, while the Central Asian steppe was dominated by Turkic nomads such as the Pechenegs, the Oghuz, the area to the South and east of the Karluks was inhabited by the Yaghma. The Karluk center in the 9th and 10th centuries appears to have been at Balasagun on the Chu River. In the late 9th century the Samanids marched into the Steppes and captured Taraz, one of the headquarters of the Karluk khagan, during the 9th century, the Karluk confederation and the Yaghma, possible descendants of the Toquz-oguz, joined force and formed the first Karluk-Karakhanid khaganate. The Chigils appear to have formed the nucleus of the Karakhanid army, the date of its foundation and the name of its first khan is uncertain, but according to one reconstruction, the first Karakhanid ruler was Bilge Kür Kadïr Khan. The rulers of the Karakhanids were likely to be from the Chigil and Yaghma tribes – the Eastern Khagan bore the title Arslan Qara Khaqan and the Western Khagan the title Bughra Qara Khaqan. The names of animals were an element in the Turkish titles of the Karakhanids, thus Aslan, Bughra, Toghan, Böri
Karakhanid
–
History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Karakhanid
–
Kara Khanid Khanate, c. 1000.
Karakhanid
–
Tomb of Sultan Satuk Bughra Khan, the first Muslim khan, in
Artush,
Xinjiang
Karakhanid
–
The restored mausoleum of
Ayshah bibi near
Taraz.
