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One of the Central-Asiatic ancient cultural centers is located
in the Altai autonomous republic within Russia. The Altai
republic is the territory of
highlands situated in the very center of
Asia at the junction of Siberian taiga, steppes of Kazakhstan
and semi-deserts of Mongolia. This region is populated
presently by several groups of people known under the names,
the Tubalars, the Teleuts, the Shors, the Telengits, the
Uryanhaits and the Oirots. They all speak a Turkish dialect
which stems from the early proto-language.
It is claimed, in general, that the Saka (Scythian) tribes
inhabited these regions throughout Classical Antiquity
(1),
but it is almost never mentioned that the Saka people belonged
to the ancient Uighur federation. The name
Saka comes
from the proto-language and is formed out of two monosyllabic
words; As and Ok. We can guess that there were two neighboring
group of tribes named as the As and the Ok who merged into a
loose federation, to form the As-Ok; which in time became to
be known as the Saka people. In early Altaic vowels belonging
to the same group, such as “a” and “o” could replace each
other and even change place within a word. This fact has been
mentioned in The Proto-language of
Central Asia.
The As people were, most probably, one of the prominent tribes
in the region since the continent of Asia is named after them.
Even today we have a country named Azerbaijan, whose name is
made out 4 monosyllabic Turkish words.
Az or
As
is the tribe name, Er stands for male or human,
Bay
is a title meaning leader and Jan meaning spirit. So
the name stands for “The spiritual leadership of the As
people”.
Herodotus described the Saka as people wearing trousers and
pointed hats. They carried bows, arrows and daggers. Their
battle ax was called the “sagar”(2). They worshiped the sun
god and buried their dead at the top of high peaks, as
mentioned by A. Siliotti
(1):
Archeological research has shown that the plains in the
southern and western regions of Kazakhstan were densely
populated from the eight century BC; it was here that
concentrations of immense tumulus type necropolises contained
grave goods of such splendor that archeologists call the
tumuli “royal kurgan”.
(page 203)
The word “kurgan” is made out of
Ok-Ur-gan, which means
“The location where the Ok resides”. Ur is a Turkic word
meaning to reside or to settle. There were two ancient Sumer
cities in Mesopotamian named Ur and Uruk. When the suffix -gan
is added to any verb, the new word becomes a noun; therefore
kurgan is the place of final residence for the Ok leaders. The
art objects found in these kurgans are generally made out of
gold and convey symbols of the early Altaic culture.
Above we see an elk with huge horns joined together with a
gryphon. The special symbolism of joining several animals in
one peace of art was a common practice employed among ancient
Asiatic cultures. The artifact above is made out of pure gold
and was found in a kurgan near
Issýk göl, a lake in
Kazakhstan. The exaggerated horns are typical and symbolize
power, as mentioned in The Hidden Meaning of Petroglyphs.
The symbolism hidden in these artifacts and images can be
considered as being part of a semiotic writing system. This
semiotic system of conveying ideas has been the precursor of
several writing systems employed today all over the world.
Below we see ibexes carved in rock with excessively
exaggerated long horns. Comparing these carvings to the
refined art of the Scythians one can conclude that the
Scythians were the offspring of the ancient Central-Asiatic
people.
A further proof of this connection is found in an article
published by
Natalya Polosmak.
She starts her article with the following words(3):
Under capricious skies in southern Siberia a rare unlooted
tomb lies ready to illuminate the culture of the ancient
Pazyryk people. These semi nomadic herders laid their
well-appointed dead here in the high steppes, the Pastures of
Heaven, as close as their world came to the great beyond.
Pazyryk is a special site where more than 150 kurgans have
been found and investigated by Russian archeologists. It is
located on top of the high Ukok plateau which is at the
junction of Russia, Kazakhstan, China and Mongolia (map
above). Frozen deep inside a kurgan the well preserved body of
a lady, probably a shaman woman, was discovered. She had the
tattoo of an elk on her shoulder (central image above). On the
right side we see another elk statue from the same Pazyryk
site. The common feature of these elks was the overgrown
horns, clear indication of mystical or even physical power.
The name of this plateau is formed out of two monosyllabic
words; Uk and Ok. Uk (spelled as ook). Uk is an ancient
proto-word meaning “up”. Actually “up” come into English from
the Viking language which is a Ural-Altaic language. Up is
pronounced as ‘oop’ in Swedish. The “U”, which is pronounced
as “yoo” has acquired a “y” in English. The same addition
happened also in Turkish. “Up” is “yuka-ry” in Turkish where
the first syllable is pronounced as “yoo”. There is also
another clue in the name Ukraine, which is the name of the
country above the Black sea. The similarity between Ukary in
Turkish and the country name Ukraine is worth noticing. The
suffix –ru/ry/gy stands for “towards” in Turkish. So Ukraine
means “towards the north”.
A further indication is found in the common tribal name of
indigenous people living in the North-Eastern parts of Asia.
These are the Yukagir who occupied a huge territory from Lake
Baikal to the Arctic Ocean. If we split the name ‘Yukagir’ as
Yuka-gir the meaning “enter up” appears, where ‘yuka’ is “up”
and ‘gir’ means “enter” in Turkish. This name fits perfectly
to the tribes that moved up north of Central Asia.
With these correlations we can deduce that the Ukok region was
the high plateau of the Ok people.
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