TURANIANS - TURANIA - TURAN
compiled by Jedi Simon

Turanian, adj. & n. [< Pers Turân, name used by Firdausi in The Shah Namah for a realm beyond the Oxus, as opposed to Irân (Persia) < Tur, in Iranian mythology one of the three mythical brothers from which mankind is supposedly descended.] Of or pertaining to the (mostly Asian) languages of the Ural and/or Altaic family, as opposed to those of the Indo-European ("Aryan") and Semitic families; of or pertaining to the speakers of these Ural-Altaic languages, particularly when considered as a race.

Here below is more of what is really known of these (TUR: Tur-kic, Tur-anian, Tur-qut, Tur-ia) people from a time long ago, from Chinese history. I (Tani Jantsang) saw the basic Dynastic History of China in a book and had them listed in order. I wrote something about it with my own commentary on it, sticking in the Turanian information where it belonged, but a Chinese person also said something similar; that is, he knew the Dynasties with much greater detail and also knew much about Chinese history with more details and a lot more accurate commentary, since he can read Chinese and see what it is saying.

This is not one article, but was a series of messages to another person who might have been, probably was, a Khalka from Mongolia today, and some of it was sent to me when I said something. In other words, it has been pieced together to form an article and then checked to make sure it was accurate, in which case, a lot more detail was given since it was intended to be on a website as an article.

This is not from some silly, fictional story or from any mythology. It's real history of a real people that don't deserve to be equated with silly things like fairies or dwarfs or things that go bump in the night.

From Chinese History: (quoted)

Much is written about these things in China, these are the basics. Nothing is known of where the Uralic or Altaic (Turanian) people were or came from before they came in waves to raid and conquer China. Therefore, the earliest records of these people would be from the Chinese history.

The point is that these Turko-"Mongols" are in a sense, misnamed. "Mongol" was not the name of a race or nation back then when Chingis Khan's (Jenghis or Genghis) tribe decided to use it. "Mongol" was the name later given to a very tiny, insignificant tribe whose majority of members, even under Chingis Khan, were not of his own tribe at all. They were Tatars - or Turks. Tatar and Turk or Turqut - these are the same people. The members of the small "Mongol" tribe were also Turks. The actual name of the tribe Chingis Khan belonged to was Borjigin. Not "Mongol." The word "Mongol" was merely a word in their language by which the tribe was named, specifically chosen, due to an ancestor, Bodonchar Munhah or Munqaq, about whom stories were told of how he was a simple living and even weak man that survived against all odds. The word in the Tatar language for this was mung-hah, or mung-khakh, or munqaq, pronounced as I spelled it at first. It means "simple-living."

These people were not Oriental in the modern sense of how anyone uses the word. Bodonchar Munhah founded the Borjigin Clan of people (he also founded the Noyakin Clan, Barula Clan, Budaat Clan, Adargin Clan, Uruut Clan and Mangkhut Clan). Leaving out some of the descendants inbetween these more or less "main" ancestors, Khaidu Khan was of the Borjigin Clan, from his descendants you have Khabul Khan, Bartan Baatur, Yesugei Baatur and finally Temujin, who is later called Chingis Khan. Who these people were and their looks and ways was described in detail in Chinese history.

Today, the Khalka are the people that live in Mongolia. These are not the same people as were there in the past; these are not Turkic peoples that were the Khans of old at all.

Therefore, naming the entire country "Mongolia" is a serious misnomer and very misleading. It leads to anyone not familiar with these fact to think that the wrong people were the warlike Khans of old. It also leads to the Khalka imagining themselves to be those same people when everything points to the fact that they are definitely not, despite adopting the horse techniques from them. The people who were the Khans of old have either vanished into the Chinese gene pool or, for the most part, live in what used to be called Turkistan before the Soviet days. They are, in fact, the Turks. Little do people realize that the most purely Turkic people and the greatest number of them live outside of the country called Turkey.

Some Chinese History to start off:

(Modern Chinese transliteration is supplied in ( ) along with the actual names of known Emporers. Keep in mind that the "last" name or family name is the first syllable you see for Chinese names.)

Previous to these actual rulers, are the rulers that have come down in legend: You Chao and Sui Ren who taught man to cook food with fire; the myth claims this happened around 50,000 BC.

San Huang - The Three Kings: Fu Hsi (Fu Xi) and his sister Nu Kwa, Shen Nong and Huang Ti (Huang Di Xuan Yuan). Huang Di, which means "Emperor Sage," is known as the Yellow Emporer. Huang Ti is said to have ruled from 2697-2599 BC.

Wu Di - The Five Emperors: 2598-2208 BC - Shao Han Jin Tian, Zhuan Su Gao Yan, Di Ku Gao Xin, Di Yao Tao Tang (Tang Yao), and Di Shun You Yu (Yu Shun).

Xia - Hsia Dynasty, 2205-1600 BC, founded by Emperor Yu. The first to use a paternal line of descent in order to put his son in power. Emperors after Yu were Qi, Tai Kang, Zhong Kang, Xiang, Shao Kang, Zhu, Fen, Mang, Xie, Bu Xiang, Jiong, Jin, Kong Jia, Hao Fa and Jie.

2000 BC marks the time of the Lung-shan culture and this culture continued patrilineal lines of descent, which became the norm.

Shang Dynasty, 1600-1066 BC, similar to the Lung-shan in culture. The first capital city P'o was ruled by Tang. Five other capitals existed, the last capital of Shang was Yin, founded by Tang, 1400 BC. Emperors of the Shang were Gao Zong, Xiao Zong, Guang Zong Ning Zong Li Zong Du Zong, Gong Di, Duan Zong and Di Bing.

Zhou - Chao Dynasty, 1066-221 BC specifically, Western Chou (founded by Wu) 1066-771 BC, Eastern Chou 800-300 BC, with states at War 770-221. Here was contact with these Turko-Tatar (Turanian) people. This entire Dynasty was a dynasty ruled by non-Han (non-Chinese) people from the north who were called Hsiung-nu and Tung-i. They were Turkic people. They had defeated the Shang. History explains and details that these rulers were very different in appearance from the Chinese Han who were known for black hair and a general cast of features. Some of these other non-Chinese people even had light or reddish hair.

If anything, one can start dating the mixing of these nomadic people and the Han Chinese at this point because there was considerable mixing by arrangement of marriage (which was the norm for all peoples there). As such, the non-Han would not have had a choice in the matter and these Turkic men were more than willing to mate with Han women. If, for instance, a person with three Han grandparents and one Turkic grandparent later wanted to claim allegiance to Turkic tribes outside of China, he was accepted without question. As such, many men who were in fact mostly Han, but who sided with non-Han rulers or tribes were incorporated into the non-Han, whether they were racially something else or not. And when the Han proper rebelled and took back China, many Han people or partially Han people left with these northern Turkic barbarians. At the same time, many former barbarians, civilized by Chinese culture, remained in China with the rest of the Han people. They were, by then, Chinese. Keep in mind that the males of the Chinese culture were all polygamous and women didn't have much free choice to choose husbands. Turks, assimilated by the Chinese, followed the Chinese culture. Why that happened so quickly was due to the Shamanistic Turk tolerance toward the customs of those they conquered and ruled. They usually never changed what was already there when it came to customs or religious practices. They ruled, however, collected taxes and such things as that.

The Chou, by now thoroughly Chinese, pressed by yet other northern Turkic people, moved their capital to Lo-yang. As we can see, the Turkic people were coming in waves into the Far East. The Northern regions had the nations of Yen, a newly named Chou, Wei and Han. The Middle nations were Ch'i, Lu and Sung. The Southern nations were Ch'u, Wu and Yueh. The nation of Ch'in were the lands of the Old Chao. The three southern lands had people in them that did not speak Chinese and had non-Chinese customs. This is the Warring States Period so well known in Chinese history, that lasted from 770-221 BC.

Qin - Ch'in or Chin Dynasty, 221-206 BC. The time of the great Emperor Chin (Qin Shi Huangdi) after whom China is named, as an entire nation. He also merged the walls that were partially built during the Warring States period into one Great Wall. He merged the Great Wall to keep these Turkic invaders out.

Han Dynasty: Western 206 BC - 25 AD; Eastern 25-221 AD (Emperor Gao Zu also called Lui Bang). The Juan-juan and Hsiung-nu, both Turkic peoples, started to move slowly to the West and settled in East and Central Europe. As Tani Jantsang noted, these people and the rest of those invading China did not resemble the Chinese at all. In other words, on the street, no one would be confused about what kind of people they were as they are when they see Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Tibetan, modern-day Outer Mongol (Khalka) and so forth today. There are many written, detailed descriptions of them in Chinese history.

Next came the transition period of Three Kingdoms: 221-265 AD: Wei, Shu Han and Wu.

Jin - Chin Dynasty: 265-420 AD: Western 265-316 AD, Eastern 317-420 AD. One hundreds or so years of this included sixteen kingdoms.

Song - Sung Dynasty 420-479 AD; a southern Dynasty.

The Six Dynasties 420-581 AD; Northern Dynasties were North Wei 386-534, East Wei 534-550, North Qi 550-577, West Wei 535-557 and North Zhou 557-581. Southern Dynasties were Song 420-479, Qi 479-502, Liang 502-557 and Chen 557-589. Some of these overlap with other Dynasties.

At the same time, the Wei Dynasty of the Toba Turks ruled from 386-581 AD. These were a people quite distinct from the Han (Chinese). They had writing that was runic and their runes have been found. If you'd like to see the runes:

They are very similar to "Scandinavian" runes, but much older. I find it odd that some of these runes found in the Orkhon Valley are dated to 800 AD when the Toba Turks predate that time. Perhaps they didn't find enough samples, or any older samples.

I must stress again, that any of these people that did not wander off away from mainland China, any who became part of the Chinese culture, would have intermarried with the Chinese Han. I must stress again, that any of the men wanting to disassociate themselves from the Han and unite with these others would have rejoined the others. As such, much mixture with Han continued to go on with all who stayed. The Han are not so exogamous as you think; in fact, far from it. But Turkic nomads most definitely were exogamous and much Turkic admixture got into the Chinese in this manner, if they stayed in or very near China as part of the culture just as much Slavic or other mixture went into these people in more westerly regions or when they invaded, conquered or settled in more southerly lands.

The Sui Dynasty 581-618 AD; Wen Di and Yang Di.

The Tang Dynasty 618-906 AD; Emperors Gao Zu, Tai Tsung (Taizong), Empress Wu Ze Tian, Xuan Zong, De Zong, Xian Zong, Wu Zong, Xuan Zong,

In what is now northwestern China, the Uighur Turks had a Dynasty, 745-840 AD, which almost destroyed the Tang Dynasty.

In 843 AD the Sari-Uighur Turks and the Khirgiz Turks tried to take over the Uighur Dynasty.

In 880 AD another group, the Sha-t'o or Toquz Oguz, a famous and very large tribe of Turks, led a revolt against the T'ang. These are the same Oguz Turks that were in Eastern Europe, along with the Pecheneg Turks, as described by some Arab scholars that traveled and wrote travelogues.

The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms 902-979 AD: Liang 907-923, Tang 923-936, Jin 936-946, Han 947-950 and Zhou 951-960, despite the same names, these are later dynasties.

The Northern Sung (Song) Dynasty 960-1126 AD. Emporers Tai Tsu (Tai Zu), Tai Zong, Zheng Zong, Ren Zong, Yin Zong, Shen Zong, Zhe Zong, Hui Zong and Qin Zong.

During this period the Liao or Khitai Turks ruled the whole north of China: 947-1125 AD. They also conquered the Uighur Dynasty and in 926 AD, destroyed the Korean kingdom of Pohai.

The Southern Sung (Song) Dynasty 1127-1279 AD. Emporers Gao Zong, Xiao Zong, Guan Zong, Ning Zong, Li Zong, Du Zong, Gong Di, Duan Zong, and Mo Di. During this period the Chin or Kin (Jin), the Jurchid people (Tungusic Manchu-type people) ruled the whole north: 1122-1234 AD. Along with them to the West was the Kingdom of the Hsi-hsia (Xia) or Tangut. Northwest of this was the Kara-Khitai Turkish Empire extending outside of China and a smaller Kingdom of the Uighur Turks closer inland in China. Further west of the Kara-Khitai Turks was the Khwarizmian Empire, an Islamic Turkic empire that supplanted the previous Seljuk Turks.

Keep in mind that all larger empires of this type, especially Islamic ones, had written records and spendid civilizations. Keep in mind also that the Seljuk Turks would have been thoroughly intermixed with the people in the lands they ruled. They never once in history ever waged a religious war, nor were they racially aware at that time at all.

Keep in mind that these Turkic peoples dealt with others of their own Turkic people when they went anywhere westerly outside of mainland China, unless they dealt with Slavic peoples or other Indo-Europeans in more southly regions. Keep in mind that the Turks interacting with the Chinese, were mixing with the Chinese and, while many people stayed in China to eventually become Chinese, some left China and were accepted as part of the Turks still in the Far East.

Next we have the Yuan or "Mongol" Dynasty 1260-1368, which united the whole country of China again. By this time, the rest of the Turks, who had been wandering and conquering in more westerly regions, remained where they were; they were not intermixing with the Han Chinese but were interacting with other Turkic people who had been in Eastern and Central Europe from centuries before, and interacting with Slavs. They were also conquering more southerly European and Semitic lands once again. Emporers of the Yuan were Shih tsu (Shi zu (Kublai Khan), Empress of the Khan Tai Khu (Shi zi), Chen Chen (Cheng Zong), Khai Shan (Wu Zong), Ren Zong, Wen Zong, Ning Zong and Shun Di.

The Ming Dynasty 1368-1644 AD overthrew the Yuan or "Mongol" Dynasty. Emporers were Cheng Tsu (Tai Zu), Cheng Tsu (Cheng Zu) the emporer who moved the capital of China from Ninjing to Beijing and built the Imperial Palace (The Forbidden City), Ren Zong, Xuan Zong, Ying Zong, Xian Zong, Xiao Zong, Wu Zong, Shi Zong, Mu Zong, Shen Zong, Guang Zong, Xi Zong and Si Zong

At that time there was also an Oirat Empire, 1434 AD, which extended from Lake Baikal to just near the Great Wall. The "Mongol Empire," that is to say, the Yuan, passed into the Oirat's control. At a time when most of the other Turks had converted to the Moslem religion, the Oirat were anti-Islamic Buddhists.

The Ming (Han Chinese people) were on the side of the Oirats against the Eastern Mongol Empire of the so-called Kublaids (people claiming to be from the line of Kublai Khan). The Oirats were Turks. The Kublaids, by this time, were thoroughly Chinese through intermarriage. For instance, Kublai's father was named Tolui; Toliu was the youngest son of Chingis Khan. Tolui's first wife was Sorqoqtani Beki and she was the mother of Kublai, her fourth son. So far, it's all still Turkic. Kublai was the Khan of China's Yuan Dynasty. His wife, named Tai Khu had a second son named Chen Chen (the name Chen Chen or "Cheng Zong" means "true gold" in Chinese). As such, one can see that in one generation, the offspring of Kublai Khan that lived in China became Chinese in culture. Chen Chen's son Tarmabala had a son named Khai Shang who became one of the later Yuan Dynasty Khans. It would be noted that many of the more western Turks, having become Islamic, adapted to the Islamic culture in the same ways. However, they were primarily intermarrying with other Turks previously there who had long ago turned Islamic.

There are Chinese drawings, painted by a Chinese artist on stretched silk, made of Kublai Khan and of Chingis Khan. However these date from around the time of Kai Shang, long after the actual Kublai Khan, grandson of Chingis Khan, was dead. The artist painted them both to look typically Chinese. By the time the descendants of Kublai were present for the artwork, one probably posing for the drawing, they were thoroughly Chinese. However, there also exists an actual painting of Kublai Khan that was made of him when he was very much alive and shows him handing Marco Polo the Papal letter. Keep in mind that European artists drew in real perspective, while Chinese artists did not use that style. See below, at the end of this article, for both images of Kublai and for actual photos of the same peoples.

The Oirats tried to also take over the remnants of the Kublaid Empire in Mongolia itself, 1470-1543 AD, but they were repulsed by Dayan Khan and later by the Khalka Khans. Keep in mind that these people, the Kublaids and Dayan Khan and the Khalka, were not Turkic people; they were Asians. Dayan Khan's territory was just what is now called Mongolia.

The Khanates to succeed Dayan were the Ordos Khanate, whose members adopted Lamaism in 1566 AD, and the Khalka Khanate.

The people of Outer Mongolia today are Khalka. The Kublaids, including the Khalka, are very much Chinese people with a Tibetan-Buddhist culture and an Altaic language. These are the people that by now were dealing with and mixing with the Chinese, both Han and Tungus in China, for centuries. The rest had long left the area of Chinese influence.

Qing - Ch'ing, Ching or Manchu Dynasty, the actual name of these Manchus for themselves was Nuchen, 1644-1911 AD. Manchus are a Tungus people; they are not Turks. Emporers were Tai Zu, Tai Zong, Shi Zu Shun Zhi, Sheng Zu Kang Xi, Shi Zong Yong Zheng, Gao Zong Qian Long, Ran Zong Jia Qing, Wuan Zong Dao Guang, Wen Zong Xian Feng, The Empress Tzu-hsi (CiXi), Mu Zong Tong Zhi, De Zong Guang Xu and Pu Yi who was enthroned by Emperor Xuan Tong.

The Oirat, or what was at this time called Jungarian Empire, ended with Amursana who was attacked. Amursana and his people took refuge with the Russians in Siberia in 1757. Jungaria was annexed to the Chinese Ch'ing Empire and the population, I regret to say, was exterminated and replaced with Turkic Islamic settlers who were obviously not Chinese.

You need to understand that these Turks in the Altai, a people already dealing with the Han (Chinese) for centuries, for thousands of years, even, and thoroughly mixed (unless they left forever for the West where other Turks were) took many wives among the Han and had many children. While the Han might not have accepted them so readily, at least not the first half breeds, Turk nomads most definitely did accept them as "their own." Understand that whenever the mothers of these children were Han, the children were thoroughly Chinese - their culture and language was Chinese and they were much more readily accepted as Chinese. Understand also that life in a highly civilized China was much preferable to life in the freezing cold steppes. Sleeping in a luxurious Chinese home was preferable to sleeping in a cold yurt (tent). Eating well prepared Chinese food with rich flavor was preferable to having to hunt for food. [It would be comparable to this: 1. living in a modern home with central heat and air and modern conveniences; or 2. sleeping outside on the ground and having no conveniences.] Once civilized by China, it was not too easy for such people to survive in the harsh climate that these Turks lived in and came from. In a sense, one might say that this is an excellent strategy for making their generations into Chinese. Also, if Han males hated their own Han rulers, they sometimes fled out of mainland China for more northern parts where they might be accepted by the natives there, or so I would think. If they weren't accepted, it would have been because they were too weak or "soft." That didn't happen all too often due to the reasons stated above.

The idea of "racial identity" didn't occur to Turkic people until very recently, the 1800s. Prior to that, we see thousands of years of some Turks in the Far East blending in with Han, to rule parts of China or not, but then constantly setting anywhere to the north of China, sometimes outside of China. Soon after they rule China, after generations of intermarriage with only Chinese, they become Chinese in culture, thinking, language and race. Those people are in China today, part of the Chinese people. The same thing happened to the Manchus who conquered China. They became Chinese in all ways. Non-Chinese history shows that these Turkic Khans conquered and blended in with many other populations as well. The Il-Khans who conquered Persia under Hulagu Khan would soon be seen as Persian Khans - and seen soon enough as Persian people with Persian culture and language; they'd be throughly mixed in with the Persians in a few generations.

Next, we can see the Chinese dealing with the remaining tribes north of China by setting one tribe against another and doing things to keep them out of China. The Turks and Manchus in China - now wholly Chinese - came to look upon these Turks as barbarians that they wanted to keep out. Those who have tried to conquer China and stayed, have become Chinese. Why? Because they married Chinese wives, their children, male and female, married Chinese wives and husbands, and so forth. By sheer force of number, invaders were assimilated.

Most of the Turkic tribes just left the area, as the history does show. I'm sure European history would make mention of these, as would and as does history written by Indians, Persians and Arabs. The period of time when these Turks came in waves to first vex China would be pre-history, before the written word in the west. Chinese history can't say where they were before coming into the Chinese sphere of influence.

Turkic people themselves had no history to bring up; no literature, until they became Islamic. However, some of the previously large Turkic empires (such as the Toba Turks) had a runic script for writing and the Uighur Turks had a script based on Sogdian Persian. The Chinese, on the other hand, kept meticulous records and descriptions of the people and their ways of life were recorded whenever they were anywhere near China.

If you are Khalka (so-called Mongolian due to a misnomer of a land region), you are using Cyrillic as your alphabet and that hardly originates with you. The only reason Khalka people even know how to read or write is because the Soviets forced them to learn. The Khalka people never used the runic script of the Turks that previously lived in the Orkhon region, nor did they ever use the Uighur Turk script. Khalka is not even listed as one of the tribes of peoples living there during the time of Chingis Khan. All of the Turkic tribes that were there are listed in Turkic language. Many more tribes were throughout the Central Asian and Eastern European areas.

From what I can see of this conversation, MIB and Tani are talking about people they personally know, and their apperances. Tani has photos of Khalka Mongols and they look Chinese, not Turko-Tatar. To my eye, Tani looks typically Eurasian as do most Turks/Tatars that I've seen from outside of the country called Turkey (the people in the country Turkey have a lot of Mediterranean mixture). Such people can very easily pass for a type of Hispanic, they can change their attire and pass as people from any of the Islamic nations, too. They can change their hair and pass as anyone from Eastern Europe. I can not see them passing for Irish or Anglo of any kind. Chinese people can pass as Korean, Japanese, Khalka Mongolian, or any of the more northern Asian types you can see, even ones that tend to be tall. Some Han Chinese are quite tall. Neither a Khalka nor a Chinese can pass as Turk.

Smithsonian had an exhibit in a mall near Washington DC recently wherein they had real Turkic-Tatar people dressed in authentic clothing. These people controlled the entire silk route. As I said, they were meticulously described. They didn't look like the people you can see today in Mongolia at all. The fact is, they never did and Chinese descriptions confirm this.

The Khalka of Mongolia are all basically Chinese except for their language and culture. Well, one might say that many Chinese Americans are not Chinese by culture or language either, not anymore; they are quite American. But they are still Chinese. For awhile now, due to the 20th century and its rhetoric of "racial awareness," the Khalka people have tried to claim that they are the true blue Mongols. But they are most definitely not. If anything, the Turkic people that live away from China and away from the other Islamic countries are a lot more like "real Mongols people know of in history as the Khans" than anyone today in Outer or Inner Mongolia. I note that Tani never used the term "Mongol" to refer to herself or her ethnic group. She says she's Turanian and explains that to say "Turkic," is to make a political and religious statement regarding Islam. Therefore, the use of the word "Turan" is a political usage, not a racial usage.

Full "mongoloids" are not Turks, obviously. Turks are not part of the "Mongolian Race," to use the older three divisions of mankind. The "Turkic" people do consider themselves a single group if they get politically nationalistic (racially aware), just as the African Americans consider themselves a group, despite much admixture with many other people including Europeans in America. An African American may be 1/16 African and 15/16 Irish; he still identifies himself as black and the American society sees him as black. The use of the word Turan or Turanian for an ethnicity signifies specifically that you or your ancestors are from a region that stretches from around the Urals to around the Altai; hence the expression "Ural-Altaic."

As is described in Chinese history, the Turkic people were clearly a different people from the Khalka or known Tungus types, at least in appearance. I have no idea what story the genes would tell, but as far as appearance goes, there is no mistaking the two peoples. By the same token, I am not able to say whether a person I see may be German, English, French or Swiss. Even many Italians don't look like the Italians I was used to seeing in New York City. I can say that Tani has that specific "look" that is associated with Eurasian Turkic people and some East Europeans and which, in America now, especially in Florida or New York City, is associated with a type of Hispanic. People that look that way in America, if they are not Hispanic, would be considered "white" by anyone.

In the USA, in the 1950s and before, all such people, including the Slavs, were lumped into the "Asian" category by people who kept such statistics. Apparently, most Americans were not able to tell these peoples apart. At that time, Jews were not considered "white." Neither were Italians. "Turanian" and "Levantine" were categories also used, back then. I doubt that these categories have a thing to do with genotypes or real ancestry. Today, Levantine and Turanian people are considered "white." Keep in mind, this is a matter that exists in the USA - a "racial issue."

To address the point that Tani is making - these differences are seen with the eyes and lumped into categories with the eyes. They are obviously phenotypes that most people can see. In terms of culture and society, these are what most people mean when they use the word "race." Chinese historians would have based what they wrote about "distinct people" by using the same methods: what they see and can clearly distinguish immediately upon sight. In which case, I'd never mistake Tani for Asian, such as Chinese. I'd never mistake her for black. I would definitely expect Spanish to come out of her mouth, since she's in the USA and in Florida. I'd be wrong. If I saw her in Europe, I'd mistake her for Eastern European (Eurasian); if I saw her in Turkey, I'd guess her correctly for "hill Turk" or Turks living outside of Turkey in former Soviet territories, the 19th century Turkistan. All of these guesses are due to the fact that these peoples look very much alike. But none of them look Asian.

At the time of the Khans of 1200's, the people living north and northwest of China were what we distinguished as Turkic. That is to say, they did not look like Chinese at all, as did a very few of the smaller tribes in those more Eastern areas east of the great Khingan mountain range who looked more like Chinese and who were Tungus peoples. But that was much, much later that these people seeped into the country now known as Mongolia, some of them seeped down from the northeast, but a great many others got there from China during the Manchu Dynasty.

The Hsiung-nu, for instance, were absolutely not Chinese in appearance. When those graves were discovered to have light-haired people, horse riding people that owned dogs, from that time period in China, I was not in the least surprised. Our records have described and named these people. They were Hsiung-nu, Yueh-chih, T'u-chueh, descendents of the Hsuing-nu (those were people with that wolf totem, as Tani mentioned), Juan-juan, and others, most of whom went west (west compared to China) in waves and never came back.

We here are speaking of eyewitness descriptions of these living people, not just bones, meticulous details written by chroniclers. You can't tell a thing about fleshy parts from bones or even from genes, least of all coloration. Many of these people had lighter hair. They weren't black haired as are Chinese people. In no way were they ever mistaken for Chinese. Even the word T'u-chueh is a rendering of the word Turk.

Where did they originally come from so long ago before they appeared in waves on the borders of China? Archaology may be able to tell us the answers to this, but they'd have to be able to recognize that they are finding Turkic people. They may have gotten to the area from the West; I strongly suspect this because they did not "come down" from the far easterly regions as did the more well known Tungus types, such as the Manchu or earlier Jurchen. Also, it was these Turkic people that had horses and horse strategies in fighting. The Tungus, further to the north and northeast, at the time, did not have horses or use them in war. That these people I'm describing left and went West in waves is known. Some experts are positive that these people are the Saka Turks (Scythians), but even that is not far enough back in time to determine the origins of these people.

It was much later in history that more and more Tungus types of people moved southward and they learned the use of horse strategies by joining in with these first Turkic people. It is my best guess that these people I'm referring to were already a very ancient, pre-historic blend of some kind of Nordic type and some kind of Tungus type; but that is just a guess based on their looks. For one, we know for a fact that the Lapps and Fins are in northwestern Europe. We also now know from excavations that these people north and northwest of China were non-Chinese type lighter-haired people. I would say that the language people speak really means nothing and culture and religion can be adopted very easily.

As has been suggested elsewhere, and to change the subject a bit, the Khalka seem to be under the impression that the Tungus-like, or Chinese-like mixed Khalka in Mongolia today are the same people as were the "Khans of old." This is simply not correct! I have no particular bias one way or the other about the subject, but Chinese records definitely did record the movement of peoples and their habits in detail, especially when the people were plagueing China repeatedly. I specifically named the tribes, in Chinese words, that were recorded as having been there. They were Turks; they were not the black-haired people that so resemble either Tungus or Chinese people today who live in the country now known as Mongolia.

If you'd like to see the descendents of those Turanian Khans, look to the countries that bear their tribal names: Khazak-stan, Uzbeg-istan, the Chaghatai Turks, Bulgar, Magyar, Bashkir, and many other such peoples. The only Turks that became thoroughly mixed with the Chinese, so as to become Chinese themselves in a few generations, were from Kublai's line. Even the Chinese words for these people, when not meaning "barbarian," mean Turk. That the Khalka today might think they are the same people is neither here nor there. They aren't. I should say, thank god to that on behalf of China. The only people who actually are related to those Khans, as the "same Turkic people," are giving China a very hard time, as usual; harboring terrorists, dealing illegally with their "Khazakh brothers" and so forth. Imo, and perhaps this is prejudice, these Turks are still dangerous and now they probably have nuclear weapons without the Soviet Union to control them. The Khalka of Mongolia are a threat to nobody, but neither are they the same people, nor do they in any way look like the same people. The Tungus population in general are no threat to anyone. They never really were.

Let me be clear. The horse-riding warriors of old were Turkic. The black-haired Tungus who wandered into that area much later and learned the use of horses from these Turks, are different people. These people in Inner and Outer Mongolia are mixed with various Chinese and Tungus-Chinese populations, as are former Turks who conquered China, and these would be people that never roamed back toward westerly regions. It is also a case of Chinese expansion through time where China got more territory. Those people are now Chinese; part of China.

It is not a case of, to use the actual names of these tribes, Tatar, Merkit, Naiman, Kerait, Mongol (referring to a tiny tribe at the time) Uygur, Taichiut or whatnot. (Hsiung-nu, Yueh-chih, T'u-chueh, the last word means Turk). All of these tribes were Turks. Again, they were not the black haired people that came later. As I had said, I was not in the least surprised when light-haired people were excavated in China. There was nothing to be surprised about since historical accounts spoke of these people in quite some detail. It was far to the East of these tribes that Jurchen lived (Tungus people). People seem to ignore the fact that these Turkic people were separated from the Jurchen by a great mountain range, the Khingan Mountains, whereas the Turkic Tribes lived more toward the Altai Mountains just north of Ho-lin, or the "Black Camp" as the Turks called it and stretched into the area of the Urals. The Tungusic peoples and people like the Juchen (Jurchen) always lived much further east and to the north; whereas the open land areas, not suitable to agriculture, were long prior invaded by raiding Turks from the West. With the wave of invasions during the Khan's days and a few hundred years earlier to some extent, these people went West again.

Slowly, the actions of the Russians and Chinese tended to keep these people in the more westerly regions, compared to China. Eastern and Western Turkistan (the pre Soviet names of these regions) may be east compared to Europe, but these are west compared to China and far outside the Chinese sphere of influence.

These Turkic peoples, and due to their location or main territory one can see why they were named "Ural-Altaic," roamed from west to east, east to west, back and forth with the occasion "dip" into southern areas to raid or settle. Some of them had nations, however. These were still the same people. The only difference is that the Moslem Turks had culture and civilization and the Shamanist Turk Khans did not; they were wild raiders and nomads, still. Nonetheless, according to Chinese records, these were the same people.

I think the debate was that in Mongolia today, those people are not Turko-Tatar at all. They are something else. I'd have to agree with that based on Chinese history and records. Sure, there may be some Turkic in those people in Mongolia from long ago - but that's not what anyone means. The people in Mongolia today are not the people that were the Khans and so many others previously that raided the West.

The problem with analysis of anything Turkic (Turanian) is that their contact with people that had written language and kept records was not like Russia (USSR) invading Eastern Europe and making bloc countries; nations taking over nations and forcing them to speak Russian. It was not like the British Empire colonizing people and making them speak English and adopt British culture and convert to Christianity. The entire Turkic nomadic experience is nothing like this. If it was like that it would be a lot easier to find out more about them. This was a case of Turkic nomads, Shamanistic tribal people, who were able to conquer nations of people that far outnumbered them, even 1,000 to 1, moving in to rule and immediately adopting the culture and language of the nation they ruled and intermarrying with the people. People from differnt tribes were also able to simply change tribes. These people had no conception of religious war and never in history ever waged one; they also had no concept of race. Their own "nations" were moveable! Therefore it's impossible to actually place them in any real location for very long. They might call a "city" by a name and records will show the city. A few years later, records will continue to show that city, but the location of the city is not the same. Unless it is understood that these people have moveable cities, such a contradicction in the records will cause confusion.

Pan-Turania, Pan-Turanism

Pan Turanism, a political movement before and during Lenin's time, was not created by the Ottoman Turks, but was felt and born by the Tatar peoples of Russia, most of whom are Islamic. Tatars, Khirgiz, Bashkir, people like this felt Pan-Turanism. The Crimean War is what triggered this birth of what was essentially a racialist-type movement - racial awareness.

During this time, the later 1800s, the Ottoman Turks, a long-time Islamic people, had started to turn their faces east toward the Altai Mountains whence they had come. Their Turanian heroes were Attila, Chingis, Alp Arslan, Timur-lenk (Tamerlane), Ulaghu and Oghuz and they considered the older, conquering deeds of their people. Turanists considered all of the Uralic and Altaic people, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Finns, etc. who lived once in Central Asia to be Turanians. They started having a racial-kinship feeling, not a nationalist or religious one. They also defended themselves against the attacks of Firdusi, the author of the epic poem "Shahname," who glorified a thousand year struggle of "wonderful" Iran against "evil" Turan. Indeed, Turkish nationalism was abandoned in favor of Turanian racialism. Pan-Islam and Pan-Turan are not compatible movements at all.

The temperment of the Turanian is not religious: "Turkmen zayif ul iman." (Turkman, weak in faith). For instance, the Sejluk Turks changed their religion three times in two centuries. History vouches for this: in all their wars, Turanians (Turks, Tatars) have never waged a religious war! The Turks themselves say that the psychologies of the two Islamic people differ; one is Semitic and the other is Turanian. The Iranian types of Islamic peoples are their ancient enemies. They also say that the Arab is ascetic, the Turk is epicurean. The God of the Arab, like the God of the Jew, is the God of Fear (mehafet ullah); while the God of the Turk is the God of Love (mehabet ullah). Some of the most passionate campaigns against the principles of "Islamic Ottomanism" were the uttering of these three words: Hurriet, Adalet, Mussavvat, which mean Liberty, Justice, Equality!

This is the end of the quoted conversations. (Thanks to Y.M.N. for Chinese details.)

Some of the Silly Myths:

Now, all of this following is pure, unmitigated rubbish and if any such vile tripe was written up in stories about BLACK people - the NAACP would never let anyone forget it. I doubt the books would ever see publication today. Note how the Turanians are equated with demons or evil deeds. Pure racism.

According to the so-called "pygmy" theory, folk memories of Turanian peoples account for the European folklore concerning fairies, elves, dwarfs, etc. By some post-Blavatsky Theosophists, the name was given to the fourth Sub-race of the fourth Root Race. Note, she's rull of rubbish and a supreme distorter of Vajrayana. However, it is possible that the idea of the bogeyman came from the Tatar word Boga and that the idea of an ogre came from the name of a Turkic tribe called Uygur. Europeans were terrified of the Tatars. These may be folk memories in Western Europe, but in Eastern Europe, even in the 19th century, they never forgot the war tactics and terror that Tatar conquerers brought. They didn't have to invent stupid myths. They knew exactly who these Turanians were.

The kingdom had been through dangerous and difficult times, when powerful enemies like the Prince of the Turanians, leagued with wicked magicians, had gone up against the Persians in war. But now that splendid hero, Zal, mightiest of the warriors of the world, had broken the strength of the Turanians; the old Shah, Kaikobad, had gone into Paradise; and young Prince Kaikooz ascended to the Throne of Thrones as the twelfth Shah of the Persians, and all his people cheered his name. Lin Carter, "Rustum Against the City of Demons" (after Firdausi, The Shah Namah, mentioned before) Note, Lin Carter wrote fiction and all of this is fiction. Take it instead from the Semitic Book of Esther, part of the Jewish Bible, and one gets the idea that the Persians were dualist-minded, persecutory scum that deserved to be massacred.

The very title of Tur, which they give to their supreme magistrate, indicates theft from a tongue akin to the Turanian. Edward Bulwer-Lytton, "The Coming Race"

A curious Basque story shows that among this strange Turanian people, cut off by such a flood of Aryan nations from any other members of its family, the same superstition remains. Sabine Baring-Gould, "The Book of Werewolves: Being an Account of a Terrible Superstition. Note that Basques are not Turanian people at all, not even related to them.

The appropriate definition of the name "Turanian" is: any family that ethnologists know nothing about. H.P. Blavatsky, note to "Isis Unveiled: A Master-Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology." Note that she is an idiot that didn't know what Uralic and Altaic were.

The occult doctrine admits of no such divisions as the Aryan and the Semite, accepting even the Turanian with ample reservations. H.P. Blavatsky, "The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy." Note that occult divisions of the human races are as worthless as Biblical divisions. Note that Blavatsky is stuck in the Aryan versus Semite nonsense, despite what some may claim of her, it's clear.

Granting that the Turanian races were typified by the dwarfs (Dwergar), and that a dark, round-headed, and dwarfish race was driven northward by the fair-faced Scandinavians, or Æsir, the gods being like unto men, there still exists neither in history nor any other scientific work any anthropological proof whatever of the existence in time or space of a race of giants. H.P. Blavatsky, "The Secret Doctrine: The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy." Note that the Turarnian races were typified as fearsome warriors against whom the European Christians prayed to their God to protect them from. Again, this is neo-mythological nonsense - it doesn't even have a basis in real mythology of old. Note that in one story of Odin, he came from the "Land of the Turks" and taught these Scandinavians the runes. That would definitely explain why their later runes are the same as the much older Turkic runes from Orkhon!

This was the Shaman. He seems to have had a Tartar-Mongol-mongrel-Turanian origin, somewhere in Central Asia, and to have spread with his magic drum, and songs, and stinking smoke, exorcising his fiends all over the face of the earth. Charles Godfrey Leland, "Gypsy Sorcery and Fortune Telling." Note that one might come to that conclusion about any Shamanism done by anyone. Yes, Turanians were Shaman, some still are. Today, many of them are Islamic. But the racist lingo inherent in this paragraph is nonsense.

"It is a very ancient ceremony," said the priest; "probably Persian, like the baptismal form, although, for that matter, we can never dig deep enough for the roots of these things. They all turn up Turanian if we probe far enough." Harold Frederic, "The Damnation of Theron Ware; or, Illumination."

"Philologists seem to be fast arriving at the view that when the whole earth was of "one language and of one speech" it was a primitive monosyllabic or Turanian tongue." Note that no Turanian language is or ever was monosyllabic. Chinese is monosyllabic. "The word Turanian is most indefinite, for it is taken to include the small, dark, long-headed Dravidian race of India, which penetrated Britain before the Aryan Celt and of which the Basques of Spain are a survival; the long-headed white race of Scandinavian hunters; and the white, broad-headed Mongoloid, whom we chiefly term proto-Aryan, as an early branch of the Aryan race; a race which in prehistoric times spread from Lapland to Babylon, and from India to Egypt and Europe. John Yarker, "The Arcane Schools, a Review of Their Origin and Antiquity, with a History of Freemasonry and Its Relation to the Theosophic, Scientific, and Philosophic Mysteries." Note, more rubbish before they could test mtDNA and nuclear DNA to show that humans spread all over from Africa. Freemasonry has nothing to do with Theosophy.

A further and rather terrible development of the Turanian times must still be referred to. With the practice of sorcery many of the inhabitants had, of course, become aware of the existence of powerful elementals - creatures who had been called into being, or at least animated by their own powerful wills, which being directed towards maleficent ends, naturally produced elementals of power and malignity. So degraded had then become man's feelings of reverence and worship, that they actually began to adore these semi-conscious creations of their own malignant thought. The ritual with which these beings were worshipped was bloodstained from the very start, and of course every sacrifice offered at their shrines gave vitality and persistence to these vampire-like creations — so much so, that even to the present day in various parts of the world, the elementals formed by the powerful will of these old Atlantean sorcerers still continue to exact their tribute from unoffending village communities. W. Scott-Elliot, "Legends of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria." Note: this is pure fiction.

"And the hint came of the old name of fairies, 'the little people,' and the very probable belief that they represent a tradition of the prehistoric Turanian inhabitants of the country, who were cave dwellers: and then I realized with a shock that I was looking for a being under four feet in height, accustomed to live in darkness, possessing stone instruments, and familiar with the Mongolian cast of features!" Arthur Machen, "The Shining Pyramid" Note: this is pure fiction.

But as I idly scanned the paragraph, a flash of thought passed through me with the violence of an electric shock: what if the obscure and horrible race of the hills still survived, still remained haunting the wild places and barren hills, and now and then repeating the evil of Gothic legend, unchanged and unchangeable as the Turanian Shelta, or the Basques of Spain? Arthur Machen, "Novel of the Black Seal" in The Three Impostors; or, The Transmutations Note: this is also fiction.

Though everybody called them gipsies, they were in reality Turanian metal-workers, degenerated into wandering tinkers; their ancestors had fashioned the bronze battle-axes, and they mended pots and kettles. Arthur Machen, "The Turanians" in Ornaments of Jade Note: some of the people in Eurasia that are called Gypsies are Turanians, or mixed with Turanans or mixed with Slavic people and they live the Gypsy way of life - but the Gypsies do not have a Turanian origin themselves. Gypsies originate in India. Note also that this is pure fiction.

M. Pineau, very properly, interprets these dwarfs to mean the aboriginal Turanian race which inhabited Europe before the coming of the Aryans, and passes on, without dwelling on the subject. Arthur Machen, "Folklore and Legends of the North" Note, this is also fiction. Turanians may have populated more southerly parts of Eurasia as research into Pelasgians and Sumerians, Etruscans and even Scythians (Saka Turks) seems to now show. However, the Turanians would not be called "dwarfs" by the Indo-Europeans. If anything, they'd be called horsemen or maybe even Centaurs in myth, as the Greeks called the Pelasgians.

That these hellish vestiges of old Turanian-Asiatic magic and fertility-cults were even now wholly dead he could not for a moment suppose, and he frequently wondered how much older and how much blacker than the very worst of the muttered tales some of them might really be. H.P. Lovecraft, "The Horror at Red Hook" Since Turanians were Shamanistic either until recent times or presently (some are still Shaman), it is fair to see why a puritanical, race-conscious, Victorian person like Lovecraft would stick this into his fiction.

"They are known variously as Turanians, Picts, Mediterraneans, and Garlic Eaters. A race of small dark people, traces of their type may be found in primitive sections of Europe and Asia today, among the Basques of Spain, the Scotch of Galloway, and the Lapps." Robert E. Howard, "The Little People" Note, pure fiction and inaccurate. Mediterraneans and Picts are not Turanians. Turanians were always meat eating people that also used dairy from any milk producing animal, including the horse.

Of note, the only "small, dwarfish, dark" people that might have actually been in Europe by way of Egypt, could have been the African Pygmies. Egyptians kept some of them as pets.

Commentary

While Max Mueller finds a lot to say about Semites and Aryans (as major races he lists in Eurasia) he finds the Turanians shadowy, not much known about them. Well, consider where Turanian Tatars live. Mueller might have died trying to get there.

It is so very odd that even Max Mueller had no idea who Attila the Hun was, who Tamerlane was, who Chingis Khan was and who so many very well-known Turanians were in real history. Had he known enough to say anything about these real people, such ridiculous fiction wouldn't have been written about them by science fiction writers or religionists. It was just so well known, especially to anyone anywhere in the Middle East or China. It's hard to believe it was so unknown in the West. Didn't Max Mueller or any of these other people even hear of the Ottoman Turks? Where they that naive about the rest of the real world that they had to invent fantasy, not just in science fiction novels, but in rubbish that passed as legitimate? When thinking of a race to make "evil and horrid," couldn't they just invent a race, like Tolkien did? Did they ever once think that Turanian people might read what they wrote?

As was said, there was a huge Pan-Turanian Movement just before Lenin. Turanians, according to themselves, include not just Uralic and Altaic speakers but also include people who originated in the Ural and Altai region. Many were at one time such Uralic or Altaic speakers but no longer are (like Bulgarians who now speak a Slavic language, or Magyars). It also sometimes included anyone who was mixed with earlier settlements of a few million Turanians (such as when Avars settled in Austria and blended in with the Europeans already living in Austria).

Unfortunately, the only English language book about this is written by an Armenian (who hates Turanians - Turks - for good reasons). The book is, "United and Independent Turania - Aims and Designs of the Turks," by Zarevand, translated from the Armenian by V. N. Dadrian. It has good details on what measures Lenin took regarding the Pan-Turanian movement and what the Turks thought and wrote at the time, but literally every sentence is dripping with scathing hatred. It was a pretty big movement that Lenin had to content with. The only difference between the Pan-Turanians and the Pan Turkic movement is that the Pan Turkic wasn't as inclusive and it focused on Islam as the religion. Pan Turanians focused on the original Shamanism as their true original religion, which it was, and looked to the east, to the Altai - not south toward Mecca.

Considering some of the practices of that Shamanism, it's easy to see why the western writers would think it was magical or sorcery. See god-shamanism.html

Chinese silk painting of Kublai Khan, painted long after Kublai Khan was dead.

Actual painting of Kublai Khan with Marco Polo made when Kublai Khan was alive. Kublai is handing Marco the famous Papal document.

Actual Photograph of Turkoman Militia of the late 1800s.

Bust of Timur (Timur-i-lenk) also known as Tamerlane who was, at the time and by all, referred to as either a "Mongol" a Tatar or a Turk.

See also these informational links on other sites, one is Turkish, the other Hungarian:
Turkic History - http://www.turkicworld.org
Turanian Resource Center - http://www.hunmagyar.org/ -
http://www.hunmagyar.org/turan/turemp.html -
http://www.hunmagyar.org/turan.html
Ural-Altaic languages - http://members.tripod.com/~Yukon_2/language2.html

Also see on the relation between Pelasgian and Sumerian with Turanian

SUMERIA, AND THE TURANIAN PEOPLES INCLUDING PELASGIANS


See also these informational links on other sites:
Turkic History - http://www.turkicworld.org
Turanian Resource Center - http://www.hunmagyar.org/ - http://www.hunmagyar.org/turan/turemp.html - http://www.hunmagyar.org/turan.html
Ural-Altaic languages - http://members.tripod.com/~Yukon_2/language2.html

"When the Moon of the Turans reaches its zenith it will be vanquished by the sun of Iran." A political statement in the Shahnamah. Perhaps they spoke far too soon. Everything has a season.

See also "Serpents versus Adamites" for the Chandravansa (moon race) and the Suryavansa (sun race). See also "Western Roots One" which states that the Pelasgian people were Turanians (Ural-Altaic) using anthropological finds. This author shows this definitively in his translation of the Lemnos tablets! Turanian, Turan, is a name that many Ural-Altaic people give to themselves. During Lenin's time, the Pan-Turanian movement was quite large. Another name for this is Turko-Tatar, or Turkic. Turan or Turia was the name given to these people by the very early Zoroastrian Persians - who themselves were called Iran or Aryan. They were enemies back then. I had always wondered why Islam would use the symbol they used, the same one the Wiccans use - something that has nothing to do with Islam. I knew what it was, but I couldn't prove there was a connection.

This is not so much about the Turanian peoples, but it is about SUMERIA which has come to take a place in some Satanic thought, and about Pelasgians: Pythagoras claimed to be a Pelasgian! [It is also worth mentioning that modern Tuva, a Turanian people, call their shamanic protector spirits érénï - a cognate term for the ancient Hellenic erinnyes, which were dark "Fury" spirits that punished and pursued sinners (see "Shamanism" by Mircea Eliade, p.498)]

This is an article by an expert. We present it here for educational purposes.

All notes I put in to clarify things are enclosed in { } brackets. All other [ ] or ( ) are the author's.

(see pictures below each article)


"Search For the Origin of the Crescent and Star Motif in the Turkish Flag"

By: Polat Kaya, M. Sc. E. E. Copyright © 1997 There are illustrations on his article.

http://www.compmore.net/~tntr/crescent_stara.html

1. INTRODUCTION


The word "crescent" is associated with the moon and is used to describe the moon's shape in its early phase of the first quarter. Historically, it was a religious symbol from the earliest times. It has been used alone or together with a star or sun symbol on war standards, ancient seals, coins and monuments. According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the earliest that it has been used by the Ottoman Turks was on the standards of Turkish infantry units under Sultan Orkhan (c1326 - 1360) [EB, p.726].

The star used in the 'crescent and star' motif represented the Sun and hence the sun-god most of the times. In other times it represented the planet Venus and hence the goddess "Inanna" of Sumerians also known by the name "Ishtar" to Babylonians. {Please note that Sumeria and Babylonia are the same place - an older name for that was Ur or Uruq - and today's name for this is Iraq.} Particularly when the planet Venus makes conjunction with the moon in its crescent phase, it makes an unusual celestial crescent and star appearance that must have awed the earliest believers of astral objectes as their gods, believing that their gods were sending a message for them to understand.

In the modern literature, the crescent alone or 'the crescent and star' symbols have been associated with the Ottoman empire and after its collapse, with the successor states and the islamic world in general.

On the other hand, there are some evidences supporting the view that the roots of "crescent", "star" and the "crescent and star" symbols that Turks have used on their flags and standards for more than a thousand years in the recent past go back to Central Asia and seem to be associated with the religious and shamanistic beliefs of the ancestors of Turks. In this paper I will show some evidences that point to the existence of this link.

First of all, it is important to clarify the name "Turk" as applied to Turks and their ancestors. It seems that some writers use the word "Turk" to represent only those Central Asiatic people {i.e., Ural-Altaics, or Turanians} who became known by this name around the year 600 A.D. and their descendents who founded many empires and states in historical times up to the present. Also, some western world dictionaries define the people of present day Turkish Republic of Turkiye and all those Turks outside the borders of this limited definition as "Turkic" peoples. This rather restricted view of Turks neither covers the ancestors of Turkish peoples nor all of the Turkish peoples who are in Asia and other parts of the world. In this paper, I use the terms "Turk' and "Turkish" to mean all Turks everywhere inclusive {what some others, including me, call Turanians}. Similarly, to avoid any vagueness, where the term "Turkic" may have been used, it is equivalent to the meaning of "Turkish".

The ethnic name "Turk" as used by Turkish peoples, includes not only the above definition but also the ancestors of Turks who, although, were known with names other than the "Turk", but were Turkish themselves, were from Central Asia, spoke a form of Turkish language and appeared on the stage of history much earlier than 600 AD. Some people have called them proto-Turks, but nevertheless they were "Turks" ethnically, culturally and linguistically.

During much earlier times, as the climatic and geographic conditions changed and the population increased above sizes that the natural resources of their homelands could not support the population, some of the ancestors of the Turkish peoples moved from Central Asia to Europe as well as to other parts of Asia. Since Turks and their ancestors were a most mobile people, due to their domesticating and riding the horse and with a lifestyle of animal husbandry-based economy, they moved readily from place to place and are found in many unexpected places.

2. ALTAIC SHAMANISM

Traditionally Turks' ancestors were nature believers and nature worshippers in their homelands in Central Asia and Siberia. Through their Shamanistic and other cult beliefs, they revered astral entities and the natural forces on earth that were important for them in their daily life. In the ancient Turkish world as it is now, the word for god is "Tengri". {That is also the "Mongol" word - and the so-called "Mongols" were the same people as these Turko-Tatars, e.g., Turanians.} This word has variations in the form of "tengir", "tengere", "tangara", "tangri" and "tanri". In their religious beliefs, the sky is identified with "Tengri" and therefore the sky-god is called "Kok Tengri". {In the Mongol tongue, Koko Tengri means Blue Sky.} Tengri is considered to be the "Only God" who created every thing in the sky (universe) and on earth. In addition to this sky god, they also had other secondary gods such as the moon god "Ay Tengri", and the sun god "Kun Tengri" as their most sacred gods as part of the pantheon of Altaic shamanism.

Ancient Turkic peoples had strong beliefs in their shamanic gods and cosmic beliefs. The qaghans {same as Khakhans, Supreme Khans} of Turkish peoples believed that their qaghanship (kingship) was given to them by their gods, [IK, p.37-46]. Even some Turkish qaghans deified themselves as the representative of the Gok Tengri and other subsidiary gods on earth and used the names of these gods as part of their official titles. This belief was a tradition which had its roots in the Altaic shamanism and cosmic beliefs that lasted thousands of years in the past.

For example, we have the Tangriquts of the Huns such as: "Tumen Tangriqut" (240-210 BC), "Batur Tangriqut (210-174 BC), Kokkhan (174-161 BC), Kunkhan (161-126 BC), [TA, p. 180-185]. {Tumen means 1000; Batur means Warrior - in the "Mongol" tongue.}

Among the kings of the Uigur, we have: Etimish Bilge with title of "Tengride Bolmish El, Qutluq Bilge Qaghan, (742-747 Ad); Bayanchur with the title of "Ay Tengride Qut Bolmish, Tutmish Bilge Qaghan", (747-759 AD); another one (name unknown) with the title of "Kun Tengride Ulugh Bolmish, Kuch Kuchluk Bilge Qaghan", (821-824 AD), [TA].

About the Altaic Shamanism, M. A. Czaplicka [1, MAC, p. 30] writes the following: "The religion of the Turks who were responsible for the inscriptions found in the Yenisei and Orkhon valleys, seems to have been the same Shamanism which is still to be found in a comparatively vital state among many Turanians, especially the Altai 'Tatars' and the 'Yakuts'. If we take Shamanism as a form of animistic religion which originated in Asia, and which differs from the animistic religions of other parts of the world in its conception of the gods and in the nature of its propitiatory ceremonies, then we shall not find in any other part of Central and Northern Asia a more typical and more highly developed form of it than among these people. At the same time it must be remembered that Shamanistic conceptions underlie many of the high religious systems of the Asiatic continent."

To this view, in the opinion of this author, one can also add the view that the Sumerians were one group of Central Asiatic peoples who helped to spread the Central Asiatic cosmic beliefs and Shamanistic conceptions as the underlying foundation of the religious systems developed in Mesopotamia and the Middle East.

It is also important to mention that in the Central Asiatic culture (Turkish Turfan Textes, regarding the structure of the cosmic system), concepts of four, five, eight and ten directions were known [EE, p. 76-108]. Additionally, four colors were associated with four directions. Namely, "gok = blue" with the "East", "ak = white" with the "west", "kizil = red" with the "south" and "kara = black" with the north [EE, p. 79]. The five directions represented the four cardinal directions and the direction towards the "zenith" where the Gok Tenri resided. The number of directions and the colors associated with celestial directions were important concepts that were represented in various flags of Turkish peoples throughout the Central Asia. Such colors have been used as background colors in different flags and the number of cosmic directions have been used in defining the number of points of the star motifs that were used in the crescent and star representations.

3. MOBILE LIFESTYLE OF TURKISH PEOPLES

Due to climatic and geographic conditions of Central Asia, Turkish peoples had developed a mobile lifestyle which was best suited to their economic requirements in the steppes of Central Asia. During winters, they would live a sedentary life in "kishlak" areas, their wintering grounds where villages were made of "yurts", i.e., tents that were made of felts and during summers, they would go to "yaylak", i.e., the higher grounds where they would find cooler and agreeable weather conditions as well as good grazing grounds for their animal herds. They had to be able to move fast from place to place and for that reason they had to be light in most of their belongings. Even the representations of their sacred gods had to be on light carryable objects. Their flags, standards, shields, tents, carpets, cloths, wood carvings, and even their shamanic costumes and drums were used as medium for such purposes.

Flags and standards were sacred objects to the Turkish peoples since these emblems represented their gods, kings, people and homelands in Central Asia or in their new homelands. For example, in Oguz Epic writings, Oguz Qaghan declares: "Sun is standard and sky is royal tent", [IK, p. 136]. In this declaration there is the link between Turkish flag and the Sun as a star in the heavens and as the sun-god of shamanism. Therefore, these standards and flags required utmost respect and dignity by Turkish peoples at all times.

In war times, Turkish peoples' flags and war standards would not only reveal their identity to the opposing sides, but would also bring along the representations of their gods to give them courage and moral help needed in their struggle with their enemies. One unfortunate aspect of this kind of medium, from the point of view of modern man, was that these objects were easily destroyed in time by environmental conditions. Hence, they could not be historical message carriers from past into the present. Additionally, the history of ancient Turkish peoples most often was relayed into the future in a more oral form than written. Anything written on heavy durable media could not be readily transported from place to place. It was simply not practical.

4. TRACING THE ORIGIN OF CRESCENT AND STAR SYMBOLS

The origin of the "crescent", "star" or the "crescent and star" symbols used in the Turkish flag does not start with the Ottoman Turks, but it seems that it goes back to the Shamanistic culture that the ancient Central Asiatic peoples, including the ancestors of all Turkish peoples, had developed during pre-historic times.

First of all, let us examine the recent times. We have:

4A. Flags of Some Turkish Empires And Other Artifacts of the Recent Past.

a) The flag of the Turkic White Hun Empire (420-552 AD) had three five-pointed gold stars on a white background, [NE];

b) The flag of the Turkic Khazar Empire (602-1016 AD ) had five five-pointed white stars on a blue background, [NE];

Not a flag but an archeological artifact found in Vorobyevo in Russia and attributed to Khazars has a sun disk with 10 triangular rays emanating from it. On the face of this sun disk, there is a crescent with light rays to its right.', [BO, p. 235].

c) The flag of the Turkish Gazneli Empire (962-1183 AD) had a crescent and a peacock on a green background, [NE];

d) Many monuments of the The Great Seljuk Empire (1040-1157 AD) and the Seljuks of Rum (1077-1308 AD) [TTR] had 'crescent and star" on them, [TTR, plates: 5, 40, 55, 79]. {The Seljuks were the same as the Salji'uk tribe later known to Jenghis Khan.}

A selection of Seljuk coins had five, six and eight-pointed stars on them, [TTR, plate 79 and p. 271].

Additionally, a crescent embracing a sun disk with eight rays emanating from the disk is shown on the top right hand corner of an arch door used in an Seljuk hospital (about 1217 D) in Sivas belonging to the Seljuks of Rum period, [FK, p. 47-47].

e) The flag of the Golden Horde Empire (1224-1502 AD) had a red crescent together with a "white balance figure on a black disk" all of which on a white background, [NE];

{Batu Khan, the leader of the Golden Horde, was the grandson of Jenghis Khan, from his first son Jochi. These people are known to "Western Scholars" as "Mongols." They are wholly unrelated to the Chinese peoples and the name is a misnomer.}

f) The flag of the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922 AD) had a "crescent with an eight-pointed star" on a red background, [NE]. Initially the crescent symbol alone has been used on the Ottoman flags, standards, on the very tops of mosques and many other monuments throughout the Ottoman Empire. We have the following from Tamara Talbot Rice which states: ".... It was with real pleasure, therefore, that the young sovereign watched Osman, son of Tugrul, who had succeeded to the chieftainship of the Osmanli tribe, harass the Byzantines, in 1281 extending his fief at their expense. Keyhusrev marked the occasion by investing him with the title of Uc Beg, meaning Protector of the Border, giving him the drum and the horse-hair standard consisting of a red pennant with a white crescent upon it which accompanied the title; ....", [TTR, p. 80];

In the case of the Ottoman flag, as seen in this description, the origin of the Ottoman flag's red colour and the crescent on it probably starts with this event where Giyaseddin Keyhusrev III son of Kilicarslan IV, the Ruler of the Seljuks of Rum grants an emblem to the new Turkish Uc Beg Osman in appreciation of his services; and,

g) Finally the flag of the Turkish Republic of Turkiye has the white "crescent and a five-pointed star" on a red background. It should also be mentioned that presently all the other Turkish Republics have variations of crescent, star and crescent and star configurations on their flags.

h) In addition to all these given above, five, six and particularly the eight-pointed stars and its many variations have been used by the Turkish peoples as decorating motifs on carpets throughout the Turkish world.

i) One should also note that there are many cemetaries in Central Asia where the tombs are made in the style of Turkish yurts at the top of which an emblem in the form of a crescent or a crescent and star shape is attached to the very top of the yurt-shaped tomb [ND, Figures 10 to 17]. Nejat Diyarbekirli indicates in his article that this was a custom followed by Turks over a long period of time.

4B. Clan Crests of Turkic Peoples

Another place where we could search for the earlier traces of crescent and star symbol is the 'clan crests' of the Turkic peoples, known as 'tamgas' [HNO, p. 962]. Among some of the Turkish clan-crests inscribed on rocks in Central Asia, are the 'crescent and star' symbols which use a curved line for the crescent and a dot or a disk for the star. Additionally there is the sun symbol in the form of a disk with eight rays. These are some of the known ancient crescent and star symbols not as elaborately done as the ones found in elsewhere such as Mesopotamia, nevertheless, they are definitely 'crescent and star' symbols probably representing Shamanistic celestial gods of Turkish peoples.

4C. Shamanism of Central Asia and North America

The ancestors of the Native Peoples of Americas are known to have migrated from Central Asia and Siberia to their new homelands in the Americas. Like the ancestors of Turks, they also have shamanistic beliefs. This is another area in which one can search for the representations of shamanistic sky, moon and sun gods. Since the Native peoples of the Americas have migrated from Asia to these continents, it is likely that we may find representations of these astral deities being the same or similar to those found in Central Asia. In searching their culture, we find, for example, the following shamanistic representations:

a) An Altaic shaman's map of his visionary journey to the god "Ulgen" is shown in a figure by Joseph Campbell, [JC, p.158, Fig. 276]. In this figure, the shaman's journey starts from his tent and goes via a world (cosmic) tree, then ascends toward the god Ulgen which is shown at the very top of the ascending path. The god Ulgen is represented in the form of a man radiating light all over like the sun.

b) In another figure, "A Chukchi map of the heavenly ways" is shown by Joseph Campbell, [JC, p.158, Fig. 277]. In this map, a sun, a crescent moon, Pole star together with other stars and the Milkyway are illustrated.

c) In the words of Joseph Campbell, we have: 'a colorful yarn painting of the shamanisic visionary journey is given as a New World counterpart to that of the Central Asian Altaic shaman', [JC, p. 159, Fig. 280]. This painting which belongs to the Shamans of the Huichol Indian tribe of Nayarit in western Mexico shows a crescent and a five pointed white star which is attached to one tip of the crescent. There are four wavy rays emanating from the star and also four wavy rays to the left of the star are the "fiery curtain of solar rays through which the shaman had to pass". The path of the shaman's ascent is indicated by footsteps shown on a crescent. This painting is by Ramon Medina.

According to the description given by Joseph Campbell: "this painting by Ramon Medina is of a journey inspired by a supernatural summons to bring back to earth, in the form of a rock crystal, the soul of an ancestral shaman wishing to return. The star is the rock crystal to be found. This visionary journey of a shaman from Mexico obviously resembles that of the shaman from Central Asia (276), even to the detail of the tree, which appears in the Altaic map at the start of the shaman's flight into space, and here in the Huichol painting at the center of the composition."

d) In the words of Mircea Eliade, we have: "The designs ornamenting the skin of the drums are characteristic of all the Tatar tribes and Lapps. Among the designs, are always the most important symbols, as, for example the World Tree, the sun and moon, the rainbow and others. In short, the drums constitute a microcosm: a boundary line separates sky from the earth, and in some places, earth from the underworld", [ME, p. 172].

e) To support this description of a shaman's drum, we have a picture of Lapp drumhead from northern Sweden, c. 1800, [JC, p.176, Fig. 306]. The drum's skin is divided into three segments by two horizontal lines. It is described by Joseph Campbell: "In the Upper World: the sun and moon (or, perhaps the sun setting and rising) are seen along with heavenly beings and their tent. In the middle (left to right): the Mistress of the Beasts sends animals to be hunted; a hunter shoots a reindeer; and a shaman, riding upward in a sleigh drawn by a reindeer, is followed by a dog. In the Lower world: three goddesses suggesting the Norns are pictured."

f) Again we have from Joseph Campbell's book the picture of the Yakut (Karagasy) shaman Tulayev, of Irkutsk, wearing his reindeer-leather swan costume. "On his cap of green cloth is sewn a wolf's muzzle with the moon above and stars on each side. ....", [JC, p. 177, Fig. 307].

g) Four buckskin tipi models, collected from the Cheyenne (Native Peoples) in 1904, are shown by N. Bancroft-Hunt and W. Forman [NBHWF, p. 106-107]. These tipi models show the types of sacred images applied to Medicine tipis. One of them, entitled as "Shining Bell's tipi" bears the images of Sun, Moon and Star and the sacred Eagle that carried prayers from Earth to the Sky, [NBHWF, p. 107].

On this tipi, the sacred images of Sun, Moon and a star are vertically arranged on the side of the tipi. Shown are a four- pointed star at the top, a crescent moon in the middle and a sun disk at the bottom. In this illustration of the shamanistic beliefs of astral gods by Cheyenne Indians, we again observe the crescent and star motif.

h) In a book entitled, "Myths of the World Gods of the Maya, Aztecs, and Incas" by Timothy R. Roberts, MetroBooks, 1996, [TRR, p. 56], there is shown an Aztec headdress, which is said to be the only surviving example of Aztec feather work and is made of hundreds of quetzal feathers, is adorned with many golden or gold colored crescents and sun disks. This headdress is presently in the Museum fuer Voelkerhunde, Vienna, Austria. In the same book, twelve major Aztec gods are depicted by pictures [TRR, p. 58-59], one of which (#6) has a sun symbol where between the rays showing the four directions, there the three-pointed sun rays between four directions. Similarly, on the Aztec god represented in this (#7), there is the eight-pointed star symbol. So, it is seen that these sun, crescent and eight-pointed star symbols are all associated with Shamanic religious concepts.

i) In the same book by Timothy R. Roberts, [TRR, p. 90], there is the picture which depicts "Coya Mama, the wife of Manco Capac, the last Inca ruler". In this picture, Coya Mama is holding a mirror reflecting the sun and the mirror represents her husband as the descendent of the sun. This is a Shamanistic concept. Additionally, Coya Mama has a white robe over her shoulder. On the right shoulder, there is a "an eight-pointed star embraced by a crescent symbol.

In all of these examples of shamanic beliefs, both in Altaic Shamanism and the Shamanism of North America, the sacred representation of sky, moon, sun, star or Venus are illustrated on shaman's maps, tipis, drums and costumes. The crescent and star motif seems to be a prominent motif among the sacred representations. Additionally, in all of these cases, the North American Shamanism and the Altaic shamanism seems to point to a common origin in Central Asia. Since the ancestors of the Native Peoples of Americas have migrated from Central Asia and Siberia to the Americas, finding this common origin among them is quite natural and expected.

4D. Sumerian Religious Artifacts

The ancestors of Turks, being a very mobile people, have moved into and settled in many new lands out of the boundaries of Central Asia. In tracing the origin of the crescent and star motif on the Turkish flag, we may also examine the cultures of some of these outside settlements. Particularly in areas where conditions were conducive for the Central Asiatic peoples to move in and establish a new sedentary lifestyle rather than carrying on with the nomadic mobile lifestyle. In Mesopotamia, Sumerians and Elams fulfill this requirement very well. Now we look for the relation between the Sumerian and Turkish peoples.

5. SUMERIAN AND URAL-ALTAIC KINSHIP

The Ural-Altaic languages are related to the Sumerian language. According to Hymes list of 100 common root words of Ural-Altaic and Sumerian languages used as tests for comparing these languages, any language that has 47% of the root words given in the list can be considered a direct descendant of the Sumerian language, [FH]. This test takes into account the fact that Sumerian and the present day Ural-Altaic languages are separated from each other in time by a duration of five thousand years. Turkish and Hungarian passes this test with results far better than 50% and hence can be considered as direct descendants of Sumerian. In view of the Hymes test, the proto-Ural-Altaic language and Sumerian must have been one and the same. {This is referring to the people living in Sumeria long prior to the Semitic speakers who wrote the Epic of Gilgamesh.}

For these comparisons, the reader is suggested to visit Fred Hamori's web page on Internet [FH]. Reader are also invited to visit my 200-words Hymes list, conceptually grouped Sumerian and Turkish comparisons, in this home page.

It should also be noted here that even the language of Elams was an agglutinative language like that of the Sumerians and Turks.

6. SUMERIANS ARE NOT INDIGENEOUS PEOPLE TO MESOPOTAMIA

It is well acknowledged that the Sumerians are not indigeneous people to Mesopotamia. In view of the existing close kinship of Sumerian and the Ural-Altaic languages and additionally many cultural evidences showing direct kinship between the Sumerians and the Central Asiatic peoples, it can be said that in order for this affinity to exists, the ancestors of the present day Altaic peoples (such as Turks and Hungarians) and those of the Sumerians must have been in direct contact with each other before Sumerians migrated into Mesopotamia. In other words, the Sumerians must have been a Central Asiatic people and must have been speaking the same or a dialect of a proto-Ural-Altaic language that Ural-Altaic peoples spoke then. That proto-Ural-Altaic language must have been either the same as the Sumerian or a version of the Sumerian language that the linguists have been able to read from thousands of Sumerian tablets. The very fact that the present day Turkish and Hungarian are Sumerian-like languages, is a strong indication that the speakers of these languages are the descendants of an Ural-Altaic people who must have been members of a group that the Sumerians were also a member.

A plausible area for the original homeland of Sumerians may be the part of Central Asia which is bounded between southern tips of Ural mountains in the north, the Caspian Sea in the south, Irtish river at the east and Idil (Volga) river at the west. Only in this area, as a most likely original homebase for Sumerians, they could have had close contact with all Ural-Altaic peoples linguistically and culturally. {Oral history claims they came from Meru - which is centered in the Gobi area and extending far out. Su means south. Sumeru would be South of Meru.}

In view of these considerations, it is expected that within such a common background, in addition to linguistic kinship, it is highly probable that one could also find the traces of other cultural kinships, such as the use of crescent, star or crescent and star motifs as emblems, between Central Asiatic cultures and the Sumerian culture. In this context we may find in the Sumerian culture, particularly in the religious culture, traces of their Central Asiatic cultural heritage which could have been continued for long periods of time as tradition by those Central Asiatic peoples who were left behind.

7. SUMERIAN RELIGION

The Sumerian word for "god" is "dingir" and it is represented with an eight-pointed star symbol in the Sumerian cuneiform writing system. The word for "god" in the languages of Turks has the forms of "tengir", "tengere", "tangara", "tengri" and "tanri". Evidently, not only these Sumerian and the Turkish words are related to each other but also must come from the same cultural source.

The Sumerians worshipped a large number of specialized deities, as part of their religious beliefs. Among them, the four most important were the heaven-god "An", the air-god "Enlil", the water-god "Enki", and the great mother goddess, "Ninhursag", [SNK, p. 118]. In addition to these four leading deities, there were three important astral deities: the moon-god, "Nanna", the sun-god Utu and Nanna's daughter, the goddess Inanna, known also as Ishtar to other ancient peoples of Mesopotamia, [SNK, p. 122].

Ancient Turks are also known to believe the sky (heaven) god "Tengri", the astral deities such as the moon-god "Ay Tengri", the sun-god "Kun Tengri", the natural forces such as the wind "Yil", the mountains, thunder storms, etc.

Initially the heaven-god An was conceived by the Sumerians as the supreme ruler of the pantheon and later Enlil, the air-god seems to have taken his place as the leader of the pantheon.

It is seen that the Sumerians had similar beliefs in the Astral entities, such as the Sky, Moon and Sun, as did the ancestors of Altaic peoples through their Altaic Shamanism. Additionally, some Sumerian kings even deified themselves [SNK, p. 328; 5, p. 113] since they considered that their kingship had descended for them from heaven. Like the Sumerians, the Turkish qaghans (rulers) also believed that they were the representatives of Tengri on earth and their qaganship were given them by Tengri. These were all Shamanistic religious values of ancient Central Asiatic peoples.

8. SOME OF THE EARLIEST CRESCENT AND STAR SYMBOLS

From my own research, I have found the following information that verify the point that the crescent and star motifs are related to Shamanistic beliefs. References given at the end of this paper provide additional useful information.

a) Sumerians have used the "crescent and star" motif in some of their monuments and/or documents that have been discovered so far. One of the earliest known crescent and star representation is shown on the Sumerian Ur-Nammu stele which is said to be commissioned about 2100 B.C. [SNK, illustration after p. 64; JLH p. 43 and DJH p. 107]. Ur-Nammu is the Sumerian King of Ur (2113 - 2096 B.C.), [HS p.150] and the founder of the Third Dynasty of Ur, [SNK, p. 83]. On the top panel of the Ur-Nammu stele and on the very top of the monument is shown a crescent moon embracing a twelve-pointed star. This crescent and star combination was the religious representation of their gods, in this case the Moon and the Sun. To show their due respect to these gods, the representation was placed above everything else. Ur-Nammu and a seated goddess are portrayed just below the crescent and twelve-pointed star symbol on the stele.

b) On page 25 of the Referece by Fevzi Kurtoglu, [FK], four Sumerian seals are shown. On two of them, a crescent embraces an eight-pointed star, on a third one, a crescent embraces a six-pointed star. On a fourth one, there is a crescent moon and an eight-pointed star which is on the righthand side of the crescent. On p. 28 of Ref. FK, we also have the picture of another Sumerian seal having a crescent and star symbol on it.

c) Ref. FK, also mentions as the earliest "crescent" symbol with a cross inside it found in the Elamian city of Susa belonging to Elams. Elams having a language similar to that of the Sumerians are also considered as people who have come from Central Asia, to Mesopotamia [FK, p. 23]. Also referenced [FK, p. 27] is a crescent and star symbol found on an Elam monument found in Susa and said to be belonging to King Sonnegatt (2220 B.C.). Ref. FK provides additional references for these citings. {Actually, the Elamite people were discovered to be Dravidians - Cavalli-Sforza notes this in his "Great Human Diasporas," page 177.}

d) On p. 25 of Ref FK, we have two seals which carry the impression of a crescent and an eight-pointed star side by side which is attributed to Hittites.

e) Finally on the same page, the very last seal impression shows two thin crescents, each embracing a star or sun in the form of a dot [7] left from Assrians.

Hittite seals had crescent and star symbols. Some of them have eight sets of crescent and star symbols, four on either side of the main logo of the seal, [[FK, p,41]. Some Hittite sun disks made of cupper and bronze have eight-pointed star symbols arranged in various fashions.

f) Again in the same reference, there is reference to Parthian steles and coins carrying crescent and eight-pointed star configurations, one of which is shown on page 28 [FK] where a crescent embraces an eight-pointed star.

g) A Babylonian cylinder-seal impression, Agade Dynasty, ruling a mixture of Sumerians and Akkadians, circa 2350 B. C. shows a crescent alone [HS plate 46].

h) A silver disk, with a crescent and star motif, is found from Afghanistan left from Alexander the Great's time, (about 330 - 325 B.C.), [AP, p. 47]. The caption describing this disc is as follows: "This silver disk, from remote Afghanistan, shows how Greek and non-Greek ideas were blended. On the left in Greek dress is the goddess Kybele. A figure in eastern dress shelters her with a parasol. Also eastern are the sun god in the sky and the priest at a fire-altar."

In this description, the "crescent and star" motif to the right of the Eastern "Sun god" is not described. In this configuration of the crescent and star, the crescent is faced to the right and to its right is a "Makedonian" star {Macedonian}. Here the eastern star (probably "eight pointed", is replaced by the Makedonian "sixteen pointed star". This replacement of eastern star with the Makedonian star must be a representation of Alexander's conquering of the east. The northernmost part of Afghanistan that Alexander the Great conquered is also known as Turkistan. At the time Alexander's armies conquered this area, about 325 B.C., there were Bactrians, Sogdians who were ethnically Iranian peoples and also the Saka peoples who spoke a form of Turkish.

i) Central Asiatic Parthians ruling an empire in Iran seems to have used the "crescent and eight-pointed star" motif while the Sassanian Kings of Iran used crescent with a sun disk without the rays. Parthians were Central Asiatic people who ruled in Persia from about 200 B. C. until Sassanian period, for about five hundred years.

At this point it may be useful to quote the following from Tamara Talbot Rice, [TTR, p.168-170]: "In the Seljukid age many ancient shapes continued to retain their symbolic significance largely because they still figured in astrology, and this probably helps to explain the frequency with which they occure in the art of the period. Stars with from five to twelve points constantly appear, figuring even on the coins, where they may have represented Venus. In astrology Venus personified goodness and renewed life. When combined with crescent they may have signified Venus' meeting with the moon. On the other hand, certain passages in the Shahnamah suggest that representation of the sun and moon had a political rather than magical meaning, for Kay Khusraw, whose violet banner displayed both orbs, remarked that he had heard 'the Mobeds say that when the Moon of the Turans [the Turks] reaches its zenith it will be vanquished by the sun of Iran".

This ancient statement associates Turks of Turan with the moon of which the crescent is one form of it.

j) Central Asiatic Kushans (78 - 144 AD) used crescent and sun symbol in their golden jewelries worn by their women. Archaeological findings from Tillya Tepe ("tepe" is a Turkish word meaning "hill", "small mountain", "mound"), near Amu Derya (Oxus) River in Northern Afganistan show crescent and sun disk where crescent embraces the sun, made in the form of a gold hair pendant. One of these pendants is worn with a collapsible crown while the other two are used with head garments worn by Kushan ladies, [VIS, p. 50 and 64-65].

k) A stele described by Bradley Schaefer (BSc) in his article [BSc] as: "Mesopotamia's star and crescent: the symbol of the moon god (Sin) who was worshipped in the cities of Ur and Haran". On this stele are shown, a crescent moon flanked by an eight-pointed star on the left and an eight-pointed sun on the right.

l) Parthian coins (Parthians, a Central Asiatic steppe people, ruled the Persian Empire for about 475 years, {about 250 BC - 225 AD)} belonging to Mithradates II, Pharnaces I and Mithradates Eupator (240-120 B. C.) showing crescent and eight-pointed star, are given in Ref. 7, p. 32 and Ref. BSc, p. 48.

m) Moon embracing a sun disk is shown with Egyptian god Iah's image carved in 600 B. C., [BSc, p. 49].

n) In Reference by Bradley Schaefer, [BSc], the author also states that: "The earliest example of the star and crescent appearing on any coin that I have located dates from 477 BC, from the Aegean island Melos. Numerous other examples can be found in subsequent decades from Thracian city of Aenus." Bradley Schaefer also makes reference to coins found from Romania dated 200 B.C., and Etruscan coins from 3rd century BC [BSc].

From the point of view of Turkish history this is very interesting, because during the time period between 1200 BC. to 100 BC., there were Central Asiatic Turkish speaking Saka peoples living in Eurasia. There seems to be evidences that some of these Turkish speaking peoples even lived in some of the Aegean islands during 600 B.C. and earlier, [PK]. Some of these coins having crescent and star motif and being found in Thracia and Romania and even in Greece itself may have been left by the Turkish peoples living in western end of Eurasia (please see my Reading of the Lemnos Island inscription).

o) Bradley Schaefer [BSc] also mentions finding coins from Yemen that date from 100 B.C., from Libya dated from AD 23 and from Turkey and Greece in all ages and all show the star and crescent symbol.

So we have samples of the Crescent alone, star of different configurations alone and "crescent and star" symbols belonging to Sumerians, Elams, Babylonians and other cultures of Mesopotamia and many other cultures of different areas including the Shamanistic cultures of Central Asia and the Americas. These symbols seem to represent the shamanistic beliefs of all of these peoples. Sumerians being very close relatives of the Ural-Altaic peoples, particularly the Turks and Hungarians, it is very likely that the shamanist ancestors of the Turkish peoples also used the crescent moon and star representations in their cultures. As archeological reseach in Central Asia increases, (such research in Central Asia as compared to other parts of the world has been so far insignificant), additional crescent and star symbols, belonging to the local cultures of Central Asiatic peoples among whom the ancestors of Turks had a big say, are bound to surface.

9. SUMMARY

1. The historical and archeological evidence points to Central Asia and to Central Asiatic Shamanism, through religious beliefs of Sumerians and the shamanism among the Native Peoples of Americas, as being the origin of the crescent and star symbol.

2. The historical and archeological evidence also show that the origin of the crescent and star symbol is religious and it represents celestial gods/goddesses particularly those representing the Sky, Moon, Sun and Venus.

3. Ancestors of Turks had a Shamanistic religion and believed in gods representing the Sky, Moon and Sun, like the Sumerians. For the Sumerians, the Turkish peoples and some of the Native Peoples of Americas, the tradition of believing and worshipping these gods must have been the continuation af an ancient Central Asiatic traditon having its roots in Central Asiatic shamanism. A tradition that was also carried to Mesopotamia and to Americas from Central Asia.

4. It is undeniable that the proto-Ural-Altaic language spoken by the ancestors of Turks and Hungarians must have been the same as the Sumerian language or a form of it. Hence, the ancestos of Turks having the same linguistic and religious cultural background as the Sumerians, and the Sumerians having attested forms of the crescent and star symbols representing their religious beliefs, it is highly probable that these symbols were also religious symbols representing the ancient gods of shamanistic beliefs of the Central Asiatic peoples. This is evidenced by their shamanic cultural representations on objects like shamanic drums and costumes.

5. The ancestors of Turkish people had the crescent and star symbol and the sun disk with eight pointed rays among their clan-crests engraved on rocks in Central Asia. Additionally, the crescent and the crescent and star symbols are also found as emblems on grave yard stones and constructions.

6. Turkish peoples of Central Asia along with some other known Central Asiatic peoples have used the crescent, star or the crescent and star symbols on their flags, war standards, rugs, tents, coins, jewelries, etc. in relatively recent times, i.e., about the last two thousand five hundred years. The usage of these symbols by Central Asiatic peoples, such as Parthians, Kushans, Gaznevi Turks, Khazars, Seljuks, Ottomans and the present day Turkish Republics, must be the continuation of an unwritten but ancient Central Asiatic tradition.

7. The crescent moon embracing an eight-pointed star motif seems to be the most frequently used religious symbol. It is used not only by Sumerians but also by many other Middle Eastern peoples whose culture have been influenced by Sumerians in every respect.

8. Among the users of this symbol are the Central Asiatic Turkish peoples whose language and religious culture had a common background with those of Sumerians.

9. As time progressed toward the present, the crescent and star symbol was adapted and used by some European cultures also.

10. REFERENCES

AP ..... Anton Powell, "Ancient Greece, Facts On File", Inc., New York, 1989

BO ..... Prof. Dr. Bahaeddin Ogel, "Islamiyetten once Turk Kultur Tarihi (Orta Asya kaynak ve buluntularina gore),

..........Turk Tarih Kurumu Basimevi, Ankara, 1991.

BSc .... Bradley Schaefer, "Heavenly Signs", New Scientist, 21/28 December 1991, p.48.

DJH .... Dora Jane Hamblin, "The First Cities", Time-Life Books, New York, 1973.

EB. .... Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1963, Volume 6, p. 726.

EE ..... Emel Esin, "Buke: The Cosmic Significance of the Dragon in Early Turkish Iconography", Cultura Turcica, Vol. .......... V-VII, 1968-1970, Ankara.

FH ..... Fred Hamori, {[http://www2.4dcomm.com/millenia/], choose "Languages' then "100 word Hymes list";

..........or visit directly "Hymes List of 100 common root word", (http://soleil.4dcomm.com/millenia/hymes.htm)}.

FK ..... Fevzi Kurtoglu, "Turk Bayragi ve Ay Yildiz", Turk Tarih Kurumu Yayinlari, Ankara, 1992.

HNO ... Huseyin Namik Orkun, "Eski Turk Yazitlari", Turk Dil Kurumu Yayinlari: 529, Ankara, 1987.

HS ..... H. W. F. Saggs, "Everyday Life in Babylonia and Assyria", B. T. Batsford Ltd London, G. P. Putnam's

..........Sons, New York, 1965.

IK ..... Prof. Dr. Ibrahim Kafesoglu, "Turk Bozkir Kulturu", Turk Kulturunu Arastirma Enstitusu, Ankara, 1987.

JC ..... Joseph Campbell, "Historical Atlas of world mythology Vol. I, Part 2: Mythologies of the great hunt",

..........Perennial Library, Harper & Row, Pyblishers, New York, 1988.

JLH ... John L. Hayes, "A Manual of Sumerian Grammar and Texts", Undena Publications, Malibu, 1990.

MAC ... M. A. Czaplicka, "The Turks of Central Asia in History and at the Present Day", London: Curzon Press;

..........New York: Barnes & Noble Books, 1973.

ME ..... Mircea Eliade, "Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy", Bollingen Series LXXVI,

..........Princeton University Press, 1964.

NE ..... Necdet Evliyagil, "Turkiye", published on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the

..........Turkish Republic, Ajans- Turk, Ankara, 1973.

NBHWF .. Norman Bancroft-Hunt and Werner Forman, "The Indians of the Great Plains",

..........Orbis Publishing, London, 1981.

ND ..... Nejat Diyarbekirli, "Turkler'de Mezar Yapisi ve Defin Merasimleri", Turk Kulturunu Arastirma Enstitusu,

.......... Prof. Dr. Muharrem Ergin'e Armagan, Yil XXVIII/1-2, Ankara, 1990.

PK ..... Polat Kaya, "A study of the Lemnos Island Inscription: (a preliminary report)", Ottawa, 1997,

........... (ISBN 0-9696949-3-8).

SNK ... Samuel Noah Kramer, "The Sumerians", The University of Chicago Press, Chicago

.......... and London, 1963.

TA ..... Turghun Almas, "Uygurlar (The Uigurs)", vol. 1. Almati, Kazakistan, 1992.

TRR ..... Timothy R. Roberts, "Myths of the World, Gods of the Maya, Aztecs, and Incas",

............ MetroBooks, New York 1996,

TTR ... Tamara Talbot Rice, "The Seljuks", Thames and Hudson London, 1961. VIS Viktor

.......... Ivanovich Sarianidi, "The Golden Horde of Bactria", National Geographic Magazine,

.......... vol. 177, No. 3, March 1990

Also: http://www.compmore.net/~tntr/lemstelea.html

READING OF THE LEMNOS ISLAND INSCRIPTION

(A preliminary report)

By POLAT KAYA, M. Sc. E. E. Copyright © 1997

http://www.google.com/search?q=READING+OF+THE+LEMNOS+ISLAND+INSCRIPTION&btnG=Google+Search&hl=en

There are many graphics to go with this article on this website given here. Figure 2 is reproduced below:

1. INTRODUCTION

A stele, an upright gravestone with inscription and sculpture erected at the grave of a deceased person, was found in 1885 at Kaminia on the island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea. This stele which is dated as having been made in the 6th century B.C., is now in the National Museum in Athens, Greece. A diagram of this stele and its inscription is given in References 1 and 2, [1, p. 51; 2, p. 39]. For the purposes of this study, it is also shown in Figure 1 of this paper. The inscription on this tomb-stone is written in an alphabet similar to some of the alphabets, such as the Chalcidian alphabet [1, p. 44], used at that time in the Hellenic world covering Greece, western parts of Asia minor and the islands in the Aegean Sea. Scholars believe that the language of the inscription on this stele is akin to that of Etruscan (Rasna) Language. The Etruscan language is not known to be an Indo-European language and neither is the language of the inscription written on the Stele from Lemnos. Scholars have not been able to identify the nature of these two languages with any of the known languages so far.

According to Herodotus, the pre-Greek population of the Lemnos island was Pelasgian, a non Indo-European people, and according to Thucydides they were Tyrrhenian {pronounce that: like Turanian!} [2, p. 38] which makes them kin to Etruscans. The Etruscan people who lived and ruled in the northern and central Italy (Etruria) between about 1000 B.C. and 100 B.C. created a very prominent culture from which the culture of the Roman Empire has heavily borrowed.

The inscription on the tomb-stone has 198 letters forming 40 words. In general, the words of the inscription are separated from each other by two dots and occasionally with one or three dots aligned vertically. However, some very long words seem to be combination of multiple words although they are not marked with separation dots.

H. H. Scullard describes the tomb-stone as follows [2, p.38]: "........ the tomb-stone (stele) of a warrior was discovered in 1885, not dissimilar from that of Avele Feluske of Vetulonia in Etruria (cf. Figs. 1 and 2 and p. 223). It not only shows his head in profile, but also bears two inscriptions in an alphabet which closely resembles that of old Phrygian inscriptions of the seventh century. The language has some analogies with the tongues of Asia Minor, but philologists are in general agreement that both in its morphology and vocabulary it has many similarities with Etruscan. When this document stood alone, it might have been dismissed as the epitaph of a foreigner who was buried in Lemnos, but more recently other short inscriptions have been found on vases, and these show that this was in fact the language spoken on the island before its conquest by the Athenian Miltiades (c. 500 BC). Thus we have a very important document, pointing both to Asia Minor and to Etruria, and it comes from the very island where Thucydides placed the Tyrhenoi. Though it does not afford conclusive proof that 'Lemnian' and Etruscan were the same, or even dialects of the same language, it provides a valuable link for those who accept an eastern origin and suggests that some Etruscans from Asia Minor may have settled in this Aegean island instead of continuing further west. Those who reject an eastern origin have to explain away the similarities of language as due to survival from a hypothetical widespread pre-Indo-European linguistic unit which once occupied a vast area in Italy and the Aegean until it was broken up by the advance of Indo-Europeans: in Italy it was confined to Etruria, while in the Aegean, relics of it were left in Lemnos."

In this study, I have analyzed the inscription on the stele from Lemnos from an Asiatic point of view. I took this approach because during historic times, Eurasia and many parts of the Eastern Europe all the way to the Balkan Peninsula have been inhabited by Central Asiatic peoples at some time or another. In most cases, they are known to be the Turkic peoples from Central Asia who spoke an archaic Turkic language. There is no reason that the very same land masses should not have been similarly inhabited by the Central Asiatic peoples during the pre-historic times. In fact, it is highly probable that the pre-historic people of Europe were more Central Asiatic in origin than the Indo-European speaking Mediterranean people. After studying the Lemnos inscription, I am convinced by my findings that the language in which this inscription was written is indeed related to Turkic languages. My analyses regarding the reading of the inscription are given below.

 
Unfortunately, as you can see, the limit of this research is still the 5000 years one. TIMEWALL is there.
So, please, reconsider history, and try to understand that if they spoke about what really happened in the past, nowadays things to which we give a great importance would easily fade.
This is simply the reason why they do not want us to know. If we had a chance to find out and see what really happened, we could be able to place in a proper context what we know.

                            Read what we just found in the Genome.

Human palaeontology, the study of ancient remains, suggests that the species Homo sapiens originated in Africa, probably East Africa, about 200,000 years ago, but it was only about 60,000 years ago that anatomically modern humans began their long and arduous journey out of Africa.

In recent years, with the ability to decode the human genome quickly and cheaply, it has been possible to compare the palaentological record with historical information on human movements stored within our DNA.

Over time, human DNA has amassed a bewildering variety of mutations that scientists can now exploit to build a picture of how men and women today are descended from the first people who moved along these ancient migratory routes.

One of the first big surprises of the Genographic Project, for instance, is the discovery that the initial journey out of Africa may not have been through the "northern route" of the Sinai Peninsula and Middle East, as initially proposed. Instead, they seem to have moved out of Africa by a "southern route" at the Bab-el-Mandeb straits at the mouth of the Red Sea separating East Africa from southern Arabia.

This migration may have required boats to traverse the shallow waters that would have existed there 60,000 years ago. But even with this apparent physical obstacle, scientists believe that the DNA analysis of the female X chromosome of present-day humans suggests it is still the most likely route taken out of Africa. "This was really the first study that had used that kind of genetic information to look at global patterns of human variability," said Spencer Wells, director of the Genographic Project and explorer-in-residence at National Geographic, one of the project's sponsors.

"What it confirmed was that the earliest migration out of Africa, and probably the major migration, had gone out through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait to India. There could have been subsequent migrations out via the Middle East but certainly the majority of people trace back to that original migration event, and we're still tracing out the details of exactly what happened."

The DNA evidence shows clearly and unequivocally that Africa was the homeland of anatomically modern humans, neat, independent confirmation of the palaeontology. The genetic variation within people living in Africa, which is related to the length of time spent on the continent, is greater than all the variation in the rest of the world put together. "We see more variation in Africa than in any other group so that tells us we've been accumulating variation for longer than in any other group," Dr Wells added.

"Outside of Africa, we see more variation in India than anywhere else which tells use we've been living in India for longer than any other place outside Africa. The question is, how many waves of migration out of Africa were there, and what were the timings of those events?"

The information being gathered by the Genographic Project is starting to put dates to the key crossroads in the greatest journey of human history.

In the name of God!!! This is far beyond their limits, isn't it?
 

"I suppose so", answered Mr Watson. Thanks to ARCHEO-GENETIQUE, we are starting to find an answer to our investigations.

by Jedi Simon