“Let the Türk people not perish. Let them be a people again.”

In 732, Bilge Khan inscribed these words in the Orkhon valley for his brother Kül Tegin. Alongside Tonyukuk's pillars, they form the longest texts where the Göktürks express their thoughts: from the empire's founding, years under Chinese rule, their new start with seventeen men, to their deity, Tengri.

In this episode, discover:

▸ The steles of Kül Tegin (732) and Bilge Khan (734) on the Orkhon, Tonyukuk's pillars on the Tola, and the appearance of the memorial complexes with shrines, statues, and balbal rows.

▸ How Vilhelm Thomsen deciphered the script in 1893, with Wilhelm Radloff's first edition in 1895.

▸ The Old Turkic runic script: featuring around 40 signs, read right to left, with dual signs for many consonants.

▸ Tengri, Earth and Water, Umay, Kut and Töre: insights into belief from the stones and perspectives from younger sources on Tengrism.

▸ Ilterish's rise: from 17 to 70 to 700 men, forming an empire spanning Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and northeastern China.

▸ Bilge Khan's address to his people: the "sweet words" of the Chinese, the significance of the Ötüken forest, and the enduring legacy on stone.

Chapters

0:00 Prologue

0:25 The Stones on the Orkhon

1:02 The Memorial Complex

1:54 The Decipherment

2:27 The Script

3:09 Tengri and Göktürk Cosmology

4:16 What the Stones Tell

5:17 The Speech to the People

6:20 Epilogue

The quotations are from the inscriptions of Kül Tegin, Bilge Khan, and Tonyukuk, with some abridgment. Maps and scenes are modern interpretations, not archaeological finds. The stele's crown bears the ibex tamga of the Ashina.