Old Uigur Toponyms of the Turfan Oases

For the historical analysis of the pre-modern Turfan society, it is an indispensable task to identify the toponyms attested in the Turfan texts in various languages. According to the Chinese historical sources, “twenty- two cities” existed in the Turfan Basin under the ( 高昌 ) Gaochang Kingdom of ( 麴 ) Qu Family in 640 CE, when it was conquered by the Tang dynasty. Several names of the “twenty-two cities” are recorded in the Chinese chronicles as well as in the Turfan Chinese manuscripts, and Turfan scholars have conducted a series of geo-historical surveys to identify them in comparison with the toponyms in the Chinese records of the Ming and Qing dynasties and the modern Uigur ones. Since the latter half of the 9th century the Turfan Basin was brought under the direct rule of the West-Uigur Kingdom, whose dominion was designated also as “twenty- two cities of the nation of Qo？o” (qo？o ulus ikii otuz baliq) in one of the Old Uigur Manichaean texts: After their submission to the ？inggisid Mongol Empire at the early 13th century, the number of the cities ruled by the Uigur king iduq-qut is once mentioned as twenty-four. Among the Old Uigur texts from the 9th–14th centuries, we can find the toponyms identified to the modern Turfan oases. In this article, the cities of ？？qt？n, Pu？ang, Soim, Qongs？r (Qong？s？r), Lim？in, Singging (Singing), Ni？üng (Ni？üng ~ Li？üng), Namp？ (Lamp？) and Yim？i (Yem？i) were examined