Etymology of Name Kurgan and The Kurgan Hypothesis

Gönül Yektaş Biancat

[email protected]

Abstract
The name “kurgan” is an old turkic word. Origin of word derived from
“korugan” which has meaning “protective”, “castle”.

Kurgan is a burial mound constructed over a pit grave that often contains
grave vessels, weapons and the bodies of horses as well as human bodies. These
types of tombs were originally used on the Russian steppes. In the 3rd millennium
ancient people living in eastern, central and northern Europe started to bury their
dead in kurgan-styled tombs. The ancient Turks and the Altai people considered
these tombs sacred.

There are different hypothesis about kurgan.This study focused to explain

about kurgan culture in Turkic and Altaic cultures.

Key Word: Kurgan, etymology, Turkish culture, Altaic culture, burial mound,

i
 Introduction
The name “kurgan” is an old Turkish word. Origin of word derived from
“korugan” which has meaning “protective”, “castle” or “barrow”. Prof. Yasar
Coruhlu says that: “There are two meanings for this word. One of this is using for
burial structures and other use is the for the“castle” which has meanin protective
for cities. “We can find this word also in different dialects of turkic. In Turkish
(Turkey) and Azerbaycan turkish is“kurgan”, in Bashkir and Tatar is “kurğan”, in
Uigur and Kazakh “korğan”, in Kirghiz “korğon”, in Uzbek “korgan” e Turkmen
“gorgan”. (1). The Word's origin and usege is Turkic. Name kurgan used by
Russians as an archaeological terminology. They must have heard this word first
time from Turks.”

The earliest source we come across the word kurgan is the Orkhon
inscriptions (in turkish “Orhun Yazitlari”) 732-735 A.D. (2) The Orkhon inscriptions
are two memorial installations erected by the “Göktürks” written in old Turkish
alphabet in the early 8th century in the Orkhon Valley in Mongolia. They were
erected in honor of two Turkish princes, Kul Tigin and his brother Bilge Khagan.
Göktürk Khaganate was established by the Ashina clan (one clan of Hun Turks) of
the Göktürks in medieval Inner Asia. Under the leadership of Bumin Khagan A.D
552 and his sons. For that reason usence of word kurgan could be more older than
that date too. The other sources are: Codex Cumanicus,1300 A.D. (1), Dictionnaire
Turc Oriental, Pavet de Courteille, 1870 (3), Lugat-ı Osmani, Ahmet Vefik Paşa,
1876 (4)

_____________________

(1) Eski Turklerin Kutsal Mezarlari, (Sacred tombs of ancient Turks), Yasar Coruhlu,
https://www.academia.edu/28893431/Eski_T%C3%BCrklerin_Kutsal_Mezarlar%C4%B1_Kur
ganlar_-_Ya%C5%9Far_%C3%87oruhlu pp. 22
(2) https://cms.inonu.edu.tr/uploads/contentfile/1548/files/Amga_Korgan.pdf
(3) The Codex Cumanicus was a linguistic manual of the Middle Ages, designed to
help Catholic missionaries communicate with the Cumans-Kipchak a nomadic Turkic people.
It is currently housed in the Library of St. Mark, in Venice (Cod. Mar. Lat. DXLIX 549)
(4) Dictionnaire Turc Oriental, Pavet de Courteille Paris, 1870, pp. 427
(5) Lugat-ı Osmani, (Ottoman Language), Ahmet Vefik Paşa, Istanbul, 1876, pp.662

1
The Orkhon inscriptions- Kultigin Monument, Mongolia, 732 A.D.

Replica of Bilge Khagan’s Monument in Gazi Universty,

Ankara- Turkey

2
 There are different hypothesis under discussion about Kurgan culture. Prof.
Mario Alinei (6), (7) says that: “The Kurgan people culture existed during the fifth,
fourth, and third millennium BC, they lived in northern Europe, from N.Pontic
across Central Europe. The word "kurgan" means a mound or a barrow in Türkic.
Kurgan culture is characterized by pit-graves or barrows, a particular method of
burial. They are also called the Pit-grave people (Pit-grave culture), or Barrow
people (Barrow culture).

The earliest Kurgan sites of the fifth, fourth, and third millennia BC are in the
N.Pontic, from where they spread by about 2000 BC to Central Europe, crossing the
Dnieper River. Wherever Kurgan culture spread, it was marked by common elements
unlike those of the surrounding Bronze-Age cultures.

Fourth millennium BC: Kurgan peoples had spread across the entire area
north of the Black Sea, across northern Europe, and probably east to the natural
barrier of the Ural Mountains. In the Caucasus area, they enjoyed a primitive metal
culture. When the portable archeological objects, like ornaments, weaponry and
other objects more often used in exchanges, are combined with ceramics, and all this
is supported by a similarity in the funeral ceremony, the most permanent ethnic
attribute, then the ethnic movement is sufficiently proved. This is the case observed in
the migration of the Kurgan (Pit Grave) carriers cultures ( Miziev, 1990, p. 18).

____________________
(6) Mario Alinei (born 1926 in Turin, Italy) is an Italian linguist, professor emeritus at
the University of Utrecht, where he taught from 1959 to 1987, currently living in Impruneta,
Italy. He is founder and editor of Quaderni di semantica, a journal of theoretical and
applied semantics. Until recently, he was president of Atlas Linguarum Europe at UNESCO.
(7) Kurgan Culture, Palaeolithic continuity of Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic populations in
Eurasia, Mario Alinei
http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/btn_Archeology/Kurgan_CultureEn.htm#Interdiscip
linary

3
 The carriers of the Kurgan Pit Grave cultures, the most ancient nomadic
sheep breeders, at the end of the 4th - the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC spread
fanlike from the Itil-Yaik center to the north into the Ugro-Finnish tribes. There they
entered into a close contact with the indigenous population, which explains the mass
of the Türkisms in the language of the Finno-Ugrians and vice-versa. From the Itil-
Yaik center the ancient Kurganians spread to the west and mixed with the tribes of
the Late Tripolie cultures (Tripolie is dated ca. 4,600-3,500 B. C.). This explains the
penetration of Türkisms and the elements of the Türkic culture to the indigenous
tribes in the N.Pontic steppes.

Those ancient nomads who left to the southwest entered a close contact with
the tribes of the ancient N. Caucasus. From there they penetrated territory of the
future Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, and Near East Asia, where they came into
contact with the most ancient settled farming tribes. Some of them also began to
engage in agriculture and settled on the land. Along with the nomadic husbandry,
the local herding also appeared at that time.

Migrating to the east, the Kurgan people intermixed with tribes of the yellow
race, gradually many of them acquired Mongoloid features. There, in the steppes of
the Sayano-Altai mountains, Central Asia and Kazakhstan, they became one of the
main components of the Türkic peoples: Kazakhs, Kyrgyzes, Khakases, Altaians,
Tuvinians, Uigurs, Yakuts, Uzbeks, Turkmen, etc. Through the south of the
Turkmenistan and Aral steppe the most ancient nomads penetrated into the Northern
Iran and Afghanistan, where they also met the most ancient agricultural tribes.

The traces of influence of the Itil-Yaik Kurgan Pit Grave culture on the
cultures of the neighboring tribes were shown in the works of M.P.Grjaznov,
O.A.Krivtsovo-Grakova, S.V.Kiselyov, N.Ya.Merpert, A.X. Halikov, N.L.Chlenova,
K.A.Akishev, I.I.Artemenko and other archeologists. So, in the N.L.Chlenova's -

4
opinion, the active links of the archeological cultures whose initial native land was
the Itil-Ural region, were active in a huge territory during many millennia. She
writes that the ceramics with excessively extended shaded triangles is found in the
Baikal, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Turkmenistan, Northern Afghanistan,
Ukraine and in the Danube Bulgaria. This culture extends from the Yenisei river to
the Bulgaria for more than seven and a half thousand kilometers ( Chlenova, 1972,
p. 120-126; 1981, p. 22-26). N.L.Chlenova's conclusions are confirmed by
V.I.Molodin, basing on the results of the research in the Baraba steppes (Western
Siberia). As he said, the funeral ceremony of the Barabians coincides completely
with the Pit Grave ceremony. The author unfolds a unique continuity of the Baraba
culture with the Pit-Grave culture of the Itil-Yaik. By his belief, the carriers of the
Pit-Grave cultures came to the Baraba from the north and northwest at the end of the
Neolithic Age ( Molodin, 1985, p. 75-77, 171. Molodin, W. I. - US$36.00 BARABA
IN THE BRONZE AGE Area of the Ob-Irtysh Rivers (Novosybirsk, 1985) 200 pp.,
illus., 175 x 268 mm). The retrospective study of the historical and ethnographical,
and ethno-cultural features of Türkic peoples,

Kurgan ceremony,

Burials in timber, troughs,

Underlayment of the bottom of the tomb with grass, reed , felt,

Accompanying of the deceased with sacrificial horses,

Use in food of koumiss and horsemeat,

Mobile sheep-breeding character of life,

Residing in felt yurts,

- results in a conclusion that genetically these elements go back to the Pit Grave
culture, Andronovo, Timber Grave and Scythian tribes. Stated differently, there are
all reasons to consider the Pit Grave, or Kurgan culture a basis for the formation of
the ethno-cultural features for the most ancient pro-Türkic tribes of the Euro-Asian
steppes.

5
 2500-2100 BC: A wave of destruction in Syria and Palestine. Many cities
destroyed. The walled town at Bab edh-Dhra in Jordan, on the eastern shore of the
Dead Sea, was destroyed about 2300 BC, in its cemetery outside the city walls, tombs
predating the destruction were of the charnel-house type, graves post-dating the
destruction are pits covered by stone barrows, containing single burials in a
contracted position, with pottery and grave-goods unlike those of the mass graves in
the earlier period.

These are the characteristics of the Kurgan Culture people:

The most ancient nomadic tribes of the Itil-Yaik were Caucasoids, but among them
were also types with insignificant Lapanoid, also considered Mongoloid, features
(Gerasimov, 1955).

They practiced animal husbandry, in rubbish dumps at Kurgan hill-forts and

villages are found bones of lots and lots of horses, many cattle, and a few pigs, sheep
and goats. Few bones of wild game (such as deer) were found, so Kurganians were
not a hunting culture. Horse-heads carved in diorite were found, with harness-marks
cut into them to indicate bridles.

The Kurganian horse-herders, like the Scythians, may had rode geldings
only, their main herds being kept wild under stallions, and controlled through the
mares which were hobbled near the settlements and milked regularly. Both wild-
horse bones and bones of domesticated horses were found in Kurgan sites, modern
bone-analysis specialists can apparently tell the difference between the two types.
Moreover, modern methods allow to discern between a harnessed horse and a herd
horse. The chances of finding bridled horse buried with its owner exist even though
for each riding horse were thousands of the herd horses.

Kurgan people typically lived on flat steppe grasslands, near wooded areas and
watercourses. There were mixed forests of oak, birch, fir, beech, elder, elm, ash,
aspen, apple, cherry and willow. There were aurochs, elk, boar, wild horses, wolves,
fox, beaver, squirrels, badgers, hare and roe deer.

6
 Their ornaments were made from elk antlers, cattle and sheep bones, and
boar tusks, one of the most common implements found at their settlements was a
hammer-hoe made from elk antler. They had bone awls, chisels, and polishers, and
wooden bows with flint-tipped arrows which were carried in skin quivers (called in
Turkic "kolčan, kulčan", another loan to Slavic - Translator's Note), Scythian-
style. They fished: in their villages were bone harpoons, points, fishhooks, and also
fish bones. They had wool and flax.

Kurgan people didn't raise much grain (that is, they were not heavily into farming) -
only a few sickles were found in their villages, though archeologists found
grindstones, pestles, and saddle-querns, also found was millet grain and melon
seeds. One object which may have been a ploughshare was discovered. Beneath one
Kurgan barrow-mound, a stretch of ground protected by the mound itself showed
unmistakable plough-furrows.

Kurgan people used two- and four-wheeled wagons with big unspoked wheels of
solid wood. Examples of these have been found, along with of clay images: toy
wagons, buried with royalty (maybe?). Also found were copper figurines of yoked
oxen in pairs, so oxen probably drew these solid-wheel carts - which were of about
the same proportions, wheel to cartbed, as a child's toy cart with a low rim around it.

Metal objects:

Early Kurgan period: copper awls plus tanged, leaf-shaped copper knives or small
daggers.

Late Kurgan period: daggers, awls, flat shaft-hole axes. The Kurgan people of the
northwest Caucasus mountain region (a center for metallurgy from way back) at
about 3500 BC and afterward possessed gold and silver vases, beads, and rings, also
bull, goat and lion figurines, also copper axes, adzes, daggers and knives. No bronze
objects were found, this means they either had no knowledge of alloying, or no
access to tin.

7
 The last is unlikely, tin was available to the Persians and Greeks in later
days, though the sites of the ancient tin mines are not known. The Kurgans would
have panned their gold from rivers in the Caucasus mountains: gold, copper and
silver can be found raw in their pure form, ready for use.

The lion figurines at first sound odd, there are certainly no lions in Europe or
Asia today. But there is artwork depicting lions, and references to wild lions in the
mountains of Macedonia and Asia Minor, which came down into settled lands and
preyed upon livestock. So the Kurgan artisans were probably familiar with lions.
Equally, there were wild bison in the north of the C. Europe right up to the modern
times.

The early scholar-traveler P.S.Pallas ("The Southern Provinces of the

Russian Reichs", originally published 1812) remarks that in the steppes of the lower
Volga lived a giant land reptile called the Coluber Jaculator lizard, named the
courageous Sheltopufik, he wrote that it "is not venomous, is often six feet long, it
moves about with erect head and breast, and when pursued defends itself by darting
against the horse and his rider. There are likewise two other species of reptiles, the
Berus, and the Halys, both of a poisonous nature." Large lizards like those of the
species mentioned by Pallas inhabited the lands of Asia from the N. Caspian steppe
all the way to the Persian Gulf. It is probably not a coincidence that the earliest
dragon legends come from the same area.

Kurgan pottery: This was very primitive, made from clay mixed with crushed shells
and sand. The pots were decorated with incision-marks made by a triangular stick,
with pit impressing (?), cord impressing and impressing with a stick wound with
cords.

Neighbors: The expansion of Kurgan culture brought it into neiborhood of many

different peoples. The expansion was mostly peaceful, and the simbiotic influences
considerable and diverse.

8
 Soon after the first encounter are evident the traces of genetical and cultural
influences of the nomadic lifestile, technology, art and rituals upon the settled
aboriginal population. These traces are visible for the settled agricultural
communities, while the influences upon the hunter-gatherer communities are
ephemeral and practically undetectable.

The settlements neighboring Kurgan sites: Came in two types. The first is a simple
village, usually located on a river terrace, there would be ten to twenty small,
rectangular, semi-subterranean houses with pitched roofs supported by thin wooden
posts. There would be stone-walled hearths, usually one hearth per house, but
situated either indoors or just outside. A very large village could have up to two
hundred houses.

The second type is a hill-fort placed on a steep river bank in a place difficult
of access - usually a promontory at the juncture of two rivers. Note: both types of
settlement had the advantage of being defensible, so the neibors of the Kurgan
people had to put up with being raided by their neighbors, and probably raiding
them right back. That is, they were well acquainted with war. The semi-subterranean
houses sound like the underground homes of the Slavs, Armenians and Gobi desert
peoples, which existed right up to modern times, the Armenians lived underground
by reason of the cold of their winters, and the Gobi people by reason of the intense
heat of their summers. Also, in the Russian steppe as late as 1900, the Cossacks lived
in semi-subterranean houses. They did it to escape the terrible storms and blizzards
of the winter months, taking underground with them all their livestock and fuel, and
many a disgusted British traveler attests to it.

Some examples of excavated settlements neighboring the Kurgan sites: Hill-fort

One (Miklajlovka, where the Podpil'na River meets the Dnieper): a settlement
guarded by massive stone walls 3 meters high, built of about ten courses of large
stones. It had rectangular houses totally unlike the river village houses: built with
timber walls on massive stone foundations (the last up to one meter in height) -

9
and two or more large interior rooms. In the last period of usage, the fort became
very large, girdled with huge walls and ditches, and held houses with stone
foundations and wattle-and-daub walls.

Hill-fort Two (Skelja-Kamenolomnja, on promontory overlooking Dnieper

River): it was built on a site with cliffs on three sides, and a thick stone wall on the
slope approaching the fourth side. Within the boundaries were rectangular houses
on stone foundations. Also found were workshops for fabricating polished stone
tools, battle-axes and mace-heads etc. (i.e. Battle-Axe Culture neighboring the
Kurgan site - Translator's Note)

Hill-fort Three (Liventsovka at Rostov on the Don): this stood on a high hill
surrounded by a massive stone wall, with ditches both inside and outside the wall.
There were square or circular hearths in the houses.

Hill-fort Four (Nagyarpad, southern Hungary): this housed an estimated 250

people, in fifty small houses standing in rows along a paved road leading to the top
of a steep hill. Two large wooden houses, probably royal, stood on the terrace at the
terminus of the road.

These hill-forts are the prototypes for Greek, Illyrian, Celtic, Baltic,
Germanic etc castle-hills et al. Walls and citadels built from massive stones are
characteristic of the earliest historical times, the proper term for such work is
Cyclopean, from the ancient Greeks who were convinced only giants could have built
on such a scale.

Graves: The Kurgan people left rich treasure-graves containing gold, silver and
precious stones. These important graves are set aside in separate cemeteries, and the
bodies are committed in timber or stone houses. One body of a man was dressed in a
garment onto which gold ornaments had been sewn: 68 lion images, 19 bulls and 38
rings.

10
 (Scythians, who succeeded the Kurganians in N.Pontic, too wore garments
decorated all over with small gold plaques, like beads but flat and stamped with tiny
images.) Necklaces of animal teeth were common. Sun images were also
commonplace. Also found were stag figurines with enormous antlers, ornamented
with concentric-circle motifs, these were probably linked to rock engravings of stags
with supernatural antlers. Also found were horse-heads carved from stone, mounted
on rods and used as scepters. (The scepters was the archeologist's interpretation, the
garment hung with metal and horse-wand sounds shamanistic to me. Wands
surmounted by horse-heads are a well-known accouterment of Mongolian shamans,
who also make a point of sewing metal objects and ribbons onto their ceremonial
garments. The more metal the better was their rationale, ie the heavier the garment,
the more desirable it was, as for the wands with horse-heads, modern shamans use
them as drum-sticks and also as "magic horses" for spirit journeys.)

Braziers were found in Kurgan houses and grave-houses: these burned

charcoal and also cow's-dung. Ashes and charcoal were found in the graves: fires
had been lit in the braziers inside the grave-houses. The charcoal deserves a special
mention because while dung as fuel is free and easy to gather (and cow-droppings,
pastoral peoples say, burns better than those of horses or sheep) charcoal has to be
specially prepared, but dung burns with an acrid fume and people who live in homes
heated by dung fires usually develop eye problems, while charcoal burns with little
or no smoke and those who enjoy a charcoal fire are happier and healthier.

Red ochre was found in the graves . . . but then, red ochre graves go from
southern Palestine to the coast of England. Also found were metal cauldrons. . . as in
the Scythian graves, where the household goods were buried with the dead chief. The
graves of poor people usually contained only a ceramic pot, a flint tool, or nothing.

Also found in some graves were bones from the tails of sheep, the rationale is that
the tails of Asian fat-tailed sheep were buried with the dead. The fat-tailed sheep
themselves have been raised in Central Asia since before history began.

11
 Herodotus mentions them, and they were commonly kept by nomads from the
Bedouin of north Africa right up into Siberia. Unlike European breeds, these sheep
grow enormous tails (Türkic 'kurdük'), rather like the humps of camels, fat and
marrow-like substances are stored in their tails, just as with the humps of camels,
and the sheep themselves are better able to endure arid country. The tails themselves
used to be cut off and kept to provide cooking fat, for the kitchens of Türkic, Persian
and Arabian women. And they still are to this day.

And since the harnesses of Kurgan horses were made from bone and leather,
the graves of poor Kurgans contained only flint tools, and the only worked metal was
sewn on people's clothing, one might conclude these people were still well in the grip
of the Stone Age.

The mortuary houses themselves mimicked actual houses, being made of

timber or of stone slabs. Husbands were frequently buried with their wives,
sometimes an adult was buried with one or more children. Animal bones were found
jumbled in pits near the graves, Kurgan graves north of the Black Sea usually
included snake skeletons, sometimes up to ten of them. (Note: Edith Durham in her
book High Albania mentions that many old graves in the Albanian mountains -
one of the remotest places on earth - were frequently marked with pre-Christian
symbols, suns and crescent moons combined with Christian crosses were common,
and a serpent image which the Albanians told her represented courage and war, ie
the snake was the mark of a hero!) Sometimes human bones were found jumbled in
with the animal bones in the adjoining offering-pits. It was a Türkic custom up to
historic times for animals to be sacrificed at the grave, their flesh eaten and their
bones then collected in skins and interred.

These grave-houses were covered by earth or stone mounds, and then topped with
stone stelae. Each stela was carved with a crude human shape, male, holding a mace
or axe in one hand, one figure holds a bow. In the graves of men, ornamental axes of
antler, copper, stone, or semiprecious stone were found.

12
 Some of these axes were made from nephrite, serpentine, diorite, amber, or
other materials obviously not meant for utility. The amber came from the Baltic
region, and since mother-of-pearl and faience beads were also found in the graves,
this certainly points to a thriving trade between regions.

The knucklebones of sheep were found in many graves (particularly the

graves of children) throughout European sites. Knucklebones are a gaming device.

And how do you play knucklebones with the knucklebones of sheep? The Uzbek
nomads call it the Ashik-game (after ashik, the word for the anklebones of sheep) and
played it as dicing, with four anklebones. The upper part of the bone they called
tava, the lower altchi, and the two sides called yantarap. The player took all four
bones in the palm of his hand, threw them up and got half of the stake wagered, if
two tava or two altchi turned up, or the whole stake, if all four tava or altchi showed.

The Venus figurines of the late Stone Age are not Kurgan. They pre-date the
Kurgan expansion into Anatolian, Aegean, and Balkan cultures. Seated goddesses of
clay, alabaster or marble also appeared in the N.Pontic and north Caucasus regions
prior to the third millennium BC, these were borrowed from southern cultures in the
Balkans and the Mediterranean.

Male and female figures carved from stone (called in Türkic 'Baba') spread
across the steppe from Danube to Amur Rivers, are attributed to the descendants of
the Scythians, not to prehistoric peoples. According to late middle age chronicle, a
legendary statue named Slata Baba once stood near upper Ob river.

13
CHART III: The cultural sequence in Western Ukraine and in the Pontic
Steppes

Western Ukraine Pontic Steppes

Late Corded Ware,
Catacombs
Chalcolithic Globular Amphora
Middle Yamna (pastoral
Gorodsk-Usatovo
Chalcolithic nomadism)
Tripolje AII etc.
Early Serednij Stog/Chvalynsk
(farming,
Chalcolithic (pastoralism, horse-riding)
fortifications)
Dneper-Donec
Late Tripolje AI
(pastoralism, horse
Neolithic (farming)
domestication)
Middle Bug-Dnestr Sursk-Dneper
Neolithic (farming) (pastoralism)

Because of the appearing of the famous kurgan culture in them, the two
sequences shown by this chart can be considered as quite well-known also to
linguists. In fact, the evident contrast between the farming cultures in Western
Ukraine, and the pastoral ones in the Pontic steppes is what moved Marija Gimbutas
to envisage the epochal clash between peaceful autochthonous non IE farmers of the
“Old Europe”, and the warlike intrusive IE who submerged them. Colin Renfrew has
lucidly demolished this myth, but in my opinion has not given a satisfactory
explanation of the contrast, which remains quite evident and important.

In the PCT framework this quite conspicuous frontier proves to be the

frontier between an already separated and flourishing eastern Slavic population of
farmers to the West, and warlike Turkic pastoral nomadic groups to the East, which
would be responsible, among other things, of the two innovations of horse raising
and horse riding. Linguistically, this new interpretation has the advantage of
explaining the antiquity and the quantity of Turkic loanwords precisely for horse
terminology in both branches of Samoyed (i.e. Nenets - Translator's Note), in the
Ugric languages, as well as in Slavic languages (see also further), and, more
generally, the quantity of

14
 Turkic Neolithic terms in South-Eastern European languages, including
Hungarian, which would have been brought into its present area precisely by the
kurgan culture (Alinei 2003).

Interestingly, the uninterrupted continuity of Altaic steppe cultures, from

Chalcolithic to the Middle Ages, can be symbolized precisely by the kurgan
themselves: for on the one hand, the custom of raising kurgans on burial sites has
always been one of the most characteristic features of Altaic steppe nomadic
populations, from their first historical appearance to the late Middle Ages. On the
other, the Russian word kurgan itself is not of Russian, or Slavic, or IE origin, but
is a Turkic loanword, with a very wide diffusion area in Southern Europe, which
corresponds to the spread of the kurgan culture (Alinei 2000, 2003, and see
further).

(…) Later, not only Tripolye but the entire ‘metallurgical province’ undergo the
influence of the Yamnaya/kurgan culture, the expansion of which in the whole of
Eastern Europe and parts of Central Europe – one of the main aspects of the Metal
Age in Europe – does not bring IE influences, but Turkic ones.

(…) The Thracian power is just one of the many manifestations of the new stratified
societies and of the new elites of a military and superegional type which characterize
Chalcolithic and Bronze, and the formation of which was triggered by the incursions
of the kurgan groups and their successors, coming from the Asiatic steppes.

In the new PCT vision, this twofold result produces the following commentary:

(A) we must keep in consideration that the immediate neighbors of the Thracians
ancestors – whoever they were – were these intrusive kurgan groups;

(B) in the light of the equation of the kurgan people with the Turkic group, the
existence of the Turkic Thrace of historical times, the Turkic original character of
the Bulgarians, and the so many aspects of the close relationship between Anatolia,
the Agean Sea and the Balkans become much more relevant than we have suspected
until now (see chapter III of Alinei 2000).

15
 A single example: the typical shape of the sica, the national weapon of the
Thracians (a knife with a curved blade and a sharp point, similar to a zanna di
cinghiale (cp. Plinius H.N. XII 1: “apri dentium sicas”, and see the illustration in
Rich 1869), used by Thracian gladiators in Rome, is typical of centro-Asiatic
metallurgy. Another commentary is triggered by Hoddinott’s conclusion, which
identifies the earliest sure manifestation of the Thracians in the Bronze Age
Carpatian culture of Otomani-Wietenberg (in Transylvania, Hungary, Eastern
Slovakia). According to the most recent research, this culture represents a
continuation of the Baden and Vučedol cultures, and through the latter, is connected
to the steppe cultures (see above and cp. for example DP s.v. Vučedol). In the light of
the preceding remarks, then, on one hand we could conclude thatalso Thracians
underwent the same Turkic influences as most other Southern Slavic languages; on
the other – as both Baden and Vučedol in the framework of the PCT can be read as
Slavophone cultures, we could advance the hypothesis that the Thacianas were a
Slavic group, which would have been subject to stronger Turkic influences than the
other Slavic languages, and eventually extinguished.

(…) Although the origins of the Altaic (i.e. Turkic and Mongol) people and
languages has not yet been the object of serious studies, the common opinion is that
their presence in central Asia and eastern Europe should be attributed to a recent
migration from an unknown focus (with the usual indifference for the lack of any
archaeological evidence supporting this event), replacing an earlier layer of Iranian
people, in turn considered also as invaders, submerging the prehistoric presumed
pre-IE settlers: the typical scenario of ethnic ‘merry-go-round’ which characterizes
the traditional theory. In my books (Alinei 1996, 2000, 2003), I have argued for
Altaic indigenism in Asia and eastern Europe, on the basis – among other things – of
the following points:

(1)Throughout history, the Asiatic steppe area has always been inhabited by Altaic
pastoral nomadic populations (fig. 7), characterized, among other things, by the use
of funerary mounds called kurgan.

16
(2) The word kurgan ‘funerary mound’, which is not only diffused in Russia, but is
diffused in the whole of South-Eastern Europe (Ru. kurgán, ORu. kurganu, Ukr.
kurhán, BRu. kurhan, Pol. kurhan, kurchan, kuran ‘mound’; Rumanian gurgan, dial.
Hung. korhány), is a loanword from Turkic Tatar: OTc. kurgan ‘fortification’, Tat.,
Osm., Kum. kurgan, Kirg. and Jagat. korgan, Karakirg. korgon, all from Turkotat.
kurgamak ‘fortify’, kurmak ‘erect’. Its distribution area in Eastern Europe
corresponds closely to the spread area of the Yamnaya (i.e. Pit Grave -Tanslator's
Note) or kurgan culture in South-Eastern Europe.

(3) As is known, the Yamnaya or kurgan culture descends from the steppic culture
called Serednyi Stog (for bibliography see Alinei 2000). It is within the latter culture
that horse domestication and horse riding took place for the first time (fig. 8).

Fig. 8. Map of Serednyi Stog (SS) and Kurgan (K) cultures

17
 The most economical and productive hypothesis is then to consider both the
Serednyi Stog and the Yamnaya cultures as Turkic, which would imply that Turkic
people were the first to have mastered horse domestication, and to have passed it on
to the neighboring people.

This is confirmed by the presence of Turkic loanwords for horse terminology in both
branches (Northern and Southern) of Samoyed and in some Finno-Ugric, the
antiquity of which has been proved by specialists, and which imply the antiquity of
the Turkic presence in Eastern Europe. For example:

(1) From Ancient Tc qaptï, OTsh qap- ‘to grab with hands and teeth’: Proto-
Samoyed (= PSam) *kåptê- ‘to castrate’; Sam. kåptê ‘male castrated reindeer’;

(2) From Ancient Tc yam ‘the typical caravan-tent of the nomads’: PSam *yam, S.
yamda- ‘to travel with caravan-tent’;

(3) From Ancient Tc yuntâ ‘horse’ (generic): PSam *yunta ‘horse’, Sam. yuntê
‘idem’.

(4) From Tat. alaša ‘pack horse’ (> Tchuv. laša ‘horse’), Osm., Crim.-Turk., Kaz.,
Kar.-Balk. alaša ‘castrated horse’: Mari alasa and Mordvin alaša ‘castrated horse’.

Especially important is the presence of such Turkic loanwords for horse

terminology in both branches of Samoyed, as it proves beyond any possible doubt
that Turkic horse-riders were present in the area after the split between Samoyed
and Finno-Ugric – the earliest split that occurred in the Uralic phylum, within the
framework of the Uralic Paleolithic Continuity certainly datable to the remote
prehistory – but before the split and the subsequent profound differentiation of the
two Northern (Nenets, Enets, Nganasan) and Southern (Selkup, Sayan) Samoyed
branches, which would be altogether absurd to date after the presumed ‘arrival’ of
Turkic people in Asia in the 3rd or 4th centuries of our era. This also explains why
horse terminology in the European area bordering Asia and in most of Eastern
Europe is Turkic (and not IE, nor Iranian…

18
 (…) If IE or Iranian people had been the first horse-riders, as maintained by
the traditional theory, we would expect to find a large number of IE or Iranian words
also in neighboring areas, instead of this conspicuous series of Turkic loanwords.

Also the presence of very ancient Turkic loanwords in Hungarian, recognized

by Hungarian scholars and unrelated to horse-riding, proves the antiquity of the
Turkic presence in the European area bordering Asia.

As is known, many ancient Turkic loanwords in Hungarian are related to

farming (‘corn’, ‘barley’, ‘plow’, ‘wine’ etc.), stock raising (pig, calf etc.), and to
very ancient customs (totemic clan names), which specialists consider prehistoric
and date to the period preceding the so called Honfoglalás (‘conquest of the
territory’)…” (8).

“(…) According to the archeological evidence systemized by M. Gimbutas, 1994,

Europe also experienced three major Kurgan overland migration waves, some of
them were repeat migrations into the same areas. The dating of the Kurgan
migration waves, produced by archeologists using radiocarbon analysis, is in
concert with the genetic dating: wave 1 at c. 4400-4300 BC, wave 2 at c. 3500 BC or
somewhat later, and wave 3 soon after 3000 BC; the circum-Mediterranean Celtic
Kurgan wave reached Europe independently at 2800 BC. Along its route, the circum-
Mediterranean wave remains archeologically unexplored. Between the 3000 BC
wave and Sarmatian migrations of the 2nd c. BC, there is a historiographical lacuna,
but considering the sequential waves of the Huns, Bulgars, Avars, Kangars-Bechens,
and Oguzes of the 1st mill. AD, there is no reason to suspect an absence of the
Kurgan migrations during the lacuna period.

____________________

(8) Interdisciplinary and linguistic evidence for Palaeolithic continuity of Indo-European, Uralic
and Altaic populations in Eurasia, with an excursus on Slavic ethnogenesis. Expanded
version of a paper read at the Conference Ancient Settlers in Europe, Kobarid, 29-30 May
2003. – Forthcoming in “Quaderni di semantica”, 26.

19
 It is reasonably expected that the waves, separated by the timespans on the
order of millenniums, were likely composed of linguistically differing tribes of the
same linguistic family but complemented by different allies, were impacted by the
specifics of their migration routes and their durations, and were bringing to the new
territories their particularly distinct vernaculars. Although belonging to the same
nomadic horse-breeding Kurgan historical-cultural complex, they possessed
different technologies, starting with the Neolithic, and ending with the metals.

The notion of the Türkic languages underlying European languages is nothing new.
At the time preceding the emergence of the Scytho-Iranian Theory by two and a half
centuries, as far back as 1653, M. Van Boxhorn suggested that a Scythian language
was the Family Tree's proto-language of Baltic, Celtic, Germanic, Greek, Iranian,
Romance, and Slavic languages. At the time, in the 17th century, following the
heritage from the Antique period, the old collective name Scythians was vaguely
synonymous with the Türkic people, at the time known as undifferentiated Turks or
Tatars. The vagueness of the term was predicated by the vagueness of the European
knowledge about people further east, and especially the pastoral nomads; practically
nothing was known of the pre-Islamic northern Eurasians, their kurgans, their
cultures and scripts. The Van Boxhorn's suggestion was numerously modified by
later scholars as new studies filled in the scholarly gaps, and survived in the crevices
left out by the rise of the nation-states with their reinvented and politicized histories.
According to the Türkic substrate concept, Van Boxhorn's suggestion is solidly
corroborated, especially in respect to the English language, and to the Germanic
languages in general. Some other European languages do not lag too far behind,
each with its own historical and linguistic peculiarity.”

(Note: For this argument, we learned by Adile Ayda too. She was the first
woman career diplomat of Turkey, but is today better remembered as an
Etruscologist. She became interested in Etruscan studies while stationed in Rome as
the Minister-Counsellor of the Turkish Embassy, did research on the subject during
her stay in Italy and wrote down her findings in a number of books, in Turkish and in
French.

20
When she was in Rome in Vatican Library she discovered very important book
about Scythians, was named Magni Tamerlanis Scythorum Imperatoris Vita.
Published by Petrus Perondinus in 1553 an there was using for Scythians as a name
also "Tatar". Scythians were Tatar so Turk.)

(…) The breakthrough afforded by the genetics helped in dislodging

interpretations based on simplistic presumptions, it allowed to correlate migration of
the genetic markers with migration of certain archeological cultures and people. The
R1a and R1b haplogroup markers were felled from their “European” pedestal, they
were found to originate in the South Siberia - Northern India area, and being
dispersed west and east in a sequence of numerous migrations. Paleogenetic studies
allow to peek into genetic composition of long-gone cultures and people, either
bridging the past and present or demonstrating a demographic disconnect between
them That is best illustrated by the western European peninsula, where the modern
predominance of the marker R1b contrasts with the paleogenetic predominance of
the markers I and G. The gullible presumption of the genetic continuity was felled,
the realization that the Western Europe is largely populated by the Asian migrants
has taken over. After many migrational waves, the marker R1b has survived and
blossomed, while their companion markers R, R1, R1a, and many others, present in
the past migration flows, have faded…

Conceptual map of Kurgan westward waves with datable genetic markers (arrows)
(background R.R.Sokal et al. 1992 and M. Gimbutas 1994)

21
 (…) We do not know the names of the Kurgan nomads before 2200 BC, we
know some names of these nomads from the Assyrian tablets ca 2200 BC: Guties,
Turuks, Komans, Kangars; ca 1600 BC in China they are called Juns (Rongs) and
Jous (Zhou); at approx. 800 BC in N.Pontic and Asia Minor they are called
Cimmerians and Scythians; ca. 200 BC north of China they are called Huns, Juns,
Tokhars (Yuezhi), Usuns, Saka, Kangars, and Tele; and in 200-400 AD they are
called Huns in the west, in India, and across the eastern Eurasia, and Kangars and
Usuns in the center of the Asia. After that, they continue to rush around Eurasia and
build kurgans for their deceased for another 1,000 years, coming into the present…

(…)Contrary to the evidence and testimonies, Germanic peoples are held as

autochthons of the Scandinavia. Jordanes (6th c., Getica) introduced an opinion that
most of the European peoples originated in Scandinavia. At the same time, Jordanes
knew of the Goths' “Scythian” origin: “the Goths dwelt in the land of Scythia near
Lake Maeotis. On the second migration they went to Moesia, Thrace and Dacia, and
after their third they dwelt again in Scythia, above the Sea of Pontus” (Jordanes
V.38). The Gothic origins are relayed in the initial legendary part, the non-fictional
part of the Jordanes' work starts in the 3rd c. AD with Roman clash with the Goths…
(9).

As it is known, Turkish people were genuine representative of the steppe

culture and creative when they lived in central Asia. This culture has been submitted
to social, economical, cultural and religious features. Turks, who have military
qualifications and organizational capabilities on the basis of animal husbandry, have
established large states like Hun, Kipcaks, Kokturks, Avar, Hazar and Uighurs from
major China walls to Adriatic coasts. They also have an interesting religious way of
life before they acclaimed the islamic faith. The religion which Turks used to be
belived was called Shamanism.

___________________

(9) N. Kisamov, Türkic Substrate in English, Journal of Euroasian Studies,

http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/41TurkicInEnglish/EnglishTurkicLexiconEn.htm

22
 "During the religious ceremonies, the priests called" shaman "was the chief
patron of everything, he directed the ceremony and used so many different tools to
go up to the sky.

Shamanism is considered the national religion of all Turkish nations covering

with the creation, universe, world, death, joy and thoughts on various topics.It is also
a unique belief system only being practised by all types of Turkish groups in
different ways. Among nomadic Shaman Turks , it was believed that one’s soul after
death was raised up to sky as a flying bird to be unite with sky God. According
to written Orhun's inscrition the human spirit turns into a shape of a bird as soon
as the dead body is put in the grave and it flies to sky immediately so Turks used
to call “Flew up “still so common today. Even after the acceptance of Islam among
the Turks living in western countries, the phrase “ He became falcon” is used instead
of he passed away.

According to the Shamanism belief in cental Asia, old Turkish had been
buried in individual graves with their personal belongings, valuable goods, , horses,
utensils, weapons, wives and children. To protect the valubales in the grave and to
remark the burial place, it had been surrounded either by stones or build up with
earth to make a mound so Kurgan had been done by using this traditional methods.
Kurgan is also accepted as the sacred place where the heros & important people were
buried. In old Turkish traditions when the Khan died, he was buried in a Kurgan-
underground tomb- with his personal belongings, al his valuables, all his treasurse &
weapons, his wives, his children, etc and the grave had been build up by earth not to
be known the burial place by his enemies.

This burial system was used for Khans, government officials and heros. Kurgan is
dug underground and consists of two or three rooms at least. The corpse is buried
with personel belongings & weapons in one room and his wives & children are
buried in another room. The dead body chamber is usually made from tree stumps
and planks. The head of the body would have turned to the east and are embedded
with his personel objects.

23
The dead horses can be found in different rooms of the Kurgan as well. One of the
famous Kurgan called as Essik Kurgan which was found around Almatı, the capital
city of Kazakhistan, dated back 500 B.C. and the famous Gold Dress Man was
found in Essik Kurgan. The most important thing is that the article with 26 letters
written on two lines were found on the broken half of a container in the same Essik
burial place. This article is considered to be the oldest known writing about a
thousand years older than the Yenisei & Orkhon monuments so far. So this
excavation proves that Turkish language was used first in 500 B.C. in central Asia.
Kazakh historian Prof. Dr. Olcas Süleymanof has read the text as follow ; Tigin
passed away at the age of 23. God bless people of Essik “. Essisk Kurgan is the
second most valubale tomb in which more than 3000 gold pieces were found. Not
only the gold pieces but also ceramic jars, wooden plates, two silver bowls were
unearthed during the excavation. Tigin might have been a Turkish prince or king
because of his gold dress so he was buried with his golden dress not to be robbed by
grave robbers. It was believed that Gold would protect the corpse from robbers
according the old Turkish folk beliefs. The Kurgans have been turned into Kumbets-
domed shrines-as soon as the Turks accepted Muslim faith and the Turks have made
wonderful examples which can be still admired today.

“ (…) Chinese sources provide detailed accounts of Göktürk burial ceremonies

during the sixth to eighth centuries. A Tang chronicle gives the following description
of a burial ceremony which took place in the sixth century: “They place the body in a
tent, and the man’s sons, grandsons, and other kinsmen whether man or woman
sacrifice horses and sheep and spread them before the tent. They ride around the tent
seven times on horseback. They cut their faces with knives and weep at the tent door.
Mixed blood and tears run down their faces. They repeat this ceremony seven times.
Then on a certain day they bury the body with his horse and all personal objects
which he used, or burn him on a pyre. If the body is burned they bury the ashes in
his tomb on a particular day of the year. They bury those who have died in summer
in autumn, when the grass and leaves turn brown, and those who die in winter they
bury in spring when the flowers bloom and the snows have melted.

24
 On the burial day the kinsmen of the dead person ride around on horseback,
cut their faces and cry, just as they did on the day of death. They paint pictures of the
dead man and the battles in which he fought on the walls of the structure erected
over the grave. If the dead person has killed a man during his life they place a stone
over his grave. Sometimes these stones amount to one hundred or even one thousand.
After sacrificing horses and sheep they place the heads on stakes.”

The burial ceremonies of the Turkish Oğuz tribes in the ninth century are
very similar, as we see from a description by Ibn Fadlan.

The fourteenth century Ottoman sultan Murad I was killed by a Serbian

soldier named Milos Oblovich while surveying the battle field following the Battle of
Kosovo in 1389. A tent was immediately erected over his body, which was embalmed
by army surgeons. The sultan’s internal organs were buried there inside a gold
basin. Another tent was erected over this spot until a stone tomb could be
constructed in its place. The embalmed body of Murad I was brought to Bursa and
buried in a tomb next to an imaret or almshouse which he had built in the district of
Çekirge.The bodies of important Turkish figures that died in foreign lands were
always embalmed and transported back to their homeland. When Sultan Süleyman
the Magnificent died of natural causes during the Sigetvar campaign, he too was
embalmed and his internal organs buried in gold basins at the place where he died.
Again a tent was erected over this grave until a stone tomb could be built. His
embalmed body was brought back to Istanbul and buried in his tomb at Süleymaniye
Mosque. A miniature painting in the Süleymanname manuscript in the Chester Beatty
Library in Dublin depicts a tent and a grave being dug in its shadow.

All these examples illustrate that the ten was the first Turkish tomb structure,
and in time was transformed into a similar stone structure with a cylindrical form
and dome-like roof. In short the architecture of the kümbet and türbe of the Islamic
period originated in the tent known as öy or üy in Central Asia and as topak ev in
Anatolia, where it is found in many regions.

25
 Despite the passage of long centuries, and the conversion of various Turkish
communities to several different religions over that long time span, the funerary
customs of the Turkish clans survived along the thousands of kilometres of the Silk
Road, from Inner and Central Asia to Anatolia, and westwards into the Balkans. The
way in which customs were loyally preserved through so many changes until
Ottoman times is due to the rich cultural structure and dynamism linking the peoples
along the Silk Road.” (10)

____________________

(10) Tomb Structure and Burial Customs among the Turkish Peoples on the Silk Road, Prof. Dr.
Nejat Diyarbekirli,
https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/sites/silkroad/files/knowledge-bank-
article/tomb_structure_and_burial_customs_among_the_turkish_peoples_on_the_silk_road.p
df

26
 Conclusion

There are many hypotheses about kurgans or steppe theories. As etymology

of word kurgan, we can be absolately sure is a Turkish word. As nomadic and steppe
theories, we can say that the horse culture started with Turkish because first time the
horse domesticated by Turks. On that subject many scholars as Mario Alinei, Karl
W. Luckert, L. Rasonyi, W. Koppers, F. Flor, P. Vaczy, W. Schmidt, R. Grousset,
are agree.

Regarding the kurgans, we can say that; they were exist everywhere, where
were exist the Turks. The objects which were found in the kurgans and burial
traditions can help to understand which culture belongs to.

When we look at the gene map from Europe to Asia, we can see that there is
no pure race. At the ancient times there was a big immigration and also trading in
everywhere as now. For this reasons, culturally ethnically and genetic interactions
between different cultures were possible always.

About Kurgan culture, we have to talk and work more.

27
 Bibliography

Alinei Mario., Interdisciplinary and linguistic evidence for Palaeolithic continuity

of Indo-European, Uralic and Altaic populations in Eurasia, with an excursus on
Slavic ethnogenesis. Expanded version of a paper read at the Conference Ancient
Settlers in Europe, Kobarid, 29-30 May 2003. – Forthcoming in “Quaderni di
semantica”, 26.

Alinei Mario., Kurgan Culture, Palaeolithic continuity of Indo-European, Uralic

and Altaic populations in Eurasia,
http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/btn_Archeology/Kurgan_CultureEn.htm#Int
erdisciplinary

Aydin Erhan., Amga Korgan pdf,

https://cms.inonu.edu.tr/uploads/contentfile/1548/files/Amga_Korgan.pdf

Diyarbekirli Nejat., Tomb Structure and Burial Customs among the Turkish
Peoples on the Silk Road,

https://en.unesco.org/silkroad/sites/silkroad/files/knowledge-bank-
article/tomb_structure_and_burial_customs_among_the_turkish_peoples_on_the_sil
k_road.pdf

Codex Cumanicus, Library of St. Mark Venice (Cod. Mar. Lat. DXLIX 549)

Coruhlu Yasar., Eski Turklerin Kutsal Mezarlari, (Sacred tombs of ancient Turks),
https://www.academia.edu/28893431/Eski_T%C3%BCrklerin_Kutsal_Mezarlar%C4
%B1_Kurganlar_-_Ya%C5%9Far_%C3%87oruhlu pp. 22

Kisamov N., Türkic Substrate in English,

http://s155239215.onlinehome.us/turkic/41TurkicInEnglish/EnglishTurkicLexiconEn
.htm

Pavet de Courteille., Dictionnaire Turc Oriental, Paris, 1870

28