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Diplomatic Relations on the Tang Frontier: Pugu Yitu Tomb Inscription

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Aybike Şeyma Tezel
Aybike Şeyma Tezel*
Affiliation:
Kenyon College, USA
*
Aybike Şeyma Tezel, Department of History, Kenyon College, Seitz House 08, Gambier, OH 43022, USA. Email: tezel1@kenyon.edu
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Abstract

The Tang period (618–907) stands out as one of the most important chapters of the history of early Inner Asia, where bilateral diplomatic interactions on the Chinese – Inner Asian frontier reached a high point. Since its establishment, the Tang pursued close relations with the neighboring Türk Qaghanate and various other Turkic and Mongolic speaking groups in the Inner Asian steppes. These relations, sometimes friendly, other times hostile, were to a great extent recorded in the official histories, a genre of historical writing that was systematized with the establishment of Historiography Office at the Tang court. As political texts written with particular agendas, official histories present certain limitations. Recent archaeological research in both China and Inner Asia provide a different line of evidence for the study of diplomatic relations between China and Inner Asia. This paper aims to discuss the history of Pugu, a Turkic speaking Inner Asian group who had submitted to the Tang in the seventh century, through an analysis of the tomb inscription of Pugu Yitu, then leader of the Pugu, and an army general and court official of the Tang.

Keywords

TangPuguChina - Inner Asia Relationstomb inscriptions
Type
Articles
Information
Diogenes , Volume 64 , Issue 3-4: Contesting Method and Theory between Europe and Asia: Asian Studies in Turkey , November 2017 , pp. 85 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2022

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