Khitan – History of Central Asia
Khitan history - a Khitan woman, ca. 1000 AD (Musee Guimet, Paris) Who are the Khitan? The Khitan are part of the big group of Turkic and Altaic language speakers [...]
Khitan history - a Khitan woman, ca. 1000 AD (Musee Guimet, Paris) Who are the Khitan? The Khitan are part of the big group of Turkic and Altaic language speakers [...]
Jurchen history: A pottery vase from the Jin Dynasty, ca. 1200 AD (Musee Guimet, Paris) Where did the Jurchen come from? Unlike most of the people living in north Asia, [...]
Central Asian yurts Nomads were travelling around Central Asia probably by 50,000 BC or so. By 24,000 BC, if not earlier, these nomads had split into at least two different [...]
The Mongol court (1200s AD) Starting around 300 AD the Indo-Europeans in Central Asia began to lose ground to the Altaic people. The Altaic people divided into the Mongols and the [...]
A White Hun coin In the 300s AD, the White Huns were living in the kingdom of the Rouran, in Central Asia north-west of China. Probably the White Huns were mostly [...]
The Gokturks: A Gokturk coin, about 576-600 AD (Kyrgyzstan museum) (compare to Sassanian and Byzantine coins of the same time) Bumin Qaghan beats the Rouran About 550 AD, Bumin Qaghan [...]
Scythian comb,about 400 BC (Metropolitan Museum, New York) Most early Central Asian people were Indo-European, or Yamnaya. The biggest group may have been the Scythians. Until about 500 BC, the Scythians lived [...]
Wrestlers from Samarkand (Uzbekistan, 600s AD) People in Central Asia played games that helped them get better at skills they would need in their lives. They needed to ride horses [...]
Girls playing jacks with knucklebones Playing jacks To get a better idea what it was like to be a kid in Central Asia, try playing some of the games that [...]
Kids playing knucklebones (Burma) Central Asian people played a lot of active games, but they also played games sitting down. Because Central Asian people spent a lot of time herding cattle and [...]