Gokturk Period Memorial Graves with Ornaments from Mongolia
Jale Özlem Oktay ÇerezciThe Gokturks (The Gokturk Khaganate) have various burial traditions such as monumental graves, kurgans and one of the grave types of them is memorial-grave. Among these memorial-graves there is an ornamented group which was located especially in Mongolia. These memorial-graves has four or more stone plates that form square or quadratic. However our subject consists of four stone plated memorial-graves that were located at an almost certain place, the south part of Baykal Lake. It is possible to categorize the ornaments of these graves such as human, bird and geometric ornaments; animal representations; geometric representations; plantal ornaments. And also some of them have inscriptions which indicated that they were made for the memory or name of the khan or etc. In this research these ornamented, four stone plated memorial-graves which were especially found in Mongolia like a group, is tried to be represented and their symbolism will be discussed.
Moğolistan’da Bulunan Göktürk Dönemi’ne ait Süslemeli Anı-Mezar Örnekleri
Jale Özlem Oktay ÇerezciAnıt mezar, kurgan gibi çeşitli ölü gömme gelenekleri bulunan Göktürklerin mezar tiplerinden biri de anı-mezarlardır ve bunlardan bir grubu da çoğunlukla Moğolistan topraklarında gördüğümüz “süslemeli anı-mezarlar” meydana getirmektedir. Söz konusu anı-mezarlar, dört ya da daha çok taş levhadan meydana gelmekte ve kare ya da kareye yakın forma sahip olmaktadırlar. Çalışmamızı oluşturan anı-mezarlar ise dört taş levhalıdır. Bunların üzerlerindeki süslemeleri birkaç başlık altında toplamak mümkündür: İnsan, kuş ve geometrik süslemeli; Hayvan tasvirli; Geometrik süslemeli; Bitkisel süslemeli. Söz konusu süslemeli anı-mezarların çoğunun Baykal Gölü’nün güney kesiminde neredeyse grup oluşturacak biçimde yer alması dikkat çeken bir noktadır. Anı-mezarlar ile ilgili dikkat edilmesi gereken bir diğer nokta da bunların bazılarının kitabelerinin sahip olmasıdır. Bu kitabelerde böyle yapıların önemli bir kişinin anısına ya da adına yapıldığına dair ifadeler yer almaktadır. Araştırmamızda Göktürk Dönemi’ne ait Moğolistan’da özellikle belli bir bölgede yoğunluk gösteren ve gerek süsleme gerekse belli bir bölgeye işaret etmesi ile dikkat çeken dört taş levhadan oluşan anı-mezarlar üzerindeki tasvirler detaylı olarak tanıtılmış ve bu tür mezarların sahip oldukları sembolizme değinilmiştir.
The Gokturks (The Gokturk Khaganate) have various burial traditions such as grave complexes, monumental graves and graves. And one of the grave types of them is memorial-grave. Among these memorial-graves there is an ornamented group which was located especially in Mongolia. These memorial-graves has four or more stone plates that form square or quadratic shape. Related with them, our research area consists of four stone plated memorial-graves that were located at an almost certain place, at the south part of Baykal Lake.
Before defining the four plated and ornamented memorial-graves of Mongolia, we shortly need to give some details of the various burial traditions of Gokturk Period. The Chinese Annals have valuable information about the burial traditions of Gokturks, besides the written heritage of them. According to the Chinese Annals, Gokturks put the corpse in to the tent, sacrifice horse or/and sheep and cut their faces and hands by knife as mourning. Then they turn around the tent for seven times and burn the death with his clothes and belongings. After that, they burry the ashes of the death in to the grave and rise a statuette on it. Besides the cremation, they have other burial traditions such as mummifying the corpse and putting it in to the grave room; burying the death in to the ground; hanging the death which was in the sarchopage, on a tree; leaving the death on a bower; putting the bones, which were separated from the death, into a bowl. These various burial traditions make us think that the “memorial-graves” were sometimes made for to bury the ashes of the corpse or constructed only for memory of an important person. Again according to the Chinese Annals, Gokturks sometimes set a wooden pole at the center of this kind of graves and hanged the meat of the sacrificed animal on this pole. This detail is important for us because the information from the Annals and the archeological findings and traces coincide with each other and that point let us to name this kind of graves such as “memorial grave”. One more important detail about these grave is some of them have inscriptions, that has memorial expression about the death person, on their stone plates. So this detail again supports us about the naming of these graves.
These kind of graves four or more stone plates but in our study we only reference to the four plated and ornamented ones. Ashat, Ongot, Satar Suluu, Kosho-Tsaydam, Kuli-Chor, Olon-Nuur, İshe Nor, etc. are among these four stone plated memorial graves. One of their characteristic is they are mostly located on a certain place; the south part of the Baikal Lake. They have various ornaments. Among ornaments of these graves are animal, human, plant and geometrical representations take place. At this point we have to mention that as seen on the Anonim IV JL 230 memorial grave from Tonyukuk Complex, sometimes the stone plates can have the same composition or sometimes different ornaments.
We can classify the ornaments of the Gokturk Period memorial graves from Mongolia such as:
1. Human, Bird and Geometric Ornaments
2. Animal Representations
2.1. Animal and geometric ornaments
2.2. Phoenix representaions
3. Geometric Ornaments
3.1. Rhombic ornaments
3.2. Cell ornaments
3.3. Zigzag ornaments
3.4. Fish scale
4. Plantal Ornaments
Among the animal representations bird, phoenix, ibex and lion are seen. And ornamental motifs are composed of lotus, curved branches and etc. The rhombic and cell ornaments are the most popular parts of these geometrical patterns. Of course all these ornaments have some symbolical meanings such as eternity, re-birth, dominance and royalty etc. And also we have to mention that ibex, deer, bird and lion are related with Shamanism in Turkish culture. On the other hand lotus is mostly seen in Buddhist art. It means that the ornaments of Mongolian memorial-graves are both carry the traces of Shamanism and Buddhism.
Besides these features they also have some symbolical meanings. As mentioned before, these kind of graves that have square or quadratic form, symbolically can be related with four main directions which also means eternity, cosmos, centralism, etc. This symbolism which has very strong root can be traced back to the very earliest times such as Okunyev Culture; for example, one of the famous cosmos schema of them was shown by a square in the circle. On the other hand the stone sculptures and altars that were in the center of these memorial graves and have roundish form can be accepted as the reflection of the World or Life Tree.
One of the most important detail about these ornamented memorial-graves from Mongolia is their representations that can be similarly seen not only in early period Turkish art but also in Turkish Islamic Period, with almost same symbolical meanings. In other words these graves, besides their functions and symbolical meanings, take attention by iconographically repeating the familiar representations for many centuries in Turkish art.
