Where did the Turks come from and how were they like?

The following is an excerpt of my book “The Gokturks: Origins, Religion and Rapid Rise of the First Turkic Empire”, now available on Amazon.

According to Western conception, the term "Turks" refers to an ethnic group that has lived in Anatolia for about a millennium and forms the bridge between the Asia and the Europe. Their country, the Republic of Turkey – known as Türkiye officially[1] – is known for its geographical but also cultural diversity. Over time, religions and people from all over the world met here and formed a melting pot of cultures. And yet, the influence of non-European and non-Semitic Asian Turkic culture cannot be overlooked. Any visitor will experience flowing transitions between tradition and modernity from northwestern Edirne to southeastern Diyarbakir, from rainy Trabzon to sunny Antalya. Throughout history, the Turks of Anatolia and other places were known for their national pride and their will to fight. Without wanting to reduce the last centuries of Turkish history to a few sentences, it can rightly be said that many inhabitants are proud of their country – not necessarily of the current conditions or with regards to their entire past, but of their identity. What is this identity actually made up of, then? For a linguist, ethnologist or historian, language and common history are certainly the most important. But the Turks are known, especially in the West, for their delicious food, their coffee and tea, and cultural dispositions such as hospitality and family cohesion. A predilection for a passionate yet friendly culture of argumentation is also apparent. The Turks began settling Anatolia after Sultan Alp Arslan's victory of the Seljuks over Byzantium from about 1100, and established a world empire that stretched to the gates of Vienna in the name of Ertuğrul and Osman. However, there is one peculiarity that had strongly marked the Turks until their arrival in Anatolia. Their appearance may have changed, but the Turks in Türkiye speak a language and maintain traditions whose origins, for the most part, lie elsewhere entirely. And this is a special characteristic of all Turkic peoples. They never stayed in one place for too long. Prior to arriving in Anatolia, the Turks, who in this context will also be summarized alternately as Turkic peoples, had already settled, conquered or left again large parts of Eurasia.

The Turks of Anatolia are such a Turkic people, as are the Tatars on the Crimean peninsula and the Uighurs in China. But conversely, at least in the West, Tartars and Uighurs are not called Turks in order to distinguish them from the inhabitants of Anatolia. This additionally has historical reasons, since at the arrival of the Seljuks in Byzantine Anatolia, the land of those nomads was called Tourkia (ancient Greek: Τουρκία). In the Ottoman period, Turkey was used as an endonym by Western Europe for the entire Ottoman Empire. Such a distinction does not exist in Türkiye, by the way. There, the Yakuts in Siberia, Gagauz in Moldavia or the Altai Turkic people are simply classified as "Turkish," although the different cultural development of all Turkic peoples over the millennia should be duly noted in that regard. Since from here on the history prior to the arrival of the Seljuks and other Oghuz Turks in Anatolia will be treated, the term Turks shall be used as an equivalent for all Turkic peoples of antiquity and the early Middle Ages. If it seems reasonable the respective tribal or state name will be preferred. As a summarizing term, which should describe those tribes in a generalized way, Turkic peoples nevertheless does not seem unsuitable. For the history of all Turkic peoples Central Asia is the most important region of the almost endless Steppe Belt of Eurasia. This term basically refers to the area between the plains of Mongolia in the east, and the transition of Kazakhstan into Russia and Ukraine in the west. It was an ideal place for the migration and subsequent decentralized settlement of the Hunnic, Mongolic and Turkic peoples. The map of the Turkic scholar Mahmud al-Kashgari from the 11th century illustrates how the Turks were seemingly pulled apart from each other. For millennia, groups that spoke one of the many Turkic languages lived scattered throughout Eurasia. Instead of being united in an empire, they were grouped into smaller federations, and some tribes were even in political isolation from all others..

Map of Mahmud al-Kashgari that shows the Turkic Oghuz and other peoples of Central Asia. The north is to the left, the west below.

In our present day, Central Asia is politically divided into states that belong primarily to the Turkic world. Kazakhs, Turkmen, Kyrgyz, and Uzbeks are all Turkic speakers, meaning they each speak a different branch of the Turkic language family. Accordingly, most of Central Asia is known to this day as Turkestan – land of the Turks. Although the Turkic peoples, as is linguistically and archaeologically documented, probably originated further away in northeast Asia, they settled here after the demise of the Gokturks, spreading the influence of Turkic culture along the Caspian Sea. Before the Turkicization of this region, mainly Indo-European peoples were settled here, including the Bactrians, Sogdians, and Cimmerians. The elite of the Persian Parthian Empire, which is well known for causing headaches to the Romans two millennia ago, was also composed of steppe warriors from Central Asia. The "Scythians“, an ancient Greek term for steppe peoples beyond the Ukraine, also dwelt in Central Asia.

And so, long before the arrival of the Turks, this area was already a place feared by the sedentary population of Europe and Asia. The harsh climate, the endless steppes and deserts, and the sparse vegetation forced the inhabitants to exercise modesty in hunting and to defend their families from invaders until their last breath. This favored their use of bows and arrows, as extensive plantations were rarely possible. Thus, most of the steppe peoples remained hunter-gatherers and cattle breeders until the Middle Ages. They seemed to have lived a simple life in the eyes of the sedentary peoples, reminiscent of their own ancestors‘ old ways. But the harsh conditions of the steppe gave the steppe people decisive advantages. Due to their skills on horseback they developed into excellent warriors. From Tomyris to Bumin, from Attila to Genghis Khan the rulers of the steppe peoples were a nightmare for their sedentary neighbors. In many epic battles they spread fear and terror, from China to Persia to Europe. At least, this was the tenor of those peoples who saw in the tribes of Central Asia nothing more than a collection of infidel savages.

This collection of numerous balbals is probably part of a mass grave in Kyrgyzstan.

However, to understand the rise of the Gokturks we need to put ourselves into the shoes of those "barbarians". How did the nomads of the steppes live in the first place? Apart from the fact that they were housing in huts or tents and that they had to rely more on hunting than agriculture, you probably don't know much about them. That is absolutely understandable as nomadic culture is rarely taught in school anywhere in the world. It surely wasn’t part of the history curriculum I had to attend at school eons ago. Yet steppe life offers potential for expressive art, the stuff of which legends are born, scripts for exceptionally fascinating Netflix productions. We have to underhand that the way of life of the steppe peoples consists of far more than what we as time travelers could have recognized at first glance. Rather, the really interesting part for us to experience would have been what was going on in the minds of those people. Their faith and their customs were central elements of their everyday life, because they determined their behavior – in terms of dealing with animals, nature and also in relation to other people.

In any case, as you might have guessed by now, the actual life of the Turks at that time was anything but mythical. It was exhausting and extremely routine. The Turks in medieval Central Asia seem to have led a completely different life than the people in the modern Turkic republics. This includes, of course, their lifestyle of domestic and livestock farming.[2] They lived not in houses but in yurts, large sturdy tents that could be dismantled and rebuilt elsewhere at any time. The yurt represented the center of Turkic nomadic life. In the winter, families used it to move with it to the warmer south and in the summer months back to the north to escape the heat. The Turks practiced private enterprise by hunting animals, raising livestock, in some parts of Central Asia even taking care of plantations, and participating in the lively trade along the ancient Silk Road. Learning the art of hunting was essential for every member of the family. From an early age, every boy and girl was obligated to learn how to ride horses and hunt wild animals. Therefore, in the course of time, the Turks developed into excellent fighters who could handle bows and arrows better than, for example, the Romans or the Chinese. They became masters in the Art of War, albeit certain aspects of military technology like siege weapons where uncommon. The same claim may be made regarding Huns before them and the Mongols after them. This was the heritage of the steppe. That being said, the Turks did indeed cultivate abstract thoughts and concepts, unlike common media portrayals may suggest For example, they used a variation of the Chinese calendar, according to which each of the 12 months in a year was named after an animal. The year began with the month of the rat (January) and ended with the month of the pig (December). Below is an overview with all the month names.[3]

A cow for February, a sheep for August and a dragon for May. Nothing special here.

Traditions gradually crystallized and were retold from generation to generation, often in the form of oral drama and song. These traditions are summarized under the term Töre. The social system of the Turks differed from that of other steppe peoples, however, in that the Töre was supposed to regulate the lives of the Turks in the form of specific laws regardless of social standing within a tribe or state. The judiciary of the ancient Turks was based on the desire for social justice. For example, disobedience to the holy Khagan was frowned upon as it was he who had been sent to earth by God, legitimized to rule over the Turks with benevolence and good will. Should the Khagan at any point in time however violate the terms of Töre – act against the common law – his subjects would be allowed to overthrow and exile or kill him. Rape and murder were punishable by death, but so was the theft of cattle and horses. In addition, if someone was found guilty of rape, all their possessions had to be confiscated regardless of the severity of the case. The Töre also regulated how descendants were to deal with the death of a relative. As a rule, the corpse was placed in a yurt, while their relatives, men and women, young and old, each killed a sheep and a horse in his or her honor and positioned them in front of the yurt. A prayer was then spoken. Then, on a next day, the corpse was to be burned and cremated with all the personal belongings of the deceased. While endowments were quite common, here our main source encounters a conflict. In the case of burial, a tomb decorated with stones was erected, the number of stones signaling the number of people the deceased had killed in his life. This is related to the killing of enemies in battle. Depending on whether a man or a woman had died, there was a precisely regulated sequence regarding the social situation of the family. If a father or uncle had died, his sons or nephews were to marry the mother or sister-in-law. Before you jump to any conclusions, keep in mind that any kind of sexual relations between them were strictly forbidden and punishable. Inbreeding was an absolute taboo among the ancient Turks. The act of marriage served the purpose of securing the social position, especially that of women, within the tribe. As you can imagine, widowed women were often just as destitute and target of vengeful and greedy men in the steppe as they were in Europe. Through this marriage and survivorship policy, they were offered at least some protection

Do you want to learn more about the customs of the Ancient Turks? Then I recommend checking out my book on Amazon.

[1] This Denomination was introduced by the Government of Turkey in 2022 in order to seperate the country’s official name from a certain bird. The animal is known as „Turkey“ to Americans because it was brought from the Ottoman Empire, known to the West as Turkey, to the United States. This Turkey animal on the other hand is known as „Hint“ in Turkey, because they imported the bird from India, known as Hindistan in Turkish.

[2] Barisitz, Stephan (2017): Central Asia and the Silk Road. Economic Rise and Decline over Several Millenia, 52.

[3] Taken from Biray, Nergis (2009): 12 hayvanlı Türk takvimi. Zamanda ve insana hüketmek, in: Türkiyat Araştırmaları Enstitüsü Dergisi, No. 39, Atatürk Üniversitesi, 671-681, here: 673-674.