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54-655: The existence of a somewhat mysterious tribal power known in Mongol tradition as Khamag Mongol Uls is recorded in sources of the Khitan -led Liao dynasty . After the fall of the Liao dynasty in 1125, the Khamag Mongols began to play an important role on the Mongolian plains. They occupied one of the most fertile lands of the country, the basins of the river Onon , Kherlen and Tuul Rivers in

108-603: A power vacuum lasted until 1189 when Temujin became the Khan of the Khamag Mongol. War broke soon out between other Mongol tribes. Temujin's rival Jamukha was recognized by the rival tribes as Gurkhan (the universal ruler) in 1201 but he was defeated by the alliance of Khamag Mongol and Keraites. When Tughril Khan refused to cement the alliance with the Khamag, Temujin's wars with the clans nearly destroyed him. Temujin united all clans on

162-489: A Khitan nobleman died, burnt offerings were sacrificed at the full and new moons. The body was exposed for three years in the mountains, after which the bones would be cremated. The Khitan believed that the souls of the dead rested at a place called the Black Mountain, near Rehe Province . Khitan tents always faced east, and they revered the sun, but the moon did not have a large role in their religion. They also practiced

216-509: A blocked system reminiscent of the later Hangul writing of Korea , meaning that a word is represented by one group (square block) composed of several glyphs with individual phonetic meanings (somewhat similar to the jamo units of Hangul). Unlike Hangul's jamo , a Khitan phonetic symbol could represent not just a single vowel or consonant, but a consonant-vowel or vowel-consonant pair as well. Each block could incorporate two to seven such "phonetic element" characters, written in pairs within

270-552: A form of divination where they went to war if the shoulder blade of a white sheep cracked while being heated ( scapulimancy ). Khitan women hunted, rode horses and practiced archery . They did not practice foot binding , which started becoming popular among the Han during the Song dynasty . The Khitan practiced polygamy and generally preferred marriage within the tribe, but it was not unknown for an Emperor to take wives from other groups, such as

324-545: A likeness between a small script and a Chinese character does not help in the reading of Khitan. For example, the Chinese character for 'mountain' ( 山 ) is the same as the Khitan small script logogram for 'gold' (and, thus, the name of the Jin dynasty ). Of the 378 known small script characters, 125 are semantic , 115 are phonetic , and the remainder have not been deciphered. (Usually, it

378-600: A major strategic error, formed an ill-fated alliance with the Turkic leader Qapaghan Qaghan to punish the Khitan for raiding Hebei province . Khitan territory was much closer to northern China proper than Turkic lands, and the Turks used it to launch their own raids into Hebei. Like the Tuyuhun and Tangut , the Khitan remained an intermediate power along the borderlands through the 7th and 8th centuries. The Khitans rose to prominence in

432-607: A military invasion against the Later Jin in 944. In January 947, the Emperor of the Later Jin dynasty surrendered to the Khitans. The Khitan emperor left the conquered city of Kaifeng and unexpectedly died from an illness while travelling in May 947. Relations between Goryeo and the Khitans were hostile after the Khitans destroyed Balhae . Goryeo would not recognize the Liao dynasty and supported

486-621: A power vacuum that developed in the wake of the Kyrgyz takeover of the Uyghur Khaganate, and the collapse of the Tang dynasty. Abaoji , who had been successful in uniting the Khitan tribes, founded the Liao dynasty in 907. The Liao territory included modern day northern and northeastern China, Mongolia, and parts of Central Asia and Siberia. Although transition to an imperial social and political organization

540-452: A proficient understanding of them. Nomadic Khitans originally engaged in stockbreeding , fishing , and hunting . Looting Chinese villages and towns as well as neighboring tribes was also a helpful source of slaves , Chinese handicrafts, and food, especially in times of famine. Under the influence of China, and following the administrative need for a sedentary administration, the Khitans began to engage in farming, crop cultivation and

594-643: A recognized minority ethnic group in Northeast China, are the genetic descendants of Khitans. The historical European name for China, Cathay , originates from the word Khitan. There is no consensus on the etymology of the name of Khitan. There are basically three speculations. Feng Jiasheng argues that it comes from the Yuwen chieftains' names. Zhao Zhenji thinks that the term originated from Xianbei and means "a place where Xianbei had resided". Japanese scholar Otagi Matsuo believes that Khitan's original name

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648-459: A sacrifice to the spirit of the animal they were hunting and wore a pelt from the same animal during the hunt. There were festivals to mark the catching of the first fish and wild goose, and annual sacrifices of animals to the sky, earth, ancestors, mountains, rivers, and others. Every male member of the Khitan would sacrifice a white horse, white sheep, and white goose during the Winter solstice . When

702-583: A son of Khabul Khan. Hotula Khan engaged the Tatars in 13 battles in an effort to obtain vengeance for the death of Ambagai Khan. Khamag Mongol was unable to elect a khan after Hotula died. However, Khabul's grandson Yesugei , who was a chief of the Khiyad tribe, was an effective and preeminent leader of Khamag Mongol. Temujin , the future Genghis Khan, was born into Yesugei's family as the first son in Delüün Boldog on

756-645: Is Khabul Khan from the Borjigin clan. Khabul Khan successfully repelled the invasions of the Jurchen -led Jin armies. Khabul Khan was succeeded by Ambaghai Khagann of the Taichiud. Ambagai was captured by the Tatar confederation while delivering his daughter for marriage to their leadership. He was handed over to the Jin, who cruelly executed him. Ambaghai was succeeded by Hotula Khan ,

810-505: Is no evidence that guest prostitution of unmarried Jurchen girls to Khitan men was resented by the Jurchens. It was only when the Khitans forced aristocratic Jurchen families to give up their wives as guest prostitutes to Khitan messengers that the Jurchens became resentful. This suggests that in Jurchen upper classes, only a husband had the right to his married wife while among lower class Jurchens,

864-519: The Jurchens for several decades after the fall of the Liao dynasty, until the Jurchens fully switched to a script of their own . Examples of the scripts appeared most often on epitaphs and monuments , although other fragments sometimes surface. The Khitan small script was invented in about 924 or 925 CE by a scholar named Yelü Diela . He drew his inspiration from "the Uyghur language and script", which he

918-685: The Khentii Mountains . The Taichiud (Cyrillic: Тайчууд) was one of the three core tribes in the Khamag Mongol Khanate of Mongolia during the 12th century and whose people lived in the southern part of Siberia's modern-day Zabaykalsky Krai . The present-day Zabaykalsky Krai and the Khentii Province of Mongolia were the core regions of the Khamag Mongol Khanate. The Khamags consisted of the three core clans Khiyad , Taichuud, and Jalairs . The first khan of Khamag Mongol recorded in history

972-562: The Mongolian scholar named Činggeltei , who used monuments, calendar , and similar Chinese texts to decipher sections of small script. A particularly valuable object of their study was the inscription on the Da Jin huangdi dutong jinglüe langjun xingji ( zh:大金皇弟都统经略郎君行记 ) stele, which is the only known bilingual Chinese-Khitan inscription. Produced during the Jurchen Jin dynasty it, ironically,

1026-650: The Russian Far East . As a people descended from the proto-Mongols through the Xianbei , Khitans spoke the now-extinct Khitan language , a Para-Mongolic language related to the Mongolic languages . The Khitan people founded and led the Liao dynasty (916–1125), which dominated a vast area of Siberia, Mongolia and Northern China . The Khitans of the Liao dynasty used two independent writing systems for their language: Khitan small script and Khitan large script . After

1080-513: The West Eurasian paternal haplogroup J2 . All three specimens carried maternal haplogroups associated with Northeast Asia , including haplogroups A24 , D4 and haplogroup Y1 . During the Khitan and Mongol empires, a male bias for East-Asian related ancestry is observed in the eastern steppe region. Two studies found evidence of Khitan mtDNA ancestry in modern-day people of the Daur ethnicity. This

1134-489: The Xianbei , and some scholars believe they may have been a mixed group who also included former members of the Xiongnu tribal confederation. The Khitan shaved their heads, leaving hair on their temples which grew down to the chest, in a similar fashion to the related Kumo Xi , Shiwei , and Xianbei whom they are believed to be descended from. During their early history the Khitan were composed of eight tribes. Their territory

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1188-607: The power games between the Turks and the Sui and Tang dynasties. It is estimated the Khitans had only around 43,000 soldiers – a fraction of the Turkic Khaganates. In 605, the Khitans raided the Sui dynasty, but the Emperor Yang of Sui was able to convince the Turks to send 20,000 horsemen to aid Sui against the Khitans. In 628, under the leadership of tribal chief Dahe Moui,

1242-643: The 13th century, the Mongol invasions and conquests had a large impact on shifting ethnic identities in the region. Most people of the Eurasian Steppe did not retain their pre-Mongol identities after the conquests. The Khitans were scattered across Eurasia and assimilated into the Mongol Empire in the early 13th century. Fleeing from the Mongols , in 1216 the Khitans invaded Goryeo and won several battles, even reaching

1296-670: The Han, Koreans , and Turkic tribes . A 2015 study postulated that Khitan males may have belonged to haplogroups C3c or N1 , based on the distribution of these haplogroups in modern-day Eastern and Central Asian populations. A 2020 study published in Cell analyzed the DNA of 3 Khitan burials from Bulgan Province , located in Northern Mongolia . The Khitan burials were found to be of predominantly Northeast Asian origin, with less than 10% West Eurasian ancestry. The two male specimens belonged to

1350-463: The Khitan language, known as the large script and the small script . These were functionally independent and appear to have been used simultaneously in the Liao dynasty. They were in use for some time after the fall of that dynasty. Examples of the scripts appeared most often on epitaphs and monuments , although other fragments sometimes surface. The Khitan scripts have not been fully deciphered and more research and discoveries will be necessary for

1404-559: The Khitan submitted to the Tang dynasty, as they had earlier submitted to the Eastern Turks. The Khagan of the Eastern Turks, Jiali Khan , offered to exchange the rebel Liang Shidu for the Khitans, but Emperor Taizong would not agree to the exchange. During the reign of Empress Wu , nearly one century later, the Second Turkic Khaganate raided along northern China's borderlands. The Tang Empress, in what scholars consider

1458-583: The Khitans supported Shi Jing Tang ' s rebellion against the Later Tang Emperor Li Cong Ke. Shi Jing Tang became emperor of the Later Jin dynasty and, in exchange for their support, the Khitans gained sixteen new prefectures . The Later Jin dynasty remained a vassal of the Khitans until the death of Shi Jing Tang in 942, but when the new emperor ascended, he indicated that he would not honor his predecessor's arrangement. The Khitans launched

1512-462: The Khitans was itself not a problem, since the practice of guest prostitution – giving female companions, food and shelter to guests – was common among Jurchens. Unmarried daughters of Jurchen families of lower and middle classes in Jurchen villages were provided to Khitan messengers for sex, as recorded by Hong Hao. Song envoys among the Jin were similarly entertained by singing girls in Guide, Henan. There

1566-543: The Liao dynasty and the Song dynasty for the next 120 years. During the reign of the Emperor Daozong of Liao , corruption was a major problem and prompted dissatisfaction among many people, including the Jurchens. The Liao dynasty eventually fell to the Jin dynasty of the Jurchen in 1125, who defeated and absorbed the Khitans to their military benefit. The Khitans considered the Khamag Mongols as their last hope when

1620-439: The Liao dynasty was invaded by the Jin, Song dynasty and Western Xia Empires. To defend against the Jurchens and Khitans, a Long Wall was built by Goryeo in 1033–1034, along with many border forts. One of the causes of the Jurchen rebellion and the fall of the Liao was the custom of raping married Jurchen women by Khitan envoys, which caused resentment from the Jurchens. The custom of having sex with unmarried girls by

1674-464: The Mongolian Plateau at last in 1206, when he was given the title Genghis Khan . Khitan people The Khitan people ( Khitan small script : [REDACTED] ; Chinese : 契丹 ; pinyin : Qìdān ) were a Turko-Mongolian historical nomadic people from Northeast Asia who, from the 4th century, inhabited an area corresponding to parts of modern Mongolia , Northeast China and

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1728-541: The block, with the first half of the pair on the left. If there were an odd number of characters in a block, the unpaired character would be centered below the preceding pair. Although there is some speculation, it appears there are no characters that both the small and large scripts share. Periodically, epitaphs written using small script will be written using the large script method of linearity . Although small script had some similarities to Chinese, Khitan characters were often used to record Chinese words. The appearance of

1782-457: The building of cities. Unlike the Chinese and Balhae farmers, who cultivated wheat and sorghum millet , the Khitan farmers cultivated panicled millet. The ruling class of the Liao dynasty still undertook hunting campaigns in late summer in the tradition of their ancestors. After the fall of the Liao dynasty, the Khitans returned to a more nomadic life. The Khitans practiced shamanism in which animals played an important role. Hunters offered

1836-448: The capital city Kaesong . A third and final invasion in 1018 was repelled by Goryeo's forces, bringing an end to 30 years of war between the rivals. The Liao dynasty proved to be a significant power north of the Chinese plain , continuously moving south and west, gaining control over former Chinese and Turk-Uyghur territories. In 1005 Chanyuan Treaty was signed, and peace remained between

1890-577: The ethnonym derived from Khitay as applied to them by the Uyghurs to be pejorative and the Chinese government has tried to ban its use. According to the History of Liao compiled in the 14th century, a "sacred man" ( shen-ren ) on a white horse had eight sons with a "heavenly woman" ( tiannü ) who rode in a cart pulled by a grey ox. The man came from the Tu River (Lao Ha river in modern-day Jilin , Manchuria ) and

1944-779: The fall of the Liao dynasty in 1125 following the Jurchen invasion , many Khitans followed Yelü Dashi 's group westward to establish the Qara Khitai or Western Liao dynasty, in Central Asia , which lasted nearly a century before falling to the Mongol Empire in 1218. Other regimes founded by the Khitans included the Northern Liao , Eastern Liao and Later Liao in China, as well as the Qutlugh-Khanid dynasty in Persia. The modern-day Daur people ,

1998-472: The fledgling Song dynasty , which had formed south of the Khitans' territory. Though the Khitans would have preferred to attack China, they invaded Goryeo in 993. Khitan forces failed to advance beyond the Chongchon River and were persuaded to withdraw, though Khitan dissatisfaction with Goryeo's conquest of the Jurchen prompted a second invasion in 1010. This time the Khitans, led by their emperor, sacked

2052-549: The gates of the capital, but were defeated by Goryeo General Kim Chwi-ryeo who pushed them back north to Pyongan , where the remaining Khitans were finished off by Goryeo forces in 1219. The Khitan language is now extinct. Some scholars believe that Khitan is Proto-Mongolic , while others have suggested that it is a Para-Mongolic language. Khitan has loanwords borrowed from the Turkic Old Uyghur language and Koreanic languages . There were two writing systems for

2106-414: The initial, medial, and final sounds of the syllable). Sometimes the initial consonants of syllables are indicated to be dental , labial , guttural , or nasal etc., based on the syllabograms involved. Additionally, vowels are sometimes indicated to be labial or non-labial, or pronounced in the front or back of the mouth. Much of this information came from the "Khitan Script Research Group", led by

2160-635: The last Tang emperor and founded the Later Liang dynasty. The Shatuo Turks, who had been allied with the Khitans since 905, defeated the Later Liang and founded the Later Tang dynasty in 923, but by 926 the former allies had grown apart. In 934 Yelü Bei , Abaoji's son, wrote to his brother Emperor Taizong of Liao from the Later Tang court: " Li Cong Ke has slain his liege-lord , why not attack him?" In 936,

2214-441: The short-lived Qara Khitai or Western Liao dynasty. After its fall, a small part under Buraq Hajib established a local dynasty in the southern Persian province of Kirman . These Khitans were absorbed by the local Turkic and Iranian populations, Islamized and left no influence behind them. As the Khitan language is still almost completely unintelligible, it is difficult to create a detailed history of their movements. During

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2268-621: The tombs of Khitan nobility. There are about 33 known monuments with inscriptions in the Khitan small script, ranging in date from 1053 to 1171. The Khitan small script was added to Unicode version 13.0 in March 2020. 471 graphic characters are located in the Khitan Small Script block, while a single invisible filler character ( U+16FE4: KHITAN SMALL SCRIPT FILLER ) is located in the Ideographic Symbols and Punctuation block. The filler

2322-624: The upper reaches of the Onon river in 1162. When young Tughril Khan asked for help from Yesugei, the ruler of the Khamag Mongol, to dethrone his brothers among the Keraites , the Mongols helped him defeat the Keraite leaders and put him on the throne in the early 12th century. Yesugei was poisoned by the Tatars and died shortly after in 1171, after which the Khamag Mongol began to disintegrate. Political anarchy and

2376-410: The virginity of unmarried girls and sex with Khitan men did not impede their ability to marry later. The Jurchens and their Manchu descendants had Khitan linguistic and grammatical elements in their personal names like suffixes. Many Khitan names had a "ju" suffix. Following the fall of the Liao dynasty, a number of the Khitan nobility escaped the area westwards towards Western Regions , establishing

2430-567: The woman from the Huang River (modern-day Xar Moron river in Inner Mongolia ). The pair met where the two rivers join, and the eight sons born of their union became eight tribes. The earliest written reference to the Khitan is from an official history of the Xianbei -led Northern Wei dynasty dating to the period of the Six Dynasties . Most scholars believe the Khitan tribe splintered from

2484-601: Was "Xidan", which means "the people who are similar to the Xi people " or "the people who inhabit among the Xi people". Due to the dominance of the Khitans during the Liao dynasty in Manchuria and Mongolia and later the Qara Khitai in Central Asia where they were seen as Chinese, the term "Khitai" came to mean "China" to people near them in Central Asia, Russia and northwestern China. The name

2538-436: Was a significant change for the Khitans, the Khitan language , origin myth, shamanic religion and nomadic lifestyle endured. China was in chaos after the fall of the Tang dynasty in 907. Known as the Wudai Shiguo period , Five Dynasties ruled northern China in rapid succession with only nominal support from the Ten Kingdoms of southern China. The Tang dynasty had been supported by Shatuo Turks until Zhu Wen murdered

2592-433: Was between the present-day Xar Moron River and Chaoyang, Liaoning . The Khitan's territory bordered Goguryeo , the Central Plains , and the lands of the Eastern Turks. Between the 6th and 9th centuries, they were successively dominated by the Eastern Turkic Khaganate , the Uyghur Khaganate , and the Tang dynasty . The Khitans were less politically united than the Turkic tribes, but often found themselves involved in

2646-466: Was one of the most significant findings of ethnic studies in China. Another group of 100,000 descendants are found in some Blang people and Yi people in Baoshan and Ruili in southwestern Yunnan province, near Myanmar. These people with surnames of A., Mang and Jiang claim to be descendants of Khitans rather than Blang people or Yi people. Khitan small script The Khitan small script ( Chinese : 契丹小字 ; pinyin : qìdān xiǎozì )

2700-417: Was one of two writing systems used for the now-extinct Khitan language . It was used during the 10th–12th century by the Khitan people , who had created the Liao Empire in present-day northeastern China. In addition to the small script, the Khitans simultaneously also used a functionally independent writing system known as the Khitan large script . Both Khitan scripts continued to be in use to some extent by

2754-504: Was originally (before the discovery of other Khitan inscriptions in 1922) thought to be in Jurchen . There are no surviving examples of printed texts in the Khitan language, and aside from five example Khitan large characters with Chinese glosses in a book on calligraphy written by Tao Zongyi ( 陶宗儀 ) during the mid 14th century, there are no Chinese glossaries or dictionaries of Khitan. The main source of Khitan texts are monumental inscriptions, mostly comprising memorial tablets buried in

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2808-501: Was possible to guess the phonetic value of an element if it has been used to transcribe a Chinese loanword in a Khitan inscription; otherwise, such phonetic values are hard to determine, as very little of the Khitan language is known. ) Small script uses a mixture of logograms, syllabograms, and, as some as sources claim, a few single sound phonograms . Sometimes suffixes were written with syllabograms, just as single syllables sometimes were written with three syllabograms (with one each for

2862-409: Was shown by a visiting Uyghur ambassador at the Khitan court. For this reason, Khitan small script was originally thought to be a daughter script of the Old Uyghur alphabet . Using a smaller number of symbols than large script, small script was less complex, yet still "able to record any word." While small-script inscriptions employed some logograms as well, most words in small script were made using

2916-400: Was then introduced to medieval Europe via Islamic and Russian sources, and became " Cathay ". In the modern era, words related to Khitay are still used as a name for China by Turkic peoples, such as the Uyghurs in China's Xinjiang region and the Kazakhs of Kazakhstan and areas adjoining it, and by some Slavic peoples, such as the Russians and Bulgarians . The Han Chinese consider

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