Katanda (A-2)

Description

In the beginning of his field research in Altai in 1865, V.V. Radlov came across unknown writing for the first time while excavating ancient graves near the village of Katanda (Radlov 1889). On the bottom of an excavated silver vessel there was an inscription made in runiform signs. Only in 1891 did V.V. Radlov start to work on decoding the Orkhon monuments of Mongolia simultaneously with V. Thomsen who finally decoded the script. After these advances, the famous Turcologist P. Melioranskij, a former student of V.V. Radlov, was able to read the inscription on the bottom of the silver vessel from Katanda (Melioranskij 1903).

Ist index in DTS is А2.

Reading of P. Melioranskij(1)

Transliteration l²gčŋ

Transcription älig čäŋ

Translation: fifty cheng (cheng is a Chinese measure for tea (about 1,5 pounds)).

Reading P. Melioranskij(2)

Transliteration l²gčŋ

Transcription l(ü)gč(ü)ŋ

Translation Lükčüŋ (city)

(Melioranskij 1903: 34–36)

Comments

1. The first reading is more likely, as there are no rounded vowels in the text. On theother hand, if čäŋ is 1,5 pounds, then 50 čäŋ’s will not fit inside the vessel. Moreover, it was šiŋ, and not čäŋ. This ist he only source where the Chinese measure appears in this phonetic form- Probably, the price of  the vessel was 73,5 ounds of tea.

2. Lükčüŋ is a Chinese city. DTS refers to the “Uigurische Sprachdenkmäler” of V. Radlov. In the index of Nobuo Yamada 1993, there are 4 times that this city is mentioned in Old Uyghur sources which give various transcriptions of the name; it can be read as Lügčüŋ, and not Lükčüŋ, because g in the Uyghur writing can mean both k and g. If this interpretation is correct, we could correct the readings of the name for Uyghur sources because the Runic script distinguishes these consonants. According to Melioranskij, thsi inscription gives indication where the vessel was produced. (Melioranskij 1903: 34).

We agree to the interpretations of this inscription proposed by Melioranskij. Both readings are possible, although in both cases some questions remain unanswered.

Reading of L.N. Tybykova, I. A. Nevskaya  and M. Erdal

Runic Transliteration

Transliteration l² g² č ŋ²

Transcription l(ü)gč(ü)ŋ // (ä)l(i)g č(ä)ŋ