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54-612: Emperor Zhenzong's reign was noted for the consolidation of power and the strengthening of the Song Empire. The empire prospered, and its military might was further reinforced. However, it would also mark the beginning of a foreign policy towards the Khitan -led Liao dynasty in the north that would ultimately result in humiliation. In 1004, the Khitans waged war against the Song Empire. Emperor Zhenzong, leading his army, struck back at

108-648: 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 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

162-509: 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

216-452: A husband had the right to his married wife while among lower class Jurchens, 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

270-504: 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

324-501: 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 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

378-515: Is still almost completely unintelligible, it is difficult to create a detailed history of their movements. During 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

432-879: 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 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

486-588: 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, 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

540-584: 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

594-640: The Kazakhs of Kazakhstan and areas adjoining it, and by some Slavic peoples, such as the Russians and Bulgarians . The Han Chinese consider 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

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648-578: 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 a military invasion against the Later Jin in 944. In January 947, the Emperor of

702-534: The Mongol Empire in the early 13th century. Fleeing from the Mongols , in 1216 the Khitans invaded Goryeo and won several battles, even reaching 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

756-577: 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,

810-659: 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 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

864-573: The Xianbei -led Northern Wei dynasty dating to the period of the Six Dynasties . Most scholars believe the Khitan tribe splintered from 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

918-684: 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 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

972-565: The Zhao family , were allegedly discovered. This was followed up by imperial sacrificial ceremonies carried out at Mount Tai . From 1013 to 1015, the emperor issued official decrees deifying the Jade Emperor as the highest ruler of Heaven. Champa rice was introduced to China from Champa during Emperor Zhenzong's reign. In 1020, Emperor Zhenzong became affected by an illness which was to cause his death two years later and unable to handle

1026-585: The 4th century, inhabited an area corresponding to parts of modern Mongolia , Northeast China and 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

1080-608: 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 the West Eurasian paternal haplogroup J2 . All three specimens carried maternal haplogroups associated with Northeast Asia , including haplogroups A24 , D4 and haplogroup Y1 . During

1134-623: 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 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

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1188-558: The Jin were similarly entertained by singing girls in Guide, Henan. There 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

1242-562: 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 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

1296-792: 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 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 )

1350-410: The Khitan nobility escaped the area westwards towards Western Regions , establishing 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

1404-400: 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 was a significant change for the Khitans, the Khitan language , origin myth, shamanic religion and nomadic lifestyle endured. China was in chaos after

1458-737: 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 , 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

1512-531: 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 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

1566-535: The Khitans. Despite initial successes, in 1005, Emperor Zhenzong concluded the Chanyuan Treaty . The treaty resulted in over a century of peace, but at the price of the Song Empire agreeing to an inferior position to the Liao Empire, and also agreeing to pay an annual tribute of 100,000 ounces of silver and over 200,000 bolts of silk. The admission of inferiority would come to plague the foreign affairs of

1620-464: 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 the fledgling Song dynasty , which had formed south of the Khitans' territory. Though

1674-679: 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, the Khitans supported Shi Jing Tang ' s rebellion against the Later Tang Emperor Li Cong Ke. Shi Jing Tang became emperor of

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1728-419: 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 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

1782-490: The Liao dynasty used two independent writing systems for their language: Khitan small script and Khitan large script . After 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

1836-476: The Song Empire, while the payments slowly depleted the empire's coffers. He was responsible for ordering the shipment of 30,000 bushels of quick-maturing rice seed from the Fujian Province to the lower Yangtze basin in 1011–1012, improving agriculture. Emperor Zhenzong stressed the importance of Taoism at his imperial court. It was during his reign that the so-called Heavenly Texts, which glorified

1890-576: 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 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

1944-413: The affairs of state. By this time, Zhenzong’s wife Empress Liu was already established as power behind the throne and handled the affairs of state. She continued to act unofficially as regent of China for the two remaining years of Zhenzong’s life. Zhenzong died in 1022 of his illness. He was succeeded by his 6th son, Zhao Zhen who took the throne as Emperor Renzong , but with actual power remaining in

1998-541: 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

2052-612: 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 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

2106-472: 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 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

2160-559: 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 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

2214-497: 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 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

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2268-439: 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 a proficient understanding of them. Nomadic Khitans originally engaged in stockbreeding , fishing , and hunting . Looting Chinese villages and towns as well as neighboring tribes

2322-594: 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 the last Tang emperor and founded the Later Liang dynasty. The Shatuo Turks, who had been allied with the Khitans since 905, defeated

2376-480: The hands of Empress Liu, who became empress dowager . A number of Chinese artefacts dating from the Tang dynasty and Song dynasty , some of which had been owned by Emperor Zhenzong, were excavated and came into the hands of the Kuomintang general Ma Hongkui , who refused to publicise the findings. Among the artefacts were a white marble tablet from the Tang dynasty, gold nails, and bands made out of metal. It

2430-414: 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

2484-489: 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 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

2538-582: 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 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

2592-643: 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

2646-444: 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 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

2700-565: Was not until after Ma died that his wife went to Taiwan in 1971 from the United States to bring the artefacts to Chiang Kai-shek , who turned them over to the National Palace Museum . Consorts and Issue: 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

2754-417: 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

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2808-504: 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

2862-501: 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

2916-409: 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

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