Tamgha
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A tamgha, or tamga (Modern Turkish: damga) is an abstract seal or device used by Eurasian nomadic peoples and by cultures influenced by them. The tamga was normally the emblem of a particular tribe, clan or family. They were common among the Scythians, Sarmatians, Göktürks, Khazars, Uighurs, and Alans. Neighboring sedentary people sometimes adopted tamga-like symbols; for example, the stylized trident tamga, or seal, used by later Rus' rulers such as Yaroslav I of Kiev may have derived from similar tribal emblems in use among the Khazars.[1] Archaeologists prize tamgas as a first-rate source for the study of extinct cultures.
[edit] Tamga used by Turkic peoples
Among modern Turkic people, tamga is a design identifying property or cattle to belong to a specific Turkic clan, usually as a cattle brand or stamp.
When Turkish clans took over more urban or rural areas, tamghas dropped out of use as pastoral ways of life became forgotten. This is most evident in the Turkish clans who took over western and eastern Anatolia following the Battle of Manzikert. The Turks who took over western Anatolia founded the Sultanate of Rum became Roman-style aristocrats, and most of them adopted the (at the time) moslem symbol of the Seal of Suleyman after the sultanate disintegrated into a mass of feuding Ghazi states (see Candaroglu, Karamanid). Only the Ottoman ghazi state (later to become the Ottoman Empire) kept their Tamgha, and this was highly stylized, so much so that the bow was stylized down eventually to a crescent moon.
The Turks who remained pastoral nomad kings in eastern Anatolia and Iran however, continued to use their clan tamghas, and in fact they became high-strung nationalistic imagery. The Ak Koyunlu put their tamgha on their flags and stamped their coinage with it.
For those Turks who never left their homeland of Turkestan in the first place, it remained, and still is, what it was originally: A cattle brand and clan identifier.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Brook 154; Franklin and Shepard 120-121; Pritsak 78-79.
[edit] References
- Brook, Kevin Alan. The Jews of Khazaria. 2d ed. Rowman and Littlefield, 2006.
- Christian, David. A History of Russia, Mongolia and Central Asia. Blackwell, 1999.
- Franklin, Simon and Jonathan Shepard. The Emergence of Rus 750-1200. London: Longman, 1996.
- Pritsak, Omeljan. The Origins of the Old Rus' Weights and Monetary Systems. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1998.
