Orkhon inscriptions

The Orkhon inscriptions are bilingual texts in Middle Chinese and Old Turkic, the latter written in the Old Turkic alphabet, carved into two memorial steles erected in the early 8th century by the Göktürks in the Orkhon Valley in what is modern-day Mongolia. They were created in honor of two Turkic princes, Kul Tigin and his brother Bilge Qaghan.

The inscriptions relate in both languages the legendary origins of the Turks, the golden age of their history, their subjugation by the Tang dynasty, and their liberation by Ilterish Qaghan. According to one source, the inscriptions contain "rhythmic and parallelistic passages" which resemble that of epics.

Orkhon can also be transcribed as Orhun. Orkhon valley is where monuments were found and named after. They are also called Kul Tigin steles and Bilge Qaghan inscriptions.

Inscriptions together also known as The Khöshöö Tsaidam Turkic memorial complex (also spelled Khoshoo Tsaidam, Koshu-Tsaidam or Höshöö Caidam), which comes from Khoshoo Tsaidam archaeological site where the mouments were found.

Kul Tigin (684–731; simplified Chinese: 阙特勤碑; traditional Chinese: 闕特勤碑; pinyin: Què tèqín bēi) is one of the two brothers to whom the monument was dedicated.

The inscriptions were discovered by Nikolai Yadrintsev's expedition in 1889, published by Vasily Radlov. The original text was written in the Old Turkic alphabet and was deciphered by the Danish philologist Vilhelm Thomsen in 1893. Thomsen first published the translation in French in 1899, and then a more complete interpretation in Danish in 1922.

The Orkhon Valley is a region on the western Orkhon River in modern-day Mongolia, near Ögii Lake. More specifically, they stand about 80 km (50 mi) north of the Erdene Zuu Monastery, and approximately 40 km (25 mi) northwest of the Ordu-Baliq.

Before the Orkhon inscriptions were deciphered by Vilhelm Thomsen, very little was known about Turkic script. The scripts are the oldest form of a Turkic language to be preserved. When the Orkhon inscriptions were first discovered, it was obvious that they were a runic^{[dubious – discuss]} type of script that had been discovered at other sites, but these versions also had a clear form, similar to an alphabet. When Vilhelm Thomsen deciphered the inscriptions it was a huge stepping stone in understanding Old Turkic script, providing much of the foundation for translating other Turkic writings.