The Early Estampages of the Tonyukuk Inscription Identified in the Collection of Central Asia and Siberia of the IOM, RAS

Abstract

The Tonyukuk inscription, also known as the Bain Tsokto monument, was discovered by Elizaveta Klementz not far from the city of Urga (modern Ulaanbaatar) in 1897. The text was published two years later by a prominent Russian researcher Wilhelm Radloff. At the same time 17 photographs of estampages were included in the 4th volume of the “Atlas der Alterthümer der Mongolei”. While these photo copies are still frequently mentioned in the multiple publications concerning the Tonyukuk inscription, only a few specialists are aware that the originals are kept in the Collection of Central Asia and Siberia of the IOM, RAS. Moreover 81 estampages were identified as copies of the Tonyukuk inscription during the full-scale inventory of the Collection that took place in 2021. Thanks to recent publications by V. Tishin, it became obvious that eight similar copies of the monument are preserved in the collection of the Academician Obruchev Museum of Local Lore (Kyakhta). This discovery allowed to specify the authorship and dating of the St. Petersburg copies. The Chinese seal preserved on one of the Khyakhta’s estampages suggests that they were produced for the last Qing Amban of Outer Mongolia Sanduo between 1910 and 1911. Although the monument has been well studied, some of the preserved at the IOM copies seem to be of great value and could be used by turcologists for controversial text fragments clarification. The paper presents acquisition history and brief description (catalogue) of the preserved copies of text.