Some Remarks Concerning Hierarchy and Status as Seen in the Old Uyghur Documents from the Turfan Region
(55th Meeting, 2012)
Among the non-religious Old Uyghur texts excavated by the four German Turfan expeditions at the beginning of the 20th century in Turfan and the neighbouring area there are medical texts, astronomical texts and a group of around 780 economic and private documents. While the study of these texts is of great importance for the history and the social life in the Uigur kingdom, the study of this text group poses great difficulties because of the cursive script and the fragmentary size of these texts. But the interest of scholars in this group of documents has increased during the last decades and a series of publications as well as catalogues has been published.
In my paper I will try to show, in which way the study of not only the text of the administrative orders, contracts, registers, letters etc. themselves, but also of the style and the terminology of the documents contributes to deepening our knowledge concerning hierarchy and status in the Old Uyghur Society.