About "Ek" Tag on the Tonyukuk Inscription
Erhan Aydın
Keywords: Ek Tag, Tonyukuk Inscriptions, Byzantine Sources, Middle East, Names of Places
Abstract
Although a century has passed since the first reading of the Inscriptions of the Old Turks, some problems with the inscriptions have not yet settled. The geographical names mentioned on the inscriptions aroused the interest of historians as well as linguists. In this paper, Ek Tag, which is mentioned on the Tonyukuk Inscription, and Ek Tag, which is ascribed to Menandros and is mentioned in the Byzantine sources, have been investigated in terms of whether they are a name of a place or not. As a result, it has been tried to indicate that both names share only a similarity of names. Also, it has been stated that the two names are different from each other and that Ek Tag, which is mentioned on the Tonyukuk Inscription, is a place in the west of the Alay Mountains.