The Turks were a northern Hu tribe familiar to Chinese, and during the Sui and Tang dynasties, the Turks posed a great threat to the Central Plains Dynasty. Both Li Yuan and Li Shimin had once claimed subjects to the Turks, but after the unification of the Central Plains, Li Shimin immediately launched an attack and crushed the Turkic Jieli Khan, so he was called "Heavenly Khan" by the steppe tribes.
The Turks were once a very powerful people on the steppe, and at first they worked as blacksmiths under the rule of Rouran. In the 6th century, under ashina's leadership, the Turks became powerful, defeated Rouran, and became the overlords of the steppe.
At the height of the Turkic dynasty, the territory stretched from Central Asia to the west, east and the Outer Xing'an Mountains, which was very large. Later, under the continuous blows of the Tang Dynasty, the Turks split into east and west and were completely defeated by the Tang Dynasty. Some of the Turkic people migrated to Asia Minor and became the ancestors of modern Turks.
Although the Turkic peoples have left Central Asia, they have not left nothing. From Xinjiang to central Asian countries, the remains of grassland stone people have been found. A stone statue stands on the vast grassland, as if listening to a message from the sky.
These stone people have existed for thousands of years, and the peoples of the steppe are accustomed to them, but they do not know who left them. Until the 1950s, archaeologist Huang Wenbi of the mainland identified them as Turkic stone people after discovering them in Ili, and there were more than 80 in the Altay region of the mainland alone.
The Turkic people believed in shamanism, worshipped ancestors and nature, believed that people had souls after death, and accompanied the living. Stone men are one way they worship their ancestors and heroes. In the eyes of the ancients, only stone is immortal, and carving a stone into a statue is the best way to commemorate someone.
In ancient China, there was a similar method of commemoration, and Li Shimin placed the stone statues of his subjects at the gate of his Zhaoling Tomb in order to accompany him forever. It can be seen that the idea of carving a stone as a statue was very common at that time. And the Turkic stone people should be carved with the hero himself.
Some steppe stone people may have appeared earlier than the Turks, and there were already stone people in the Bronze Age, and the Turks inherited this tradition. The stone man is basically cylindrical, with only the face and facial features engraved on the head, and the shape is not complicated. It is also considered to be a symbol of the early fertility cult of human beings.
The body shape of the stone man can reach a maximum of 3.1 meters. Some samurai statues can be seen holding a cup in their left hand and a sword in their right hand, which may be the appearance of the owner of the stone statue. There are also very few stone statues with two heads, which experts believe are a humiliation of the conquered by the conquerors. Some experts say that every time a hero kills an enemy, he will carve a stone man as a memorial.
Through the study of hundreds of stone people throughout Central Asia, it can be found that stone people are both yellow and Caucasian and Europa people. This shows the complexity of the ethnic makeup of the nomadic peoples of the region.
In fact, there has not been a single, purebred, powerful nomadic people in history who, in the process of expansion and annexation, absorbed many other peoples and tribes. On the steppe, strength is respected, and bloodline is not the most important. Otherwise, it is impossible to explain how these peoples have risen in just a dozen years, and it is impossible to have such a large population by natural growth alone.
Interestingly, the Stone And Bronze Age stone men had both male and female genders, and by the Iron Age, only men were left. This is consistent with the time when men were absolutely dominant in social life. There was not a single woman among the Turkic stone people who were in the Iron Age from the beginning.
Most of the raw materials of these stone people are rocks from nearby mountains, and some are carved from whole pieces of white sand rock. Over the long years, herders took advantage of the gap between grazing to quarry boulders from the mountains and chiseled statues one by one. Probably this was the main conscription provided by the herders to the chiefs other than war.
For ancient peoples, carving stones was a very common activity. Not only turkic and Central Asian steppe peoples, but also the Maya, Easter Island, and the southern part of the continent have similar stone statues.
In the mountains of Yongzhou, Hunan, there is a group of tomb stone statues, as many as more than 5,000. The age ranges from before the Qin and Han dynasties to the Sui and Tang dynasties. The stone statues are varied by officials, pregnant women, etc., and their body size is relatively small, 0.3-1 meters. Some people say that this is the tomb of Emperor Shun, and the truth is still unknown.
The Easter Island stone statues are much larger, reaching 22 meters high and more than 800 at most. The island's indigenous Rapa Nui made carving stone statues their main activity and wanted to establish a connection with the gods through them.
The stone statues of the Maya are even more suspenseful, and some of the costumes resemble modern spacesuits, and it is not known whether there have ever been foreign visitors who arrived there and then copied them by the Mayans.
In short, most of the stone statues around the world are related to gods or ancestors, limited by the backwardness of science and technology, ancient humans can only express their awe and desire for nature in this way.
[References: Book of Sui, Old Book of Tang, Grassland Stone Man]