The necessity of expanding the source base of medieval weapons.
The medieval history of Kyrgyzstan is rich in events related to the military activity of nomads. Its territory was repeatedly subjected to devastating invasions by nomads during the Middle Ages and became a theater of military operations for nomadic armies. It was part of the changing nomadic states: the Western Turkic and Turkic khanates, the Karluk, Karakhanid, and Kara-Khitan states, and Mongolian uluses. However, almost all the main information about military activities in this region is derived from written sources. Its material basis remains poorly studied. The weaponry of medieval nomads has attracted little interest from researchers.
Individual finds from excavations—bow parts, arrowheads, daggers—have been published in the works of A.K. Abetakov, A.N. Bernstein, M.A. Bubnova, D.F. Vinnik, A.K. Kibiriev. Observations on weapon depictions on ancient Turkic stone sculptures and medieval fortifications are contained in the works of A.N. Bernstein, D.F. Vinnik, V.P. Mokrynin, K.I. Petrov, Ya.A. Sher, and others. Some remarks on the influence of the Turks on the military affairs of the Sogdians were made by V.I. Raspopova. Individual finds of weaponry from the territory of Kyrgyzstan have been used in a generalizing work on the medieval archaeology of the Eurasian steppes. However, overall, these materials are very scarce and do not provide a complete picture of the military affairs of the medieval nomads in the region. It is not surprising that when writing generalizing works on the history of Kyrgyzstan, the authors relied on historical information rather than excavation materials from the Pre-Tian Shan region when characterizing the weaponry and military affairs of the Turks; if archaeological finds from Kyrgyzstan were referenced, it was in a very limited volume. In many scientific and popular scientific publications on the medieval history of Kyrgyzstan, no information about the military affairs of the nomads is provided at all. This is not accidental. Despite the fact that many monuments of medieval nomads have been excavated in Kyrgyzstan, only a small part of them has been fully introduced into scientific circulation; moreover, it is necessary to consider the significant looting of nomadic burial complexes and the poor preservation of iron artifacts, including weapons. Therefore, there is an urgent need to expand the source base of weapon studies and to introduce new finds of medieval weapons into scientific circulation.
History and archaeology of the ancient Tian Shan
