东京国家博物馆藏回鹘文木简

A Wooden Fragment with Uighur Inscription Preserved in the Tokyo National Museum

众所周知,大谷探险队于1902—1912年间先后三次赴中亚探险,给日本带回了大量的资料。几易其手后,大谷资料的一部分于1967年为东京国家博物馆获得。这些资料已妥善保存,部分已公开展出。笔者将要分析的那片上有两行回鹘文字的木简就是这些藏品中的一件,其照片已刊登在《东京国家博物馆图版目录:大谷探险队中亚携归品编》中,和另外一块木制画板同被编为177号。复制照片参见图1。遗憾的是,至今尚无人对其进行研究。这促使我对其作了些研究,并用日文写了一篇短文《大谷探险队所获回鹘文木简》(载于《内陆亚细亚、西亚的社会与文化》,护雅夫主编,东京,1983年,第133—139页),即1983年在东京和京都召开的第31届第6次亚洲、北非人类科学国际代表大会上所提交的论文概要。现在这篇论文就是在上文的基础上写成的。

A Wooden fragment with Uighur inscription unearthed in Koqa which is now preserved preserved in the Tokyo National Museum. The inscription reads KYMS'SY. Although the exact place of its discovery can not be identified, the inscription supplies some clues in itself. On the cliff of Kumutura Grottoes, an inscription reads 'Jinshasi' or 'Kimsasi', and an identical one was found on a wooden bowl at the Grottoes. From the similarity of the sounds indicated by the letters, we can infer that the fragment must be from Kumutura. The date of its production must be sometime in the ninth century which was the last period of kumutura arts. It was, possibly, the time when the Uighur people migrated to Koqa. The fragment provides a very useful piece of material for studies on that historic problem as well as for those on Uighur language.