Gemstones terminology in Old Uyghur Turkish

Precious stones have been a subject of interest since the first people due to their colours, structures and rarity in nature. Precious stones have been used by people in different fields. Precious stones have been used for purposes such as art, healing and religious rituals, rather than being used in the sense of power for the rich and nobles. Old Uyghur was a Turkic language used during the periods of the Uyghur Khaganate and Uyghur State in Central Asia between the 8th and 13th centuries. During this period, jewellery, precious stones and metals had important commercial and cultural values. Old Uighur written documents may contain some terms related to precious stones from this period. With the adoption of the new religion of Buddhism by the Old Uighurs, precious stones formed a conceptual field of their own. Precious stones and metals in Old Uighur were used in a mythological and symbolic way. Although there are some studies on precious stones, there is no study on the vocabulary of Old Uyghur. In this study, texts of Old Uyghur were analysed. In this study, Old Uyghur words related to precious stones and metals were identified and exemplified with quotations from Old Uyghur texts. The precious stones in the dictionaries of Old Uyghur were included in the study. The usage of the identified words in the text was analysed. The identified precious stones and minerals were analysed terminologically.