106 chapter two
nobody has the right to eat together with the ruler, not even his wife.^73
Probably the role of the wife was only to give birth to heirs for the
ruler’s throne and to fulfill the ordinary marital obligations; and noth-
ing more.^74 However, it is difficult to agree with the statement made
by M. Hristodoulova^75 that the Bulgarian queen did not possess a spe-
cific title because this would come into contradiction with the usual
practice of the time. Whether she was called “khatun”/“qatun” like the
Turk and Uighur queens, however, is difficult to assert. Having in mind
the above-mentioned title, it is also important to emphasize the lack
of any reference to the Bulgar ruler’s wife in the stone inscriptions. It
is just the opposite with the Uighurs. In the inscription from Terkhin
(Tariat), found near the lake Terkhin (Northwest Khangaj, i.e. ancient
Otüken) and dated to the times of Mo-yen-cho (747–759), side by
side with the “Heavenly born” khagan stands his “wise wife” (El-bilgä
qatun).^76 It was that same Mo-yen-cho who laid the foundations of the
Uighur capital Ordubaliq and the “sacred town” of Bajbaliq and the
following khagans built the temple town of Marubaliq, the merchant
“Uighur town” in Dunbei and, more importantly for the problem of
the female ruler, the residence of the khaganal wives in Khatunbaliq.^77
In human society clothes and their accessories are one of the most
important marker-classifiers for social status, sex, property status, etc.
It is not possible to consider here all aspects of this problem, so the
discussion will be restricted to some important features of the female
garments in Central Asia (e.g. Turkic and Uighur khaganates) as they
are more numerous and more reliable sources for this region. The situ-
ation with the Bulgar and Khazar material is rather different and its
scarcity hampers the analysis from a scholarly perspective.
The sources from Central Asia are of different origin (artifacts
and clothes discovered in archeological excavations, written sources,
mainly of Chinese origin that mention details exotic for the Empire,
mural paintings as well as paintings on cloth, sculpture, etc.)^78 and
they come from different regions ruled by nomads and semi-nomads.
(^73) Responsa 1960, 93. In the same source there is another question, namely N 51,
dealing with the possibility for living “simultaneously [with] two wives”, a practice
quite typical for the newly baptized “barbarian” peoples and their rulers, in particular.
(^74) Georgieva 1996, 110.
(^75) Hristodulova 1978, 142.
(^76) Klyashtorny 1982, 343, 345; Tekin 1982, 50.
(^77) Malov 1959, 40–43; Maliavkin 1974, 65, 145–146; Kyzlasov 1998, 10–11.
(^78) Details see in, Yatsenko 2000b, 300, 303.