Stories of Kyrgyzstan · Chüy Valley

One Word on a Grave

In 1338 a stonecutter near today's Bishkek carved the cause of death on a gravestone. Almost 700 years later, the same graves told scientists where the Black Death most likely began.

7 min read·9 chapters·Sources: Nature, 2022

Watch the film · 80 s

I1338 · Kara-Djigach

The word

“In 1338, in a valley in Kyrgyzstan, a stonecutter carved one word on a grave: pestilence.”From the film

Near today's Bishkek, a Christian town buried its dead under rounded river stones. Each stone got a cross and a few lines of script.

In 1338 a stonecutter added something new: the reason. One word — mawtānā, “pestilence”. It names no disease. Nobody in the 14th century knew what plague was. It just means a death that comes for many people at once.

Read it yourself

Syriac runs right to left and mostly skips the vowels — the reader adds them. Tap the letters.

ܡܘܬܢܐ

Start on the right: ܡ is where the word begins.

mawtānā

II1338–1339

Then another. And another.

“Then on another grave. And another. For two years, the dead kept coming.”From the film

Mosaic from the film: white gravestones with red crosses under the mountains, the year 1339 above them — From the film

Two cemeteries of the same community survived: one at Kara-Djigach, the other further east, by Burana Tower near Tokmok. When archaeologists dug them up, they recorded 456 gravestones at the first and 11 at the second.

The dated stones are spread over many decades. Then comes a spike: an unusually large share of the dead were buried in just two years, 1338 and 1339 — and several stones from those years give the same cause of death.

467gravestones from two cemeteries

2years of an unusual surge: 1338–39

1word on the stones: pestilence

A dark river stone from Kara-Djigach with a carved cross in the centre and Syriac letters around it — **A real gravestone from Kara-Djigach.** A cross in the centre, Syriac letters around it (traced for legibility). Photo: Spyrou et al., *Nature* 2022, CC BY 4.0.

IIISilk Road

Who were they?

“They were Silk Road Christians who spoke Turkic and wrote in Syriac letters.”From the film

Mosaic from the film: camels on the Silk Road below the mountains, a band of Syriac letters above — From the film

They belonged to the Church of the East — the easternmost church of the Middle Ages, with communities strung along the Silk Road from Mesopotamia to China. Their liturgy was in Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic. Their everyday language was Turkic.

So they did something unusual: they wrote Turkic words in Syriac letters. Many of the Chüy Valley stones mix the two languages on a single line.

Two cemeteries, one community

The Chüy Valley today. Schematic, not to scale.

■ Today's towns■ The two cemeteries

IVOne stone

Sanmaq, the believer

“One stone reads: Year of the Tiger. This is the grave of Sanmaq, the believer. He died of pestilence.”From the film

Most gravestones say little: a cross, a date, a name. One of them, from Kara-Djigach, became the most quoted inscription of the whole story.

In the year 1649= 1338 AD and it was the Year of the Tigerin Turkic: Bars This is the grave of the believer Sanmaq He died of pestilence

Translation published in Nature, 2022

Two calendars sit in one line. The year 1649 is counted in the Seleucid era, “the years of the Greeks”, the calendar Syriac Christians used for centuries. The Tiger comes from the 12-year animal cycle of the steppe.

Decode the date

Pick a year from the gravestones.

1649Seleucid year−311offset=1338AD

Tigerin Turkic: Bars

Still in useKyrgyz count years the same way. The 12-year cycle is called müchöl — and its third year is still Bars.

Mosaic from the film: Sanmaq's gravestone, the word pestilence in red Syriac letters — From the film

V1346–1353

Eight years later

“Eight years later, plague hit the Black Sea. Then Europe. The Black Death killed up to half its people.”From the film

1338–1339
Chüy Valley
“Pestilence” on the gravestones of Kara-Djigach.
1346
Black Sea
Plague breaks out in the lands of the Golden Horde on the Black Sea coast. This is where historians usually start the Black Death.
1347
Messina, Sicily
Ships carry it into the Mediterranean.
1348
Western Europe
Florence, Paris, London.
1353
Europe counts its dead
In seven years, the deadliest pandemic in recorded history.

Up to half

Historians' estimates for Europe range from about 30% to 60% of the population. Drag to compare.

5 in 10 people

30%40%50%60%

What we still don't knowHow plague travelled from the Tian Shan to the Black Sea. The DNA shows where the family tree starts — not the road it took.

Medieval miniature: townspeople carry coffins and bury plague victims — **Burying plague victims in Tournai**, today's Belgium. Miniature from the chronicle of Gilles Li Muisis, c. 1350. Royal Library of Belgium, public domain.

VI1885–1892

Did it start here?

“Five centuries on, diggers found these graves, and scholars asked: did it start here?”From the film

Mosaic from the film: a spade uncovers three gravestones, a red question mark above — From the film

In 1885 the local scholar Nikolai Pantusov mapped the cemetery at Kara-Djigach. Digging went on until 1892. In St Petersburg the orientalist Daniel Chwolson read the inscriptions and published them.

A spike of deaths. The word “pestilence”. And a date just eight years before the Black Death reached Europe. The question was obvious — but with nothing but stones, nobody could answer it. For 130 years, it stayed open.

St PetersburgThe skeletons went to the Kunstkamera museum.

HermitageMany of the gravestones are kept there; some are in Tashkent.

VII2022

It was plague

“In 2022, scientists pulled DNA from teeth in those graves. It was plague.”From the film

Mosaic from the film: a DNA helix above a tooth, the year 2022 — From the film

In 2022 a team of geneticists and historians went back to the skeletons in St Petersburg. They took samples from the teeth of seven people: five from Kara-Djigach, two from Burana. Teeth are a good place to look — their pulp was full of blood, and blood carries what killed you.

Three of the five from Kara-Djigach carried DNA of Yersinia pestis, the plague bacterium.

Seven people, three answers

Tap a stone.

Kara-Djigach · 5Burana · 2

A dark oval river stone with faint carved lines, from grave 19/20 at Kara-Djigach — **Grave 19/20, Kara-Djigach.** The person buried under this stone, sample BSK001, carried plague. Photo: Spyrou et al., *Nature* 2022, CC BY 4.0.

VIIIThe family tree

Not just any plague

“Not just any strain — the ancestor of the ones that swept Europe. Its living cousins still hide in the marmots of the Tian Shan.”From the film

Two genomes were good enough to place on the plague family tree. They landed on its most famous fork — the “Big Bang”, where plague burst into four branches. One of those branches carried the Black Death into Europe. The Kara-Djigach strain sits right at the fork, as the ancestor of all four.

Where Kara-Djigach sits

A simplified plague family tree. Time runs upwards.

And the closest living relatives? Their strains come from one region only: eastern Kyrgyzstan, eastern Kazakhstan and Xinjiang — the Tian Shan. Most were found in marmots and their parasites.

A grey marmot standing on a lichen-covered rock — **Grey marmot** (*Marmota baibacina*), a natural host of plague in the Tian Shan. Photo: Egor Volarov, CC BY 4.0.

The careful versionScientists don't claim it's proven that the Black Death started in this valley. What they found is the ancestor strain, in people who died here in 1338, next to the mountains where its relatives still live. That makes the Chüy Valley the most likely birthplace known.

IXGo and see

Stand where they stood

“The town is gone, but its second cemetery lay by Burana Tower — an easy day trip from Bishkek.”From the film

Burana Tower, a tall brick minaret with patterned bands, under a blue sky — **Burana Tower**, an 11th-century minaret near Tokmok. Photo: Bernard Gagnon, CC0.

Nothing is left of Kara-Djigach to visit. But the same community buried its dead at Burana too — beside a brick minaret that has stood on the plain since the 11th century. The tower, the grassy ruins of the old town and the stone field are one easy day out of Bishkek.

80 kmfrom Bishkek, about 1.5 hours by car

220 somticket for foreigners: tower, museum, balbals. Cash only.

Climba narrow staircase up inside the tower

Balbalsa field of ancient stone figures next to the tower

Good to knowThe 1338 gravestones aren't shown here — many of them are in the Hermitage in St Petersburg.

The Burana site: the tower, the mound of the old citadel and rows of stones on a wide grassy plain below snowy mountains — **The Burana site**: the tower, the mound of the old town and the stone field. Photo: Bernard Gagnon, CC0.

Plan the day trip More day trips from Bishkek

ܡܘܬܢܐ

One word on a stone

— and, most likely, the birthplace of history’s deadliest pandemic.

Watch the 80-second filmThe same story as a stone mosaic that builds itself, tile by tile.

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Sources

M. A. Spyrou et al., “The source of the Black Death in fourteenth-century central Eurasia”, Nature 606, 718–724 (2022). doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04800-3
D. Chwolson, Syrisch-nestorianische Grabinschriften aus Semirjetschie, St Petersburg, 1886–1897.
W. Klein, on the Turkic language of the Syriac gravestone inscriptions, Hugoye: Journal of Syriac Studies 5:2.
O. J. Benedictow, The Black Death 1346–1353: The Complete History, Boydell, 2004. Benedictow puts Europe’s death toll at about 60%; other historians give lower figures, from about 30%.
Kyrgyz Seasons, Burana Tower: tickets and visiting.

Pictures

Mosaics: frames from the Kyrgyz Seasons film “One Word on a Grave”.
Kara-Djigach gravestones: Spyrou et al., Nature 2022, Extended Data, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Tournai miniature: Gilles Li Muisis chronicle, Royal Library of Belgium, public domain.
Grey marmot: Egor Volarov, CC BY 4.0. Burana Tower and site: Bernard Gagnon, CC0. All via Wikimedia Commons.