Not a town and not a source: a reminder that the Altai holds metals and that someone digs and forges them.
The Chinese called these mountains Jinshan, the Golden Mountain, from the Tang at least; the Chinese histories say the first Turkic rulers were iron-workers for the Rouran khaganate at the Golden Mountain; and an explanation sometimes given for the name Altai is 'golden' (the etymology is disputed). The Chinese Altay has gold, copper, nickel, iron and rare-metal ground, of which the modern mines at Kalatongke and Koktokay are the best known, and the Kyrgyz and Oirat smiths of the same period are named in the regional brief. No source of the 1190s names a mine, a miner or a tax in the Naiman country.
The record is a guess kept so that the map does not forget that iron and gold working belongs to the Altai economy; the point at Kalatongke only marks the metal ground.
Who holds it
- Name
- No lord named (Buyiruq's Naiman hold the ground)
- Title
- No holder named
- Since
- not known
- Born
- not known
- Family
- not applicable
- Confidence
- low
Background knowledge only.
Lord in 1200
No lord named (Buyiruq's Naiman hold the ground)
Overlord
None shown.
What the town holds
- Gold, copper and iron ground of the Chinese Altay (inference)
How it was acquired
Not applicable.
Allies and rivals
None shown.
How things stand that morning
Not documented. If anyone worked the metals it was smiths among the Naiman and the hill peoples, paying in kind to the khans.
Wealth
Gold, copper and iron, if worked (no evidence for 1200).
Charter
None known; not a town.
Communities
Smiths and herders (inference).
Trade and crafts
Smithing and metal-working (inference).
Where the sources disagree
- The sheet assignment asks for 'the Chinese Altay's gold and copper'. Nothing in the sources read dates a mine in 1200; this record is a placeholder, flagged as a guess.
Evidence: The Jinshan and Rouran notices are from our own knowledge of the Chinese histories (Zhoushu, Tongdian), not read this session; the metals of the Chinese Altay are modern geology. Nothing dates mining to 1200.
On the map: A point only, at the best-known metal ground; the true diggings are not known.
Primary sources for The Naiman
Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.
- Record of the Personal Campaigns of the Holy Warrior (Chinggis Khan) (presented to Khubilai in 1288, finished in Mongolian in 1290; the surviving Chinese version dates from 1369). A year-by-year Chinese account of Temujin's wars, drawn from the lost Altan Debter (the same source behind the Yuan shi's first chapter and Rashid al-Din). Read online
- The Secret History of the Mongols (1228 or 1240 (the colophon's Year of the Rat is disputed), with later additions; the surviving Chinese transcription and gloss were made under the Ming in the 1380s). The only Mongol account of Temujin's rise, written within living memory. Read online
- Compendium of Chronicles, Rashid al-Din Fadl Allah Hamadani (1300 to 1311, at Tabriz). The official Ilkhanid history, compiled from Mongol oral tradition and the lost Altan Debter. Read online
- Compendium of Chronicles: the Turkic and Mongol tribes and the life of Chinggis Khan, Rashid al-Din Hamadani (about 1300 to 1311, in the Ilkhanate). The fullest description of who held what on the steppe around 1200, written a century later from Mongol court records (the Altan Debter) and from informants such as Bolad Chingsang. Read online
- History of the Yuan, Song Lian (宋濂) and the Ming history office (1369 to 1370). Juan 1, the annals of Taizu (Chinggis Khan), gives a dated outline of Temujin's early wars drawn from the same lost Altan Debter as the Shengwu qinzheng lu: the Tatar war with the Jin in 1196, the Merkit and Naiman campaigns, the Tayichi'ut war, Jamuqa's coalition of 1201 and the Tatar and Kereyit wars of 1202 and 1203. Read online
- History of the World Conqueror: the Qara Khitai (Gur Khans) and the Uyghurs of Beshbaliq, Ala al-Din Ata-Malik Juvayni (begun about 1252 to 1253, ends with 1260). Juvayni's chapters on the Uyghur kingdom (its origin legend, Beshbaliq and Qocho, and the idiqut Barchuq's murder of the Qara Khitai resident before his submission to Chinggis Khan in 1209) and on the Gur Khans of the Qara Khitai are the fullest Muslim account of the Tarim and Zhetysu around 1200: the gurkhan Zhilugu's court at Balasagun, his tax collectors in the oasis towns and in Samarkand, his relations with the Khwarazmshah Tekish and then Muhammad, and the arrival of the Naiman prince Kuchlug in 1208. Read online
- Journey to the West of the Perfected Changchun (Qiu Chuji), Li Zhichang (李志常) (about 1228, from the journey of 1220 to 1224). A dated eyewitness itinerary across the steppe and the Tarim twenty years after 1200: the Kereyit country and the Ongud frontier, the Naiman mountains, the Uyghur towns of Beshbaliq and the Tarim with their Buddhist and Christian communities, Almaliq of the Qarluq, and Samarkand. Read online
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.