Japanese professors-Sogdiologists are very interested in Sogdian rock carvings in Talas. This was reported by an archaeologist, candidate of historical sciences, honored worker of culture of the Kyrgyz Republic, head of the center for the study of historical heritage, researcher at the Institute of History and Cultural Heritage of the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic Bakyt Amanbaeva.
Professor of Kyoto University, Sogdiologist Yutaka Yoshida and archaeologist, Professor of Teiko University Kazuya Yamauchi, scientists of the National Academy of Sciences of the Kyrgyz Republic, accompanied by a local expert on historical places Emil Choroev, visited the Terek-Sai and Kulan-Sai gorges, where Sogdian rock inscriptions are located. They are located 4-5 kilometers north of the village of Kok-Oy, Talas region.
“Professor Yoshida is a great specialist in the Sogdian language, and he heard about the rock carvings in Terek-Sai and Kulan-Sai. These are the largest inscriptions in Central Asia and for many decades they have been mistakenly identified as Uyghur,”noted archaeologist B. Amanbaeva.
She noted that the Medieval Talas Valley was not a dead end, isolated. She was one of the centers of the Muslim world.
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According to B. Amanbaeva, in the spring of 1897, VA Kallaur, driving along the right bank of the Talas River, drew attention to the ruins of the Ak-Dobo settlement. This was the first mention of the ancient city of Tekabket. V. Kallaur sent his translator Sh. Bekchurov to inspect the gorge. He wrote down a legend related to the gorge, made copies of some of the inscriptions on the stone in Kulan-Sai. In September 1897, Sh. Bekchurov, together with Fayzyrakhmanov, copied part of the large inscription in Terek-Sai and two lines of the runic inscription. These inscriptions were studied in Soviet times by scientists P. P. Ivanov, S. E. Malov, M. E. Masson, T. Mirgiyazov, I. A. Batmanov, Ch. Zhumagulov, V. V. Radlov, D. F. Vinnik, E. R. Tenishev, V. A. Livshits and many others. In 1975, an epigraphic group of scientists headed by V. Livshits read the vertical inscriptions as Sogdian.
7 Sogdian vertical inscriptions and 3 runic ones are carved on a large rock in Terek-Say. This is the largest epigraphic complex in terms of volume in the entire territory of Central Asia.
On a stone in Kulan-Sai, which looks like a swimming fish, 18 lines of a vertical Sogdian inscription are carved. These are monuments of late Sogdian writing. They belong to the 10th and early 11th centuries and come from the Turkic and Sogdian population of the Talas Valley.