Qualla: Memorial for Yelü Yanning

Memorial for Yelü Yanning: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In the winter of 1964, on Baimu Mountain in Chaoyang County, Liaoning Province, someone found a stone. It measured 84 centimeters long and 83 wide -- roughly the size of a card table -- and bore 271 characters of Khitan large script above 511 characters of Chinese. Dated to 986 AD, this unassuming slab turned out to be the oldest known Khitan inscription of significant length and the earliest major written attestation of a Mongolic language. It told the story of a man named Yelü Yanning, a warrior and courtier of the Liao dynasty whose name appeared in no surviving history book. Without this stone, he would have been forgotten entirely.

Memorial for Yelü Yanning: A Family of the Imperial Tent

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Yelü Yanning was born in 946 into the Yelü clan -- the imperial family of the Khitan-ruled Liao dynasty. His family belonged to the inner circle, holding a place in the horizontal gers of the Khitan Khan. Bravery ran in the blood. His great-grandfather Nieligu, grandfather Zhiwub...

Memorial for Yelü Yanning: The Emperor's Loyal Shadow

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Yanning earned something rarer than titles: the deep trust of both the Jingzong Emperor and the formidable Empress Xiao Chuo. He performed his guard duties with such devotion that when the emperor died in 982, the epitaph records that Yanning "wished he could follow him in death....

Memorial for Yelü Yanning: The Last Campaign

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Yanning's final mission took him far from the court. The Zubu confederacy -- likely the Keraites -- in central Mongolia had raised armies against the Liao dynasty, their push eastward threatening the Niaogu, Dilie, and Shiwei peoples along the northern frontier. Emperor Shengzong...

Memorial for Yelü Yanning: A Language Preserved in Stone

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The inscription's historical value extends beyond Yanning's biography. The Khitan large script -- one of two writing systems created for the Khitan language -- is still only partially deciphered. Most identifiable words in the Khitan portion of this memorial are borrowings from C...