Wusun

The Wusun were a semi-nomadic people of the Ili valley and the Tianshan region, known from Chinese records between the 2nd century BC and the 5th century AD. Originally living near the Qilian Mountains and Dunhuang, they were displaced by the Yuezhi and Xiongnu; a surviving Wusun prince was raised among the Xiongnu, and in the 130s BC the Wusun drove the Yuezhi westward and settled the Ili valley and Zhetysu. Their ruler, the kunmi, held court at Chigu, a walled town in a side valley leading toward Issyk-Kul whose exact site is still unidentified. The Wusun became close allies of the Han dynasty through marriage alliances and mounted archers, and their pastures controlled a branch of the Silk Road; Chinese envoys described a land of rain, pines and horse herds, with customs resembling those of the Xiongnu. The state was organized around a dual kingship, with a senior kunmi and a junior ruler, and its population was counted in the hundreds of thousands. Pressure from the Rouran in the 5th century pushed the Wusun toward the Pamirs, where they disappear from Chinese sources, possibly absorbed into the Hephthalite confederation. Their name survives mainly through Chinese histories and through the archaeology of Semirechye.