Editing Xiongnu (section)

=== Rock art and writing ===
[[File:Fig6Ishjamts p166R1.gif|thumb|upright=0.5|left|2nd century BC – 2nd century AD characters of Xiongnu-[[Xianbei]] script (Mongolia and Inner Mongolia).{{sfn|Ishjamts|1996|loc=p. 166, Fig 5}}]]
The rock art of the [[Yin Mountains|Yin]] and [[Helan Mountains]] is dated from the 9th millennium BC to the 19th century AD. It consists mainly of engraved signs (petroglyphs) and only minimally of painted images.{{sfn|Demattè|2006}}

[[Records of the Grand Historian|Chinese sources]] indicate that the Xiongnu did not have an ideographic form of writing like Chinese, but in the 2nd century BC, a renegade Chinese dignitary Yue "taught the [[Shanyu]] to write official letters to the Chinese court on a wooden tablet {{Convert|31|cm|in|abbr=on}} long, and to use a seal and large-sized folder." The same sources tell that when the Xiongnu noted down something or transmitted a message, they made cuts on a piece of wood ('ke-mu'), and they also mention a "Hu script" (vol. [[:zh:s:史記/卷110|110]]). At Noin-Ula and other Xiongnu burial sites in Mongolia and the region north of Lake Baikal, among the objects discovered during excavations conducted in 1924 and 1925 were over 20 carved characters. Most of these characters are either identical or very similar to letters of the [[Old Turkic alphabet]] of the Early Middle Ages found on the Eurasian steppes. From this, some specialists conclude that the Xiongnu used a script similar to the ancient Eurasian runiform, and that this alphabet was a basis for later Turkic writing.{{sfn|Ishjamts|1996|loc=p. 166, Fig 6}}