The etymon of OCS synb, 'rbpyos' is found in the contemporaneous Turkic languages. The oldest occurrences of Turkic syn are as follows: (1) In the undated Buddhist sfitra translated into Ujyur under the title Sakiz Jiilkmk ('The Eight Accumulations [of Grace]')1 it is attested with the meaning 'grave, tomb' (line 290). In variants of that passage, syn occurs as the first element of a hendiadys the second element of which is orun 'place' or suburyan 'stiipa'.2 (2) With the same meaning it is also read in Mahmaid al-Ka'yari's TurkicArabic Dictionary Divan Luydti 't-Turk3 composed at Baghdad in the year 466 H. = 1066 A.D. There, our word has the additional meaning 'stature, size, measure', but this is a different word which should be listed separately. (3) According to Radloff's Dictionary,4 syn is also found in the old Qoman language and means there 'tomb monument, stone sculpture'. In modern Turkic languages it recurs in Qazan syn 'image, idol', Cayataj sin 'grave', and Qazaq (compounded with tas 'stone') syn-tas signifying a 'kamennaja baba' (i.e. a rude stone sculpture found on prehistoric tombs in the steppes of eastern Europe and western Asia and known to archeologists under this name). The other meanings quoted by WB under No. 1 and Nos. 4-7 must be separately classified and belong to another word, or even several other words. There is no evidence for our word in Mongol. Only derivatives exist in Mand u: sinagan 'deuil, temps et habits', sinagala'etre en deuil', sinaxa 'habits de deuil', sinaxi 'id.'5 At the basis of all these formations seems to be a verb derived from *sin by means of -a. The verb sin-a-ga-lais secondary. In sinda'to bury'6 we possibly have a denominative in -daof *sin. Since the word is rather isolated in Altaic and therefore hardly part of the genuine Altaic vocabulary, the question put by W. Bang and A. v. Gabain7 as to whether syn might be considered a loanword from Chinese c'ins 'hall of ances-