1.
Turkic Khaganate
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The Turkic Khaganate, Skyturks or Göktürk Khaganate was a khaganate established by the Ashina clan of the Göktürks in medieval Inner Asia. This khaganate interacted extensively with various dynasties based in North China, a century later, a second, renewed, Turkic Khaganate emerged in 682 and lasted until 744, when it was overthrown by the Uyghurs, a different Turkic-speaking group. The origins of the Türk Khanate trace back to 546, when Bumin Qaghan made a strike against the Uyghur and Tiele groups planning a revolt against their overlords. For this service he expected to be rewarded with a Rouran princess, however, the Rouran khagan, Yujiulü Anagui, sent an emissary to Bumin to rebuke him, saying, You are my blacksmith slave. How dare you utter these words, according to Denis Sinor, this reference indicates that the Türks specialized in metallurgy, although it is unclear if they were miners or, indeed, blacksmiths. Whatever the case, that the Turks were slaves need not be taken literally, a disappointed Bumin allied with the Western Wei against the Rouran, their common enemy. In 552, Bumin defeated Anagui and his forces north of Huaihuang, having excelled both in battle and diplomacy, Bumin declared himself Illig Khagan of the new khanate at Otukan, but died a year later. His son, Muqan Qaghan, defeated the Hephthalite Empire, Khitan, bumins brother Istämi bore the title Yabgu of the West and collaborated with the Sassanid Empire of Iran to defeat and destroy the Hephthalites, who were allies of the Rouran. This war tightened the Ashina clans grip on the Silk Road, Istämis policy of western expansion brought the Göktürks into Europe. In 576 the Göktürks crossed the Kerch Strait into the Crimea, five years later they laid siege to Chersonesus, their cavalry kept roaming the steppes of Crimea until 590. As for the borders, they were drawn south of the Amu Darya, bringing the Ashina into conflict with their former allies. Much of Bactria remained a dependency of the Ashina until the end of the century, the Turkic Khanate split in two after the death of the fourth ruler, Taspar Qaghan, ca. He had willed the title of khagan to Muqans son Apa Qaghan, before long, four rivals claimed the title. They were successfully played off against each other by Sui and Tang China, the most serious contender was the western one, Istämis son Tardu, a violent and ambitious man who had already declared himself independent from the Qaghan after his fathers death. He now seized the title and led an army east to claim the seat of imperial power, in order to buttress his position, Ishbara of the Eastern Khaganate applied to Emperor Yang of Sui for protection. Tardu attacked Changan, the Sui capital, around 600, demanding Emperor Yangdi end his interference in the civil war, in retaliation, Chinese diplomacy successfully incited a revolt of Tardus Tiele vassals, which led to the end of Tardus reign in 603. Among the dissident tribes were the Uyghurs and Xueyantuo, the civil war left the empire divided into eastern and western parts. The eastern part, still ruled from Otukan, remained in the orbit of the Sui, the Shibi Khan and Illig Qaghan attacked China at its weakest moment during the transition between the Sui and Tang
Turkic Khaganate
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Turkic Khaganate
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Flag
Turkic Khaganate
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Kızıl city.
Turkic Khaganate
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Kül Tigin, a Turkic Prince of the second Turkic Khaganate.
2.
Western Turkic Khaganate
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At its height, the Western Turkic Khaganate included the later areas of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The ruling elite of the Western Turkic Khaganate were the Onogurs – an oğuz, the name of the Onugurs is derived from the proto-Turkic Onoq. Initially, the Western khaganate sought friendly relations with the Eastern Roman Empire, in order to expand their territory at the expense of their mutual enemy, the Western and Eastern khaganates were reunited as the Turkic Khaganate in 682. For the origin of the Onoq two contradicting accounts are given, In the beginning, Shidianmi followed the Shanyu and commanded the ten great chiefs, together with their 100,000 soldiers, he marched to the Western Regions and subdued the barbarian statelets. There he declared himself as qaghan, under the title of ten tribes, soon, Dielishi Qaghan divided his state into ten parts, and each was headed by one man, together they made up the ten she. Every she is given an arrow by him, thus they were known as the ten arrows and he also divided the ten arrows into two factions, each consisted of five arrows. The left faction consisted of five Duoliu tribes, headed by five chuo separately, the right faction consisted of five Nushibi tribes, headed by five sijin separately. Each took command on one arrow and called themselves as the ten arrows, thereafter, each arrow was also known as one tribe, and the great arrow head as the great chief. The five Duoliu tribes inhabited to east of Suiye, and the five Nushibi tribes to the west of it, since then, they called themselves as the ten tribes. The exact date for the event was not recorded, and the shanyu here referred to might be Muhan Khan, thereafter, the name ten tribes became as a shortened address for the Western Turks in Chinese records. However it should be noted that those divisions did not include the five major tribes, the earlier tribes consisted of eight primary tribes ruled by ten chiefs-in-command, afterwards called the on oq. They were the five Duolu tribes, and the three Nushibi tribes, the relationships between the ten tribes and the ruling elites were divided into two groups. The more aristocratic Duolu tribes, who held the title qur, and the lower-rated Nushipi in west, during the reformation the more powerful Nushipi tribes such as A-Xijie and Geshu were sub-divided into two tribal groups with a greater and lesser title under a fixed tribal name. In 619 the Western Turks invaded Bactria but were repulsed in the course of the Second Perso-Turkic War, during the Third Perso-Turkic War Khagan Tung Yabghu and his nephew Böri Shad joined their forces with Emperor Heraclius and successfully invaded Transcaucasia. The khaganates capitals were Navekat and Suyab, both situated in the Chui River valley of Kyrgyzstan, to the east from Bishkek, the khaganate was overrun by Tang Chinese forces under Su Dingfang in 657-659 during the Tang campaign against the Western Turks
Western Turkic Khaganate
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Greatest extent of the Western Turkic Khaganate after the
Battle of Bukhara
Western Turkic Khaganate
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
3.
Khazars
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The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people, who created what for its duration was the most powerful polity to emerge from the break-up of the Western Turkic Kaganate. For some three centuries the Khazars dominated the vast area extending from the Volga-Don steppes to the eastern Crimea, the alliance was dropped around 900. Between 965 and 969, the Kievan Rus ruler Sviatoslav I of Kiev conquered the capital Atil, the native religion of the Khazars is thought to have been Tengrism, like that of the North Caucasian Huns and other Turkic peoples. The polyethnic populace of the Khazar Khaganate appears to have been a multiconfessional mosaic of pagan, Tengrist, Jewish, Christian and this theory still finds occasional support, but most scholars view it with scepticism. The theory is associated with antisemitism and anti-Zionism. Gyula Németh, following Zoltán Gombocz, derived Xazar from a hypothetical *Qasar reflecting a Turkic root qaz- being an hypothetical velar variant of Common Turkic kez-, louis Bazin derived it from Turkic qas- on the basis of its phonetic similarity to the Uyğur tribal name, Qasar. András Róna-Tas connects it with Kesar, the Pahlavi transcription of the Roman title Caesar, D. M. Dunlop tried to link the Chinese term for Khazars to one of the tribal names of the Uyğur Toquz Oğuz, namely the Gésà. One method for tracing their origins consists in analysis of the possible etymologies behind the ethnonym Khazar itself. The tribes that were to comprise the Khazar empire were not a union, but a congeries of steppe nomads and peoples who came to be subordinated. They appear to stem from Mongolia and South Siberia in the aftermath of the fall of the Hunnic/Xiōngnú nomadic polities, moving west, the confederation reached the land of the Akatziroi, who had been important allies of Byzantium in fighting off Attilas army. An embryonic state of Khazaria began to form sometime after 630, Göktürk armies had penetrated the Volga by 549, ejecting the Avars, who were then forced to flee to the sanctuary of the Hungarian plain. The Āshǐnà clan whose tribal name was Türk appear on the scene by 552, by 568, these Göktürks were probing for an alliance with Byzantium to attack Persia. Both briefly challenged Tang hegemony in eastern Turkestan, to the West, two new nomadic states arose in the meantime, Old Great Bulgaria under Kubrat, the Duōlù clan leader, and the Nǔshībì subconfederation, also consisting of five tribes. The Duōlù challenged the Avars in the Kuban River-Sea of Azov area while the Khazar Qağanate consolidated further westwards, led apparently by an Āshǐnà dynasty. The Qağanate of the Khazars thus took out of the ruins of this nomadic empire as it broke up under pressure from the Tang dynasty armies to the east sometime between 630–650. According to Omeljan Pritsak, the language of the Onoğur-Bulğar federation was to become the lingua franca of Khazaria as it developed into what Lev Gumilev called a steppe Atlantis, Khazaria developed a Dual kingship governance structure, typical among Turkic nomads, consisting of a shad/bäk and a qağan. The emergence of this system may be deeply entwined with the conversion to Judaism, particularly elaborate rituals accompanied a royal burial. At one period, travellers had to dismount, bow before the rulers tomb, such a royal burial ground is typical of inner Asian peoples
Khazars
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Khazar Khaganate, 650–850
Khazars
Khazars
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Khazars
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Warrior with his captive from the
Treasure of Nagyszentmiklós. Experts cannot agree if this warrior represents a Khazar,
Pannonian Avar, or
Bulgar.
4.
Xueyantuo
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Initially the Xue and the Yantuo were two separate tribes. The Xue appeared earlier as Xinli but were not referred to again until the 7th century, after Yishibo, the Xueyantuo founded a short-lived Qaghanate over the steppe under Zhenzhu Khan, his son Duomi Khan and nephew Yitewushi Khan, the last of which eventually surrendered to the Chinese. On March 27,630, the Xueyantuo allied with the Chinese to defeat the Eastern Qaghanate in the Yin Mountains, illig Qaghan escaped, but was handed over to the Chinese by his subordinate qaghan on May 2. In 632 they repulsed an army of Si Yabgu Qaghan from the Western Qaghanate, then subjugated the Qarluq at the Ulungur and Irtysh River, and the Yenisei Kyrgyz tribes. In 634 one of their rivals, Dubu Qaghan, son of Chuluo Khan and he allied with his nephew Ashina Heluohu, choosing him as the leader of the raid on May 19. They were unsuccessful and over 40 rebels were executed, Heluohu was spared and expelled to the far south. After this incident, an arraignment was made on August 13, among the Göktürk nobles, Ashina Simo was selected as the qaghan with his capital at the border. The plot failed, as he was unable to gather his people and those defeats by the advancing Chinese had made their tribal allies lose confidence in them. The crisis deepened the next year when a coup took place within the clan. On August 1,646, they were defeated by the Uyghur, the Xueyantuos Duomi Khan, Bazhuo, was killed by the Uyghur. A Tang army led by the general Li Daozong, the Prince of Jiangxia crushed the Xueyantuo forces, the last Xueyantuo khan, the Yitewushi Khan Duomozhi, surrendered. For a relationship with the later Shato Turks, see Shato and their remnants were destroyed two years later, on September 15. It is possible that Bo was influenced by the Tongdian which asserted the Xueyantuo surname as Yilitu or certain studies that was made, according to Cen Zhongmian the forementioned name are related to the variant of elteris. Duan Lianqin asserted that the name Yishibo can also be interchangeable as Yedie. During the late Tang Dynasty, a group of Xueyantuo remnants known as Shatuo began to play an important role in Chinese politics. Leaders of the following Jin Kingdom, the Later Tang, the Later Jin, the Later Han, list of Turkic dynasties and countries Timeline of Turks Xue Selenga River Later Tang Sir-Kıvchak
Xueyantuo
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
5.
Old Great Bulgaria
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Old Great Bulgaria or Great Bulgaria, also often known by the Latin names Magna Bulgaria) and Patria Onoguria, was a 7th Century state formed by the Bulgars and Onogurs on the western Pontic Steppe. Great Bulgaria was originally centred on Phanagoria, between the Dniester and lower Volga, in the mid-7th century, Great Bulgaria expanded west to include Avar territory and was centered in Poltava. During the late 7th century, however, an Avar-Slavic alliance in the west, and Khazars in the east, defeated the Bulgars, successor states included the First Bulgarian Empire and Volga Bulgaria. The etymology of the ethnonym Bulgar is not completely understood and difficult to trace back earlier than the 4th century AD and it is generally believed to derive from the Turkic verb bulğha, possibly suggesting that other Turkic peoples regarded the Bulgars as a mixed people, and/or rebellious. Later Byzantine scholars implied that the Bulgars had previously known as the Onogurs. Variations of the include, Onoguri, Onoghuri, Onghur, Ongur, Onghuri, Onguri. There are several theories about the origin of the name Onogur, in some Turkic languages on means 10 and ğur arrow, and ten arrows a federation of ten tribes, i. e. the Western Turkic Khaganate. According to some scholars, it is correctly called the Onogundur-Bulgar Empire. Some scholars assume that it stretched as far west as the Pannonian plain and it is presumed that his capital was the ancient city of Phanagoria on the Taman peninsula. Kubrats grave was discovered in 1912 at Pereshchepina, Ukraine, according to the Nominalia of the Bulgarian khans, Kubrat was from the royal clan Dulo and a rightful heir to the Bulgar throne. H. Zotenberg, while translating John Nikiu Chronicles from old-Ethiopian, Kubrat quickly managed to overthrow Avar domination, extending Onogur influence among the Bulgarians in Pannonia in what subsequently became known as Hungary. In the times of Emperor Constantine IV, he narrates, Kubrat died and Batbayan, under strong Khazar pressure, Kubrats other sons disregarded their fathers advice to stay together in order to resist the enemies and soon departed, taking their own tribes. Old Great Bulgaria disintegrated under Khazars pressure in 668, Some Bulgars remained in the former Onoguria, under the domination of the Khazars. Balkars Some also believe that the present-day Balkars of the Caucasus are the descendants of the Batbayan horde even though they. but in most Turkic languages the sound b became m. Volga Bulgars After Kotrag, the leader of the Kutrigurs, took control on the western Steppe, there they established Volga Bulgaria, at the confluence of the Volga and Kama. As the Volga or Silver Bulgars, they converted voluntarily to Islam in the 9th century and they managed to preserve their national identity well into the 13th century, by repelling the first Mongol attacks in 1223. However, they were subdued, their capital Bulgar city became one of major cities of the Golden Horde of the Mongols. The citizens of the modern Russian republics of Tatarstan and Chuvashia are considered to be descendants of those Bulgars
Old Great Bulgaria
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Old Great Bulgaria
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Old Great Bulgaria
Old Great Bulgaria
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Origin
6.
First Bulgarian Empire
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The First Bulgarian Empire was a medieval Bulgarian state that existed in southeastern Europe between the 7th and 11th centuries AD. It was founded circa 681 when Bulgar tribes led by Asparukh moved to the north-eastern Balkans, there they secured Byzantine recognition of their right to settle south of the Danube by defeating – possibly with the help of local South Slavic tribes – the Byzantine army led by Constantine IV. At the height of its power, Bulgaria spread from the Danube Bend to the Black Sea, as the state solidified its position in the Balkans, it entered into a centuries-long interaction, sometimes friendly and sometimes hostile, with the Byzantine Empire. Bulgaria emerged as Byzantiums chief antagonist to its north, resulting in several wars, Byzantium had a strong cultural influence on Bulgaria, which also led to the eventual adoption of Christianity in 864. After the disintegration of the Avar Khaganate, the country expanded its territory northwest to the Pannonian Plain, later the Bulgarians confronted the advance of the Pechenegs and Cumans, and achieved a decisive victory over the Magyars, forcing them to establish themselves permanently in Pannonia. During the late 9th and early 10th centuries, Simeon I achieved a string of victories over the Byzantines, thereafter, he was recognized with the title of Emperor, and proceeded to expand the state to its greatest extent. After the annihilation of the Byzantine army in the battle of Anchialus in 917, the Byzantines, however, eventually recovered, and in 1014, under Basil II, inflicted a crushing defeat on the Bulgarians at the Battle of Kleidion. By 1018, the last Bulgarian strongholds had surrendered to the Byzantine Empire, and it was succeeded by the Second Bulgarian Empire in 1185. After the adoption of Christianity, Bulgaria became the center of Slavic Europe. Old Bulgarian became the lingua franca of much of Eastern Europe, in 927, the fully independent Bulgarian Patriarchate was officially recognized. The Bulgars and other tribes in the empire gradually adopted an essentially foreign Slavic language. Since the late 9th century, the names Bulgarians and Bulgarian gained prevalence and became permanent designations for the local population, the First Bulgarian Empire became known simply as Bulgaria since its recognition by the Byzantine Empire in 681. Some historians use the terms Danube Bulgaria, First Bulgarian State, during its early existence, the country was also called the Bulgar state or Bulgar qaghanate. Between 864 and 917/927, the country was known as the Principality of Bulgaria or Knyazhestvo Bulgaria, in English language sources, the country is often known as the Bulgarian Empire. The eastern Balkan Peninsula was originally inhabited by the Thracians who were a group of Proto-Indo-European tribes, the whole region as far north as the Danube River was gradually incorporated into the Roman Empire by the 1st century AD. The decline of the Roman Empire after the 3rd century AD, nonetheless, it never relinquished the claim to the whole region up to the Danube. A series of administrative, legislative, military and economic reforms somewhat improved the situation, the group of Slavs that came to be known as the South Slavs was divided into Antes and Sclaveni who spoke the same language. The Slavic incursions in the Balkans increased during the half of Justinian Is reign and while these were initially pillaging raids
First Bulgarian Empire
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Bulgaria during the reign of
Simeon the Great, 10th century
First Bulgarian Empire
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Khan
Krum feasts after the
victory at Varbitsa Pass
First Bulgarian Empire
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Simeon sends envoys to the
Fatimid Caliph to form an alliance against the Byzantines.
7.
Volga Bulgaria
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Information from first-hand sources on Volga Bulgaria is rather sparse. As no authentic Bulgar records have survived, most of our information comes from contemporary Arabic, some information is provided by excavations. It is thought that the territory of Volga Bulgaria was originally settled by Finno-Ugric peoples, the Bulgars of Kubrats son and appointed heir Batbayan Bezmer moved from the Azov region in about AD660, commanded by the Kazarig Khagan Kotrag to whom he had surrendered. They reached Idel-Ural in the century, where they became the dominant population at the end of the 9th century. Most scholars agree that the Volga Bulgars were subject to the Khazarian Empire until the mid 10th century, threat from Khazaria was completely gone after Khazarias destruction and conquest by Sviatoslav in the late 10th century, after which Volga Bulgaria grew greatly in size and power. Sometime in the late 9th century unification processes started, and the capital was established at Bolghar city,160 km south from modern Kazan. Most scholars doubt, however, that the state could assert independence from the Khazars until the Khazars were annihilated by Svyatoslav of Rus in 965, abu al-Ghazi Bahadur named the Volga-Bulgar people as Ulak. Volga Bulgaria adopted Islam in 922 -66 years before Russia became Christian, in 921 Almış sent an ambassador to the Caliph requesting religious instruction. Next year an embassy returned with Ibn Fadlan as secretary, a significant number of Muslims already lived in the country. The Bulgarians attempted to convert Vladimir I of Kiev to Islam, however Vladimir rejected the notion of Rus giving up wine, commanding the Volga River in its middle course, the state controlled much of trade between Europe and Asia prior to the Crusades. The capital, Bolghar, was a city, rivalling in size. Trade partners of Bolghar included from Vikings, Bjarmland, Yugra and Nenets in the north to Baghdad and Constantinople in the south, other major cities included Bilär, Suar, Qaşan and Cükätaw. Modern cities Kazan and Yelabuga were founded as Volga Bulgarias border fortresses, some of the Volga Bulgarian cities still have not been found, but they are mentioned in old East Slavic sources. They are, Ashli, Tuxçin, İbrahim, Taw İle, some of them were ruined during and after the Golden Horde invasion. The Rus principalities to the west posed the only military threat. In the 11th century, the country was devastated by raids by other Rus. Then, at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries, under Russian pressure from the west, the Bulgars had to move their capital from Bolghar to Bilär. In September 1223 near Samara an advance guard of Genghis Khans army under command of Uran, son of Subutai Bahadur, in 1236, the Mongols returned and in five years had subjugated the whole country, which at that time was suffering from internal war
Volga Bulgaria
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Detailed map of Volga Bulgaria.
Volga Bulgaria
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Flag
Volga Bulgaria
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Volga Bulgaria in the Eurasian world of AD 1200
Volga Bulgaria
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Devil's Tower in
Yelabuga, 12th century.
8.
Kangar union
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Kangar union, Kazakh, Қaңғar Odaғy was a Turkic state in the territory of the entire modern Kazakhstan without Zhetysu. The ethnic name Kangar is a name for the Kangly people, who are now part of the Kazakh, Uzbek. The Kangly were a Turkic tribe known from the 2nd century BCE to past the 12th century CE, the Western Branch of Kangars after a defeat from Kypchaks of the Kimek Kaganate attacked and defeated the Bulgars, establishing the Kangar state in Eastern Europe. The capital of the Kangar union was located in the Ulytau mountains, a modern interpretation of the etymology is that ethnonym Kangar consists of two roots, Kang/Kang, a Turkic for father, primogenitor, and ar people, men, Kanger. An alternate etymology is that the word kangly in Old Turkic meant wagon, vehicle, kengeres of the Orkhon inscriptions were known in the Islamic world and in the west as Bajanaks whose self-designation was Kangar. Constantine Porphyrogenitus wrote that Kangar meant nobleness and bravery, after the capture of Zhetysu by the Chinese, Kangars become independent from the Turkic Kaganate. They repulsed Chinese from the southern Kazakhstan and Syr Darya cities, the Syr Darya cities retained their autonomy. The Oguzes in the southern Kazakhstan, Kimaks in the Irtysh River valley, Cumans in Mugodjar, at the end of the 7th century the Syr Darya cities rebelled and formed an alliance with the Sogdiana. The revolt was successful, but the Moslem Arab armies attacked Sogdiana from the south, the revolt has waned, and Kangars consented to the continued autonomy of the Syr Darya cities. At the beginning of the 8th century the Oghuz confederation and the city of Tashkent seceded from the Kangar union, the Arabs continued raiding Sygnakh, Khojent, Iași, and other rich Kangar cities. After the Arabs captured Sogdiana, they attacked the Kangar cities along the Syr Darya, the Arabs captured the southern Kazakhstan, and the Oguz confederation took control over the other Kangar cities along the Syr Darya. The Oguzes formed an alliance with the Kimak Kaganate, a mass migration of the Oghuz tribes in the middle of the 8th c. displaced population of the Kangar Union on the eastern borders of the Khazar Kaganate, forcing it to move into Khazarian territories. At first, Kangars settled in the territory between Yaik-Emba and Itil rivers, then advanced into the Khazar domain territories. The Kangar tribal Union, better known in Europe as Pechenegs under a Slavic name of their subject allies, between the rivers Yaik and Emba, they controlled the Khazar trading route from Itil to Khorezm, dealing a hard blow to the Khazarian trade. The North Pontic Kangar state eventually established coexistent with Khazaria, while dominating North Pontic area of Khazaria from ca.750 to ca, constantine Porphyrogenitus named three Kangar tribes, and four Bechen tribes, and their respective locations. Gardizi reported on the situation around 950, Bechens are nomads following rain and their territory extends a distance of thirty days in either direction, bordering Kipchaks in the north, Khazars on southwest, Oguz in the east, and Saqlabs to the west. All these peoples raid Bechens, who likewise raid them, Western Kangars Kangju Senior Juz Turkic peoples Timeline of Turks List of Turkic dynasties and countries Gumilev L. N. History of Hun People, Moscow, Science, Ch.11, Chinese sources of Mongolian epoch about foreign political relations of Kazakhstan Türkic nomads with peoples of Central Asia and Far East//Society and state in China
Kangar union
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Kangar union
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Kangar Union after fall of Western Turkic Khaganate, 659-750
9.
Turk Shahi
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They are split into two eras the Buddhist-Shahis and the later Hindu-Shahis with the change-over occurring around 870. These Hindu kings of Kabul and Gandhara may have had links to some ruling families in neighboring Kashmir, the last Shahi emperors Jayapala, Anandapala and Tirlochanpala fought the Muslim Turk Ghaznavids of Ghazna and were gradually defeated. Their remaining army were eventually exiled into northern India, Xuanzang describes the ruler of Kapisa/Kabul, whom he had personally met, as a devout Buddhist and a Kshatriya. Thus the folklore accounts recorded by Alberuni connect the earlier Shahis of Kabul/Kapisa to Turkish extraction, at the same time it is also claimed that their first king Barahatigin had originally come from Tibet and concealed in a narrow cave in Kabul area. One can easily see the account of Shahi origin as totally fanciful. The allegation that the first dynasty of Kabul was Turki is plainly based on the vulgar tradition, which Alberuni himself remarked was clearly absurd. The historian V. A. Smith speculates – based on Alberuni – that the earlier Shahis were a branch of the Kushanas who ruled both over Kabul and Gandhara until the rise of the Saffarids. H. M. Elliot relates the early Kabul Shahis to the Kators, charles Frederick Oldham also traces the Kabul Shahi lineage to the Kators—whom he identifies with the Kathas or Takkhas—Naga worshipping collective groups of Hinduism lineage. He further speaks of the Urasas, Abhisaras, Daradas, Gandharas, Kambojas, pandey traces the affinities of the early Kabul Shahis to the Hunas. Other accounts suggest Punjabi Kshatriya origins for the Shahi dynasty, Xuanzang clearly describes the ruler of Kapisa/Kabul, whom he had personally met, as a devout Buddhist and a Kshatriya and not a Tu-kiue/Tu-kue. Neither the Kushanas, the Hunas/Hephthalites nor the Turks have ever been designated or classified as Kshatriyas in any ancient Indian tradition, therefore, the identification of the first line of Shahi kings of Kapisa/Kabul with the Kushanas, Hunas, or Turks obviously seems to be in gross error. It is very interesting that Alberuni calls the early Shahi rulers Turks, the Shahi rulers of Kapisa/Kabul who ruled Afghanistan from the early 4th century till AD870 were Hindu Kamboj Kshatriyas. The Shahis of Afghanistan were discovered in 1874 to be connected to the Kamboja race by E. Vesey Westmacott, E. Vesey Westmacott, Bishan Singh, K. S. Dardi, et al. connect the Kabul Shahis to the ancient Indian Kshatriya clans of the Kambojas/Gandharas. George Scott Robertson writes that the Kators/Katirs of Kafiristan belong to the well known Siyaposh tribal group of the Kams, but numerous scholars now also agree that the Siyaposh tribes of Hindukush are the modern representatives of the ancient Iranian cis-Hindukush Kambojas. The name of the last king of the so-called first Shahi line of Kabul/Kapisa simply reveals a trace of Tukhara cultural influence in the Kamboja region, as hinted in the above discussion. Thus, the first ruling dynasty of Kapisa and Kabul, designated as a Kshatriya dynasty by Xuanzang had been a Kamboja dynasty from India, the Kambojas and the Tukharas are mentioned as immediate neighbors in north-west as late as the 8th century AD as Rajatarangini of Kalhana demonstrates. Evidence also exists that some medieval Muslim writers have confused the Kamboja clans of Pamirs/Hindukush with the Turks, for example, 10th-century Arab geographer Al-Muqaddasi, refers to the Kumiji tribesmen of Buttaman mountains, on upper Oxus, and calls them of Turkic race. Song Yun, the Chinese Ambassador to the Huna kingdom of Gandhara, the then Yetha ruler was extremely cruel, vindictive, and anti-Buddhist and had engaged in a three years border war with the king of Ki-pin, disputing the boundaries of that country
Turk Shahi
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Coins of the Shahis, 8th century
Turk Shahi
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Coin of Shahi Kings of Kabul & Gandhara: Samanta Deva, c. AD 850–1000. Obv: Rider bearing lance on caparisoned horse facing right. Devnagari Legends: 'bhi '?. Rev: Recumbent bull facing left, trishula on bull's rump, Devnagari Legends: Sri Samanta Deva.
Turk Shahi
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Asia in AD 565, showing the Shahi kingdoms and their neighbours.
Turk Shahi
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Newly
excavated Buddhist stupa at
Mes Aynak in
Logar Province. Similar stupas have been discovered in neighbouring
Ghazni Province, including in the northern
Samangan Province.
10.
Turgesh
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The Türgesh, Turgish or Türgish were a Turkic tribal confederation that emerged from the ruins of the Western Turkic Kaganate. Presently, the ethnonym Türgesh survived in the name of seok Tirgesh among Altaians, the Turgesh were a group of Duolu tribes believed to have originated from the Turuhe tribe, who had appeared earlier on the banks of the Tuul River. Among them were the Chebishi, who were related to the Qibi tribe, the Qibi were dispersed shortly after the defeat of chief Gelang. In the east they were put under the rule of a tudun named Ashina Hubo and they were related to the Jiepi of Gaoche, who were situated east of the Fufuluo. In 610, Shekui subdued Tashkent, a territory of Chuluo. He also formed a marriage with Samarkand and subdued its surrounding cities. In the following year, he defeated Chuluo and established his capital over the Khan Tengri, after his death, his younger brother Tong Yabgu Qaghan took over. During his reign, the Western Kaganate reached its height of power, reaching to Sassanid Persia to the west, the capital was moved further west to the springs north of Tashkent, to secure the area beyond. Tong attacked and occupied Tokharistan, and a personage from the Ashina clan was sent over to command the region. Xuanzang, a pilgrim who visited the area, related how the Turks had overlorded the country. A later pilgrim, Hyecho, commented that both the elite and troops in the region were the Tujue, whereas the natives were the Hu. Most of the kings who came under the rule of the Turks at this time were converted to ilteber. According to Chinese sources, under Tong the Turks advanced into the Sassanid empire and his son ascended to the throne but died a year later, and the Turks killed Khosrau IIs daughter. These accounts are exaggerated and fabricated by the Turks, since they were in alliance with Eastern Roman empire which was in war with Persia. Roman emperor who advanced to Persian capital, scared the Persian noble family, Turks only attacked the border towns in Caucasus region to open a new front while the main Persian armies were fighting Romans in Asia minor. When one of the Persian armies moved toward Caucasus region, Turks withdrew in a hurry, Tong seems to have been known as the Djeboukha-Khan by the Armenian author Moses. In 621 he proposed an alliance with the Chinese and planned an attack on the Eastern Kaganate in the next winter. Another proposal was made in 625, when the Chinese state was under heavy attack, due to his failure to expand eastwards, his reputation among the Duolu tribes diminished
Turgesh
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
11.
Uyghur Khaganate
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The Uyghur Khaganate, was a Turkic empire that existed for about a century between the mid 8th and 9th centuries. They were a confederation under the Orkhon Uyghur nobility, referred to by the Chinese as the Jiu Xing. In the Gobi, the Tang dynasty was supported by the Uighurs after the Uighurs left the control of the Western Turks due to the defeat by the Western Turks by Tang Taizong. In 627-628 a revolt of the Uighurs against the Turkic Khaganate weakened the Turks, in 742, the Old Uyghurs, Karluks, and Basmyls rebelled against the ruling Göktürks. The Basmyls captured the Göktürk capital, Otukan, and the Göktürk king, Özmish Khan, in 744, however, a Uyghur-Karluk alliance against the Basmyls was formed later the same year. The coalition defeated the Basmyls and beheaded their king, the Basmyl tribes were effectively destroyed, their people sold to the Chinese or distributed amongst the victors. The Uyghur leader became the khagan in Mongolia and the Karluk leader the yabgu and this arrangement, however, lasted less than a year, as hostilities between the Uyghurs and Karluks forced the Karluks to migrate westward into the western Turgesh lands. The Uyghur leader was from the Yaghlakar clan, called Qullığ Boyla and he took the title Qutlugh Bilge Köl Kaghan Glorious, wise, mighty kaghan, claiming to be the supreme ruler of all the tribes and built his capital at Ordu-Baliq. In 747, the Qutlugh Bilge Köl Kaghan died, leaving his youngest son, Bayanchur Khan to reign as Khagan El etmish bilge State settled, wise. After building a number of trading outposts with the Han Chinese, Bayanchur Khan used the profits to build the capital, Ordu-Baliq, the new khagan then embarked on a series of campaigns to bring all the steppe peoples under his banner. During this time the Empire vastly expanded, with Sekiz Oghuz, Qïrghïz, Qarluqs, Türgish, Toquz Tatars, Chiks, the rebellion of An Lushan in Tang China in 755 forced Emperor Suzong to turn to Bayanchur Khan for assistance in 756. As a result, in 757 the Uyghurs received 20,000 rolls of silk as tribute from the Chinese, Bayanchur Khan was given the daughter of the Chinese Emperor to marry, while Emperor Suzong was given a Uyghur princess. In 758, the Uyghurs turned their attentions to a rival tribe to the north. Bayanchur Khan destroyed several of their trading outposts before slaughtering a Kyrgyz army, in 759, Bayanchur Khan died after drinking heavily at a celebration. His son, Tengri Bögü, succeeded him as Khagan Qutlugh Tarkhan sengün, at Tingzhou the Uighurs and Chinese were defeated by the Tibetans which led to the Gansu corridor being taken away from Tang rule in 791. Professor James A. Millward described the original Uyghurs as phenotypically East Asian in appearance, Millward gives as an example the images of the Uyghur patrons at temple 9 in the Bezeklik caves. During the reign of Tengri Bögü the Uyghur Khaganate reached the height of its power, in 762, with the help of Tengri Bögü, the Tang Emperor Daizong finally quelled the An Lushan rebellion, and the eastern capital Luoyang was recaptured. Khagan Tengri Bögü met with Manichaean priests from Iran while on campaign and was converted to Manichaeism, one effect of this conversion was the increased influence of Sogdia in the Uyghur court
Uyghur Khaganate
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Flag
Uyghur Khaganate
Uyghur Khaganate
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Uyghur Khaganate
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Ordu-Baliq, capital of the Uyghur Khaganate (745-840) in
Mongolia.
12.
Karluk Yabgu State
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The Karluks and Oguz tribes, whose major Turkic groups settled in the Issyk-Kul and Talas region. In the 940 Karluk state did not have strong economic ties, oghuz Yabgu State List of Turkic dynasties and countries Turkic peoples Timeline of Turks History of civilisations of Central Asia. The Cambridge History of Early Inner Asia
Karluk Yabgu State
13.
Kara-Khanid Khanate
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The Kara-Khanid Khanate was a Turkic dynasty that ruled in Transoxania in Central Asia, ruled by a dynasty known in literature as the Karakhanids or Ilek Khanids or Āl-e Afrāsiyāb. Both the dynastic names of Karakhanids and Ilek Khanids refer to royal titles with Kara Kağan being the most important Turkish title up till the end of the dynasty, the Khanate conquered Transoxania in Central Asia and ruled it between 999–1211. Their capitals included Kashgar, Balasagun, Uzgen and Samarkand, the Khanate eventually split into two – the Eastern and Western Khanates. They then came under the suzerainty of the Seljuks, followed by the Kara-Khitans and their history is reconstructed from fragmentary and often contradictory written sources, as well as studies on their coinage. The Karakhanids were a confederation formed some time in the 9th century of Karluks, Yaghmas, Chigils, and other living in Semirechye, Western Tian Shan. Arabic Muslim sources called this dynasty al-Khaqaniya, while Persian sources often preferred the term Al-i Afrasiyab on the basis of the kings of pre-Islamic Transoxania. The Karluks were a people from western Altai who moved to Semirechye. In 742, the Karluks were part of an alliance led by the Basmyl, the Karluks and Uyghurs later allied themselves against the Basmyl, and within two years they toppled the Basmyl khagan. The Uyghur yabghu became khagan and the Karluk leader yabghu and this arrangement lasted less than a year. Hostilities between the Uyghur and Karluk forced the Karluk to migrate westward into the western Türk-Türgesh lands, by 766 the Karluks had forced the submission of the Western Türk-Türgesh and they established their capital at Suyab on the Chu River. The Karluk confederation by now included the Chigil and Tukshi tribes who may have been Türgesh tribes incorporated into the Karluk union. By the mid-9th century, the Karluk confederation had gained control of the lands of the Western Türks after the destruction of the Uyghur state by the Kyrgyz. During the 9th century southern Central Asia was under the rule of the Samanids, while the Central Asian steppe was dominated by Turkic nomads such as the Pechenegs, the Oghuz, the area to the South and east of the Karluks was inhabited by the Yaghma. The Karluk center in the 9th and 10th centuries appears to have been at Balasagun on the Chu River. In the late 9th century the Samanids marched into the Steppes and captured Taraz, one of the headquarters of the Karluk khagan, during the 9th century, the Karluk confederation and the Yaghma, possible descendants of the Toquz-oguz, joined force and formed the first Karluk-Karakhanid khaganate. The Chigils appear to have formed the nucleus of the Karakhanid army, the date of its foundation and the name of its first khan is uncertain, but according to one reconstruction, the first Karakhanid ruler was Bilge Kür Kadïr Khan. The rulers of the Karakhanids were likely to be from the Chigil and Yaghma tribes – the Eastern Khagan bore the title Arslan Qara Khaqan and the Western Khagan the title Bughra Qara Khaqan. The names of animals were an element in the Turkish titles of the Karakhanids, thus Aslan, Bughra, Toghan, Böri
Kara-Khanid Khanate
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Kara-Khanid Khanate
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Kara Khanid Khanate, c. 1000.
Kara-Khanid Khanate
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Tomb of Sultan Satuk Bughra Khan, the first Muslim khan, in
Artush,
Xinjiang
Kara-Khanid Khanate
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The restored mausoleum of
Ayshah bibi near
Taraz.
14.
Gansu Uyghur Kingdom
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The Gansu Uyghur Kingdom was established around 848, by the Uyghurs after the fall of the Uyghur Khaganate in 840. The kingdom lasted from 848-1036, during time, many of Gansus residents converted to Buddhism. The Gansu area was, traditionally, a Chinese inroad into Asia, by the ninth century the Uyghurs had come to dominate the area, taking over from the Tibetan Empire. The area had become a critical region, making the Uyghur wealthy. By the early 11th century, they were in turn conquered by the Tangut people of the Western Xia Dynasty, the modern day descendants of the Gansu Uyghur kingdom are known as Yugur. Turkic peoples Timeline of the Turkic peoples List of Turkic dynasties and countries Uyghur Khaganate Kingdom of Qocho Fu-Hsüeh, Yang
Gansu Uyghur Kingdom
Gansu Uyghur Kingdom
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
15.
Kingdom of Qocho
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The Kingdom of Qocho, also called the Idiqut state, was a Uyghur state created during 856–866 and centered in Qocho, Jimsar County, Hami City, and Kucha. Qocho served as its winter capital with Beshbaliq its summer capital and this Uyghur Kingdom played a vital role in the Turkification of Xinjiang. The Yenisei Kirghiz had driven the people of the Uyghur Khaganate into Turfan, mainly Turkic and Tocharian, but also Chinese and Iranian peoples such as the Sogdians were assimilated into the Uyghur Kingdom of Qocho. Chinese were among the population of Qocho, the Uyghurs of Qocho continued to produce the Chinese Qieyun rime dictionary and developed their own pronunciations of Chinese characters, left over from the Tang influence over the area. Professor James A. Buddhist Uyghurs created the Bezeklik murals, besides the jihad against Yutian, the Uygur Karakhoja Kingdom was also subjected to Jihad in which Buddhist temples were razed and Islam spread by the Karakhanid ruler Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan. The Compendium of the Turkic Dialects by Kashgari, included among the infidels, the identities of Buddhist and Uyghur were intertwined with each other. The Buddhist Uighurs were subjected to an attack by the Muslim Turks, Mahmud Kaşgaris works contained poetry stanzas and verses which described fighting between Buddhist Uighurs and Muslim Karakahnids. Qatun Sini, at the hands of the Tangut Khan, Mahmud Kashgari insulted the Uyghur Buddhists as Uighur dogs and called them Tats, which referred to the Uighur infidels according to the Tuxsi and Taghma, while other Turks called Persians tat. Buddhist origin words like toyin and Burxān or Furxan had negative connotations to Muslim Turks, the wars against the Buddhist, Shamanist, and Manichean Uighurs were considered a Jihad by the Kara-Khanids. Islam was the enemy of the Christian and Buddhist Turfan Uyghur Kingdom, the Imams and soldiers who died in the battles against the Uyghur Buddhists and Khotan Buddhist Kingdom during the Tarim Basins Islamification at the hands of the Karakhanids are revered as saints. It was possible the Muslims drove some Uighur Buddhist monks towards taking asylum in the Western Xia dynasty, the kingdom was a Buddhist state, with both state-sponsored Mahayana Buddhism and Manichaeism, and was a center of Uyghur culture. The Uyghurs sponsored the construction of many of the temple-caves in what is now Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves and they abandoned the Old Turkic alphabet and adopted and modified the Sogdian alphabet, which later came to be known as the Old Uyghur alphabet. The Idiquts ruled independently until they become a state of the Qara Khitai. In 1209, the Kara-Khoja ruler Baurchuk Art Tekin declared his allegiance to the Mongols under Genghis Khan, after submitting to the Mongols, the Uyghurs went into the service of the Mongol rulers as bureaucrats, providing the expertise that the initially illiterate nomads lacked. Qocho continued exist as a vassal to the Mongols of the Yuan dynasty, a hybrid court was used when Han Chinese and Uighurs were in involved in legal issues. The Buddhist Uyghurs of the Kingdom of Qocho and Turfan were converted to Islam by conquest during a ghazat at the hands of the Muslim Chagatai Khanate ruler Khizr Khoja, Qocho and Turfan were viewed as part of Khitay, which was a name for China. The 1390s war by Kizir Khojas against the Uigurs of Qoco is also considered a Jihad, as a consequence of the Jihad, the religion of Islam was forced on Qocho and this resulted in the city of Jiaohe being abandoned. The mujahideen of the Islamic Chagatai Khanate conquered the Uyghur and Hami was purged of the Buddhist religion which was replaced with Islam, the Islamic conversion forced on the Buddhist Hami state was the final event in the Islamization
Kingdom of Qocho
Kingdom of Qocho
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Kingdom of Qocho
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Uygur Khan Successor (8th and 9th century wall painting)
Kingdom of Qocho
16.
Pechenegs
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The Pechenegs or Patzinaks were a semi-nomadic Turkic people of the Central Asian steppes speaking the Pecheneg language which belonged to the Oghuz branch of Turkic language family. Three of the clans of the Pechenegs were the Kankalis/Kangli. The Pechenegs ethnonym derived from the Old Turkic word for brother-in-law”, sources written in different languages used similar denominations when referring to the confederation of the Pecheneg tribes. The modern Tatar name for them is Böcänäklär, Anna Komnene and other Byzantine authors referred to the Pechenegs as Patzinakoi or Patzinakitai. In medieval Latin texts, the Pechenegs were referred to as Pizenaci, East Slavic peoples use the terms Pečenegi or Pečenezi, while the Poles mentions them as Pieczyngowie or Piecinigi. The Hungarian word for Pecheneg is besenyő, the Romanian word for Pechenegs is Pecenegi According to Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus, three of the eight Pechenegs provinces or clans were known under the name Kangar. He added that they received this denomination because they are more valiant and noble than the rest of the people, however, no Turkic word with the meaning suggested by the emperor has been demonstrated. Ármin Vámbéry connected the Kangar denomination to the Kirghiz words kangir, kangirmak and kani-kara, Omeljan Pritsak proposed that the name had initially been a composite term deriving from the Tocharian word for stone and the Iranian ethnonym As. If the latter assumption is valid, the ethnonym of the three Kangar tribes suggest that Iranian elements contributed to the formation of the Pecheneg people. Mahmud al-Kashgari, an 11th-century man of letters specialized in Turkic dialects argued that the language spoken by the Pechenegs was a variant of the Cuman and he suggested that foreign influences on the Pechenegs gave rise to phonetical differences between their tongue and the idiom spoken by other Turkic peoples. Anna Komnene likewise stated that the Pechenegs and the Cumans shared a common language, although the Pecheneg language itself died out centuries ago, the names of the Pecheneg provinces recorded by Constantine Porphyrogenitus prove that the Pechenegs spoke a Turkic language. The Huns, Khazars and Pechenegs are thought to have belonged to the same group of languages as the modern Chuvash language. Ibn Khordadbeh, Mahmud al-Kashgari, Muhammad al-Idrisi and many other Muslim scholars agreed that the Pechenegs belonged to the Turkic peoples. The Russian Primary Chronicle stated that the Torkmens, Pechenegs, Torks, and Polovcians descended from the sons of Ishmael. Paul Pelliot was the first to propose that a 7th-century Chinese work and it writes of the Pei-ju, a people settled along the En-chu and A-lan peoples east of Fu-lin. In contrast with this view, Victor Spinei argues that the first certain reference to the Pechenegs can be read in a Tibetan translation of an 8th-century Uyghur text and it narrates a war between two peoples, the Be-ča-nag and the Hor. The Pechenegs inhabited the region along the river Syr Darya at the time when the first records were made of them, the Pechenegs were forced to leave their Central Asian homeland by a coalition of the Oghuz Turks, Karluks and Kimaks. The Pechenegs westward migration started between the 790s and 850s, but its exact date cannot be determined, the Pechenegs settled in the steppe corridor between the rivers Ural and Volga
Pechenegs
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Pechenegs
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Pecheneg Khanates and neighboring territories, c.1015
Pechenegs
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Sviatoslav enters Bulgaria with Pecheneg allies, from the Constantine Manasses Chronicle.
Pechenegs
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The Pechenegs slaughter the "skyths" of
Sviatoslav I of Kiev.
17.
Kimek Khanate
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The Kimek Khanate also spelled Kimäk Khanate and Kimak Kaganate, was a prominent medieval Turkic state formed by the Kimek and Kipchak people in the area between the Ob and Irtysh rivers. From approximately 743 to 1050, it existed as the Kimak Kaganate, originally, the Kimaks lived along the Irtysh between the Altai and Tarbagatai mountain ranges. During the Göktürk Kaganate, the Chuüe, Chumi, Chumuhun, Chinese historians located the Chuban west of the Tarbagatai and Altai mountains. From the 7th to the 12th centuries, Kimak and Kipchak culture was identical, the southern neighbors of Kimaks were Karluks, who preserved their independence for another 200 years. The Kimak Khakans residence was in the city Imakia on the Irtysh, in the middle of the 7th century the Kimaks lived near the Irtysh, north of the Altai, as part of the Western Turkic Khaganate. After the disintegration of the Western Türkic Kaganate in 743, a part of the Kimaks remained in its successor, the Uyghur Kaganate, during that period a nucleus of the Kimak tribes was consolidated. The head of the Kimak confederation had the title Shad Tutuk, i. e. Prince Governing, the Imak tribe became the head of the union, and later of the Kimak Kaganate. In another transcription the name sounds like Kai, which in Mongolian means snake. Possibly it was during the consolidation of the seven tribes appeared the expression, before the middle of the 8th century, the Kimaks bordered the Karluks and Tokuz-Oguzes on the south, and the Yenisei Kyrgyz on the east. After dissolution of the Western Turkic Khaganate in 743, the body of the Kimaks remained in the Irtysh area. In the late 8th or early 9th century, part of the Kimak tribes migrated in two directions, northwest to the Urals and southwest to the northern Zhetysu, the migration changed the ethnic composition of the Middle Volga and Lower Kama areas in the west. Spreading from the Irtysh area, Kimaks occupied territory between the rivers Yaik and Emba, and between the Aral and Caspian steppes, to the Zhetysu area, the Kimak polity can now be seen as one of the great pastoral, nomadic empires of all time. After the breakup of the Uyghur Kaganate in 840, the Central Asian tribes found themselves unattached, portions of the Turkic Eymür, Bayandur, and Tatar tribes joined the core of the Kimak tribes. The Tatar tribes already were members of the Kimak confederation—some had already participated in the formation of the Kimak Kaganate. The Kipchaks also had their Khanlyk, but politically they were dependent on the Kimaks, the dominating Kimak tribe mostly lived on the banks of Irtysh. The Kipchaks, described by Hudud al-Alam, occupied a territory located to the west. Chinese chroniclers wrote about the mountains of the Kipchak land—in the chronicle Üan-shi these mountains are named Üyli-Boli, North of Kipchaks and Kimaks lay endless forest. Of all the tribes, the Kimaks were ready to head a new political tribal union
Kimek Khanate
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Kimek Khanate
Kimek Khanate
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Kipchak "balbal" in
Dnepropetrovsk
18.
Cumania
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The name Cumania originated as the Latin exonym for the Cuman-Kipchak confederation, which was a Turkic confederation in the western part of the Eurasian Steppe, between the 10th and 13th centuries. The confederation was dominated by two Turkic nomadic tribes, the Cumans and the Kipchaks, Cumania was known in Islamic sources as Desht-i Qipchaq, which means Steppe of the Kipchaks, or foreign land sheltering the Kipchaks, in the Turkic languages. Russian sources have referred to Cumania as the Polovtsian Steppe, or the Polovcian Plain, the Golden Horde was also referred to as Comania by Armenian chronicler Hethum of Korykos. Hethum of Korykos described Cumania as wholly flat and with no trees, ibn Batutta said of Cumania, This wilderness is green and grassy with no trees, nor hills, high or low. there is no means of travelling in this desert except in wagons. Battutas contemporary, Hamdallah Mustawfi, eloborated, This is of the Sixth Clime, its plains bear excellent pasturage. the climate is cold, and their water comes from springs and wells. Considering the nomadic way of life of peoples, these frontiers can be regarded only as approximate. As in the case of other large nomadic Eurasian confederacies. While the main component was probably the Turkic-speaking tribes, the confederacy included other ethnic components as well, Cumania was primarily a political name, referring to the leading, integrating tribe or clan of the confederacy or state. The Cumans, when they first appear in sources, are members of a confederacy irrespective of their tribal origin. Former tribal names disappeared when the tribe in question became part of a political unit, for instance, when we hear of an incursion of Cumans, it means that certain tribes of the Cuman confederacy took part in a military enterprise. In his History of the Mongols, the Persian historian Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, referred to Cumania around 1236-1237, during the Mongol invasion of Möngke, among others, he mentions the Kipchaks, the Turkophone Asi and the Karaulaghi. The vast territory of this Cuman-Kipchak realm, consisting of loosely connected tribal units who were the dominating force, was never politically united by a strong central power. This pontic Cumania, ended its existence in the middle of the 13th century, on the Great Hungarian Plain, Cuman settlers gave their name to two regions known as Kunság, the Hungarian word for Cumania, Greater Cumania and Little Cumania, located the Great Hungarian Plain. Here, the Cumans maintained their language and some ethnic customs well into the modern era, at Milcov, years earlier, in 1227, the Cuman warlord Bortz accepted Catholic Christianity from missionary Dominican monks. Pope Gregory IX heard about the conversion of the Cumans. Teodoric, the bishop of this new diocese, became the guardian of the Dominican Order in the Kingdom of Hungary. At that time, the use of the name Cumania should not to be understood as asserting the existence of a Cuman state, nor even a land inhabited by Cuman tribes but rather to the Diocese of Cumania. From the military point of view, the land comprising the Diocese of Cumania was held either by the Teutonic Order, or by the Vlachs
Cumania
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Cumania
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Coat of arms
Cumania
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Cuman/Kipchak statue, 12th century,
Luhansk
Cumania
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Hungarian King
Ladislaus I of Hungary (left) fighting with a Cuman Warrior (right)
19.
Oghuz Yabgu State
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The Oguz Yabgu State was a Turkic state, founded by Oguz Turks in 766, located geographically in an area between the coasts of the Caspian and Aral Seas. The Oguz political association developed in the 9th and 10th centuries in the basin of the middle and lower course of the Syr Darya, the etymology of the name Oguz is unclear. It was discussed many times in historical and philological literature, the term probably means tribes, or the tribal union, and then could turn into a collective ethnic name. The original Oguz areas were the regions of Central Asia. The beginning of the early Oguz group formation is linked to the Western Zhetysu, the first reference of the Oguz State is by the Arab geographer Yaqubi, who called Oguzes kings. In Zhetysu the old Oguz capital was Guziya, in 766, after Karluks overran the Turgesh Kaganate in Zhetysu, Karluk tribes formed a Khanate centered there under the rule of a Yabgu, and they occupied and transferred their capital to Suyab. By that time the bulk of the Uch-Karluk confederation had left the Altai, the nomadic tribes of the Syr Darya Kangars were forced to join the Oguzes, and a part of them migrated to the west to the northern Black Sea region. The Oguzes moved their capital to Yangikent and became known as Oguz Yabgu State, the state was founded in Eni-Kent which was an Oguz yayla. Oguz il extended from Issyk Kul and Almalyk, in the south, to Sairam, in the west, to the city of Yangikent, which stands at the mouth of the river Syr, and to the Kara-Kum. The state was ruled by the leader of the Oguz Turks with the title Yabgu, which is similar to other Turkic ruling titles such as Khan and Kagan/Hakan, the army was commanded by Subaşı. Sü means Soldier in Turkish and başı means the head of or the ruler of, the Oguz State played an important role in the military and political history of Eurasia. In 965 the Oguz State allied with Kievan Rus in a war against the Khazar Kaganate, in 985 the alliance with Kievan Rus defeated Volga Bulgaria, which increased the political power of the Oguz State. At the turn of the 10th–11th centuries, popular uprisings broke out against excessive taxation in the state, the revolts became especially strong in the second half of the 10th century, during the rule of Ali Yabgu. The split between the ruling Oguzes and Seljuk branch of Oguzes turned out to be detrimental to the state, the upheaval was used by the Seljuk branch, who led an uprising and took Jend, but soon they were forced to leave the Jend area. During the reign of the last Oguz Yabgu Shahmalik the state rebounded, in 1041 Shahmalik Yabgu conquered Khorezm from the Ghaznavids, but two years later he was captured by the Seljuk forces and executed. Shahmalik Yabgu was the last ruler of the Oguz State, internal turmoil and conflict with the Seljuks weakened the Oguz State. The weakened state fell under attacks by the Kipchak tribes from the Kimak Kaganate, under the pressure of the Kipchaks, the two branches of the Oguz people split, a significant part of the Oguzes went to Eastern Europe, and the Seljuk Oguzes left toward Asia Minor. Another part of the Oguzes fell under the rule of the Karahanids, the remnants of those Oghuz defeated by the Kipchaks subsequently dissolved among the Turkic-speaking tribes of Dasht-e-Kipchak
Oghuz Yabgu State
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Oghuz Yabgu State
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Oguz Yabgu State in
Kazakhstan, 750-1055
20.
Ghaznavids
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In 1151, Sultan Bahram Shah lost Ghazni to the Ghurid king Ala al-Din Husayn. Two military families arose from the Turkic slave-guards of the Samanid Empire, the Simjurids and Ghaznavids, the Simjurids received an appanage in the Kohistan region of eastern Khorasan. His death created a crisis between his brothers. A court party instigated by men of the scribal class — civilian ministers rather than Turkic generals — rejected the candidacy of Alp Tigin for the Samanid throne. Mansur I was installed instead, and Alp Tigin prudently retired to south of the Hindu Kush, the struggles of the Turkic slave generals for mastery of the throne with the help of shifting allegiance from the courts ministerial leaders both demonstrated and accelerated the Samanid decline. Samanid weakness attracted into Transoxiana the Karluks, a Turkic people who had converted to Islam. They occupied Bukhara in 992, establishing in Transoxania the Kara-Khanid Khanate, after Alp Tigins death in 993, Abu Ishaq Ibrahim, followed by his slave Sabuktigin, took the throne. Sabuktigins son Mahmud of Ghazni made an agreement with the Kara-Khanid Khanate whereby the Amu Darya was recognised as their mutual boundary, however, modern historians believe this was an attempt to connect himself with the history of old Persia. After the death of Sabuktigin, his son Ismail claimed the throne for a temporary period, in 997, Mahmud, another son of Sebuktigin, succeeded the throne, and Ghazni and the Ghaznavid dynasty have become perpetually associated with him. He completed the conquest of the Samanid and Shahi territories, including the Ismaili Kingdom of Multan, Sindh, by all accounts, the rule of Mahmud was the golden age and height of the Ghaznavid Empire. Mahmud carried out seventeen expeditions through northern India to establish his control and set up tributary states and he established his authority from the borders of Ray to Samarkand, from the Caspian Sea to the Yamuna. During Mahmuds reign, the Ghaznavids settled 4,000 Turkmen families near Farana in Khorasan, by 1027, due to the Turkmen raiding neighbouring settlements, the governor of Tus, Abu lAlarith Arslan Jadhib, led military strikes against them. The Turkmen were defeated and scattered to neighbouring lands, although, as late as 1033, Ghaznavid governor Tash Farrash executed fifty Turkmen chiefs for raids into Khorasan. Mahmud left the empire to his son Mohammed, who was mild, affectionate and his brother, Masud, asked for three provinces that he had won by his sword, but his brother did not consent. Masud had to fight his brother, and he became king, blinding and imprisoning Mohammed as punishment. The two brothers now exchanged positions, Mohammed was elevated from prison to the throne, while Masud was consigned to a dungeon after a reign of ten years and was assassinated in 1040. Masuds son, Madood, was governor of Balkh, and in 1040, after hearing of his fathers death and he fought with the sons of the blind Mohammed and was victorious. However, the empire disintegrated and most kings did not submit to Madood
Ghaznavids
–
History of Afghanistan
Ghaznavids
–
Flag adopted by
Mahmud of Ghazni
Ghaznavids
Ghaznavids
21.
Seljuk Empire
–
The Seljuk Empire or Great Seljuk Empire was a medieval Turko-Persian Sunni Muslim empire, originating from the Qynyq branch of Oghuz Turks. The Seljuk Empire controlled a vast area stretching from the Hindu Kush to eastern Anatolia, from their homelands near the Aral sea, the Seljuks advanced first into Khorasan and then into mainland Persia before eventually conquering eastern Anatolia. The Seljuk empire was founded by Tughril Beg in 1037, Tughril was raised by his grandfather, Seljuk-Beg, who was in a high position in the Oghuz Yabgu State. Seljuk gave his name to both the Seljuk empire and the Seljuk dynasty, the Seljuks united the fractured political scene of the eastern Islamic world and played a key role in the first and second crusades. Highly Persianized in culture and language, the Seljuks also played an important role in the development of the Turko-Persian tradition, the Seljuqs were allied with the Persian Samanid shahs against the Qarakhanids. The Samanid fell to the Qarakhanids in Transoxania, however, whereafter the Ghaznavids arose, the Seljuqs became involved in this power struggle in the region before establishing their own independent base. Tughril was the grandson of Seljuq and brother of Chaghri, under whom the Seljuks wrested an empire from the Ghaznavids, initially the Seljuqs were repulsed by Mahmud and retired to Khwarezm, but Tughril and Chaghri led them to capture Merv and Nishapur. Later they repeatedly raided and traded territory with his successors across Khorasan and Balkh, in 1040 at the Battle of Dandanaqan, they decisively defeated Masud I of the Ghaznavids, forcing him to abandon most of his western territories to the Seljuqs. In 1055, Tughril captured Baghdad from the Shia Buyids under a commission from the Abbasids, arslans decisive victory at the Battle of Manzikert in 1071 effectively neutralized the Byzantine resistance to the Turkish invasion of Anatolia. He authorized his Turkmen generals to carve their own out of formerly Byzantine Anatolia. Malikshāh moved the capital from Rey to Isfahan and it was during his reign that the Great Seljuk Empire reached its zenith. The Iqta military system and the Nizāmīyyah University at Baghdad were established by Nizām al-Mulk, the Abbasid Caliph titled him The Sultan of the East and West in 1087. The Seljuq power was at its zenith under Malikshāh I, the Seljuq dominion was established over the ancient Sasanian domains, in Iran and Iraq, and included Anatolia as well as parts of Central Asia and modern Afghanistan. The Seljuk rule was modelled after the organization common in Turkic and Mongol nomads. Under this organization, the member of the paramount family assigned family members portions of his domains as autonomous appanages. When Malikshāh I died in 1092, the split as his brother. Malikshāh I was succeeded in Anatolia by Kilij Arslan I, who founded the Sultanate of Rum, and in Syria by his brother Tutush I. In Persia he was succeeded by his son Mahmud I, whose reign was contested by his three brothers Barkiyaruq in Iraq, Muhammad I in Baghdad, and Ahmad Sanjar in Khorasan
Seljuk Empire
–
History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Seljuk Empire
–
Great Seljuq Empire in its zenith in 1092, upon the death of
Malik Shah I
Seljuk Empire
Seljuk Empire
–
Head of male royal figure, 12–13th century, found in
Iran.
22.
Khwarazmian dynasty
–
The dynasty was founded by commander Anush Tigin Gharchai, a former Turkish slave of the Seljuq sultans, who was appointed as governor of Khwarezm. His son, Qutb ad-Din Muhammad I, became the first hereditary Shah of Khwarezm, the date of the founding of the Khwarazmian dynasty remains debatable. During a revolt in 1017, Khwarezmian rebels murdered Abul-Abbas Mamun and his wife, Hurra-ji, in response, Mahmud invaded and occupied the region of Khwarezm, which included Nasa and the ribat of Farawa. As a result, Khwarezm became a province of the Ghaznavid Empire from 1017 to 1034, in 1077 the governorship of the province, which since 1042/1043 belonged to the Seljuqs, fell into the hands of Anush Tigin Gharchai, a former Turkic slave of the Seljuq sultan. In 1141, the Seljuq Sultan Ahmed Sanjar was defeated by the Qara Khitai at the battle of Qatwan, Sultan Ahmed Sanjar died in 1156. As the Seljuk state fell into chaos, the Khwarezm-Shahs expanded their territories southward, in 1194, the last Sultan of the Great Seljuq Empire, Toghrul III, was defeated and killed by the Khwarezm ruler Ala ad-Din Tekish, who conquered parts of Khorasan and western Iran. In 1200, Tekish died and was succeeded by his son, Ala ad-Din Muhammad, following the sack of Khwarizm, Muhammad appealed for aid from his suzerain, the Qara Khitai who sent him an army. With this reinforcement, Muhammad won a victory over the Ghorids at Hezarasp, Ala ad-Din Muhammads alliance with his suzerain was short-lived. He again initiated a conflict, this time with the aid of the Kara-Khanids, and defeated a Qara-Khitai army at Talas and he overthrew the Karakhanids and Ghurids. In 1212, he shifted his capital from Gurganj to Samarkand, by 1218, the empire had a population of 5 million people. In 1218, Genghis Khan sent a mission to the state. Genghis Khan demanded reparations, which the Shah refused to pay, Genghis retaliated with a force of 200,000 men, launching a multi-pronged invasion. In February 1220 the Mongolian army crossed the Syr Darya, the Mongols stormed Bukhara, Gurganj and the Khwarezmid capital Samarkand. The Shah fled and died weeks later on an island in the Caspian Sea. The son of Ala ad-Din Muhammad, Jalal ad-Din Mingburnu became the new Sultan and he attempted to flee to India, but the Mongols caught up with him before he got there, and he was defeated at the Battle of Indus. He escaped and sought asylum in the Sultanate of Delhi, iltumish however denied this to him in deference to the relationship with the Abbasid caliphs. Returning to Persia, he gathered an army and re-established a kingdom and he never consolidated his power, however, spending the rest of his days struggling against the Mongols, the Seljuks of Rum, and pretenders to his own throne. He lost his power over Persia in a battle against the Mongols in the Alborz Mountains, escaping to the Caucasus, he captured Azerbaijan in 1225, setting up his capital at Tabriz
Khwarazmian dynasty
–
History of Afghanistan
Khwarazmian dynasty
–
Khwarezmid Empire in 1217
Khwarazmian dynasty
Khwarazmian dynasty
–
History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
23.
Naimans
–
The Naiman is the name of a tribe originating in Mongolia. In The Secret History of the Mongols, the Naiman subtribe the Güchügüd are mentioned, according to Russian Turkologist Nikolai Aristovs view, the Naiman Khanates western border reached the Irtysh River and its eastern border reached the Mongolian Tamir River. The Altai Mountains and southern Altai Republic were part of the Naiman Khanate and they had diplomatic relations with the Kara-Khitans, and were subservient to them until 1177. Some scholars classified them as a Turkic people from Sekiz Oghuz, like the Khitans and the Uyghurs, many of them were Nestorian Christians or Buddhists. When the last tayang Khan was killed after a battle with Genghis Khan in 1203, Kuchlug was well received there and the Khitan Khan gave him his daughter in marriage. Kuchlug soon began plotting against his new father-in-law, and after he usurped the throne, but his action was opposed by local people and he was later defeated by the Mongols under Jebe. Although the Naiman Khanlig was crushed by the Mongols, they were seen in part of the Mongol Empire. Ogedeis great khatun Töregene might have been from this tribe, hulegu had a Naiman general, Ketbuqa, who died in the battle of Ain Jalut in 1260. The modern Naiman tribe is a Mongol ethnic group in Naiman Banner, Inner Mongolia of China, the clan Naiman changed the clan name and mixed with other tribes in Mongolia. There is a population of Naimans in Afghanistan. They belong to the Hazara tribe and reside in the Sheikh Ali valley, modern Kazakh historians claim that more than 2 millions of the Kazakh population are Naimans. Some Naimans dissimilated with the Kyrgyz and Uzbek ethnicities and are found among them. Naimans are also one of the tribe among Kazakhs in the Uzbekistan, they also exist among Kazakhs in Kyrgyzstan. See Naimans introduction in Kazakh language, Kazakh shezhire, the Naimans might have been Christians in the early 13th century. However, there is no evidence to support this claim. They remained so after the Mongol conquest and were among the wave of Christians to enter China with Kublai Khan. The Naimans who settled in the western khanates of the Mongol Empire all eventually converted to Islam, there was a tradition that the Naimans and their Christian relatives, the Keraites, descended from the Biblical Magi. However, Kitbuqa was slain and his army defeated at the Battle of Ain Jalut
Naimans
–
Altay Naimans in 1990
Naimans
–
Location of the Naiman khanate at the start of the
Mongol Empire.
Naimans
–
Map from a 1903 Polish encyclopedia showing the Naiman people living north of
Lake Balkhash in eastern Kazakhstan
24.
Delhi Sultanate
–
The Delhi Sultanate was a Muslim kingdom based mostly in Delhi that stretched over large parts of the Indian subcontinent for 320 years. Five dynasties ruled over Delhi Sultanate sequentially, the Mamluk dynasty, the Khilji dynasty, the Tughlaq dynasty, the Sayyid dynasty, the first four dynasties were of Turkic origin, and the last dynasty was of Afghan origin. Qutb-ud-din Aibak, a slave of Muhammad Ghori, was the first sultan of Delhi. Afterwards the Khilji dynasty was able to conquer most of central India. The sultanate reached the peak of its reach during the Tughlaq dynasty. This was followed by due to continuing Hindu-Muslim wars, states such as the Vijayanagara Empire asserting independence. The Delhi Sultanate caused destruction and desecration of politically important temples of South Asia, in 1526 the Sultanate fell, to be succeeded by the Mughal Empire. By 962 AD, Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms in South Asia were under a wave of raids from Muslim armies from Central Asia. Among them was Mahmud of Ghazni, who raided and plundered kingdoms in north India from east of the Indus river to west of Yamuna river seventeen times between 997 and 1030, Mahmud of Ghazni raided the treasuries but retracted each time, only extending Islamic rule into western Punjab. The wave of raids on north Indian and western Indian kingdoms by Muslim warlords continued after Mahmud of Ghazni, the raids did not establish or extend permanent boundaries of their Islamic kingdoms. The Ghurid Sultan Muizz al-Din Muhammad began a war of expansion into north India in 1173. He sought to carve out a principality for himself by expanding the Islamic world, Mu’izz sought a Sunni Islamic kingdom of his own extending east of the Indus river, and he thus laid the foundation for the Muslim kingdom called the Delhi Sultanate. Some historians chronicle the Delhi Sultanate from 1192 due to the presence, Muizz al-Din was assassinated in 1206, by Ismāʿīlī Shia Muslims in some accounts or by Hindu Khokhars in others. After the assassination, one of Mu’izz slaves, the Turkic Qutbu l-Din Aibak, assumed power, Qutb al-Din Aibak, a slave of Muizz ad-Din Muhammad Ghori, was the first ruler of the Delhi Sultanate. Aibak was of Cuman-Kipchak origin, and due to his lineage, Aibak reigned as the Sultan of Delhi for four years. After Aibak died, Aram Shah assumed power in 1210, but he was assassinated in 1211 by Shams-ud-din Iltutmish, iltutmishs power was precarious, and a number of Muslim amirs challenged his authority as they had been supporters of Qutb al-din Aibak. After a series of conquests and brutal executions of opposition, he consolidated his power and his rule was challenged a number of times, such as by Qubacha, and this led to a series of wars. Iltumish conquered Multan and Bengal from contesting Muslim rulers, as well as Ranathambhore and he also attacked, defeated, and executed Taj al-Din Yildiz, who asserted his rights as heir to Muizz ad-Din Muhammad Ghori
Delhi Sultanate
–
History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Delhi Sultanate
–
Alai Gate and Qutub Minar were built during Mamluk and Khalji dynasty periods of Delhi Sultanate.
Delhi Sultanate
–
Muhammad bin Tughlaq moved his capital to the
Deccan Plateau, ordered Delhi people to move and build a new capital named Daulatabad (shown), then reversed his decision because Daulatabad lacked the river and drinking water supply Delhi had.
Delhi Sultanate
–
A base metal coin of Muhammad bin Tughlaq that led to an economic collapse.
25.
Mamluk Dynasty (Delhi)
–
The Mamluk Dynasty, was directed into Northern India by Qutb ud-Din Aibak, a Turkic general from Central Asia. The Mamluk Dynasty ruled from 1206 to 1290, it was the first of five unrelated dynasties to rule as the Delhi Sultanate till 1526, the Mamluk, literally meaning owned, was a soldier of slave origin who had converted to Islam. The phenomenon started in the 9th century and gradually the Mamluks became a military caste in various Muslim societies. Mamluks held political and military power most notably in Egypt, but also in the Levant, Iraq, in 1206, Muhammad of Ghor, Sultan of the Ghurid Empire was assassinated. Since he had no children, his empire split into minor sultanates led by his former mamluk generals, taj-ud-Din Yildoz became the ruler of Ghazni. Mohammad Bin Bakhtiyar Khilji got Bengal, Nasir-ud-Din Qabacha became the sultan of Multan. Qutb ud-Din Aibak became the sultan of Delhi, and that was the beginning of the Slave dynasty, Aibak rose to power when a Ghorid superior was assassinated. However, his reign as the Sultan of Delhi was short lived as he died in 1210 and his son Aram Shah rose to the throne, only to be assassinated by Iltutmish in 1211. Following the death of Iltutmish in 1236 a series of rulers remained in power. The Khilji dynasty came into being when Jalal ud din Firuz Khilji overthrew the last of the Slave dynasty rulers, Muiz ud din Qaiqabad, the grandson of Balban, and assumed the throne at Delhi. The first Sultan of the Mamluk dynasty was Qutb ud-Din Aibak and he temporarily quelled the rebellions of Nasir-ud-Din Qabacha of Multan and Tajuddin Yildoz of Ghazni. Making Lahore his capital, he consolidated his control over North India through an administrative hold over Delhi and he also initiated the construction of Delhis earliest Muslim monuments, the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque and the Qutb Minar. In 1210, he died due to injuries received from an accident while playing a game of polo in Lahore, his horse fell and he was buried near the Anarkali Bazaar in Lahore. The second Sultan was Aram Shah, who had the name of Sultan. An elite group of forty nobles named Chihalgani conspired against Aram Shah and invited Shams-ud-din Iltutmish, then Governor of Badaun, Iltutmish defeated Aram in the plain of Jud near Delhi in 1211. It is not quite certain what became of Aram, the third Sultan was Shams-ud-din Iltutmish, who had the titular name of Nasir Amir-ul-Muminin and reigned from 1211 to 1236. He shifted the capital from Lahore to Delhi and trebled the exchequer and he defeated Nasir-ud-Din Qabacha of Multan and Tajuddin Yildoz of Ghazni, who had declared themselves contenders of Delhi. Mongols invaded India in pursuit of Jalal-ud-din Mangabarni who was defeated at the Battle of Indus by Genghis Khan in 1221, after Genghis Khans death, Iltutmish consolidated his hold on northern India by retaking many of the lost territories
Mamluk Dynasty (Delhi)
–
The
Qutub Minar, an example of the Mamluk dynasty's works.
Mamluk Dynasty (Delhi)
–
The Delhi Mamluk Dynasty
26.
Khilji dynasty
–
The Khilji dynasty or Khalji was a Muslim dynasty of Turkic origin, which ruled large parts of South Asia between 1290 and 1320. It was founded by Jalal ud din Firuz Khilji and became the second dynasty to rule the Delhi Sultanate of India. The dynasty is known for their faithlessness and ferocity, as well as their raids into the Hindu south, the Khilji rulers trace their roots to Central Asia and were of Turkic origin. They had long settled in present-day Afghanistan before proceeding to Delhi in India. The name Khilji refers to an Afghan village or town known as Qalat-e Khilji, sometimes they were treated by others as ethnic Afghans due to their adoption of some Afghan habits and customs. As a result of this, sometimes the dynasty is referred to as a Turko-Afghan, the three sultans of the Khalji dynasty were noted by historians for their faithlessness and ferocity. Jalal-ud-din Khilji Ikhtiar Uddin Muhammad bin Bakhtiar Khilji was a servant of Qutb-ud-din Aibak, Khiljis were vassals of the Mamluk dynasty of Delhi and served the Sultan of Delhi, Ghiyas ud din Balban. Balbans successors were murdered over 1289-1290, and the Mamluk dynasty succumbed to the conflicts within the Mamluk dynasty. As the struggle between the factions razed, Jalal ud din Firuz Khilji led a coup and murdered the 17-year-old Mamluk successor Muiz ud din Qaiqabad - the last ruler of Mamluk dynasty. Jalal ud din Firuz Khilji was accepted as sultan by a faction of Muslim amirs of Turkic, Persian, Arabic factions, however, Jalal-ud-din in his old age was unpopular and not universally accepted. During his six-year reign, some of Balbans officers revolted due to his assumption of power and he returned to Delhi in 1296, murdered his uncle who was also his father-in-law, then assumed power as Sultan. Ala al-din Khilji continued expanding Delhi Sultanate into South India, with the help of such as Malik Kafur and Khusraw Khan. His commanders collected war spoils from Hindu kingdoms, paid khums on Ghanima to Sultans treasury, Alauddin Khilji reigned for 20 years. He attacked and seized Hindu states of Ranthambhor, Chittorgarh, Māndu and plundered the wealthy state of Devagiri, Ala al-din is also known for his cruelty against attacked kingdoms after wars. Historians note him as a tyrant and that anyone Ala al-din Khilji suspected of being a threat to power was killed along with the women and children of that family. In 1298, between 15,000 and 30,000 people near Delhi, who had converted to Islam, were slaughtered in a single day. He also killed his own members and nephews, in 1299-1300, after he suspected them of rebellion, by first gouging out their eyes. In 1308, Alauddins lieutenant, Malik Kafur captured Warangal, overthrew the Hoysala Empire south of the Krishna River and he then looted the treasury in capitals and from the temples of south India
Khilji dynasty
–
Copper coin of
Alauddin Khilji
Khilji dynasty
–
Khilji dynasty
Khilji dynasty
–
History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
27.
Tughlaq dynasty
–
The Tughlaq dynasty, also referred to as Tughluq or Tughluk dynasty, was a Muslim dynasty of Turkic origin which ruled over the Delhi sultanate in medieval India. Its reign started in 1320 in Delhi when Ghazi Malik assumed the throne under the title of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq, the dynasty expanded its territorial reach through a military campaign led by Muhammad ibn Tughluq, and reached its zenith between 1330 and 1335. Its rule was marked with torture, cruelty and rebellions, resulting in the disintegration of the dynastys territorial reach after 1335 AD. The Khilji dynasty ruled the Delhi Sultanate before 1320 and its last ruler, Khusro Khan was a Hindu who had converted to Islam and then served Delhi Sultanate as the general of its army. Khusro Khan, along with Malik Kafur, had led military campaigns on behalf of Alauddin Khilji, to expand the Sultanate. However, he lacked the support of the Persian and Afghan nobels, the Muslim aristocracy invited the Turkic origin Ghazi Malik, then the governor in Punjab under the Khiljis, to lead a coup in Delhi and remove Khusro Khan. In 1320, Ghazi Malik launched an attack and killed Khusro Khan to assume power, Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq After assuming power, Ghazi Malik rechristened himself as Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq - thus starting and naming the Tughlaq dynasty. Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq is also referred in scholarly works as Tughlak Shah and he was of Turko-Indian origins, with a Turkic father and a Hindu mother. Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq rewarded all those maliks, amirs and officials of Khilji dynasty who had rendered him a service and he punished those who had rendered service to Khusro Khan, his predecessor. He built a city six kilometers east of Delhi, with a fort considered more defensible against the Mongol attacks, in 1321, he sent his eldest son Ulugh Khan, later known as Muhammad bin Tughlaq, to Deogir to plunder the Hindu kingdoms of Arangal and Tilang. His first attempt was a failure, four months later, Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq sent large army reinforcements for his son asking him to attempt plundering Arangal and Tilang again. Arangal fell, was renamed to Sultanpur, and all plundered wealth, state treasury, Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq succeeded in this campaign. Historic documents state that the Sufi preacher and Ulugh Khan had learnt through messengers that Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq had resolved to remove them from Delhi upon his return, Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq along with his favorite son Mahmud Khan died inside the collapsed kushk in 1325 AD, while his eldest son watched. One official historian of Tughlaq court gives an alternate fleeting account of his death, patricide According to many historians such as Ibn Battuta, al-Safadi, Işāmi, and Vincent Smith, Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq was killed by his son Ulugh Juna Khan, who then assumed power in 1325 AD. Juna Khan rechristened himself as Muhammad bin Tughlaq, and ruled for 26 years, Muhammad bin Tughluq During Muhammad bin Tughluqs rule, Delhi Sultanate temporarily expanded to most of the Indian subcontinent, its peak in terms of geographical reach. He attacked and plundered Malwa, Gujarat, Mahratta, Tilang, Kampila, Dhur-samundar, Mabar, Lakhnauti, Chittagong, Sunarganw and his distant campaigns were expensive, although each raid and attack on non-Muslim kingdoms brought new looted wealth and ransom payments from captured people. The extended empire was difficult to retain, and rebellions all over Indian subcontinent became routine and he raised taxes to levels where people refused to pay any. In Indias fertile lands between Ganges and Yamuna rivers, the Sultan increased the tax rate on non-Muslims by tenfold in some districts
Tughlaq dynasty
–
History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Tughlaq dynasty
–
A painting of west gate of Firozabad fort, near Delhi. This fort was built by Feroz Shah Tughlaq in the 1350s, but destroyed by later dynasties.
Tughlaq dynasty
–
Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq ordered the construction of Tughlakabad, a city near Delhi with fort to protect Delhi Sultanate from Mongol attacks. Above is the Tughlaq fort, now in ruins.
Tughlaq dynasty
–
A base metal coin of Muhammad bin Tughlaq that led to an economic collapse.
28.
Golden Horde
–
The Golden Horde was a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. With the fragmentation of the Mongol Empire after 1259 it became a functionally separate khanate and it is also known as the Kipchak Khanate or as the Ulus of Jochi. After the death of Batu Khan in 1255, his dynasty flourished for a century, until 1359. The Hordes military power peaked during the reign of Uzbeg, who adopted Islam, the territory of the Golden Horde at its peak included most of Eastern Europe from the Urals to the Danube River, and extended east deep into Siberia. In the south, the Golden Hordes lands bordered on the Black Sea, the Caucasus Mountains, the khanate experienced violent internal political disorder beginning in 1359, before it briefly reunited under Tokhtamysh. However, soon after the 1396 invasion of Timur, the founder of the Timurid Empire, at the start of the 15th century the Horde began to fall apart. By 1466 it was being referred to simply as the Great Horde, within its territories there emerged numerous predominantly Turkic-speaking khanates. These internal struggles allowed the northern state of Muscovy to rid itself of the Tatar Yoke at the Great stand on the Ugra river in 1480. The Crimean Khanate and the Kazakh Khanate, the last remnants of the Golden Horde, in any event, it was not until the 16th century that Russian chroniclers begin explicitly using the term Golden Horde to refer to this particular successor khanate of the Mongol Empire. The first known use of the term, in 1565, in the Russian chronicle History of Kazan, applied it to the Ulus of Batu and its left wing was referred to as the Blue Horde in Russian chronicles and as the White Horde in Timurid sources. Western scholars have tended to follow the Timurid sources nomenclature and call the left wing the White Horde, the khanate apparently used the term White Horde to refer to its right wing, which was situated in Batus home base in Sarai and controlled the ulus. However, the designations Golden Horde, Blue Horde, and White Horde have not been encountered in the sources of the Mongol period. At his death in 1227, Genghis Khan divided the Mongol Empire amongst his four sons as appanages, Jochi was the eldest, but he died six months before Genghis. In 1235, Batu with the great general Subedei began an invasion westwards, first conquering the Bashkirs, from there he conquered some of the southern steppes of present-day Ukraine in 1237, forcing many of the local Cumans to retreat westward. The military campaign against the Kypchaks and Cumans had started under Jochi, by 1239 a large portion of Cumans were driven out of the Crimea peninsula, and it became one of the appanages of the Mongol Empire. The remnants of the Crimean Cumans survived in the Crimean mountains, moving north, Batu began the Mongol invasion of Rus and for three years subjugated the principalities of former Kievan Rus, whilst his cousins Möngke, Kadan, and Güyük moved southwards into Alania. Using the migration of the Cumans as their casus belli, the Mongols continued west, raiding Poland and Hungary and culminating in the battles of Legnica, in 1241, however, Ögedei Khan died in the Mongolia homeland. Batu turned back from his siege of Vienna to take part in disputing the succession, the Mongol armies would never again travel so far west
Golden Horde
–
Jochi Mausoleum,
Karagandy Region
Golden Horde
–
Flag of the Golden Horde, as shown in the
Catalan Atlas (other sources illustrate that the Golden Horde was known for the yellow color of the khan's flag and trappings.)
Golden Horde
–
Batu Khan establishes the Golden Horde.
Golden Horde
–
The Golden Horde army defeats the
Ilkhanate at the
battle of Terek in 1262. Many of Hulagu's men drowned in Terek River while withdrawing.
29.
Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)
–
The Mamluk Sultanate was a medieval realm spanning Egypt, the Levant, and Hejaz. It lasted from the overthrow of the Ayyubid Dynasty until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in 1517, historians have traditionally broken the era of Mamlūk rule into two periods—one covering 1250–1382, the other, 1382–1517. Western historians call the former the Baḥrī period and the latter the Burjī due to the dominance of the regimes known by these names during the respective eras. Contemporary Muslim historians refer to the divisions as the Turkish. The Mamlūk state reached its height under Turkic rule with Arabic culture, the sultanates ruling caste was composed of Mamluks, soldiers of predominantly Cuman-Kipchaks, Circassian, Abkhazian, Oghuz Turks and Georgian slave origin. While Mamluks were purchased, their status was above ordinary slaves, Mamluks were considered to be true lords, with social status above citizens of Egypt. Though it declined towards the end of its existence, at its height the sultanate represented the zenith of medieval Egyptian and Levantine political, economic, the term Mamluk Sultanate is a modern historiographical term. The Arabic sources for the period of the Bahri Mamluks refer to the dynasty as the State/Realm of the Turks, other official names used were State of the Circassians. A variant thereof emphasized the fact that the Circassians were Turkish-speaking, the term Mongol State was used during Sultan al-Adil Kitbughas rule, who was of Mongol extraction. Dawlatāl Qalāwūn or Dawlat Banī Qalāwūn which means Qalāwūnī State/Dynasty which have ruled for hundred years between 1279 and 1382, al-dawla al-Ẓāhiriyya which meant Ẓāhirī state/dynasty which is the dynasty of Baibars and his two sons al-Said Barakah and Solamish. This dynasty have ruled consecutively for 19 years, Mamluk was a term defined as owned slave, distinguishing the mamluk from the garya and ghulam, which referred to household slaves. After thorough training in fields such as martial arts, court etiquette and Islamic sciences. However, they were expected to remain loyal to their master. Mamluks had formed a part of the state or military apparatus in Syria and Egypt since at least the 9th century, each Ayyubid sultan and high-ranking emir had a private mamluk corps. Most of the mamluks in the Ayyubids service were ethnic Kipchak Turks from Central Asia and they were highly committed to their masters, who they often referred to as father, and were in turn treated more as kinsmen than as slaves by their masters. These mamluks became known as the Salihiyyah, to provision his mamluks, as-Salih forcibly seized the iqtaʿat of his predecessors emirs. Despite his close relationship with his mamluks, tensions existed between as-Salih and the Salihiyyah, and a number of Salihi mamluks were imprisoned or exiled throughout as-Salihs reign. Tensions between as-Salih and his mamluks came to a later in 1249 when Louis IX of Frances forces captured Damietta in their bid to conquer Egypt during the Seventh Crusade
Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)
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Mamluk Egyptian Flag
Mamluk Sultanate (Cairo)
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A
Mamluk nobleman from
Aleppo.
30.
Bahri dynasty
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The Bahriyya Mamluks or Bahri dynasty was a Mamluk dynasty of mostly Cuman-Kipchak Turkic origin that ruled the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate from 1250 to 1382. They followed the Ayyubid dynasty, and were succeeded by a second Mamluk dynasty and she married the Atabeg Emir Aybak and abdicated, Aybak becoming Sultan. He ruled from 1250 to 1257, the Mamluks consolidated their power in ten years and eventually established the Bahri Mamluks. They were helped by the Mongols sack of Baghdad in 1258, Cairo became more prominent as a result and remained a Mamluk capital thereafter. In 1260 the Mamluks defeated a Mongol army at the Battle of Ain Jalut in present-day Israel, the defeat of the Mongols at the hands of the Mamluks enhanced the position of the Mamluks in the southern Mediterranean basin. Baibars, one of the leaders at the battle, became the new Sultan after the assassination of Sultan Qutuz on the way home. In 1250 Baibars was one of the Mamluk commanders who defended Al Mansurah against the Crusade knights of Louis IX of France, Baibars had also taken part in the Mamluk takeover of Egypt. Many Tatars settled in Egypt and were employed by Baibars and he defeated the Mongols at the battle of Elbistan and sent the Abbasid Caliph with only 250 men to attempt to retake Baghdad, but was unsuccessful. In 1266 he devastated Cilician Armenia and in 1268 he recaptured Antioch from the Crusaders, in addition, he fought the Seljuks, and Hashshashin, he also extended Muslim power into Nubia for the first time, before his death in 1277. Sultan Qalawun defeated a rebellion in Syria that was led by Sunqur al-Ashqar in 1280, after the Mongol threat passed he recaptured Tripoli from the Crusaders in 1289. His son Khalil captured Acre, the last Crusader city, in 1291, the Mongols renewed their invasion in 1299, but were again defeated in 1303. The Egyptian Mamluk Sultans entered into relations with the Golden Horde who converted to Islam, Sultan Al-Nasir Muhammad married a Mongol princess in 1319. Al-Nasir Muhammad organized the re-digging of a canal in 1311 which connected Alexandria with the Nile, the constant changes of sultans that followed led to great disorder in the provinces. Meanwhile, in 1349 Egypt and the Levant in general were introduced to Black Death, in 1382 the last Bahri Sultan Hajji II was dethroned and the Sultanate was taken over by the Circassian Emir Barquq. He was expelled in 1389 but returned to power in 1390, al-Halqa, the primarily free born professional forces, they are also directly under the sultans command. Wafidiyya, These are Turks and Mongols that migrated to the border after the Mongol invasion, typically given land grants in exchange for military service. Other levies, Primarily Bedouin tribes, but also on different occasions also different groups of Turkomans, training manuals of the Egyptian Mamluks and others reveal the methods that could produce the remarkable skills of slave soldiers mamluks. The Egyptian Mamluks were expected to be able to shoot three arrows in one and a half seconds, and capable to strike with the sword, while galloping and they are also able to outshooting Mongols cavalry
Bahri dynasty
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History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Bahri dynasty
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The
Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate during the Bahri Dynasty.
31.
Ottoman Empire
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After 1354, the Ottomans crossed into Europe, and with the conquest of the Balkans the Ottoman Beylik was transformed into a transcontinental empire. The Ottomans ended the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed the Conqueror, at the beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries. With Constantinople as its capital and control of lands around the Mediterranean basin, while the empire was once thought to have entered a period of decline following the death of Suleiman the Magnificent, this view is no longer supported by the majority of academic historians. The empire continued to maintain a flexible and strong economy, society, however, during a long period of peace from 1740 to 1768, the Ottoman military system fell behind that of their European rivals, the Habsburg and Russian Empires. While the Empire was able to hold its own during the conflict, it was struggling with internal dissent. Starting before World War I, but growing increasingly common and violent during it, major atrocities were committed by the Ottoman government against the Armenians, Assyrians and Pontic Greeks. The word Ottoman is an anglicisation of the name of Osman I. Osmans name in turn was the Turkish form of the Arabic name ʿUthmān, in Ottoman Turkish, the empire was referred to as Devlet-i ʿAlīye-yi ʿOsmānīye, or alternatively ʿOsmānlı Devleti. In Modern Turkish, it is known as Osmanlı İmparatorluğu or Osmanlı Devleti, the Turkish word for Ottoman originally referred to the tribal followers of Osman in the fourteenth century, and subsequently came to be used to refer to the empires military-administrative elite. In contrast, the term Turk was used to refer to the Anatolian peasant and tribal population, the term Rūmī was also used to refer to Turkish-speakers by the other Muslim peoples of the empire and beyond. In Western Europe, the two names Ottoman Empire and Turkey were often used interchangeably, with Turkey being increasingly favored both in formal and informal situations and this dichotomy was officially ended in 1920–23, when the newly established Ankara-based Turkish government chose Turkey as the sole official name. Most scholarly historians avoid the terms Turkey, Turks, and Turkish when referring to the Ottomans, as the power of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum declined in the 13th century, Anatolia was divided into a patchwork of independent Turkish principalities known as the Anatolian Beyliks. One of these beyliks, in the region of Bithynia on the frontier of the Byzantine Empire, was led by the Turkish tribal leader Osman, osmans early followers consisted both of Turkish tribal groups and Byzantine renegades, many but not all converts to Islam. Osman extended the control of his principality by conquering Byzantine towns along the Sakarya River and it is not well understood how the early Ottomans came to dominate their neighbours, due to the scarcity of the sources which survive from this period. One school of thought which was popular during the twentieth century argued that the Ottomans achieved success by rallying religious warriors to fight for them in the name of Islam, in the century after the death of Osman I, Ottoman rule began to extend over Anatolia and the Balkans. Osmans son, Orhan, captured the northwestern Anatolian city of Bursa in 1326 and this conquest meant the loss of Byzantine control over northwestern Anatolia. The important city of Thessaloniki was captured from the Venetians in 1387, the Ottoman victory at Kosovo in 1389 effectively marked the end of Serbian power in the region, paving the way for Ottoman expansion into Europe
Ottoman Empire
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Battle of Nicopolis in 1396. Painting from 1523.
Ottoman Empire
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Flag (1844–1923)
Ottoman Empire
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Battle of Mohács in 1526
Ottoman Empire
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Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha defeats the
Holy League of
Charles V under the command of
Andrea Doria at the
Battle of Preveza in 1538.
32.
Artuqids
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The Artquids or Artuqid dynasty was a Turkmen dynasty that ruled in Eastern Anatolia, Northern Syria and Northern Iraq in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Artuqid dynasty took its name from its founder, Zaheer-ul-Daulah Artuk Bey, the Artuqid rulers viewed the state as the common property of the dynasty members. Artuqid rulers commissioned many buildings, such as mosques, bazaars, bridges, hospitals. They left an important cultural heritage by contributing to literature and the art of metalworking, the door and door handles of the great Mosque of Cizre are unique examples of Artuqid metal working craftsmanship, which can be seen in the Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum in Istanbul, Turkey. The dynasty was founded by Artuk Bey, son of Eksük, Tutush appointed Artuq governor of Jerusalem in 1086. Artuq died in 1091, and his sons Sökmen and Ilghazi were expelled from Jerusalem by the Fatimid vizier al-Afdal Shahanshah in 1098, the Fatimids lost the city to the crusaders the following year. Sokman and Ilghazi set themselves up in Diyarbakır, Mardin, and Hasankeyf in the Jezirah, Sokman, bey of Mardin, defeated the crusaders at the Battle of Harran in 1104. Ilghazi succeeded Sokman in Mardin and imposed his control over Aleppo at the request of the qadi Ibn al-Khashshab in 1118, in 1119 Ilgazi defeated the crusader Principality of Antioch at the Battle of Ager Sanguinis. In 1121 a Seljuq-Artuqid alliance, commanded by Mehmed I of Great Seljuq, Ilghazi died in 1122, and although his nephew Balak nominally controlled Aleppo, the city was really controlled by Ibn al-Khashshab. Al-Kashshab was assassinated in 1125, and Aleppo fell under the control of Zengi of Mosul, after the death of Balak, the Artuqids were split between Harput, Hasankeyf and Mardin. Sokmans son Davud, bey of Hasankeyf, died in 1144, Kara Aslan allied with Joscelin II of Edessa against the Zengids, and while Joscelin was away in 1144, Zengi recaptured Edessa, the first of the Crusader states to fall. Hasankeyf became a vassal of Zengi as well, Kara Aslans son Nur ad-Din Muhammad allied with the Ayyubid sultan Saladin against the Sultan of Rum Kilij Arslan II, whose daughter had married Nur ad-Din Muhammad. In the peace settlement with Kilij Arslan, Saladin gained control of the Artuqid territory, even though the Artuqids were still technically vassals of Mosul, with Artuqid support, however, Saladin eventually took control of Mosul as well. The Artuklu dynasty remained in command of upper Mesopotamia. The Hasankeyf branch conquered Diyarbakır in 1198 and its center was moved here, the Harput branch was destroyed by the Sultanate of Rum due to following a slippery policy between the Ayyubids and Seljuqs. The Mardin branch survived for longer, but as a vassal of the Ayyubids, Sultanate of Rum, Il-Khanate, karakoyunlu captured Mardin and finally put an end to Artuklu rule in 1409. Despite their constant preoccupation with war, members of the Artuklu dynasty left many architectural monuments and they made the most significant additions to Diyarbakır City Walls. Urfa Gate was rebuilt by Muhammad, son of Kara Arslan, a large caravanserai in Mardin as well as the civil engineering feat of Malabadi Bridge are still in regular use in our day
Artuqids
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City walls of Diyarbakır.
Artuqids
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Map of Anatolia and surrounding in AD 1200
Artuqids
–
Figurative Architectural Piece
Turkish and Islamic Arts Museum,
Istanbul
Artuqids
–
Husam al-Din Yuluq Arslan, bronze
dirham, 596
AH (1199-1200
CE)
33.
Ahmadilis
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They ruled approximately from 1122 to 1220. Bosworth says that they were a dynasty of Turkish origin that started with Aq Sunqur Ahmadili who was presumably a freedman of the Kurdish commander of the Seljuq Empire, Ahmadil ibn Ibrahim. A female member of the family, Sulafa Khatun, was ruling Maragheh until these places were sacked by the Mongols in 1221, the mediaeval islamic underworld, the Banu Sasan in Arabic society and literature. Nishapuri, Zahir al-Din, Tabib, Rashid al-Din, the History of the Seljuq Turks, From the Jami Al-Tawarikh
Ahmadilis
–
History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
34.
Atabegs of Azerbaijan
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Down to the death in war 1194 of Toghril b. Thereafter, they were in effect an independent dynasty, until the expansion of the Mongols. Atabeg was the title conferred upon the Turkic officers who served as guardians of minor Seljuq rulers, in the political circumstances of the time, Atabegs were not only tutors and vice-regents of their princes, but also de facto rulers. At the height of Eldiguzid power, their territory stretched from Isfahan in the south to the borders of Kingdom of Georgia and Shirvan in the north. However, closer to the end of their reign amidst continuous conflicts with the Kingdom of Georgia, eldegiz chose Barda as his residence, and attracted the local emirs to his camp. From 1161, the Seljuq princes at Hamadan fell under the control of the Atabeg of Azerbaijan, Shams ad-Din Ildeniz became the ruler of the remainder of the north Iran and South Caucasus of the Seljuq empire. He was taking every measure to consolidate the power of his own appointed, the word Azam was added to his title and he was also known as Atabek-e Azam. All of the subsequent rulers used to hold this title. During his reign, Ildeniz could subdue a spacious territory between the Caucasus and Persian Gulf, the territory belonging to him stretched from the gate of Tiflis up to Mekran. He had possessed Azerbaijan, Arran, Shirvan, Djibal, Hamedan, Gilan, Mazandaran, Isfahan, the Atabegs of Mosul, Kerman and Fars as well as the feudalists of Shirvan, Khuzestan, Hilat, Arzan-ar-Rhum and Maraga became his liegemen. Georgia, whose army was strengthened by 40,000 Kipchak Turkic warriors, was the strongest antagonist of the Shams al-Din Ildeniz, in 1138, Georgian king Demetre I, attacked the earthquake-ridden city of Ganja. While leaving the city, his troops carried off the iron gate of Ganja as their trophy. From 1161 onwards they began to make plundering raids on Ani, Dvin, Ganja, Nakhchivan, Ildeniz formed a union with other Seljuqids in the beginning of the 1160s to fight against the Georgians, and in 1163 the allies inflicted a defeat on king George III of Georgia. In response to this defeat, the king of Georgia occupied Ganja in 1165, the Georgians took several fields in Azerbaijan and they could reach such faraway cities as Nakhchivan and Beylakan. As a rule, Georgians used to be paid their tribute, in 1173, Atabeg Ildeniz began his big campaign against Georgia but he was defeated. Atabeg’s troops retreated and Ildeniz died in 1174 in Nakhchivan, Pahlavan transferred his capital from Nakhchivan to Hamadan in western Iran, and made his younger brother, Qizil Arslan Othman, the ruler of Azerbaijan. In 1174, Qizil Arslan captured Tabriz, which became his capital. Jahan Pahlavan suppressed all rebellious emirs and appointed faithful mamluks to key positions and he apportioned each of them any region or town as iqta. The twelve years of his rule are considered the most peaceful period of the state’s existence
Atabegs of Azerbaijan
–
History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Atabegs of Azerbaijan
Atabegs of Azerbaijan
35.
Tulunids
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The Tulunids were a dynasty of Turkic origin and were the first independent dynasty to rule Islamic Egypt, as well as much of Syria. He subsequently achieved nominal autonomy from the central Abbasid government, during his reign and those of his successors, the Tulunid domains were expanded to include Jordan Rift Valley, as well as Hijaz, Cyprus and Crete. Ahmad was succeeded by his son Khumarawayh, whose military and diplomatic achievements made him a player in the Middle Eastern political stage. The Abbasids affirmed their recognition of the Tulunids as legitimate rulers, after Khumarawayhs death, his successor emirs were ineffectual rulers, allowing their Turkic and black slave-soldiers to run the affairs of the state. In 905, the Tulunids were unable to resist an invasion by the Abbasid troops, the Tulunid period was marked by economic and administrative reforms alongside cultural ones. Ahmad ibn Tulun changed the system and aligned himself with the merchant community. He also established the Tulunid army, the capital was moved from Fustat to al-Qatai, where the celebrated mosque of Ibn Tulun was constructed. The rise and fall of the Tulunids occurred against a backdrop of increasing regionalism in the Muslim world, the Abbasid caliphate was struggling with political disturbances and losing its aura of universal legitimacy. There had previously been Coptic and Alid-led movements in Egypt, without more than temporary, there was also a struggle for power between the Turkish military command and the administration of Baghdad. Furthermore, there was a widening imperial financial crisis, all of these themes would recur during the Tulunid rule. The internal politics of the Abbasid caliphate itself seem to have been unstable, in 870, Abū Aḥmad al-Muwaffaḳ was summoned from exile in Mecca to re-establish Abbasid authority over southern Iraq. Quickly, however, he became the de facto ruler of the caliphate, as a result of this uncertainty, Ahmad ibn Tulun could establish and expand his authority. Ahmad ibn Ṭūlūn was a member of the mostly Central Asian Turkish guard formed initially in Baghdad, then settled in Samarra. In 254/868, Ibn Tulun was sent to Egypt as resident governor by Bāyakbāk, in 877, troops of the caliphate were sent against him, due to his insufficient payment of tribute. Ahmad ibn Tulun, however, maintained his power, and took Syria the following year and his reign of more than ten years allowed him to leave behind a well-trained military, a stable economy and an experienced bureaucracy to oversee the state affairs. He appointed his son, Ḵh̲umārawayh, as the heir, in 878, Jordan valley was occupied by the Tulunids, extending in the north to the outposts in the Anti-Lebanon mountains on the Byzantine border, enabling them to defend Egypt against Abbasid attack. Following his father’s death, Khumarawayh took control as the designated heir, the first challenge he faced was the invasion of Syria by armies sent by al-Muwaffak, the de facto ruler during the reign of caliph al-Mutamid. Khumarawayh also had to deal with the defection of Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Wasiti to the invaders camp, the young Tulunid achieved political and military gains, enabling him to extend his authority from Egypt into northern Iraq, and as far north as Tarsus by 890
Tulunids
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Map of the fragmentation of the
Abbasid Caliphate in the 9th and 10th centuries
Tulunids
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Map of the Tulunid Dynasty in the Modern Day Boundaries of the
Arab world
Tulunids
–
Minaret of
Ibn-Tulun Mosque, the largest remaining building from the Tulunid period today.
36.
Salghurids
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The Salghurids of Fars, were a dynasty of Turkmen origin that ruled Fars, first as vassals of the Seljuqs then for the Khwarazm Shahs in the 13th century. The Salghurids were established by Sunqur in 1148, who had profited from the rebellions during the reign of Seljuq sultan Masud b and they captured Isfahan in 1203-4, and later occupied Bahrain taken from the Uyunid dynasty in 1235. Zangi, the Salghurids experienced a significant prosperity, which was marred by his acknowledging the Khwarazm Shahs as his overlord, Saadi Shirazi, the Persian poet, dedicated his Bostan and Gulistan to Sad I and Sad II. Following Sad Is death, his brother Zangi b, dekele/Tekele followed his father, Zangi, only after eliminating Sonqurs son Toghril. During the 13th century, the Salghurids patronized a cultural and intellectual atmosphere which included, Kadi al-Baydawi, Qutb al-Din al-Shirazi, Saadi Shirazi, during the closing years of Aku Bakr and Sad II, Fars fell under the dominion of Mongol empire and later the Ilkhanate of Hulegu. Under the Mongols, Abu Bakr was given the title of Qutlugh Khan, later Salghurids were powerless figureheads, until the daughter of Sad II, Abish Khatun was given the title of Atabegate of Fars. She was the ruler of Fars for one year whereupon she married, Mengu Temur. Following their deaths, Fars was ruled directly by the Ilkhanate, Zangi Qutlugh Khan Abu Bakr b. Sad II Abish Khatun w/ Mengu Temur b, Hulegu Turkic peoples Timeline of Turks List of Turkic dynasties and countries
Salghurids
–
History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
Salghurids
37.
Burid dynasty
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The Burid dynasty was a Turkish Muslim dynasty which ruled over the Emirate of Damascus in the early 12th century. The first Burid ruler, Toghtekin, began as a servant to the Seljuk ruler of Damascus, following Duqaqs death in 1104, he seized the city for himself. The dynasty was named after Toghtekins son, Taj al-Muluk Buri, the Burids gained recognition from the Abbasid caliphate in return for considerable gifts. In return, the caliphate did not interfere in the emirate, the Burids ruled the city until 1154, when it was taken by the Zengid ruler of Aleppo, Nur ed-Din. The Burids lost to the Crusaders in the battle of Marj al-Saffar but were able to prevent the Second Crusade from capturing Damascus, green shaded row signifies regency of Muin ad-Din Unur
Burid dynasty
–
the
Near east in 1135
38.
Zengid dynasty
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The Zengid or Zangid dynasty was a Muslim dynasty of Oghuz Turk origin, which ruled parts of the Levant and Upper Mesopotamia on behalf of the Seljuk Empire. The dynasty was founded by Imad ad-Din Zengi, who became the Seljuk Atabeg of Mosul in 1127 and he quickly became the chief Turkish potentate in Northern Syria and Iraq, taking Aleppo from the squabbling Artuqids in 1128 and capturing the County of Edessa from the Crusaders in 1144. This latter feat made Zengi a hero in the Muslim world, Nur ad-Din proved to be as competent as his father. In 1149 he defeated Raymond of Poitiers, Prince of Antioch, at the battle of Inab, in 1154 he capped off these successes by his capture of Damascus from the Burid dynasty that ruled it. Now ruling from Damascus, Nur ad-Dins success continued, another Prince of Antioch, Raynald of Châtillon was captured, and the territories of the Principality of Antioch were greatly reduced. In the 1160s, Nur ad-Dins attention was mostly held by a competition with the King of Jerusalem, Amalric of Jerusalem, Nur ad-Din was preparing to invade Egypt to bring Saladin under control when he unexpectedly died in 1174. His son and successor As-Salih Ismail al-Malik was only a child, and was forced to flee to Aleppo, which he ruled until 1181, when he was murdered and replaced by his relation, Saladin conquered Aleppo two years later, ending Zengid rule in Syria. Zengid princes continued to rule in Northern Iraq well into the 13th century, ruling Mosul until 1234, their rule did not come finally to an end until 1250
Zengid dynasty
–
Zengid black banner
39.
Rasulid dynasty
–
The Rasulids were a Sunni Muslim dynasty that ruled Yemen from 1229 to 1454. The Rasulids descended from the eponymous Rasul, a Turkmen Oghuz chief, later, they assumed an Arab lineage, claiming descent from the ancient Arabian tribe of the Ghassanids, claiming that their ancestors moved from Arabia to live among the Turks. Rasul came to Yemen around 1180 while serving as a messenger for an Abbasid caliph and his son Ali was governor of Mecca for a time, and his grandson Umar bin Ali was the first sultan of the Rasulid dynasty. Rasūl is Arabic for messenger, during their reign, however, the Kurdish Ayyubids had held power in most of Yemen since 1173. The last of the line, al-Malik al-Masud, left Yemen for Syria in 1229 and this was Umar bin Ali who nominally acknowledged the Ayyubids of Egypt during his first years in power. However, he proclaimed himself ruler in his own right in 1235 after receiving a diploma of recognition from the Abbasid caliph al-Mustansir, as sultan he was called al-Malik al-Mansur I. The regime was in a sense a direct continuation of Ayyubid rule, with power based on the control of military forces and Abbasid approval. The coastal capital was established in Zabid, however, al-Malik al-Muzaffar fell victim to internal intrigues in 1249 when his own guards assassinated him at the instigation of his ambitious nephew Asad ad-Din. The throne was taken over by his son al-Malik al-Muzaffar Yusuf I, the new sultan confirmed Rasulid rule over the Tihama lowland and the southern highlands. Sana, one of the centres of the Zaydiyya imams, was temporarily occupied. The cool mountainous city Taizz became the base of the dynasty together with Zabid, after the fall of Baghdad to the Mongols, al-Malik al-Muzaffar Yusuf appropriated the title of caliph. The Rasulid era is considered one of the most brilliant in the history of Yemen. The southern coast of Arabia up to Dhofar was kept under loose control, Rasulid influence stretched as far as Zafan near Salalah in Oman where a side-branch of the family governed for a while. While Hijaz fell under the Mamluk sultans of Egypt, the Rasulids temporarily held control over the city of Mecca. The Rasulid state was centralized and kept an extensive bureaucratic apparatus to oversee the collection of taxes. In every larger city, two officials were placed called wali and nasir. A considerable concern with the prosperity of the peasantry can be gleaned from the chronicles, thus sultan al-Mujahid Ali based taxes on the average of production over several years, and deduced the grain to be sown as seed from the taxable produce. While the state model was taken from the Ayyubid state in Egypt, the sultans drew much of their income from taxes and customs revenues from the ports
Rasulid dynasty
–
Coin of the Rasulids,
Aden,
Yemen, 1335.
40.
History of Turkey
–
See History of the Republic of Turkey for the history of the modern state. The history of Turkey, understood as the history of the region now forming the territory of the Republic of Turkey, the earliest representations of culture in Anatolia were Stone Age artifacts. The remnants of Bronze Age civilizations such as the Hattian, Akkadian, Assyrian, after the fall of the Hittites, the new states of Phrygia and Lydia stood strong on the western coast as Greek civilization began to flourish. They, and all the rest of Anatolia were relatively soon after incorporated into the Achaemenid Persian Empire, as Persia grew in strength, their system of local government in Anatolia allowed many port cities to grow and to become wealthy. All of Anatolia got divided into satrapies, ruled by satraps appointed by the central Persian rulers. Some of the satraps revolted periodically but did not pose a serious threat, in the 5th century BC, Darius I built the Royal Road, which linked the principal city of Susa with the west Anatolian city of Sardis. Anatolia played a role in Achaemenid history. In the earliest 5th century BC, some of the Ionian cities under Persian rule revolted, which culminated into the Ionian Revolt. This revolt, after being suppressed by the Persian authority, laid the direct uplead for the Greco-Persian Wars. After Achaemenid Persian rule, the Greek Alexander the Great finally wrested control of the region from Persia in successive battles. The Seleucid Empire, the largest of Alexanders territories, and which included Anatolia, became involved in a war with Rome culminating in the battles of Thermopylae. The resulting Treaty of Apamea in saw the Seleucids retreat from Anatolia, the Kingdom of Pergamum and the Republic of Rhodes, Romes allies in the war, were granted the former Seleucid lands in Anatolia. Roman control of Anatolia was strengthened by a hands off approach by Rome, allowing control to govern effectively. The Thracians were a group of Indo-European tribes inhabiting an area in Central. They were bordered by the Scythians to the north, the Celts and the Illyrians to the west, the Ancient Greeks to the south and they spoke the Thracian language – a scarcely attested branch of the Indo-European language family. The study of Thracians and Thracian culture is known as Thracology, starting around 1200 BC, the western coast of Anatolia was heavily settled by Aeolian and Ionian Greeks. Numerous important cities were founded by colonists, such as Miletus, Ephesus, Smyrna and Byzantium. The territory of Thrace later became unified by the Odrysian kingdom, founded by Teres I, a type of soldier of this period called the Peltast probably originated in Thrace
History of Turkey
–
Originally a church, later a mosque, and now a museum, the
Hagia Sophia in
Istanbul was built by the
Byzantines in the 6th century.
History of Turkey
–
Thrace and the Thracian Odrysian kingdom in its maximum extent under Sitalces (431-424 BC)
History of Turkey
–
History of the Turkic peoples Pre-14th century
History of Turkey
–
Mehmed II enters Constantinople by
Fausto Zonaro
41.
Prehistory
–
Prehistory means literally before history, from the Latin word for before, præ, and Greek ιστορία. Neighbouring civilisations were the first to follow, most other civilisations reached the end of prehistory during the Iron Age. The period when a culture is written about by others, but has not developed its own writing is known as the protohistory of the culture. By definition, there are no records from human prehistory. Clear techniques for dating were not well-developed until the 19th century and this article is concerned with human prehistory as defined here above. There are separate articles for the history of the Earth. However, for the race as a whole, prehistory ends when recorded history begins with the accounts of the ancient world around the 4th millennium BC. For example, in Egypt it is accepted that prehistory ended around 3200 BC, whereas in New Guinea the end of the prehistoric era is set much more recently. The three-age system is the periodization of prehistory into three consecutive time periods, named for their respective predominant tool-making technologies, Stone Age Bronze Age Iron Age. The notion of prehistory began to surface during the Enlightenment in the work of antiquarians who used the word primitive to describe societies that existed before written records, the first use of the word prehistory in English, however, occurred in the Foreign Quarterly Review in 1836. The main source for prehistory is archaeology, but some scholars are beginning to more use of evidence from the natural and social sciences. This view has been articulated by advocates of deep history, human population geneticists and historical linguists are also providing valuable insight for these questions. Human prehistory differs from history not only in terms of its chronology, restricted to material processes, remains and artifacts rather than written records, prehistory is anonymous. Because of this, reference terms that use, such as Neanderthal or Iron Age are modern labels with definitions sometimes subject to debate. Palaeolithic means Old Stone Age, and begins with the first use of stone tools, the Paleolithic is the earliest period of the Stone Age. The early part of the Palaeolithic is called the Lower Palaeolithic, evidence of control of fire by early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic Era is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. The most widely accepted claim is that H. erectus or H. ergaster made fires between 790,000 and 690,000 BP in a site at Bnot Yaakov Bridge, Israel. The use of fire enabled early humans to cook food, provide warmth, Early Homo sapiens originated some 200,000 years ago, ushering in the Middle Palaeolithic
Prehistory
–
Massive stone pillars at
Göbekli Tepe, in southeast Turkey, erected for ritual use by early
Neolithic people 11,000 years ago.
Prehistory
–
A prehistoric man and boy.
Prehistory
–
Dugout canoe
Prehistory
–
Entrance to the Ġgantija phase temple complex of
Hagar Qim,
Malta, 3900 BC.
42.
Prehistory of Anatolia
–
The prehistory of Anatolia stretches from the Paleolithic era through to the appearance of classical civilisation in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. It is generally regarded as being divided into three ages reflecting the dominant materials used for the making of domestic implements and weapons, Stone Age, Bronze Age, the term Copper Age is used to denote the period straddling the stone and Bronze Ages. Anatolia, also known by the Latin name of Asia Minor, is considered to be the westernmost extent of Western Asia, the earliest representations of culture in Anatolia can be found in several archaeological sites located in the central and eastern part of the region. Stone Age artifacts such as bones and food fossils were found at Burdur. After the fall of the Hittites, the new states of Phrygia and Lydia stood strong on the western coast as Greek civilization began to flourish, only the threat from a distant Persian kingdom prevented them from advancing past their peak of success. The Stone Age is a period in which stone was widely used in the manufacture of implements. In 2014, a tool was found in the Gediz River that was securely dated to 1.2 million years ago. Evidence of paleolithic habitation include the Yarimburgaz Cave, Karain Cave, examples of paleolithic humans can be found in the Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, in the Archaeological Museum in Antalya, and in other Turkish institutions. Evidence of fruit and of animal bones has been found at Yarimburgaz, the caves of the Mediterranean region contain murals. Original claims of 250, 000-year-old, Middle Pleistocene, Homo sapiens footprints at Kula, remains of a mesolithic culture in Anatolia can be found along the Mediterranean coast and also in Thrace and the western Black Sea area. Mesolithic remains have been located in the caves as the paleolithic artefacts. Additional findings come from the Sarklimagara cave in Gaziantep, the Baradiz cave, as well as the cemeteries and open air settlements at Sogut Tarlasi, Biris and Urfa. Because of its location at the intersection of Asia and Europe. Neolithic settlements include Çatalhöyük, Çayönü, Nevali Cori, Aşıklı Höyük, Boncuklu Höyük Hacilar, Göbekli Tepe, Norsuntepe, Kosk, Çatalhöyük is considered the most advanced of these, and Çayönü in the east the oldest. We have an idea of the town layout at Çayönü, based on a central square with buildings constructed of stone. Archeological finds include farming tools that suggest both crops and animal husbandry as well as domestication of the dog, religion is represented by figurines of Cybele, a mother goddess. Hacilar followed Çayönü, and has dated to 7040 BCE. Straddling the Neolithic and early Bronze Age, the Chalcolithic era is defined by the first metal implements made with copper and this age is represented in Anatolia by sites at Hacilar, Beycesultan, Canhasan, Mersin Yumuktepe, Elazig Tepecik, Malatya Degirmentepe, Norsuntepe, and Istanbul Fikirtepe
Prehistory of Anatolia
–
A royal tomb in
Alaca Höyük
Prehistory of Anatolia
–
A drawing of rock-carved reliefs of a procession of Hittite deities in
Yazılıkaya, Turkey.
Prehistory of Anatolia
–
Lydian electrum coin, depicting a lion and bull.
43.
Bronze Age
–
The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Copper-tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the third millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition, although the Iron Age generally followed the Bronze Age, in some areas, the Iron Age intruded directly on the Neolithic. Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing, according to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed the earliest viable writing systems. The overall period is characterized by use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques, tin must be mined and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of use of metals. The dating of the foil has been disputed, the Bronze Age in the ancient Near East began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy and mathematics, the usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people, ur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The earliest mention of Babylonia appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC, the Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it took over the other city-states. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, by that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use. Elam was an ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia, in the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it
Bronze Age
–
Chalcolithic copper mine in
Timna Valley,
Negev Desert,
Israel.
Bronze Age
–
Diffusion of metallurgy in
Europe and
Asia Minor. The darkest areas are the oldest.
Bronze Age
–
A
Shang Dynasty two-handled bronze gefuding gui (1600–1046 BC).
Bronze Age
–
Spring and Autumn Period pu bronze vessel with interlaced
dragon design (722–481 BC)
44.
Troy
–
The present-day location is known as Hisarlik. It was the setting of the Trojan War described in the Greek Epic Cycle, in particular in the Iliad, a new capital called Ilium was founded on the site in the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus. It flourished until the establishment of Constantinople and declined gradually in the Byzantine era and these excavations revealed several cities built in succession. Troy VII has been identified with the city that the Hittites called Wilusa, the origin of the Greek Ἴλιον. Today, the hill at Hisarlık has given its name to a village near the ruins. It lies within the province of Çanakkale, some 30 km south-west of the provincial capital, the map here shows the adapted Scamander estuary with Ilium a little way inland across the Homeric plain. Troy was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1998, Ancient Greek historians variously placed the Trojan War in the 12th, 13th, or 14th centuries BC, Eratosthenes to 1184 BC, Herodotus to 1250 BC, Duris of Samos to 1334 BC. Modern archaeologists associate Homeric Troy with archaeological Troy VII, in the Iliad, the Achaeans set up their camp near the mouth of the River Scamander, where they had beached their ships. The city of Troy itself stood on a hill, across the plain of Scamander, recent geological findings have permitted the identification of the ancient Trojan coastline, and the results largely confirm the accuracy of the Homeric geography of Troy. In November 2001, the geologist John C, kraft from the University of Delaware and the classicist John V. Luce from Trinity College, Dublin, presented the results of investigations, begun in 1977, into the geology of the region. Besides the Iliad, there are references to Troy in the major work attributed to Homer. The Homeric legend of Troy was elaborated by the Roman poet Virgil in his Aeneid, the Greeks and Romans took for a fact the historicity of the Trojan War and the identity of Homeric Troy with the site in Anatolia. Alexander the Great, for example, visited the site in 334 BC and there made sacrifices at tombs associated with the Homeric heroes Achilles and Patroclus. After the 1995 find of a Luwian biconvex seal at Troy VII, with the rise of critical history, Troy and the Trojan War were, for a long time, consigned to the realms of legend. However, the location of ancient Troy had from classical times remained the subject of interest. The Troad peninsula was anticipated to be the location, leChavaliers location, published in his Voyage de la Troade, was the most commonly accepted theory for almost a century. In 1822, the Scottish journalist Charles Maclaren was the first to identify with confidence the position of the city as it is now known, the hill, near the city of Çanakkale, was known as Hisarlık. In 1868, Heinrich Schliemann visited Calvert and secured permission to excavate Hisarlık, in 1871–73 and 1878–79, he excavated the hill and discovered the ruins of a series of ancient cities dating from the Bronze Age to the Roman period
Troy
–
The walls of the
acropolis belong to Troy VII, which is identified as the site of the
Trojan War (c. 1200 BC).
Troy
–
Silver
tetradrachm from Troy with head of
Athena, c. 165–150 BC
Troy
–
The
odeon dates to the
Roman Troy IX and was renovated by
Hadrian in 124 AD.
Troy
–
The view from
Hisarlık across the plain of Ilium to the
Aegean Sea.
45.
Hattians
–
The Hattians were an ancient people who inhabited the land of Hatti in central Anatolia. The group was documented at least as early as the empire of Sargon of Akkad, 2000–1700 BC by the Indo-European Hittites, who were subsequently associated with the land of Hatti. The oldest name for central Anatolia, Land of the Hatti, was found on Mesopotamian cuneiform tablets from the period of Sargon the Great of Akkad c, 2350–2150 BC, on those tablets Assyrian-Akkadian traders implored King Sargon for help. This appellation continued to exist for about 1,500 years until 630 BC, the use of the word Proto-Hittite to refer to Hattians is inaccurate. Hittite is an Indo-European language, linguistically distinct from the Hattians, the Hittites continued to use the term Land of Hatti for their new kingdom. The Hattians eventually merged with people who spoke Indo-European languages like Hittite, Luwian, the Hattians were organised in city-states and small kingdoms or principalities. These cities were well organized and ruled as theocratic principalities, the Hattians spoke Hattic, a non-Indo-European language of uncertain affiliation. Hattic is now believed by scholars to be related to the Northwest Caucasian language group. The few texts that survive are predominantly religious or cultic in character and they provide us with the names of a number of Hattic deities, as well as Hattic personal and place-names. About 150 short specimens of Hattian text have been found in Hittite cuneiform clay tablets, Hattian leaders perhaps used scribes who wrote in Old Assyrian. Ekrem Akurgal wrote, the Anatolian princes used scribes knowing Assyrian for commerce with Mesopotomia as at Kanesh to conduct business with Assyria, from the 21st to the mid-18th centuries BC, Assyria established trade outposts in Hatti, such as at Hattum and Zalpa. Scholars have long assumed that the predominant population of the region of Anatolia in the millennium was an indigenous pre-Indo-European group called the Hattians. But it is possible that speakers of Indo-European languages were also in central Anatolia by then. Hattian became more ergative towards the New Hittite period and this development implies that Hattian remained alive until at least the end of the 14th century BC. Alexei Kassian proposed that the Northwest Caucasian languages, which are syntactically subject–object–verb, had contacts with Hattian. Hattian religion traces back to the Stone Age and it involved worship of the earth, which is personified as a mother goddess, the Hattians honored the mother goddess to ensure their crops and their own well-being. The Hattian pantheon of gods included the storm-god Taru, the sun-goddess Furušemu or Wurunšemu, reliefs in Çatal Hüyük show a female figure giving birth to a bull, i. e. the mother-goddess Kattahha was mother to the storm-god Taru. Later on the Hittites subsumed much of the Hattian pantheon into their own religious beliefs, the concept of the earth-bound deity was deeply rooted in the indigenous Hattian consciousness from prehistoric times
Hattians
–
Mother Goddess, figurine, ca. 5750 BC; Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara
Hattians
–
The expanded Hittite Empire (red) replaces Hatti ca. 1290 BC and borders the Egyptian kingdom (green)
Hattians
–
The Storm-God, represented by a bull; Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara
46.
Akkadian Empire
–
The empire united all the Akkadian and Sumerian speakers under one rule. The Akkadian Empire controlled Mesopotamia, the Levant, and eastern and southern parts of Anatolia and Iran, sending military expeditions as far south as Dilmun and Magan in the Arabian Peninsula. During the 3rd millennium BC, there developed an intimate cultural symbiosis between the Sumerians and the Akkadians, which included widespread bilingualism. Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as a spoken language somewhere between the 3rd and the 2nd millennia BC, the Akkadian Empire reached its political peak between the 24th and 22nd centuries BC, following the conquests by its founder Sargon of Akkad. Under Sargon and his successors, the Akkadian language was imposed on neighboring conquered states such as Elam. Akkad is sometimes regarded as the first empire in history, though there are earlier Sumerian claimants, the Bible refers to Akkad in Genesis 10,10, which states that the beginning of Nimrods kingdom was in the land of Akkad. Nimrod is a Hebrew name not attested in Mesopotamians sources, many have pointed out similarities with the legend of Gilgamesh who founded Uruk, which is said to be the city Nimrod came to power. Today, some 7,000 texts from the Akkadian period alone are known, many later texts from the successor states of Assyria and Babylonia also deal with the Akkadian Empire. Understanding of the Akkadian Empire continues to be hampered by the fact that its capital Akkad has not yet been located, likewise, material that is thought to be Akkadian continues to be in use into the Ur III period. Many of the recent insights on the Akkadian Empire have come from excavations in the Upper Khabur area in modern northeastern Syria which was to become a part of Assyria after the fall of Akkad. For example, excavations at Tell Mozan brought to light a sealing of Taram-Agade, an unknown daughter of Naram-Sin. The excavators at nearby Tell Leilan have used the results from their investigations to argue that the Akkadian Empire came to an end due to a sudden drought, the so-called 4.2 kiloyear event. The impact of this event on Mesopotamia in general, and on the Akkadian Empire in particular. The Akkadian Period is contemporary with, EB IV, EB IVA and EJ IV, the absolute dates of their reigns are approximate. The Akkadian Empire takes its name from the region and city of Akkad, although the city of Akkad has not yet been identified on the ground, it is known from various textual sources. Among these is at least one text predating the reign of Sargon, together with the fact that the name Akkad is of non-Akkadian origin, this suggests that the city of Akkad may have already been occupied in pre-Sargonic times. Sargon of Akkad defeated and captured Lugal-Zage-Si in the Battle of Uruk, the earliest records in the Akkadian language date to the time of Sargon. Sargon was claimed to be the son of Laibum or Itti-Bel, a humble gardener, One legend related of Sargon in Assyrian times says that My mother was a changeling, my father I knew not
Akkadian Empire
–
Map of the Akkadian Empire (brown) and the directions in which military campaigns were conducted (yellow arrows)
Akkadian Empire
–
Bronze head of an Akkadian, probably an image of Manishtusu or Naram-Sin; descendants of Sargon (
National Museum of Iraq)
Akkadian Empire
–
Kings of the Akkad Dynasty
47.
Luwians
–
The Luwians were a group of people who lived in Asia Minor and Northern Syria in the Bronze Age and the Iron Age. They spoke the Luwian language, an Indo-European language of the Anatolian sub-family, which was written in cuneiform and a unique Hieroglyphic script, the origin of the Luwians can only be guessed at. Even then, little can be proved about the route that the ancestors of the Luwians took to end up in Anatolia and it is also unclear whether the separation of the Luwians from the Hittites and the Pala occurred in Anatolia or earlier. It is possible that the Demircihüyük culture is connected with the arrival of Indo-Europeans in Anatolia, accordiing to most scholars, the Hittites were then settled in upper Kızılırmak and had their economic and political centre at Kaniš-Neša. The Luwians might well have lived in southern and western Anatolia, the Assyrian traders who were present in Anatolia at this time refer to the local people as nuwaʿum without any differentiation. This terms seems to derive from the name of the Luwians, the Old Hittite laws from the 17th century BC contain cases relating to the then independent regions of Palā and Luwiya. Traders and displaced people seem to have moved from one country to the other on the basis of agreements between Ḫatti and Luwiya and it appears that the Luwians never formed a single Luwian state, but were divided into a number of kingdoms. During this period, the kingdoms of Šeḫa and Arzawa developed in the west, in the south was the state of Kizzuwatna, which was inhabited by a mixture of Hurrians and Luwians. The kingdom of Tarḫuntašša developed during the Hittite New Kingdom, in southern Anatolia, Kizzuwatna was the Hittite and Luwian name for ancient Cilicia. The area was conquered by the Hittites in the 16th century BC, around 1500, the area broke off and became the kingdom of Kizzuwatna, whose ruler used the title of Great King, like the Hittite ruler. The Hittite king Telipinu had to conclude a treaty with great king Išputaḫšu, under King Pilliya, Kizzuwatna became a vassal of the Mitanni. Around 1420, King Šunaššura of Mitanni renounced control of Kizzuwatna, soon after this, the area seems to have been incorporated into the Hittite empire and remained so until its collapse around 1190 BC. Šeḫa was in the area of ancient Lydia and it is first attested in the fourteenth century BC, when the Hittite king Tudḫaliya I campaigned against Wilusa. After the conquest of Arzawa by Muršili II, Šeḫa was a vassal of the Hittite realm and suffered raids from the Arzawan prince Piyamaradu, Arzawa is already attested in the time of the Hittite Old Kingdom, but lay outside the Hittite realm at that time. The first hostile interaction occurred under king Tudḫaliya I or Tudḫaliya II, after a long period of warfare, the Arzawan capital of Apaša was surrendered by King Uḫḫaziti to the Hittites under King Muršili II. Arzawa was split into two states, Mira and Ḫapalla. After the collapse of the Hittite realm around 1190 BC, several small principalities developed in northern Syria, the princes and traders of these kingdoms used Hieroglyphic Luwian in inscriptions, the latest of which date to the 8th century BC. The Karatepe Bilingual inscription of prince Azatiwada is particularly important, Luwian religion Luwian language H. Craig Melchert, The Luwians
Luwians
–
Luwian hieroglyph
Luwians
–
Stele of Sultanhan,
Museum of Anatolian Civilizations, Ankara, Turkey.
Luwians
–
Geography
Luwians
–
Peoples
48.
Assyria
–
Assyria was a major Mesopotamian East Semitic-speaking kingdom and empire of the ancient Near East and the Levant. Centered on the Tigris in Upper Mesopotamia, the Assyrians came to rule powerful empires at several times. Assyria is named after its capital, the ancient city of Aššur. In the 25th and 24th centuries BC, Assyrian kings were pastoral leaders, Assyria can also refer to the geographic region or heartland where Assyria, its empires and the Assyrian people were centered. The indigenous modern Eastern Aramaic-speaking Assyrian Christian ethnic minority in northern Iraq, north east Syria, southeast Turkey, in prehistoric times, the region that was to become known as Assyria was home to a Neanderthal culture such as has been found at the Shanidar Cave. The earliest Neolithic sites in Assyria were the Jarmo culture c.7100 BC and Tell Hassuna, during the 3rd millennium BC, a very intimate cultural symbiosis developed between the Sumerians and the Akkadians throughout Mesopotamia, which included widespread bilingualism. The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian, and vice versa, is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a scale, to syntactic, morphological. This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the third millennium BC as a sprachbund and it is highly likely that the city was named in honour of its patron Assyrian god with the same name. The city of Aššur, together with a number of other Assyrian cities, however it is likely that they were initially Sumerian-dominated administrative centres. In the late 26th century BC, Eannatum of Lagash, then the dominant Sumerian ruler in Mesopotamia, similarly, in c. the early 25th century BC, Lugal-Anne-Mundu the king of the Sumerian state of Adab lists Subartu as paying tribute to him. Of the early history of the kingdom of Assyria, little is known, in the Assyrian King List, the earliest king recorded was Tudiya. According to Georges Roux he would have lived in the mid 25th century BC, Tudiya was succeeded on the list by Adamu, the first known reference to the Semitic name Adam and then a further thirteen rulers. The earliest kings, such as Tudiya, who are recorded as kings who lived in tents, were independent semi-nomadic pastoralist rulers and these kings at some point became fully urbanised and founded the city state of Ashur in the mid 21st century BC. During the Akkadian Empire, the Assyrians, like all the Mesopotamian Semites, became subject to the dynasty of the city state of Akkad, the Akkadian Empire founded by Sargon the Great claimed to encompass the surrounding four quarters. Assyrian rulers were subject to Sargon and his successors, and the city of Ashur became an administrative center of the Empire. On those tablets, Assyrian traders in Burushanda implored the help of their ruler, Sargon the Great, the name Hatti itself even appears in later accounts of his grandson, Naram-Sin, campaigning in Anatolia. Assyrian and Akkadian traders spread the use of writing in the form of the Mesopotamian cuneiform script to Asia Minor, the Akkadian Empire was destroyed by economic decline and internal civil war, followed by attacks from barbarian Gutian people in 2154 BC. The rulers of Assyria during the period between c.2154 BC and 2112 BC once again fully independent, as the Gutians are only known to have administered southern Mesopotamia
Assyria
–
Letter sent by the high-priest Lu'enna to the king of
Lagash (maybe
Urukagina), informing him of his son's death in combat, c. 2400 BC, found in
Girsu.
Assyria
–
Overview map of the Ancient Near East in the 15th century BC (Middle Assyrian period), showing the core territory of Assyria with its two major cities
Assur and
Nineveh wedged between
Babylonia downstream (to the south-east) and the states of
Mitanni and
Hatti upstream (to the north-west).
Assyria
–
Assyrian attack on a town with archers and a wheeled battering ram, 865–860 BC
Assyria
–
Jehu, king of
Israel, bows before Shalmaneser III of Assyria, 825 BC
49.
Achaeans (Homer)
–
The Achaeans constitute one of the collective names for the Greeks in Homers Iliad and Odyssey. In the historical period, the Achaeans were the inhabitants of the region of Achaea, the city-states of this region later formed a confederation known as the Achaean League, which was influential during the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC. The Homeric long-haired Achaeans would have been a part of the Mycenaean civilization that dominated Greece from circa 1600 BC until 1100 BC, later, by the Archaic and Classical periods, the term Achaeans referred to inhabitants of the much smaller region of Achaea. Herodotus identified the Achaeans of the northern Peloponnese as descendants of the earlier, according to Pausanias, writing in the 2nd century CE, the term Achaean was originally given to those Greeks inhabiting the Argolis and Laconia. Pausanias and Herodotus both recount the legend that the Achaeans were forced from their homelands by the Dorians, during the legendary Dorian invasion of the Peloponnese and they then moved into the region later called Achaea. A scholarly consensus has not yet been reached on the origin of the historic Achaeans relative to the Homeric Achaeans and is hotly debated. Karl Beloch suggested there was no Dorian invasion, but rather that the Peloponnesian Dorians were the Achaeans, eduard Meyer, disagreeing with Beloch, instead put forth the suggestion that the real-life Achaeans were mainland pre-Dorian Greeks. His conclusion is based on his research on the similarity between the languages of the Achaeans and pre-historic Arcadians and his conclusions at the time were challenged by other Hittitologists, as well as by Ferdinand Sommer, who published his Die Ahhijava-Urkunden in 1932. Some Hittite texts mention a nation lying to the west called Ahhiyawa, in the earliest reference to this land, a letter outlining the treaty violations of the Hittite vassal Madduwatta, it is called Ahhiya. It also refers to an earlier Wilusa episode involving hostility on the part of Ahhiyawa, Ahhiya has been identified with the Achaeans of the Trojan War and the city of Wilusa with the legendary city of Troy. It has been proposed that Ekwesh of the Egyptian records may relate to Achaea, whereas Denyen, Tanaju is also listed in an inscription at the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III. The latter ruled Egypt in circa 1382–1344 BC, moreover, a list of the cities and regions of the Tanaju is also mentioned in this inscription, among the cities listed are Mycenae, Nauplion, Kythera, Messenia and the Thebaid. During the 5th year of Pharaoh Merneptah, a confederation of Libyan, included amongst the ethnic names of the repulsed invaders is the Ekwesh or Eqwesh, whom some have seen as Achaeans, although Egyptian texts specifically mention these Ekwesh to be circumcised. Homer mentions an Achaean attack upon the delta, and Menelaus speaks of the same in Book IV of the Odyssey to Telemachus when he recounts his own home from the Trojan War. Later Greek myths also say Helen had spent the time of the Trojan War in Egypt, and not at Troy, cadmus from Phoenicia, Danaus from Egypt, and Pelops from Anatolia each gained a foothold in mainland Greece and were assimilated and Hellenized. Sons of Hellen and the nymph Orseis were Dorus, Xuthos, sons of Xuthos and Kreousa, daughter of Erechthea, were Ion and Achaeus. According to Hyginus,22 Achaeans killed 362 Trojans during their ten years at Troy, according to Margalit Finkelberg, the name Ἀχαιοί/Ἀχαιϝοί is derived from Hittite Aḫḫiyawā. However, Robert S. P. Beekes doubted the validity of this derivation, the etymology of Danaoi is uncertain, according to Beekes the name is certainly Pre-Greek
Achaeans (Homer)
–
Achilles tending the wounded
Patroclus (
Attic red-figure kylix, c. 500 BC)
50.
Kizzuwatna
–
Kizzuwatna, is the name of an ancient Anatolian kingdom in the 2nd millennium BC. It was situated in the highlands of southeastern Anatolia, near the Gulf of İskenderun in modern-day Turkey and it encircled the Taurus Mountains and the Ceyhan river. The center of the kingdom was the city of Kummanni, situated in the highlands, in a later era, the same region was known as Cilicia. The country possessed valuable resources, such as mines in the Taurus Mountains. The slopes of the range are still partly covered by woods. Annual winter rains made agriculture possible in the area at an early date. The plains at the course of the Ceyhan river provided rich cultivated fields. Several ethnic groups coexisted in the Kingdom of Kizzuwatna, the Hurrians inhabited this area at least since the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. The Hittite expansion in the early Old Kingdom period was likely to bring the Hittites, the Luwian language was part of the Indo-European language group, with close ties to the Hittite language. Both the local Hittites and the Luwians were likely to contribute to the formation of independent Kizzuwatna after the weakening of the Hittite Old Kingdom. The toponym Kizzuwatna is possibly a Luwian adaptation of Hittite *kez-udne country on this side, while the name Isputahsu is definitely Hittite, Hurrian culture became more prominent in Kizzuwatna once it entered the sphere of influence of the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni. Puduhepa, queen of the Hittite king Hattusili III, came from Kizzuwatna and their pantheon was also integrated into the Hittite one, and the goddess Hebat of Kizzuwatna became very important in Hittite religion towards the end of the 13th century BC. A corpus of texts called the Kizzuwatna rituals was discovered at Hattusa. King Sargon of Akkad claimed to have reached the Taurus mountains in the 23rd century BC, however, archaeology has yet not confirmed any Akkadian influence in the area. The trade routes from Assyria to the karum in the Anatolian highlands went through Kizzuwatna by the early 2nd millennium BC, the kings of Kizzuwatna of the 2nd millennium BC had frequent contact with the Hittites to the north. The earliest Hittite records seem to refer to Kizzuwatna and Arzawa collectively as Luwia, in the power struggle that arose between the Hittites and the Hurrian kingdom of Mitanni, Kizzuwatna became a strategic partner due to its location. Isputahsu made a treaty with the Hittite king Telepinu, later, Kizzuwatna shifted its allegiance, perhaps due to a new ruling dynasty. The city state of Alalakh to the south expanded under its new vigorous leader Idrimi, king Pilliya of Kizzuwatna had to sign a treaty with Idrimi
Kizzuwatna
–
The expanded
Hittite Empire (red) replaces
Hatti, including
Arzawa and Kizzuwatna ca. 1290 BC and borders the Egyptian kingdom (green)
51.
Hittites
–
The Hittites were an Ancient Anatolian people who established an empire centered on Hattusa in north-central Anatolia around 1600 BC. Between the 15th and 13th centuries BC the Hittite Empire came into conflict with the Egyptian Empire, Middle Assyrian Empire, the Assyrians eventually emerged as the dominant power and annexed much of the Hittite empire, while the remainder was sacked by Phrygian newcomers to the region. They referred to their land as Hatti. The conventional name Hittites is due to their identification with the Biblical Hittites in 19th century archaeology. Before the discoveries, the source of information about Hittites had been the Old Testament. Francis William Newman expressed the view, common in the early 19th century. Uriah was a captain in King Davids army and counted among one of his mighty men in 1 Chronicles 11, french scholar Félix Marie Charles Texier discovered the first Hittite ruins in 1834, but did not identify them as Hittite. The first archaeological evidence for the Hittites appeared in tablets found at the Assyrian colony of Kültepe, some names in the tablets were neither Hattic nor Assyrian, but clearly Indo-European. The script on a monument at Boğazköy by a People of Hattusas discovered by William Wright in 1884 was found to match peculiar hieroglyphic scripts from Aleppo, in 1887, excavations at Tell El-Amarna in Egypt uncovered the diplomatic correspondence of Pharaoh Amenhotep III and his son Akhenaton. Shortly after this, Archibald Sayce proposed that Hatti or Khatti in Anatolia was identical with the kingdom of Kheta mentioned in these Egyptian texts, as well as with the biblical Hittites. Others, such as Max Müller, agreed that Khatti was probably Kheta, sayces identification came to be widely accepted over the course of the early 20th century, and the name Hittite has become attached to the civilization uncovered at Boğazköy. He also proved that the ruins at Boğazköy were the remains of the capital of an empire that, at one point, under the direction of the German Archaeological Institute, excavations at Hattusa have been under way since 1907, with interruptions during the world wars. Kültepe was successfully excavated by Professor Tahsin Özgüç from 1948 until his death in 2005, the Hittites used Mesopotamian Cuneiform script. The Museum of Anatolian Civilizations in Ankara, Turkey houses the richest collection of Hittite, the Hittite kingdom was centred on the lands surrounding Hattusa and Neša, known as the land Hatti. For example, the reward for the capture of a slave after he managed to flee beyond the Halys is higher than that for a slave caught before he could reach the river. To the west and south of the core territory lay the region known as Luwiya in the earliest Hittite texts and this terminology was replaced by the names Arzawa and Kizzuwatna with the rise of those kingdoms. Nevertheless, the Hittites continued to refer to the language originated in these areas as Luwian. Prior to the rise of Kizzuwatna, the heart of territory in Cilicia was first referred to by the Hittites as Adaniya
Hittites
–
Bronze religious standard from a pre-Hittite tomb at
Alacahöyük, dating to the third millennium B.C., from the
Museum of Anatolian Civilizations,
Ankara.
Hittites
–
The Hittite Empire, ca. 1300 BC (shown in Blue).
Hittites
–
Jewelry from
Museum of Anatolian Civilizations.
Hittites
–
Hittite chariot, from an Egyptian relief
52.
Arzawa
–
Arzawa in the second half of the 2nd millennium BC was the name of a region and a political entity in Western Anatolia. The core of Arzawa is believed to have located along the Kestros River, with its capital at Apasa. It was the state of the Assuwa league, which also included parts of western Anatolia. Arzawa was the neighbour and rival of the Middle and New Hittite Kingdoms. On the other hand, it was in contact with the Ahhiyawa of the Hittite texts. Moreover, Achaeans and Arzawa formed a coalition against the Hittites, according to Hittite sources, the capital of the Kingdom of Arzawa was Apasa, corresponding with later Greek Ephesus. The languages spoken in Arzawa during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age cannot be determined due to the paucity of indigenous written sources. The zenith of the kingdom was during the 15th and 14th centuries BC, the Hittites were then weakened, and Arzawa was an ally of Egypt. According to Hittite records, in c.1320 BC Arzawa joined an alliance together with the region of Millawanta under the king of Ahhijawa. As a response of this initiative, the Hittite kings Suppiluliuma I, the king of Arzawa managed to escape to Mycenaean controlled territory. Arzawa was then split by the Hittites into vassal kingdoms and these were called, Kingdom of Mira, Hapalla, Seha river land. Seha river is now believed to be the present-day Gediz River, also, Mursilis son Muwatalli added Wilusa as a vassal. In 1998, J. David Hawkins succeeded in reading the Karabel relief inscription, located at the Karabel pass and this has provided evidence that the kingdom of Mira was actually south of the Seha river land, thus locating the latter along the Gediz River. These kingdoms, usually termed simply as lands in Hittite registers, there has been evidence from a British expedition in 1954 to Beycesultan in inner western Anatolia which suggests that the local king had central heating in his home. Nothing more was heard from this invention until Gaius Sergius Orata reinvented it in Ancient Rome around 80 BC, kupanta-Kurunta c. 1440s BC Madduwatta of Zippasla c. 1420s BC Tarhundaradu c. 1370s BC Anzapahhadu c
Arzawa
–
The inscription of the Karabel rock-carved prince-warrior monument in
Mount Nif was read as attributing it to "Tarkasnawa, King of Mira", a part of the Kingdom of Arzawa.
Arzawa
–
Arzawa (light green) is mentioned as a major power in Egyptian accounts of the
Amarna period (14th century BC). Moreover, according to Hittite accounts it formed in various periods an alliance with Ahhiyawa, generally identified by modern scholars with
Mycenaean Greece (purple).
53.
Mitanni
–
Mitanni, also called Hanigalbat in Assyrian or Naharin in Egyptian texts, was a Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and southeast Anatolia from ca.1500 BC–1300 BC. Mitanni came to be a regional power after the Hittite destruction of Amorite Babylon, at the beginning of its history, Mitannis major rival was Egypt under the Thutmosids. However, with the ascent of the Hittite empire, Mitanni, the Mitanni dynasty ruled over the northern Euphrates-Tigris region between c.1475 and c.1275 BC. Eventually, Mitanni succumbed to Hittite and later Assyrian attacks, and was reduced to the status of a province of the Middle Assyrian Empire. While the Mitanni kings were Indo-Iranians, they used the language of the people which was at that time a non Indo-Iranian language. Their sphere of influence is shown in Hurrian place names, personal names and the spread through Syria, the Mitanni controlled trade routes down the Khabur to Mari and up the Euphrates from there to Charchamesh. For a time also controlled the Assyrian territories of the upper Tigris and its headwaters at Nineveh, Arbil, Assur. To the east, they had relations with the Kassites. The land of Mitanni in northern Syria extended from the Taurus mountains to its west and as far east as Nuzi, in the south, it extended from Aleppo across to Mari on the Euphrates in the east. Its centre was in the Khabur River valley, with two capitals, Taite and Washshukanni called Taidu and Ushshukana respectively in Assyrian sources, the whole area allows agriculture without artificial irrigation, cattle, sheep and goats were raised. It is very similar to Assyria in climate, and was settled by both indigenous Hurrian and Amoritic-speaking populations, the Mitanni kingdom was referred to as the Maryannu, Nahrin or Mitanni by the Egyptians, the Hurri by the Hittites, and the Hanigalbat by the Assyrians. The different names seem to have referred to the kingdom and were used interchangeably. Hittite annals mention a people called Hurri, located in northeastern Syria, a Hittite fragment, probably from the time of Mursili I, mentions a King of the Hurri. The Assyro-Akkadian version of the text renders Hurri as Hanigalbat, Tushratta, who styles himself king of Mitanni in his Akkadian Amarna letters, refers to his kingdom as Hanigalbat. Egyptian sources call Mitanni nhrn, which is pronounced as Naharin/Naharina from the Assyro-Akkadian word for river. The name Mitanni is first found in the memoirs of the Syrian wars of the astronomer and clockmaker Amenemhet. The ethnicity of the people of Mitanni is difficult to ascertain, a treatise on the training of chariot horses by Kikkuli contains a number of Indo-Aryan glosses. Kammenhuber suggested that this vocabulary was derived from the still undivided Indo-Iranian language, the common peoples language, the Hurrian language, is neither Indo-European nor Semitic
Mitanni
–
Cuneiform tablet containing a letter from Tushratta of Mitanni to Amenhotep III (of 13 letters of King Tushratta).
Mitanni
–
Map of the Near East ca. 1400 BC showing the Kingdom of Mitanni at its greatest extent
Mitanni
–
Geography
54.
Hayasa-Azzi
–
The Hayasa-Azzi confederation was in conflict with the Hittite Empire in the 14th century BC, leading up to the collapse of Hatti around 1190 BC. Hittite inscriptions deciphered in the 1920s by the Swiss scholar Emil Forrer testify to the existence of a mountain country, several prominent authorities agree in placing Azzi to the north of Ishuwa. Others see Hayasa and Azzi as identical, records of the time between Telipinu and Tudhaliya III are sketchy. The Hittites seem to have abandoned their capital at Hattusa and moved to Sapinuwa under one of the earlier Tudhaliya kings, in the early 14th century BC, Sapinuwa was burned as well. Hattusili III records at this time that the Azzi had made Samuha its frontier and it should be borne in mind that people who view themselves as great civilizations are not always too particular about which group of so-called Barbarians they are fighting. Also at times multiple atrocities are blamed on one group as a cry for a current war. Samuha was, however, temporarily seized by forces from the country of Azzi, at this time, the kingdom of Hatti was so besieged by fierce attacks from its enemies that many neighbouring powers expected it to soon collapse. The Egyptian pharaoh, Amenhotep III, even wrote to Tarhundaradu, king of Arzawa, I have heard that everything is finished and that the country of Hattusa is paralysed. However, Tudhaliya managed to rally his forces, indeed, the speed and determination of the Hittite king may have surprised Hattis enemies including the Kaska and Azzi-Hayasa. Tudhaliya sent his general Suppiluliuma, who would serve as king himself under the title Suppiluliuma I, to Hattis northeastern frontiers. The Hayasans initially retreated from a battle with the Hittite commander. The Hittitologist Trevor R. Bryce notes, however, that Tudhaliya and Suppiluliuma eventually, invaded Azzi-Hayasa, the passage recording the outcome of this battle is missing. The Hayasans were now obliged to repatriate all captured Hittite subjects, despite the restrictions imposed upon Hakkani, he was not a completely meek and submissive brother-in law of the Hittites in political and military affairs. As a condition for the release of the thousands of Hittite prisoners held in his domain, during their reigns, the cuneiform tablets of Boğazköy begin to mention the names of three successive kings who ruled over a state of Hayasa and/or Azzi. They were Karanni, Mariya, and Hakkani, when Suppiluliuma had become king himself, Hakkani proceeded to marry Suppiluliumas sister. Well, there is a law in the land of the Hatti, do not approach sisters, your sisters-in law or your cousins, that is not permitted. In Hatti Land, whosoever commits such an act does not live, in your country, you do not hesitate to marry your own sister, sister-in law or cousin, because you are not civilized. Such an act cannot be permitted in Hatti, the kingdom of Hayasa-Azzi remained a loyal Hittite vassal state for a time, perhaps hit by the same plague which claimed Suppiluliuma and his son Arnuwanda II
Hayasa-Azzi
–
Location of Hayasa-Azzi
55.
Lycia
–
Lycia was a geopolitical region in Anatolia in what are now the provinces of Antalya and Muğla on the southern coast of Turkey, and Burdur Province inland. Known to history since the records of ancient Egypt and the Hittite Empire in the Late Bronze Age, written records began to be inscribed in stone in the Lycian language after Lycias involuntary incorporation into the Achaemenid Empire in the Iron Age. At that time the Luwian speakers were decimated, and Lycia received an influx of Persian speakers, Lycia fought for the Persians in the Persian Wars, but on the defeat of the Achaemenid Empire by the Greeks, it became intermittently a free agent. Due to the influx of Greek speakers and the sparsity of the remaining Lycian speakers, the Lycian language disappeared from inscriptions and coinage. On defeating Antiochus III in 188 BC the Romans gave Lycia to Rhodes for 20 years, in these latter stages of the Roman republic Lycia came to enjoy freedom as part of the Roman protectorate. The Romans validated home rule officially under the Lycian League in 168 BC and this native government was an early federation with republican principles, these later came to the attention of the framers of the United States Constitution, influencing their thoughts. Despite home rule under republican principles Lycia was not a state and had not been since its defeat by the Carians. In 43 AD the Roman emperor Claudius dissolved the league, Lycia was incorporated into the Roman Empire with a provincial status. It became an eparchy of the Eastern, or Byzantine Empire, after the fall of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century, Lycia was under the Ottoman Empire, and was inherited by the Turkish Republic on the fall of that empire. The Greeks were withdrawn when the border between Greece and Turkey was negotiated in 1923, Lycia comprised what is now the westernmost portion of Antalya Province, the easternmost portion of Muğla Province, and the southernmost portion of Burdur Province. In ancient times the surrounding districts were, from west to east, Caria, Pisidia, and Pamphylia, all equally as ancient, and each speaking its own Anatolian language. The name of the Teke Peninsula comes from the name of Antalya Province. Four ridges extend from northeast to southwest, roughly, forming the western extremity of the Taurus Mountains, furthest west of the four are Boncuk Dağlari, or the Boncuk Mountains, extending from about Altinyayla, Burdur, southwest to about Oren north of Fethiye. This is a low range peaking at about 2,340 m. To the west of it the steep gorges of Dalaman Çayi, the stream,229 km long, enters the Mediterranean to the west of modern-day Dalaman. Upstream it is dammed in four places, after an origin in the vicinity of Sarikavak in Denizli Province. The next ridge to the east is Akdağlari, the White Mountains, about 150 km long, with a point at Uyluktepe, Uyluk Peak. This massif may have been ancient Mount Cragus, along its western side flows Eşen Çayi, the Esen River, anciently the Xanthus, Lycian Arñna, originating in the Boncuk Mountains, flowing south, and transecting the several-mile-long beach at Patara
Lycia
56.
Assuwa league
–
The Assuwa league was a confederation of states in western Anatolia, defeated by the Hittites Tudhaliya I around 1400 BC. The league formed to oppose the Hittite empire, the list of its members contains 22 names, including uqqa, Warsiya, Taruisa, Wilusiya and Karkija. Some of the identifications of these names are disputed, Wilusiya is commonly identified with Ilion, and Taruisa with the surrounding Troad, and Warsiya may be associated with Lukka. However, identification of uqqa with later-attested Lukka is problematic, because that would put the Assuwa league both north and south of Arzawa in southwestern Anatolia, Assuwa appears to lie north of Arzawa, covering the northwestern corner of Anatolia. Homer in the Iliad seems to refer to two Lycias, in 2. 876-77,5.479 Sarpedon is a leader of distant Lycia while in 2. 824ff. 5.105 Pandarus is another leader of Lycians from around Mount Ida near Troy, however, the Assuwa League included Karkija, in southwest Anatolia, south of even the proposed Lukka. So, since also Assuwa was only a league, it could easily have included a wide-ranging array of anti-Hittite minor powers. This confederacy is mentioned only in the fragmentary tablets making up Laroches CTH 142/85 and this dating appears in all older literature on the fall of the Hatti, and crops up every now and then to this day. However the consensus has since then come around to dating Assuwa to an earlier Tudhaliya, Assuwa has been suggested as the origin for the name of the continent Asia. A number of fragmentary Hittite records imply that the rebellion of the Assuwa league received a certain decree of support from Mycenaean Greece. Bossert, Helmut T, Asia, Istanbul,1946
Assuwa league
–
Geographical location of Assuwa in 14th and 13th Century BC
57.
Diauehi
–
Diauehi or Diaokhi, Daiaeni was a coalition of tribes, or kingdoms, located in northeastern Anatolia, that was formed in the 12th century BC in the post-Hittite period. It is mentioned in the Urartian inscriptions and it is usually identified with Daiaeni of the Yonjalu inscription of the Assyria king Tiglath-Pileser I’s third year. Diauehi is a locus of proto-Kartvelian, it has been described as an important tribal formation of possible proto-Georgians by Ronald Grigor Suny. Most probably, the core of the Diauehi lands may have extended from the headwaters of the Euphrates into the valleys of Çoruh to Oltu. This federation was powerful enough to counter the Assyrian forays, although in 1112 BC its king and he was captured and later released on terms of vassalage. In 845 BC, Shalmaneser III finally subdued Diauehi and downgraded its king, Asia, king Asia of Diauehi was forced to submit to the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III in 845 BC, after the latter had overrun Urartu and made a foray into Diauehi. In the early 8th century, Diauehi became the target of the newly emerged regional power of Urartu, both Menua and Argishti I campaigned against the Diauehi king, Utupurshi, annexing his southernmost possessions and forcing him to pay tribute, which included copper, silver and gold. Diauehi was finally destroyed by Colchian incursions by about the 760s BC, antonio Sagona, Claudia Sagona, Archaeology At The North-east Anatolian Frontier, I, An Historical Geography And A Field Survey of the Bayburt Province, Peeters, ISBN 90-429-1390-8 Georgia. Retrieved February 14,2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service Kavtaradze, an Attempt to Interpret Some Anatolian and Caucasian Ethnonyms of the Classical Sources, Sprache und Kultur, #3. The Bulletin of Ancient History, vol, Ancient kingdoms of Anatolia Prehistoric Georgia
Diauehi
–
Map of Diaokhi (12th century BC) [
citation needed]
58.
Syro-Hittite states
–
They proceeded to destroy almost all Hittite sites but were finally defeated by the Assyrians beyond the southern borders near the Tigris. Hatti, Arzawa, Alashiya, Ugarit and Alalakh were destroyed, hattusa, the Hittite capital, was completely destroyed. Syro-Hittite states emerged in the process of major landscape transformation, in the form of regional states with new political structures. The Syro–Hittite states may be divided into two groups, a group where Hittite rulers remained in power, and a southern group where Aramaeans came to rule from about 1000 BC. These states were highly decentralised structures, some appear to have been only loose confederations of sub-kingdoms, the Early Iron Age in Northern Mesopotamia also saw a gradual spread of alphabetic writing in Aramaic and Phoenician. Assyria Aramaeans Aram Damascus Bronze Age collapse Stele of Zakkur Sakçagözü Neo-Hittite Monuments
Syro-Hittite states
–
The vast
Hittite empire at its maximum expansion in the lands of central Anatolia
59.
Phrygia
–
In antiquity, Phrygia was a kingdom in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now Turkey, centered on the Sakarya River. This later Midas was, however, also the last independent king of Phrygia before Cimmerians sacked the Phrygian capital, Gordium, Phrygia then became subject to Lydia, and then successively to Persia, Alexander and his Hellenistic successors, Pergamon, Rome and Byzantium. Phrygians gradually became assimilated into other cultures by the medieval era, after the Turkish conquest of Anatolia. Phrygia describes an area on the end of the high Anatolian plateau. The climate is harsh with hot summers and cold winters, olives will not easily grow here and the land is used for livestock grazing. South of Dorylaeum, there is another important Phrygian settlement, Midas City, situated in an area of hills, to the south again, central Phrygia includes the cities of Afyonkarahisar with its marble quarries at nearby Docimium, and the town of Synnada. At the western end of Phrygia stood the towns of Aizanoi, from here to the southwest lies the hilly area of Phrygia that contrasts to the bare plains of the regions heartland. Southwestern Phrygia is watered by the Maeander and its tributary the Lycus, one of the so-called Homeric Hymns describes the Phrygian language as not mutually intelligible with that of Troy. According to ancient tradition among Greek historians, the Phrygians anciently migrated to Anatolia from the Balkans, Herodotus says that the Phrygians were called Bryges when they lived in Europe. Some classical writers also connected the Phrygians with the Mygdones, the name of two groups of people, one of which lived in northern Macedonia and another in Mysia. The classical historian Strabo groups Phrygians, Mygdones, Mysians, Bebryces, Phrygian continued to be spoken until the 6th century AD, though its distinctive alphabet was lost earlier than those of most Anatolian cultures. The so-called Handmade Knobbed Ware found in Western Anatolia during this period has been identified as an import connected to this invasion. These scholars seek instead to trace the Phrygians origins among the nations of western Anatolia who were subject to the Hittites. Some scholars dismiss the claim of a Phrygian migration as a mere legend, no one has conclusively identified which of the many subjects of the Hittites might have represented early Phrygians. Josephus called Togarmah the Thrugrammeans, who, as the Greeks resolved, were named Phrygians, however, the Greek source cited by Josephus is unknown, and it is unclear if there was any basis for the identification other than name similarity. Scholars of the Hittites believe Tegarama was in eastern Anatolia - some locate it at Gurun - far to the east of Phrygia, some scholars have identified Phrygia with the Assuwa league, and noted that the Iliad mentions a Phrygian named Asios. Another possible early name of Phrygia could be Hapalla, the name of the easternmost province that emerged from the splintering of the Bronze Age western Anatolian empire Arzawa, however, scholars are unsure if Hapalla corresponds to Phrygia or to Pisidia, further south. Herodotus also claims that Phrygian colonists founded the Armenian nation, however, little is known about these eastern Mygdones, and no evidence of Phrygian language in that region has been found
Phrygia
–
Detail from a reconstruction of a Phrygian building at Pararli, Turkey, 7th–6th Centuries BC; Museum of Anatolian Civilizations,
Ankara. A griffin, sphinx and two centaurs are shown.
Phrygia
–
This article is about the Anatolian kingdom. For the lost play by Aeschylus titled Phrygians, see
Achilleis (trilogy). For the character in the Khachaturian ballet, see
Spartacus (ballet)#Synopsis.
Phrygia
–
Tomb at
Midas City (6th century BC), near
Eskişehir
Phrygia
–
Man in Phrygian costume,
Hellenistic period (3rd–1st century BC),
Cyprus
60.
Caria
–
Caria was a region of western Anatolia extending along the coast from mid-Ionia south to Lycia and east to Phrygia. The Ionian and Dorian Greeks colonized the west of it and joined the Carian population in forming Greek-dominated states there, the inhabitants of Caria, known as Carians, had arrived there before the Greeks. The Carians did speak an Anatolian language, known as Carian, cramers detailed catalog of Carian towns in classical Greece is based entirely on ancient sources. The multiple names of towns and geomorphic features, such as bays and headlands, coastal Caria begins with Didyma south of Miletus, but Miletus had been placed in the pre-Greek Caria. South of it is the Iassicus Sinus and the towns of Iassus and Bargylia, giving a name of Bargyleticus Sinus to Güllük Körfezi, and nearby Cindye. After Bargylia is Caryanda or Caryinda, and then on the Bodrum Peninsula Myndus,56 miles miles from Miletus, in the vicinity is Naziandus, exact location unknown. On the tip of the Bodrum Peninsula is Termera, and on the other side Ceramicus Sinus and it was formerly crowded with numerous towns. Halicarnassus, a Dorian Greek city, was planted there among six Carian towns, Theangela, Sibde, Medmasa, Euranium, Pedasa or Pedasum and these with Myndus and Synagela constitute the eight Lelege towns. Also on the north coast of the Ceramicus Sinus is Ceramus and Bargasus, on the south of the Ceramicus Sinus is the Carian Chersonnese, or Triopium Promontory, also called Doris after the Dorian colony of Cnidus. At the base of the peninsula is Bybassus or Bybastus from which an earlier names and it was now Acanthus and Doulopolis. South of the Carian Chersonnese is Doridis Sinus, the Gulf of Doris, there are three bays in it, Bubassius, Thymnias and Schoenus, the last enclosing the town of Hyda. In the gulf somewhere are Euthene or Eutane, Pitaeum, on the south shore is the Cynossema, or Onugnathos Promontory, opposite Symi. South of there is the Rhodian Peraea, a section of the coast under Rhodes and it includes Loryma or Larymna in Oedimus Bay, Gelos, Tisanusa, the headland of Paridion, Panydon or Pandion with Physicus, Amos, Physca or Physcus, also called Cressa. Beyond Cressa is the Calbis River, on the other side is Caunus, with Pisilis or Pilisis and Pyrnos between. Then follow some cities that some assign to Lydia and some to Caria, Calynda on the Indus River, Crya, Carya, Carysis or Cari and Alina in the Gulf of Glaucus, other Carian towns in the gulf are Clydae or Lydae and Aenus. At the base of the east end of Latmus near Euromus, the name Chrysaoris once applied to all of Caria, moreover, Euromus was originally settled from Lycia. Its towns are Tauropolis, Plarassa and Chrysaoris and these were all incorporated later into Mylasa. Connected to the latter by a way is Labranda
Caria
–
Theater in Caunos
Caria
–
Archaeologists studying a Carian tomb in
Milas, Beçin.
61.
Tyana
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Tyana or Tyanna was an ancient city in the Anatolian region of Cappadocia, in modern Kemerhisar, Niğde Province, Central Anatolia, Turkey. It was the capital of a Luwian-speaking Neo-Hittite kingdom in the 1st millennium BC, Tyana is the city referred to in Hittite archives as Tuwanuwa. During the Hittite Empire period in mid 2nd millennium, Tuwanuwa was among the settlements of the region along with Hupisna, Landa, Sahasara, Huwassana. This south-central Anatolian region was referred to as the Lower Land in Hittite sources, following the collapse of the Hittite Empire, Tuwanuwa/Tuwana was a major city of the independent Neo-Hittite kingdoms. It is not certain whether or not it was subject to the Tabal kingdom to its north. He figures in several hieroglyphic Luwian inscriptions found in the region, Warpalawa is also mentioned in Assyrian texts, under the name Urballa, first in a list of tributees of Assyrian king Tiglath Pileser III and later in a letter of Sargon II. Warpalawa was probably succeeded by his son Muwaharani whose name appears in another monument found in Niğde. In Greek legend, the city was first called Thoana because Thoas, xenophon mentions it in his book Anabasis, under the name of Dana, as a large and prosperous city. The surrounding plain was known after it as Tyanitis and it is the reputed birthplace of the celebrated philosopher Apollonius of Tyana in the first century AD. Ovid places the tale of Baucis and Philemon in the vicinity, according to Strabo the city was known also as Eusebeia at the Taurus. Under Roman Emperor Caracalla, the city became Antoniana colonia Tyana, in 372, Emperor Valens split the province of Cappadocia in two, and Tyana became the capital and metropolis of Cappadocia Secunda. In Late Antiquity, the city was known as Christoupolis. Consequently, the city was targeted by Muslim raids. The city was first sacked by the Umayyads after a siege in 708. It was then occupied by the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid in 806, Harun began converting the city into a military base and even erected a mosque there, but evacuated it after the Byzantine emperor Nikephoros I bought a peace. The city was taken and razed by the Abbasids under Al-Abbas ibn al-Mamun in 831. The city fell into decline after 933, as the Arab threat receded, the ruins of Tyana are at modern Kemerhisar, three miles south of Niğde, there are remains of a Roman aqueduct and of cave cemeteries and sepulchral grottoes. As noted, in 372 Emperor Valens created the province of Cappadocia Secunda and this aroused a violent controversy between Anthimus, Bishop of Tyana, and St. Basil of Caesarea, each of whom wished to have as many suffragan sees as possible
Tyana
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The Roman aqueduct of Tyana
62.
Ionia
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Ionia is an ancient region of central coastal Anatolia in present-day Turkey, the region nearest İzmir, which was historically Smyrna. It consisted of the northernmost territories of the Ionian League of Greek settlements, never a unified state, it was named after the Ionian tribe who, in the Archaic Period, settled mainly the shores and islands of the Aegean Sea. Ionian states were identified by tradition and by their use of Eastern Greek and it was bounded by Aeolia to the north, Lydia to the east and Caria to the south. The cities within the region figured large in the strife between the Persian Empire and the Greeks, according to Greek tradition, the cities of Ionia were founded by colonists from the other side of the Aegean. Their settlement was connected with the history of the Ionic people in Attica, which asserts that the colonists were led by Neleus and Androclus, sons of Codrus. So intricate is the coastline that the voyage along its shores was estimated at four times the direct distance. A great part of area was, moreover, occupied by mountains. None of these mountains attains a height of more than 1,200 metres, the geography of Ionia placed it in a strategic position that was both advantageous and disadvantageous. Ionia was always a maritime power founded by a people who made their living by trade in peaceful times, the coast was rocky and the arable land slight. The native Luwians for the most part kept their fields further inland, the coastal cities were placed in defensible positions on islands or headlands situated so as to control inland routes up the rift valleys. The people of those valleys were of different ethnicity, the populations of the cities came from many civilizations in the eastern Mediterranean. Ancient demographics are available only from literary sources, Herodotus states that in Asia the Ionians kept the division into twelve cities that had prevailed in Ionian lands of the north Peloponnese, their former homeland, which became Achaea after they left. These Asian cities were Miletus, Myus, Priene, Ephesus, Colophon, Lebedos, Teos, Erythrae, Clazomenae and Phocaea, together with Samos and Chios. Smyrna, originally an Aeolic colony, was occupied by Ionians from Colophon. These cities do not match those of Achaea, moreover, the Achaea of Herodotus time spoke Doric, but in Homer it is portrayed as being in the kingdom of Mycenae, which most likely spoke Mycenaean Greek, which is not Doric. If the Ionians came from Achaea, they departed during or after the change from East Greek to West Greek there, Mycenaean continued to evolve in the mountainous region of Arcadia. Miletus and some other cities founded earlier by non-Greeks received populations of Mycenaean Greeks probably under the name of Achaeans, the tradition of Ionian colonizers from Achaea suggests that they may have been known by both names even then. In the Indian historic literary texts, the Ionians are referred to as yavanar or yona, in modern Turkish, the people of that region were called yunan and the country that is now Greece is known as Yunanistan
Ionia
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Mount Mycale, site of the
Panionium
Ionia
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One of the earliest
electrum coins struck in
Ephesus, 620-600 BC. Obverse: Forepart of stag. Reverse: Square incuse punch.
Ionia
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Northern Ionia, view from space.
Ionia
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The site of
Miletus, once coastal, now inland. The plain was a bay in
Classical Greece.
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Turkic topics
