A largely abandoned historical hypothesis postulated that Ashkenazi Jews were primarily, or to a large extent, descended from converts to Judaism among the Khazars, a multi-ethnic conglomerate of most
Khazar Khaganate, 650–850
Khazars
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The Khazars were a semi-nomadic Turkic people who established a major commercial empire in the late 6th century CE spanning the south of modern European Russia, southern Ukraine, and western Kazakhsta
Khazar hypothesis of Ashkenazi ancestry
…largely abandoned historical hypothesis postulated that Ashkenazi Jews were primarily, or to a large extent, descended from converts to Judaism among the Khazars, a multi-ethnic conglomerate of mostly Turkic peoples who formed a semi-nomadic khanate in and around the northern and central Caucasus and the…
Court of Seljuk ruler Tughril III, circa 1200 CE.
Site of the Khazar fortress at Sarkel (aerial photo from excavations conducted by Mikhail Artamonov in the 1950s).
Sviatoslav I of Kiev (in boat), destroyer of the Khazar Khaganate.