Caucasian Albania
Encyclopedia
Albania is a name for the historical region
of the eastern Caucasus
, that existed on the territory of present-day republic of Azerbaijan
(where both of its capitals were located) and partially southern Dagestan.
name was Ardhan ( Middle Persian
: Arran). The Arabic was ar-Rān. The name of the country in the language of the native population, the Caucasian Albanians, is not known.
Aghuank (Old Armenian: Աղուանք Ałuankʿ, Modern Armenian
: Աղվանք Aġvank’) is the Armenia
n name for Caucasian Albania. Armenian authors mention that the name derived from the word "Aghu" («Աղու») meaning amiable in Armenian. The term Aghuank is polysemous and is also used in Armenian sources to denote the region between the Kur
and Araxes rivers as part of Armenia
. In the latter case it is sometimes used in the form "Armenian Aghuank" or "Hay-Aghuank".
The Armenian historian of the region, Movses Kaghankatvatsi
, who left the only more or less complete historical account, also explains the name Aghvank as a derivation from the word Aghu (Armenian for sweet, soft, tender), which, he said, was the nickname of Caucasian Albania's first governor Arran and referred to his lenient personality. Moses of Kalankatuyk and other ancient sources explain Arran or Arhan as the name of the legendary founder of Caucasian Albania (Aghvan) or even as the Iranic tribe known as Alan
s (Alani), who in some versions was son of Noah
's son Yafet (Japheth
). James Darmesteter, translator of the Avesta
, compared Arran with Airyana Vaego
which he also considered to have been in the Araxes-Ararat
region, although modern theories tend to place this in the east of Iran.
The ancient Caucasian Albania lay on the south-eastern part of the Greater Caucasus
mountains. It was bounded by Caucasian Iberia
(present-day Georgia
) to the west, by Sarmatians
of the Caucasus to the north, by the Caspian Sea
to the east, and by the provinces of Artsakh
and Utik
in Armenia
to the west, along the river Kura.
Albania or Arran in Islamic times was a triangle of land, lowland in the east and mountainous in the west, formed by the junction of Kura
and Aras rivers, including the highland and lowland Karabakh
(Artsakh
), Mil plain
and parts of the Mughan plain
, and in the pre-Islamic times, corresponded roughly to the territory of modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan.
The districts of Albania were the following:
The kingdom's capital during antquity was Qabala
(Kapalak).
Classical sources are unanimous in making the Kura River
(Cyros) the frontier between Armenia and Albania after the conquest of the territories on the right bank of Kura by Armenians in the 2nd century BC.
The original territory of Albania was approximately 23.000 km². After 387 AD the territory of Caucasian Albania, sometimes referred to by scholars as "Greater Albania," grew to about 45,000 km². In the 5th century the capital was transferred to Partav
in Utik', reported to have been built in the mid-5th century by the King Vache II of Albania, but according to M. L. Chaumont, it existed earlier as an Armenian city.
In a medieval chronicle "Ajayib-ad-Dunia", written in the 13th century by an unknown author, Arran is said to have been 30 farsakhs
(200 km) in width, and 40 farsakhs (270 km) in length. All the right bank of the Kura river
until it joined with the Aras was attributed to Arran (the left bank of the Kura was known as Shirvan
). The boundaries of Arran have shifted throughout history, sometimes encompassing the entire territory of the present day Republic of Azerbaijan, and at other times only parts of the South Caucasus
. In some instances Arran was a part of Armenia.
Medieval Islamic geographers gave descriptions of Arran in general, and of its towns, which included Barda
, Beylagan
, and Ganja, along with others.
close to those found in modern Daghestan. After the Caucasian Albanians were Christianized in the 4th century, the western parts of the population were gradually assimilated by the ancestors of modern Armenians, and the eastern parts of Caucasian Albania were Islamized and absorbed by Iranian
and subsequently Turkic peoples
(modern Azerbaijanis). Small remnants of this group continue to exist independently, and are known as the Udi people
.
The pre-Islamic population of Caucasian Albania might have played a role in the ethnogenesis
of a number of modern ethnicities, including the Azerbaijanis, the Armenians
of the Nagorno-Karabakh
, the Georgians
of Kakhetia, the Laks
, the Lezgins
and the Tsakhurs of Daghestan.
, Movses Kaghankatvatsi
and Koryun
, the Caucasian Albanian (the Armenian name for the language is Aghvank, the native name of the language is unknown) alphabet was created by Mesrob Mashtots, the Armenian monk
, theologian
and translator
who is also credited with creating the Armenian
and Georgian
alphabets.
Koriun, a pupil of Mesrob Mashtots, in his book The Life of Mashtots, wrote about how his tutor created the alphabet:
A Caucasian Albanian alphabet of fifty-two letters, some bearing a resemblance to Armenian or Georgian characters, has only survived through a few manuscripts and inscriptions, dating from the 15th century. The alphabet records Old Udi, an earlier stage of the contemporary Udi language
, for which reason it is also known as Old Udi script.
The script survives in an Armenian manuscript from the 15th century, Matenadaran No. 7117
, first published by Ilia Abuladze
in 1937.
It is a language manual, presenting different alphabets for comparison – Armenian, Greek, Latin, Syrian, Georgian, Coptic, and Caucasian Albanian among them. The alphabet was titled: "Ałuanicʿ girn ē" .
Muslim geographers Al-Muqaddasi
, Ibn-Hawqal and Al-Istakhri recorded that the language which they called Arranian was still spoken in the capital Barda and the rest of the country in the 10th century.
Whether Arranian is related to Caucasian Albanian languages cannot be determined.
and Achaemenid times. During this Arsacid Dynasty of Caucasian Albania
, the Parthian language spread in the region. It is possible that the language and literature for administration and record-keeping of the imperial chancellery for external affairs naturally became Parthian, based on the Aramaic script. According to Toumanoff: "the predominance of Hellenism, as under the Artaxiads, was now followed by a predominance of “Iranianism,” and, symptomatically, instead of Greek, as before, Parthian became the language of the educated".
With the establishment of the Sassanids, Middle Persian, a closely related language to Parthian, became an official language of the Sassanid empire
. At this time, Persian enjoyed even more success than the Caucasian Albanian language and the region was greatly affected by Iran. According to Vladimir Minorsky: "The presence of Iranian settlers in Transcaucasia, and especially in the proximity of the passes, must have played an important role in absorbing and pushing back the aboriginal inhabitants. Such names as Sharvan, Layzan, Baylaqan, etc., suggest that the Iranian immigration proceeded chiefly from Gilan and other regions on the southern coast of the Caspian". The presence of the Persian language and Iranian culture continued after the Islamic era.
also grew in the region. Christianity started to spread in the late 4th century in the Sassanid era.
The Arab conquest and the Chalcedonian crisis led to severe disintegration of the Church of Caucasian Albania. Starting from the 8th century, much of the local population converted to Islam. By the 11th century there already were conciliar mosques in Partaw, Chabala and Shaki; the cities that were the creed of Caucasian Albanian Christianity.
These Islamised groups would later be known as Lezgins
and Tsakhurs or mix with the Turkic
and Iranian
population to form present-day Azeris
, whereas those that remained Christian were gradually absorbed by Armenians
or continued to exist on their own and be known as the Udi people
.
The Caucasian Albanian tribes of Hereti
were converted to Eastern Orthodoxy by Dinar, Queen of Hereti in the 10th century. The religious affairs of this small principality were now officially administered by the Georgian Orthodox Church. In 1010, Hereti became absorbed into the neighbouring Georgian kingdom of Kakheti
. Eventually in the early 12th century, these lands became part of the Georgian Kingdom under David the Builder finalising the process of their Georgianisation
.
. Possibly already under the Achaemenids some measures were taken to protect the Caucasian passes against the invaders however the foundation of Darband and series of gates is traditionally ascribed to the Sassanid empire. Albania was incorporated in the Achaemenid empire
and were under the command of the satrapy of Media in the later period.
The Greek historian Arrian
mentions (perhaps anachronistically) the Caucasian Albanians for the first time in the battle of Gaugamela
, where the Albanians, Medes, Cadussi and Sacae were under the command of Atropates
. Albania first appears in history as a vassal state in the empire of Tigranes the Great
of Armenia
(95-56 BC). The kingdom of Albania emerged in the eastern Caucasus in 2nd or 1st century BC and along with the Georgians
and Armenians
formed one of the three nations of the Southern Caucasus. Albania came under strong Armenian religious and cultural influence.
Herodotus
, Strabo
, and other classical authors repeatedly mention the Caspians
but do not seem to know much about them; they are grouped with other inhabitants of the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, like the Amardi, Anariacae, Cadusii, Albani (see below), and Vitii (Eratosthenes apud Strabo, 11.8.8), and their land (Caspiane) is said to be part of Albania (Theophanes Mytilenaeus apud Strabo, 11.4.5).
In the 2nd century BC parts of Albania were conquered by the Kingdom of Armenia, presumably from Medes
(although possibly it was earlier part of Orontid Armenia).
The original population of the territories on the right bank of Kura before the Armenian conquest consisted of various autochthonous people. Ancient chronicles provide the names of several peoples that populated these districts, including the regions of Artsakh
and Utik
. These were Utians
, Mycians, Caspians
, Gargarians, Sakasenians, Gelians, Sodians, Lupenians, Balas[ak]anians, Parsians and Parrasians. According to Robert H. Hewsen, these tribes were "certainly not of Armenian origin", and "although certain Iranian peoples must have settled here during the long period of Persian and Median rule, most of the natives were not even Indo-Europeans." He also states that the several peoples of the right bank of Kura "were highly Armenicized and that many were actually Armenians per se cannot be doubted." Many of those people were still being cited as distinct ethnic entities when the right bank of Kura was acquired by the Caucasian Albanians in 387 AD.
.
The Latin
rock inscription close to Boyukdash mountain in Qobustan, Baku
, which mentions Legio XII Fulminata
, is the world's easternmost Roman evidence known. In Albania, Romans reached the Caspian Sea
for the first time.
The Roman coins circulated in Caucasian Albania till the end of the 3rd century AD. Two denarii, unearthed in the 2nd century BC layer, were minted by Clodius and Caesar
. The coins of Augustus
are ubiquitous. The Qabala treasures
revealed the denarii of Otho
, Vespasian
, Trajan
and Hadrian
.
In 69-68 BC Lucullus
, having overcome Armenian ruler Tigranes II, approached the borders of Caucasian Albania and was succeeded by Pompey
.
After the 66-65 BC wintering Pompey launched the Iberian
campaign. It is reported by Strabo
upon the account of Theophanes of Mytilene
who participated in it. As testified by Kamilla Trever
, Pompey reached the Albanian border at modern Qazakh Rayon of Azerbaijan. Igrar Aliyev
showed that this region called Cambysene was inhabited mainly by stock-breeders at the time. When fording the Alazan river, he was attacked by forces of Oroezes, King of Albania, and eventually defeated them. According to Plutarch
, Albanians "were led by a brother of the king, named Cosis, who as soon as the fighting was at close quarters, rushed upon Pompey himself and smote him with a javelin on the fold of his breastplate; but Pompey ran him through the body and killed him". Plutarch also reported that "after the battle, Pompey set out to march to the Caspian Sea, but was turned back by a multitude of deadly reptile
s when he was only three days march distant, and withdrew into Lesser Armenia". The first kings of Albania were certainly the representatives of the local tribal nobility, to which attest their non-Armenian and non-Iranian names (Oroezes, Cosis and Zober in Greek sources).
The population of Caucasian Albania of the Roman period is believed to have belonged to either the Northeast Caucasian peoples
or the South Caucasian peoples
.
According to Strabo
, the Albanians were a group of 26 tribes which lived to the north of the Kura river
and each of them had its own king and language. Sometime before the 1st century BC they federated into one state and were ruled by one king.
Strabo
wrote of the Caucasian Albanians in the 1st century BC:
Albania is also mentioned by Dionysius Periegetes
(2nd or 3rd c. AD) who describes Albanians as a nation of warriors, living by the Iberians and the Georgians.
In 1899 a silver plate featuring Roman toreutics
was excavated near Azerbaijani village of Qalagah
.
The rock inscription near the south-eastern part of Boyukdash's foot (70 km
from Baku
) was discovered on June 2, 1948 by Azerbaijani archaeologist Ishag Jafarzadeh. The legend is IMPDOMITIANO CAESARE·AVG GERMANIC L·IVLIVS MAXIMVS> LEG XII·FVL. According to Domitian
's titles in it, the related march took place between 84 and 96. The inscription was studied by Russian expert Yevgeni Pakhomov
, who assumed that the associated campaign was launched to control the Derbent Gate
and that the XII Fulminata has marched out either from Melitene, its permanent base, or Armenia, where it might have moved from before. Pakhomov supposed that the legion proceeded to the spot continually along the Aras River. The later version, published in 1956, states that the legion was stationing in Cappadocia
by that time whereas the centurion might have been in Albania with some diplomatic mission because for the talks with the Eastern rulers the Roman commanders were usually sending centurions.
In 1953 twelve denarii of Augustus were unearthed. In 1958 one denarius, coined in c. 82 AD, was revealed in the Şamaxı
trove.
During the reign of Roman emperor Hadrian
(117-138) Albania was invaded by the Alans
, an Iranian nomadic group. This invasion promoted an alliance between Rome and the Albanians that was reinforced under Antoninus Pius
in 140 AD. Sassanians occupied the area around 240 Ad but after a few years the Roman Empire regained control of Caucasian Albania.
Indeed in 297 the treaty of Nisibis stipulated the reestablishment of the Roman protectorate over Caucasian Iberia
and Albania. But fifty years later Rome lost the area that since then remained an integral part of the Sasanian Empire.
rule, Iranian political and cultural influence increased in the region. Whatever the sporadic suzerainty of Rome, the country was now a part—together with Iberia (East Georgia) and (Caucasian) Albania, where other Arsacid branches reigned—of a pan-Arsacid family federation. Culturally, the predominance of Hellenism, as under the Artaxiads, was now followed by a predominance of "Iranianism", and, symptomatically, instead of Greek, as before, Parthian
became the language of the educated. An incursion in this era was made by the Alans
who between 134 and 136 attacked Albania, Media, and Armenia, penetrating as far as Cappadocia. But Vologases
persuaded them to withdraw, probably by paying them.
and Greater Armenia, was conquered and annexed by the Sassanid Empire
. Albania became a vassal state
of the Sassanid Empire, but retained its monarchy; the Albanian king had no real power and most civil, religious, and military authority lay with the Sassanid marzban
(military governor) of the territory.
Romans obtained again control of Caucasian Albania as a vassal state for a few years around 300 AD, but soon after that the Sassanians dominated again the area for centuries until the Arab
invasions.
Albania was mentioned among the Sasanian provinces listed in the trilingual inscription of Shapur I
at Naqsh-e Rustam
.
In the middle of the 4th century the king of Albania Urnayr arrived in Armenia and was baptized by Gregory the Illuminator
, but Christianity spread in Albania only gradually, and the Albanian king remained loyal to the Sassanids. After the partition of Armenia between Byzantium and Persia (in 387 AD), Albania with Sassanid help was able to seize from Armenia all the right bank of the river Kura up to river Araxes, including Artsakh and Utik.
Sasanian king Yazdegerd II
passed an edict requiring all the Christians in his empire to convert to Mazdaism, fearing that Christians might ally with Roman Empire, which had recently adopted Christianity. This led to a rebellion of Albanians, along with Armenians and Iberians. In a battle that took place in 451 AD in the Avarayr field
, the allied forces of the Armenian, Albanian and Iberian kings, devoted to Christianity, suffered defeat at the hands of the Sassanid army. Many of the Armenian nobility fled to the mountainous regions of Albania, particularly to Artsakh, which became a center for resistance to Sassanid Persia. The religious center of the Albanian state also moved here. However, the Albanian king Vache, a relative of Yazdegerd II, was forced to convert to the official religion of the Sasanian empire, but soon reverted back to Christianity.
In the middle of the 5th century by the order of the Persian king Peroz I
Vache built in Utik the city initially called Perozabad, and later Partaw and Barda
, and made it the capital of Albania. Partaw was the seat of the Albanian kings and Persian marzban, and in 552 AD the seat of the Albanian Catholicos was also transferred to Partaw.
After the death of Vache, Albania remained without a king for thirty years. The Sasanian Balash
reestablished the Albanian monarchy by making Vachagan, son of Yazdegerd and brother of the previous king Vache, the king of Albania.
By the end of the 5th century, the ancient Arsacid royal house of Albania
, a branch of the ruling dynasty of Parthia
, became extinct, and in the 6th century it was replaced by princes of the Persian or Parthian Mihranid
family, who claimed descent from the Sasanians. They assumed a Persian title of Arranshah (i.e.the shah
of Arran, the Persian name of Albania). The ruling dynasty was named after its Persian founder Mihran, who was a distant relative of the Sasanians. The Mihranid dynasty survived under Muslim suzerainty until 821-2.
In the late 6th – early 7th centuries the territory of Albania became an arena of wars between Sasanian Persia, Byzantium
and the Khazar kaganate, the latter two very often acting as allies. In 628, during the Third Perso-Turkic War
, the Khazars invaded Albania, and their leader Ziebel declared himself lord of Albania, levying a tax on merchants and the fishermen of the Kura and Araxes rivers "in accordance with the land survey of the kingdom of Persia". Most of Transcaucasia was under Khazar rule before the arrival of the Arabs. The Albanian kings retained their rule by paying tribute to the regional powers. According to Peter Golden, "steady pressure from Turkic nomads was typical of the Khazar era, although there are no unambiguous references to permanent settlements", while Vladimir Minorsky stated that, in Islamic times, "the town of Qabala lying between Sharvan and Shakki was a place where Khazars were probably settled".
n politics, culture and civilization played a critical role in the entire history of Caucasian Albania (Aghvank, in Armenian). This, due to the fact that after the partition of the Kingdom of Armenia by Persia and Byzantium
in 387 AD, the Armenian provinces of Artsakh
and Utik
were disassociated from Armenia
proper and included by Persians
into a single province (marzpanate) called Aghvank (Arran). This new unit included: the original Caucasian Albania, found between the River Kura and the Great Caucasus; tribes living along the Caspian shore; as well as Artsakh
and Utik
, two territories now detached from Armenia
.
The Armenian medieval atlas Ashkharatsuits (Աշխարացույց), compiled in the 7th century by Anania Shirakatsi
(Անանիա Շիրակացի, but sometimes attributed to Movses Khorenatsi
as well), categorizes Artsakh
and Utik
as provinces of Armenia
despite their presumed detachment from the Armenian Kingdom and their political association with Caucasian Albania and Persia at the time of his writing. Shirakatsi
specifies that Artsakh
and Utik
are “now detached” from Armenia
and included in “Aghvank,” and he takes care to distinguish this new entity from the old “Aghvank strictly speaking” (Բուն Աղվանք) situated north of the river Kura. Because it was more homogeneous and more developed than the original tribes to the north of the Kura, the Armenian element took over Caucasian Albania’s political life and was progressively able to impose its language and culture.
Armenian population of Artsakh
and Utik
remained in place as did the entire political, social, cultural and military structure of the provinces. In the 5th century, Armenia’s foremost early medieval historian Movses Khorenatsi
(Մովսես Խորենացի) testifies that the population of Artsakh
and Utik
spoke Armenian, with the River Kura, in his words, marking the “boundary of Armenian speech” (… զեզերս հայկական խօսիցս). though this does not mean that its population consisted exclusively of ethnic Armenians.
Whatever little is known about Caucasian Albania after 387 AD comes from the text “History of the Land of Aghvank” (Պատմություն Աղվանից Աշխարհի) attributed to two Armenian authors: Movses Kaghankatvatsi
and Movses Daskhurantsi. This text, written in Old Armenian, in essence represents the history of Armenia’s provinces of Artsakh and Utik. Kaghankatvatsi
, repeating Movses Khorenatsi
, mentions that the very name “Aghvank”/“Albania” is of Armenian origin, and relates it to the Armenian word “aghu” (աղու, meaning “kind,” “benevolent”. Khorenatsi states that “aghu” was a nickname given to Prince Arran, whom the Armenian king Vagharshak I appointed as governor of northeastern provinces bordering on Armenia. According to a legendary tradition reported by Khorenatsi
, Arran was a descendant of Sisak, the ancestor of the Siunids of Armenia’s province of Syunik
, and thus a great-grandson of the ancestral eponym of the Armenians, the Forefather Hayk. Kaghankatvatsi and another Armenian author, Kirakos Gandzaketsi, confirm Arran’s belonging to Hayk’s blood line by calling Arranshahiks “a Haykazian dynasty.”
In Movses Kaghankatvatsi
’s “History” and in the historical text of the Armenian early medieval author Agathangelos
, the Kingdom of Aghvank’s feudal system, including its political terminology, was Armenian. As in Armenia, nobles of Aghvank are referred to by the terms nakharar
s (նախարար), azat
s (ազատ), hazarapets (հազարապետ), marzpets (մարզպետ), shinakans (շինական), etc.
Princely families, which were later mentioned in Movses Kaghankatvatsi
’s “History …” were included in the Table of Ranks called “Gahnamak”
(direct translation: “List of Thrones,” Arm. Գահնամակ) of the Kingdom of Armenia, which defined Armenia’s aristocratic hierarchy. Princely families of Caucasian Albania were also included in the Table of Armies called “Zoranamak”
(Arm. Զորանամակ) of the Kingdom of Armenia which determined military obligations of key aristocratic families before the Armenian King in times of war.
As in Armenia, the “Albanian” clergy used exclusively Armenian church terms for clerical hierarchy (katholikos/կաթողիկոս, vardapet/վարդապետ, sargavag/սարգավագ, etc.) Identifiably Armenian are also most if not all toponyms found in the “History” Not only are the names of most towns, villages, mountains, and rivers uniquely Armenian morphologically, exactly the same toponyms were and are still found in other parts of historical Armenia. They include the root kert (“town”) for towns (Arm.: կերտ, such Dastakert, Hnarakert – compare with Tigranakert or modern Stapanakert in Nagorno Karabakh), shen and kan (village) for villages (Arm. շեն, and կան, such as Karashen or Dyutakan), etc.
First names of most rulers, commoners and clergy in Movses Kaghankatvatsi
’s “History …” are uniquely Armenian. Many of these names survived centuries and are still used only by modern Armenians. These include: Vachagan (Վախագան), Vache (Վաչե), Bakur (Բակուր), Taguhi (Թագուհի), Vrtanes (Վրթաննես), Viro (Վիրո), Varaz-Trdat (Վարազ-Տրդաթ), Marut (Մարութ), etc. Some of these names can be translated from Armenian as common words: e.g. Taguhi means “queen” and Varaz means “wild boar.” In fact, Armenians to this day use the first name Aghvan (Աղվան) that directly refers to the Kingdom of Aghvank.
After the partition, the capital city of Caucasian Albania was moved from the territories on the eastern bank of the River Kura (referred to by Armenians “Aghvank Proper,” Arm. Բուն Աղվանք) to Partav, located in the former Armenian province of Utik. This was followed by the transfer of the Seat of the Kingdom of Albania’s religious leader (Katholicos) from territories north of Kura to Partav.
Kingdom of Albania was converted to Christianity at the start of the 4th century by none other than the Armenian evangelizer St. Gregory the Enlightener
(Arm. Սբ. Գրիգոր Լուսավորիչ), who baptized Armenia into the first Christian state by 301 AD In about 330 AD, the grandson of St. Gregory, St. Grigoris, ecumenical head of the eastern provinces of Armenia, was designated bishop for the Kingdom of Aghvank. Mausoleum interning Grigoris’ remains, the Amaras Monastery
stands as the oldest dated monument in Nagorno Karabakh. Amaras
was started by St Gregory and completed by St. Grigoris himself.
According to tradition, the Amaras Monastery
housed the first Armenian school in the historical Armenia, which was opened early in the 5th century by the inventor of the Armenian alphabet St. Mesrob Mashtots. St. Mesrob Mashtots was intensely active in preaching Gospel in Artsakh and Utik. Movses Kaghankatvatsi’s “History” dedicates four separate chapters to St. Mashtots’ mission, referring to him as “enlightener” and “saint” (chapters 27, 28 and 29 of Book One, and chapter 3 of Book Two). Overall, St. Mesrob made three trips to the Kingdom of Albania where he toured not only the Armenian lands of Artsakh and Utik but also territories to the north of the River Kura.
Movses Kaghankatvatsi
’s “History” describes Armenian influence on the Church of Aghvank, whose jurisdiction extended from Artsakh and Utik to regions to the north of the River Kura, in the territories of the “original,” “pre-Armenian” Caucasian Albania. One of the consequences of this was that Armenian language progressively supplanted Albanian as the language of church and state (and only if there was any single “Albanian” language in the first place which is doubtful because the population of Albania/Aghvank was described as consisting of as many 26 different tribes). Although Mesrob Mashtots provided the Albanian king with an alphabet, shortly after inventing a script for his fellow Armenians in 406 AD, the main “Albanian” language, Gargarean, disappeared, with only a few fragments of inscriptions dated from the 6th and 7th centuries. In contrast, Armenian language flourished in the Armenian portion of Aghvank. The 7th-century Armenian linguist and grammarian Stephanos Syunetsi stated in his work that Armenians of Artsakh had their own dialect, and encouraged his readers to learn it. In the same 7th century, Armenian poet Davtak Kertogh
writes his Elegy on the Death of Grand Prince Juansher
, where each passage begins with a letter of Armenian script in alphabetical order.
, Zeus
, and Luna.
Christianity started to enter Caucasian Albania at an early date, according to Movses Kaghankatvatsi
, as early as during the 1st century. The first Christian church in the region was built by St. Eliseus, a disciple of Thaddeus of Edessa, at a place called Gis. Shortly after Armenia
adopted Christianity as its state religion (301 AD), the Caucasian Albanian king Urnayr went to the See of the Armenian Apostolic Church
to receive baptism from St. Gregory the Illuminator
, the first Patriarch of Armenia.
King Vachagan III helped to implant Christianity in Caucasian Albania, through a synod allowing the church legal rights in some domestic issues. In 498 AD (in other sources, 488 AD) in the settlement named Aluen (Aghuen) (present day Agdam region of Azerbaijan), an Albanian church council convened to adopt laws further strengthening the position of Christianity in Albania.
Albanian churchmen took part in missionary efforts in the Caucasus and Pontic regions. In 682, the catholicos
, Israel
, led an unsuccessful delegation to convert Alp Iluetuer
, the ruler of the North Caucasian Huns
, to Christianity. The Albanian Church maintained a number of monasteries in the Holy Land
. In the 7th century, Varaz-Grigor, ruler of Albania, and "his nation" were christened by Emperor Heraclius
at Gardman.
After the overthrow of Nerses in 705, the Caucasian Albanian elite decided to reestablish the tradition of having their Catholicoi ordained through the Patriarch of Armenia, as it was the case before 590. This event is generally regarded as the abolition of the Church of Caucasian Albania, and the lowering of its denominational status to that of a Catholicate within the body of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Sassanid Albania fell to the Islamic conquest of Persia
in the mid 7th century and was incorporated into the Rashidun Caliphate
.
King Javanshir
of Albania, the most prominent ruler of Mihranid dynasty, fought against the Arab invasion of caliph
Uthman
on the side of the Sasanid Iran
. Facing the threat of the Arab invasion on the south and the Khazar offensive on the north, Javanshir had to recognize the caliph's suzerainty. The Arabs then reunited the territory with Armenia under one governor.
By the 8th century, "Albania" had been reduced to a strictly geographical and titular
ecclesiastical connotation, and was referred to as such by medieval Armenian historians; on its place sprang a number principalities, such as that of the Armenian principality and kingdom of Khachen
, along with various Caucasian, Iranian and Arabic principalities: the principality of Shaddadid
s, the principality of Shirvan
, the principality of Derbent
.
Most of the region was ruled by the Sajid Dynasty
of Azerbaijan
from 890 to 929. The region was at times part of the Abbasid
province of Armenia
based on numismatic and historical evidence.
Early Muslim ruling dynasties of the time included Rawadids, Sajids
, Salarids, Shaddadid
s, Shirvanshahs, and the Sheki
and Tiflis emirates. The principal cities of Arran in early medieval times were Barda
(Partav) and Ganja
. Barda
reached prominence in the 10th century, and was used to house a mint
. Barda was sacked by the Rus
and Norse
several times in 10th century as result of the Caspian expeditions of the Rus
. Barda never revived after these raids and was replaced as capital by Baylaqan, which in turn was sacked by the Mongols in 1221. After this Ganja
rose to prominence and became the central city of the region. The capital of the Shaddadid
dynasty, Ganja was considered the "mother city of Arran" during their reign.
The territory of Arran became a part of the Seljuk empire, followed by the Ildegizid state. It was taken briefly by the Khwarizmid
dynasty and then overran by Mongol Hulagu empire in the 13th century. Later, it became a part of Chobanid, Jalayirid, Timurid
, and Safavid states.
In his article “The Albanian Myth” Russian historian and anthropologist Victor Schnirelmann
demonstrated that Azerbaijani academics have been “renaming prominent medieval Armenian
political leaders, historians and writers, who lived in Karabakh and Armenia into “Albanians.” Victor Schnirelmann
argues that these efforts were first launched in the 1950s and were directed towards “ripping the population of early medieval Karabakh off from their Armenian heritage” and “cleansing Azerbaijan of Armenian history.” In the 1970s, Azerbaijan made a transition from ignoring, discounting or concealing Armenian historical heritage in Soviet Azerbaijan to misattributing and mischaracterizing it as examples of Azerbaijani culture by arbitrarily declaring “Caucasian Albanians” as ancestors of modern Azerbaijanis. In this regard, Thomas de Waal
, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
, writes about the political context of Azerbaijan’s historical revisionism:
A key revisionist method used by Azerbaijani scholars mentioned by Victor Schnirelmann
and others was ”re-publishing of ancient and medieval sources, where the term “Armenian state” was routinely and systematically removed and replaced with “Albanian state.” American author George Bournoutian gives examples of how that was done by Ziya Bunyadov
, vice-chairman of Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences, who earned the nickname of “Azerbaijan’s foremost Armenophobe.”
According to Thomas de Waal
:
Robert Hewsen, a historian from Rowan College and the acknowledged authority in this field, wrote in his volume Armenia: A Historical Atlas, published by Chicago University Press:
According to Thomas de Waal
, a disciple of Ziya Bunyadov
, Farida Mammadova
, has “taken the Albanian theory and used it to push Armenians out of the Caucasus altogether. She had relocated Caucasian Albania into what is now the present-day Republic of Armenia. All those lands, churches, and monasteries in the Republic of Armenia—all had been Albanian. No sacred Armenian fact was left un-attacked.” Thomas de Waal
describes Mammadova as a sophisticated end of what “in Azerbaijan has become a very blunt instrument indeed.” Both Ziya Bunyadov
and Farida Mammadova
are known for their anti-Armenian
public pronouncements and pamphlets.
Historical revisionism in Azerbaijan supported a number of policies on the ground, including cultural vandalism directed against Armenian monuments in Soviet and post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Armenian memorial stone crosses known as “khachkars” on the territory of Azerbaijan were regularly misrepresented as “Caucasian Albanian” both before and after Azerbaijan’s independence. Furthermore, mischaracterization of Armenian khachkars as supposedly non-Armenian monuments of Caucasian Albania was associated with acts of cultural vandalism
against Armenian historical monuments in Nakhichevan
. The events
in Nakhichevan
refer to the systematic campaign by the government of Azerbaijan
to completely demolish the large cemetery
with thousands of Armenian khachkar
s near the town of Julfa
(known as Jugha in Armenian), Nakhchivan. Claims by Armenians that Azerbaijan was undertaking a systematic campaign to destroy and remove the monuments first arose in late 1998 and those charges were renewed in 2002 and 2005. In reaction to the charges brought forward by Armenia and international organizations, Azerbaijan has asserted, falsely, that Armenians had never existed in those territories. In December 2005, an Azerbaijani official stated in a BBC interview that Armenians “never lived in Nakhchivan, which has been Azerbaijani land from time immemorial, and that's why there are no Armenian cemeteries and monuments and have never been any.” Adam T. Smith
, an anthropologist and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago
, called the removal of the khachkars "a shameful episode in humanity's relation to its past, a deplorable act on the part of the government of Azerbaijan which requires both explanation and repair." Smith and other scholars, as well as several United States Senators, signed a letter to the UNESCO
and other organizations condemning Azerbaijan's government. Azerbaijan instead contends that the monuments were not of Armenian, but of Caucasian Albanian, origin, which, per Thomas De Waal
, did not protect “the graveyard from an act in the history wars.”
Armenian cultural heritage on lands that were temporary associated with Caucasian Albania in medieval times also became targets of Azerbaijani nationalists during the Nagorno-Karabakh War
. Robert Bevan writes: “The Azeri campaign against the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh which began in 1988 was accompanied by cultural cleansing that destroyed the Egheazar monastery and 21 other churches.”
Anti-Armenian cultural vandalism in Azerbaijan perpetrated with the use of revisionist theories on Caucasian Albania was also noted in northern Azerbaijan, where Norwegian archeologists were involved in the restoration of an Armenian-Georgian church in the village of Kish
near the city of Shaki. Azerbaijanis erased Armenian inscriptions on the church’s walls, which led to by an official complaint by Norwegian foreign ministry.
Armenian heritage was the main but not the only target of attacks of Azerbaijani historians and politicians. Revisionist theories about Caucasian Albania have been used by Azerbaijani statesmen in the ongoing Azerbaijani-Georgian dispute over the territorial status of David Gareja monastery complex, a Georgian spiritual and historical monument partially located on the territory of Azerbaijani Republic. David Gareja is a rock-hewn Georgian Orthodox monastery complex in the Kakheti region of Eastern Georgia, on the half-desert slopes of Mount Gareja, some 60–70 km southeast of Georgia's capital Tbilisi. Giorgi Manjgaladze, Georgia's deputy foreign minister proposed that Georgia would be willing to exchange other territory for the remainder of David Gareja because of its historical and cultural significance to the Georgians. Baku disapproves of this land swap, and in April 2007, Azerbaijan's deputy foreign minister Khalaf Khalafov told a press conference in Baku
that it was "out of the question" for Azerbaijan to "give up its claims to the borderlands" including David Gareja. Khalafov then stated that the monastery "was home to the Caucasian Albanians, who are believed to have been the earliest inhabitants of Azerbaijan." Georgian art historian Dimitri Tumanishvili dismissed this claim and stated that the complex "is covered in the work of Georgian masters." "There are Georgian inscriptions everywhere dating back to the sixth century," he said "There are no traces of another culture there. After that, I don’t think you need any further proof."
Historical region
Historical regions are delimitations of geographic areas for studying and analysing social development of period-specific cultures without any reference to contemporary political, economic or social organisations....
of the eastern Caucasus
Caucasus
The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...
, that existed on the territory of present-day republic of Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
(where both of its capitals were located) and partially southern Dagestan.
Names
The ParthianParthian language
The Parthian language, also known as Arsacid Pahlavi and Pahlavanik, is a now-extinct ancient Northwestern Iranian language spoken in Parthia, a region of northeastern ancient Persia during the rule of the Parthian empire....
name was Ardhan ( Middle Persian
Middle Persian
Middle Persian , indigenously known as "Pârsig" sometimes referred to as Pahlavi or Pehlevi, is the Middle Iranian language/ethnolect of Southwestern Iran that during Sassanid times became a prestige dialect and so came to be spoken in other regions as well. Middle Persian is classified as a...
: Arran). The Arabic was ar-Rān. The name of the country in the language of the native population, the Caucasian Albanians, is not known.
Aghuank (Old Armenian: Աղուանք Ałuankʿ, Modern Armenian
Modern Armenian
Modern Armenian is the written form of the Armenian language which came to be used starting in the 18th century.Modern Armenian has two branches:#Western Armenian...
: Աղվանք Aġvank’) is the Armenia
Armenian language
The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora...
n name for Caucasian Albania. Armenian authors mention that the name derived from the word "Aghu" («Աղու») meaning amiable in Armenian. The term Aghuank is polysemous and is also used in Armenian sources to denote the region between the Kur
Kur
In Babylonian mythology, Irkalla is the hell-like underworld from which there is no return. It is also called Arali, Kigal, Gizal, and the lower world...
and Araxes rivers as part of Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
. In the latter case it is sometimes used in the form "Armenian Aghuank" or "Hay-Aghuank".
The Armenian historian of the region, Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi , or Movses Daskhurantsi , is the reputed author of a 10th-century Old Armenian historiographical work on Caucasian Albania, known as The History of the Country of Albania .- Authorship :...
, who left the only more or less complete historical account, also explains the name Aghvank as a derivation from the word Aghu (Armenian for sweet, soft, tender), which, he said, was the nickname of Caucasian Albania's first governor Arran and referred to his lenient personality. Moses of Kalankatuyk and other ancient sources explain Arran or Arhan as the name of the legendary founder of Caucasian Albania (Aghvan) or even as the Iranic tribe known as Alan
Alan
-People :*Alan , the given name*alan , female Tibetan singer active in Japan*Alan , Mexican boy band singer*Alan , aka Gato Eveready, who wrestles in Asistencia Asesoría y Administración...
s (Alani), who in some versions was son of Noah
Noah
Noah was, according to the Hebrew Bible, the tenth and last of the antediluvian Patriarchs. The biblical story of Noah is contained in chapters 6–9 of the book of Genesis, where he saves his family and representatives of all animals from the flood by constructing an ark...
's son Yafet (Japheth
Japheth
Japheth is one of the sons of Noah in the Abrahamic tradition...
). James Darmesteter, translator of the Avesta
Avesta
The Avesta is the primary collection of sacred texts of Zoroastrianism, composed in the Avestan language.-Early transmission:The texts of the Avesta — which are all in the Avestan language — were composed over the course of several hundred years. The most important portion, the Gathas,...
, compared Arran with Airyana Vaego
Airyanem Vaejah
Airyanəm Vaējah, which approximately means "expanse of the Aryans, i.e. Iranians" is the "mythical homeland" of early Iranians and a reference in the Zoroastrian Avesta Airyanəm Vaējah, which approximately means "expanse of the Aryans, i.e. Iranians" is the "mythical homeland" of early Iranians and...
which he also considered to have been in the Araxes-Ararat
Ararat plain
The Ararat plain is one of the largest of the Armenian Plateau, stretches west of the Sevan basin, at the foothills of the Gegham mountains. In the north the plain borders on Mount Aragats, and in the south, on Mount Ararat...
region, although modern theories tend to place this in the east of Iran.
Geography
In pre-Islamic times, Caucasian Albania/Arran was a wider concept than that of post-Islamic Arran. Ancient Arran covered all eastern Transcaucasia, which included most of the territory of modern day Azerbaijan Republic and part of the territory of Dagestan. However in post-Islamic times the geographic notion of Arran reduced to the territory between the rivers of Kura and Araks.The ancient Caucasian Albania lay on the south-eastern part of the Greater Caucasus
Greater Caucasus
Greater Caucasus , sometimes translated as "Caucasus Major", "Big Caucasus" or "Large Caucasus") is the major mountain range of the Caucasus Mountains....
mountains. It was bounded by Caucasian Iberia
Caucasian Iberia
Iberia , also known as Iveria , was a name given by the ancient Greeks and Romans to the ancient Georgian kingdom of Kartli , corresponding roughly to the eastern and southern parts of the present day Georgia...
(present-day Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
) to the west, by Sarmatians
Sarmatians
The Iron Age Sarmatians were an Iranian people in Classical Antiquity, flourishing from about the 5th century BC to the 4th century AD....
of the Caucasus to the north, by the Caspian Sea
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...
to the east, and by the provinces of Artsakh
Artsakh
Artsakh was the tenth province of the Kingdom of Armenia from 189 BC until 387 AD and afterwards a region of Caucasian Albania from 387 to the 7th century. From the 7th to 9th centuries, it fell under Arab control...
and Utik
Utik
Utik was a historic province of the Kingdom of Armenia and a region of Caucasian Albania. Most of the region is located within present-day Azerbaijan immediately west of the Kura River while a part of it lies within the Tavush province of present-day northeastern Armenia.-History:According to...
in Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
to the west, along the river Kura.
Albania or Arran in Islamic times was a triangle of land, lowland in the east and mountainous in the west, formed by the junction of Kura
Kura River
Kura is a river, also known from the Greek as the Cyrus in the Caucasus Mountains. Starting in north-eastern Turkey, it flows through Turkey to Georgia, then to Azerbaijan, where it receives the Aras River as a right tributary, and enters the Caspian Sea...
and Aras rivers, including the highland and lowland Karabakh
Karabakh
The Karabakh horse , also known as Karabakh, is a mountain-steppe racing and riding horse. It is named after the geographic region where the horse was originally developed, Karabakh in the Southern Caucasus, an area that is de jure part of Azerbaijan but the highland part of which is currently...
(Artsakh
Artsakh
Artsakh was the tenth province of the Kingdom of Armenia from 189 BC until 387 AD and afterwards a region of Caucasian Albania from 387 to the 7th century. From the 7th to 9th centuries, it fell under Arab control...
), Mil plain
Mil plain
Mil plain is a plain in Azerbaijan. It is located on the bank of the Aras river and extends to Iran....
and parts of the Mughan plain
Mughan plain
Mugan plain is a plain in northwestern Iran and the southern part of the Republic of Azerbaijan. The highest density of irrigation canals is in the section of the Mugan plain which lies in the Republic of Azerbaijan. It is located on the bank of the Aras river extending to Iran...
, and in the pre-Islamic times, corresponded roughly to the territory of modern-day Republic of Azerbaijan.
The districts of Albania were the following:
- Kambysene
- Getaru
- Elni / Xeni
- Begh
- Shake
- Xolmaz
- Kapalak
- Hambasi
- Gelavu
- Hejeri
- Kaladasht
The kingdom's capital during antquity was Qabala
Qabala
Qabala is a rayon of Azerbaijan. Its administrative center is the historic town of Qəbələ, which in ancient times was known as the capital of Caucasian Albania....
(Kapalak).
Classical sources are unanimous in making the Kura River
Kura River
Kura is a river, also known from the Greek as the Cyrus in the Caucasus Mountains. Starting in north-eastern Turkey, it flows through Turkey to Georgia, then to Azerbaijan, where it receives the Aras River as a right tributary, and enters the Caspian Sea...
(Cyros) the frontier between Armenia and Albania after the conquest of the territories on the right bank of Kura by Armenians in the 2nd century BC.
The original territory of Albania was approximately 23.000 km². After 387 AD the territory of Caucasian Albania, sometimes referred to by scholars as "Greater Albania," grew to about 45,000 km². In the 5th century the capital was transferred to Partav
Barda, Azerbaijan
Barda is the capital city of the Barda Rayon in Azerbaijan, located south of Yevlax and on the left bank of the Terter river. Once an Armenian town, and later the capital of Caucasian Albania perhaps since the end of the fourth century, Barda became the chief city of the Islamic province of Arran,...
in Utik', reported to have been built in the mid-5th century by the King Vache II of Albania, but according to M. L. Chaumont, it existed earlier as an Armenian city.
In a medieval chronicle "Ajayib-ad-Dunia", written in the 13th century by an unknown author, Arran is said to have been 30 farsakhs
Parasang
The parasang is a historical Iranian unit of itinerant distance comparable to the European league.In antiquity, the term was used throughout much of the Middle East, and the Old Iranian language from which it derives can no longer be determined...
(200 km) in width, and 40 farsakhs (270 km) in length. All the right bank of the Kura river
Kura River
Kura is a river, also known from the Greek as the Cyrus in the Caucasus Mountains. Starting in north-eastern Turkey, it flows through Turkey to Georgia, then to Azerbaijan, where it receives the Aras River as a right tributary, and enters the Caspian Sea...
until it joined with the Aras was attributed to Arran (the left bank of the Kura was known as Shirvan
Shirvan
Shirvan , also spelled as Shirwan, Shervan, Sherwan and Šervān, is a historical region in the eastern Caucasus, known by this name in both Islamic and modern times...
). The boundaries of Arran have shifted throughout history, sometimes encompassing the entire territory of the present day Republic of Azerbaijan, and at other times only parts of the South Caucasus
South Caucasus
The South Caucasus is a geopolitical region located on the border of Eastern Europe and Southwest Asia also referred to as Transcaucasia, or The Trans-Caucasus...
. In some instances Arran was a part of Armenia.
Medieval Islamic geographers gave descriptions of Arran in general, and of its towns, which included Barda
Barda, Azerbaijan
Barda is the capital city of the Barda Rayon in Azerbaijan, located south of Yevlax and on the left bank of the Terter river. Once an Armenian town, and later the capital of Caucasian Albania perhaps since the end of the fourth century, Barda became the chief city of the Islamic province of Arran,...
, Beylagan
Beylagan (town)
Beylagan is the capital city of Beylagan rayon of Azerbaijan. During the Soviet era, it was renamed Zhdanov after Stalinist politician Andrei Zhdanov. This move was reverted in 1991 when the city assumed its original name again...
, and Ganja, along with others.
Ethnogenesis
Originally, the Caucasian Albanians apparently spoke Lezgic languagesLezgic languages
The Lezgic languages are one the seven branches of the Northeast Caucasian language family. Lezgian and Tabasaran are literary languages.-Classification:* Peripheral: Archi – 1200 speakers* Samur ** Eastern Samur*** Udi – 5000 speakers...
close to those found in modern Daghestan. After the Caucasian Albanians were Christianized in the 4th century, the western parts of the population were gradually assimilated by the ancestors of modern Armenians, and the eastern parts of Caucasian Albania were Islamized and absorbed by Iranian
Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...
and subsequently Turkic peoples
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
(modern Azerbaijanis). Small remnants of this group continue to exist independently, and are known as the Udi people
Udi people
The Udis are one of the most ancient native peoples of the Caucasus.Currently they live in Azerbaijan, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and many other countries. The total number is about 10,000 people. They speak the Udi language. Among them are distributed also Azeri, Russian,...
.
The pre-Islamic population of Caucasian Albania might have played a role in the ethnogenesis
Ethnogenesis
Ethnogenesis is the process by which a group of human beings comes to be understood or to understand themselves as ethnically distinct from the wider social landscape from which their grouping emerges...
of a number of modern ethnicities, including the Azerbaijanis, the Armenians
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
of the Nagorno-Karabakh
Nagorno-Karabakh
Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked region in the South Caucasus, lying between Lower Karabakh and Zangezur and covering the southeastern range of the Lesser Caucasus mountains...
, the Georgians
Georgians
The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....
of Kakhetia, the Laks
Lak people (Dagestan)
The Laks, self-designation Lak, are an indigenous people of Dagestan, speaking the Lak language. There are about 170,000 ethnic Laks.-History:An ancient polity on the Lak territory was the principality of Gumik...
, the Lezgins
Lezgins
The Lezgians are an ethnic group living predominantly in southern Dagestan and northeastern Azerbaijan and who speak the Lezgian language.- Historical concept :While ancient Greek historians, including Herodotus, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder, referred...
and the Tsakhurs of Daghestan.
Caucasian Albanian language
According to Armenian medieval historians Movses KhorenatsiMovses Khorenatsi
Moses of Chorene, also Moses of Khoren, Moses Chorenensis, or Movses Khorenatsi , or a 7th to 9th century date) was an Armenian historian, and author of the History of Armenia....
, Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi , or Movses Daskhurantsi , is the reputed author of a 10th-century Old Armenian historiographical work on Caucasian Albania, known as The History of the Country of Albania .- Authorship :...
and Koryun
Koryun
Koryun was the earliest Armenian-language historian. Writing in the fifth century, his "Life of Mesrob" contains many details about the evangelization of Armenia and the invention of the Armenian alphabet.Some Armenian and European scholars, such as G.Alishan, O.Torosyan, G.Fintigliyan, A.Sarukhan,...
, the Caucasian Albanian (the Armenian name for the language is Aghvank, the native name of the language is unknown) alphabet was created by Mesrob Mashtots, the Armenian monk
Monk
A monk is a person who practices religious asceticism, living either alone or with any number of monks, while always maintaining some degree of physical separation from those not sharing the same purpose...
, theologian
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
and translator
Translation
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
who is also credited with creating the Armenian
Armenian alphabet
The Armenian alphabet is an alphabet that has been used to write the Armenian language since the year 405 or 406. It was devised by Saint Mesrop Mashtots, an Armenian linguist and ecclesiastical leader, and contained originally 36 letters. Two more letters, օ and ֆ, were added in the Middle Ages...
and Georgian
Georgian alphabet
The Georgian alphabet is the writing system used to write the Georgian language and other Kartvelian languages , and occasionally other languages of the Caucasus such as Ossetic and Abkhaz during the 1940s...
alphabets.
Koriun, a pupil of Mesrob Mashtots, in his book The Life of Mashtots, wrote about how his tutor created the alphabet:
Then there came and visited them an elderly man, an Albanian named Benjamin. And he Mesrob MashtotsSaint MesrobSaint Mesrop Mashtots was an Armenian monk, theologian and linguist. He is best known for having invented the Armenian alphabet, which was a fundamental step in strengthening the Armenian Church, the government of the Armenian Kingdom, and ultimately the bond between the Armenian Kingdom and...
inquired and examined the barbaric diction of the Albanian language, and then through his usual God-given keenness of mind invented an alphabet, which he, through the grace of Christ, successfully organized and put in order.
Udi language
The Udi language, spoken by the Udi people, is a member of the Lezgic branch of the Northeast Caucasian language family. It is believed an earlier form of it was the main language of Caucasian Albania, which stretched from south Dagestan to current day Azerbaijan.The language is spoken by about...
, for which reason it is also known as Old Udi script.
The script survives in an Armenian manuscript from the 15th century, Matenadaran No. 7117
Matenadaran
The Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts , commonly referred to as the Matenadaran , is an ancient manuscript repository located in Yerevan, Armenia...
, first published by Ilia Abuladze
Ilia Abuladze
Ilia Abuladze was a distinguished Georgian historian, philologist and public figure, a Corresponding Member of the Georgian Academy of Sciences , Meritorious Science Worker of Georgia , Doctor of Philological Sciences , Professor .Abuladze was born in a small village in Imereti...
in 1937.
It is a language manual, presenting different alphabets for comparison – Armenian, Greek, Latin, Syrian, Georgian, Coptic, and Caucasian Albanian among them. The alphabet was titled: "Ałuanicʿ girn ē" .
Muslim geographers Al-Muqaddasi
Al-Muqaddasi
Muhammad ibn Ahmad Shams al-Din Al-Muqaddasi , also transliterated as Al-Maqdisi and el-Mukaddasi, was a medieval Arab geographer, author of Ahsan at-Taqasim fi Ma`rifat il-Aqalim .-Biography:Al-Muqaddasi, "the Hierosolomite" was born in Jerusalem in 946 AD...
, Ibn-Hawqal and Al-Istakhri recorded that the language which they called Arranian was still spoken in the capital Barda and the rest of the country in the 10th century.
Whether Arranian is related to Caucasian Albanian languages cannot be determined.
Iranian languages
Iranian contact in the region goes back to the MedianMedes
The MedesThe Medes...
and Achaemenid times. During this Arsacid Dynasty of Caucasian Albania
Arsacid Dynasty of Caucasian Albania
The Arsacid Dynasty was a dynasty of Parthian origin, which ruled the kingdom of Caucasian Albania in the 1st - 5th century AD. They were a branch of the Parthian Arsacid dynasty and together with the Arsacid rulers of the neighboring Armenia and Iberia formed a pan-Arsacid family federation. The...
, the Parthian language spread in the region. It is possible that the language and literature for administration and record-keeping of the imperial chancellery for external affairs naturally became Parthian, based on the Aramaic script. According to Toumanoff: "the predominance of Hellenism, as under the Artaxiads, was now followed by a predominance of “Iranianism,” and, symptomatically, instead of Greek, as before, Parthian became the language of the educated".
With the establishment of the Sassanids, Middle Persian, a closely related language to Parthian, became an official language of the Sassanid empire
Sassanid Empire
The Sassanid Empire , known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr and Ērān in Middle Persian and resulting in the New Persian terms Iranshahr and Iran , was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty from 224 to 651...
. At this time, Persian enjoyed even more success than the Caucasian Albanian language and the region was greatly affected by Iran. According to Vladimir Minorsky: "The presence of Iranian settlers in Transcaucasia, and especially in the proximity of the passes, must have played an important role in absorbing and pushing back the aboriginal inhabitants. Such names as Sharvan, Layzan, Baylaqan, etc., suggest that the Iranian immigration proceeded chiefly from Gilan and other regions on the southern coast of the Caspian". The presence of the Persian language and Iranian culture continued after the Islamic era.
Religion
The original population of the Caucasus followed different pagan religions. Under Achaemenid, Parthian and especially Sassanid influence, ZoroastrianismZoroastrianism
Zoroastrianism is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of prophet Zoroaster and was formerly among the world's largest religions. It was probably founded some time before the 6th century BCE in Greater Iran.In Zoroastrianism, the Creator Ahura Mazda is all good, and no evil...
also grew in the region. Christianity started to spread in the late 4th century in the Sassanid era.
The Arab conquest and the Chalcedonian crisis led to severe disintegration of the Church of Caucasian Albania. Starting from the 8th century, much of the local population converted to Islam. By the 11th century there already were conciliar mosques in Partaw, Chabala and Shaki; the cities that were the creed of Caucasian Albanian Christianity.
These Islamised groups would later be known as Lezgins
Lezgins
The Lezgians are an ethnic group living predominantly in southern Dagestan and northeastern Azerbaijan and who speak the Lezgian language.- Historical concept :While ancient Greek historians, including Herodotus, Strabo, and Pliny the Elder, referred...
and Tsakhurs or mix with the Turkic
Turkic peoples
The Turkic peoples are peoples residing in northern, central and western Asia, southern Siberia and northwestern China and parts of eastern Europe. They speak languages belonging to the Turkic language family. They share, to varying degrees, certain cultural traits and historical backgrounds...
and Iranian
Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...
population to form present-day Azeris
Azerbaijani people
The Azerbaijanis are a Turkic-speaking people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as in the neighbourhood states, Georgia, Russia and formerly Armenia. Commonly referred to as Azeris or Azerbaijani Turks , they also live in a wider area from the Caucasus to...
, whereas those that remained Christian were gradually absorbed by Armenians
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
or continued to exist on their own and be known as the Udi people
Udi people
The Udis are one of the most ancient native peoples of the Caucasus.Currently they live in Azerbaijan, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and many other countries. The total number is about 10,000 people. They speak the Udi language. Among them are distributed also Azeri, Russian,...
.
The Caucasian Albanian tribes of Hereti
Hereti
Hereti was a historic province in the medieval Caucasus on the Georgian-Albanian frontier. It roughly corresponds to the southeastern corner of Georgia's Kakheti region and a portion of Azerbaijan's northwestern districts.-History:...
were converted to Eastern Orthodoxy by Dinar, Queen of Hereti in the 10th century. The religious affairs of this small principality were now officially administered by the Georgian Orthodox Church. In 1010, Hereti became absorbed into the neighbouring Georgian kingdom of Kakheti
Kakheti
Kakheti is a historical province in Eastern Georgia inhabited by Kakhetians who speak a local dialect of Georgian. It is bordered by the small mountainous province of Tusheti and the Greater Caucasus mountain range to the north, Russian Federation to the Northeast, Azerbaijan to the Southeast, and...
. Eventually in the early 12th century, these lands became part of the Georgian Kingdom under David the Builder finalising the process of their Georgianisation
Georgians
The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....
.
Median and Achaemenid era
According to one hypothesis, Caucasian Albania was incorporated in the Median empire. Persian penetration into this region at a very early date is connected with the need to defend the northern frontier of the Iranian empireAchaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...
. Possibly already under the Achaemenids some measures were taken to protect the Caucasian passes against the invaders however the foundation of Darband and series of gates is traditionally ascribed to the Sassanid empire. Albania was incorporated in the Achaemenid empire
Achaemenid Empire
The Achaemenid Empire , sometimes known as First Persian Empire and/or Persian Empire, was founded in the 6th century BCE by Cyrus the Great who overthrew the Median confederation...
and were under the command of the satrapy of Media in the later period.
Hellenistic era
Arrian
Lucius Flavius Arrianus 'Xenophon , known in English as Arrian , and Arrian of Nicomedia, was a Roman historian, public servant, a military commander and a philosopher of the 2nd-century Roman period...
mentions (perhaps anachronistically) the Caucasian Albanians for the first time in the battle of Gaugamela
Battle of Gaugamela
The Battle of Gaugamela took place in 331 BC between Alexander the Great and Darius III of Persia. The battle, which is also called the Battle of Arbela, resulted in a massive victory for the ancient Macedonians and led to the fall of the Achaemenid Empire.-Location:Darius chose a flat, open plain...
, where the Albanians, Medes, Cadussi and Sacae were under the command of Atropates
Atropates
Atropates was a Persian nobleman who served Darius III, then Alexander III of Macedon, and eventually founded an independent kingdom and dynasty that was named after him...
. Albania first appears in history as a vassal state in the empire of Tigranes the Great
Tigranes the Great
Tigranes the Great was emperor of Armenia under whom the country became, for a short time, the strongest state east of the Roman Republic. He was a member of the Artaxiad Royal House...
of Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
(95-56 BC). The kingdom of Albania emerged in the eastern Caucasus in 2nd or 1st century BC and along with the Georgians
Georgians
The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....
and Armenians
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
formed one of the three nations of the Southern Caucasus. Albania came under strong Armenian religious and cultural influence.
Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
, and other classical authors repeatedly mention the Caspians
Caspians
Caspians is the English version of a Greek ethnonym mentioned twice by Herodotus among the satrapies of Darius and applied by Strabo to the ancient people dwelling along the southern and southwestern shores of the Caspian Sea, in the region which was called Caspiane after them...
but do not seem to know much about them; they are grouped with other inhabitants of the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, like the Amardi, Anariacae, Cadusii, Albani (see below), and Vitii (Eratosthenes apud Strabo, 11.8.8), and their land (Caspiane) is said to be part of Albania (Theophanes Mytilenaeus apud Strabo, 11.4.5).
In the 2nd century BC parts of Albania were conquered by the Kingdom of Armenia, presumably from Medes
Medes
The MedesThe Medes...
(although possibly it was earlier part of Orontid Armenia).
The original population of the territories on the right bank of Kura before the Armenian conquest consisted of various autochthonous people. Ancient chronicles provide the names of several peoples that populated these districts, including the regions of Artsakh
Artsakh
Artsakh was the tenth province of the Kingdom of Armenia from 189 BC until 387 AD and afterwards a region of Caucasian Albania from 387 to the 7th century. From the 7th to 9th centuries, it fell under Arab control...
and Utik
Utik
Utik was a historic province of the Kingdom of Armenia and a region of Caucasian Albania. Most of the region is located within present-day Azerbaijan immediately west of the Kura River while a part of it lies within the Tavush province of present-day northeastern Armenia.-History:According to...
. These were Utians
Udi people
The Udis are one of the most ancient native peoples of the Caucasus.Currently they live in Azerbaijan, Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and many other countries. The total number is about 10,000 people. They speak the Udi language. Among them are distributed also Azeri, Russian,...
, Mycians, Caspians
Caspians
Caspians is the English version of a Greek ethnonym mentioned twice by Herodotus among the satrapies of Darius and applied by Strabo to the ancient people dwelling along the southern and southwestern shores of the Caspian Sea, in the region which was called Caspiane after them...
, Gargarians, Sakasenians, Gelians, Sodians, Lupenians, Balas[ak]anians, Parsians and Parrasians. According to Robert H. Hewsen, these tribes were "certainly not of Armenian origin", and "although certain Iranian peoples must have settled here during the long period of Persian and Median rule, most of the natives were not even Indo-Europeans." He also states that the several peoples of the right bank of Kura "were highly Armenicized and that many were actually Armenians per se cannot be doubted." Many of those people were still being cited as distinct ethnic entities when the right bank of Kura was acquired by the Caucasian Albanians in 387 AD.
Roman Empire
There was an enduring relation of Albania with Ancient RomeAncient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
.
The Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
rock inscription close to Boyukdash mountain in Qobustan, Baku
Qobustan, Baku
Qobustan is a settlement and municipality in Baku, Azerbaijan. It has a population of 14,470....
, which mentions Legio XII Fulminata
Legio XII Fulminata
Legio duodecima Fulminata , also known as Paterna, Victrix, Antiqua, Certa Constans, and Galliena, was a Roman legion, levied by Julius Caesar in 58 BC and which accompanied him during the Gallic wars until 49 BC. The unit was still guarding the Euphrates River crossing near Melitene at the...
, is the world's easternmost Roman evidence known. In Albania, Romans reached the Caspian Sea
Caspian Sea
The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. The sea has a surface area of and a volume of...
for the first time.
The Roman coins circulated in Caucasian Albania till the end of the 3rd century AD. Two denarii, unearthed in the 2nd century BC layer, were minted by Clodius and Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
. The coins of Augustus
Augustus
Augustus ;23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14) is considered the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in 14 AD.The dates of his rule are contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian...
are ubiquitous. The Qabala treasures
Qabala treasures
Qabala treasures are monetary treasure troves, unearthed in different years near the remnants of Qabala , the capital of Caucasian Albania.The first trove, unearthed in 1950s, contains the coins of Sassanid ruler Kavadh I ....
revealed the denarii of Otho
Otho
Otho , was Roman Emperor for three months, from 15 January to 16 April 69. He was the second emperor of the Year of the four emperors.- Birth and lineage :...
, Vespasian
Vespasian
Vespasian , was Roman Emperor from 69 AD to 79 AD. Vespasian was the founder of the Flavian dynasty, which ruled the Empire for a quarter century. Vespasian was descended from a family of equestrians, who rose into the senatorial rank under the Emperors of the Julio-Claudian dynasty...
, Trajan
Trajan
Trajan , was Roman Emperor from 98 to 117 AD. Born into a non-patrician family in the province of Hispania Baetica, in Spain Trajan rose to prominence during the reign of emperor Domitian. Serving as a legatus legionis in Hispania Tarraconensis, in Spain, in 89 Trajan supported the emperor against...
and Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
.
In 69-68 BC Lucullus
Lucullus
Lucius Licinius Lucullus , was an optimate politician of the late Roman Republic, closely connected with Sulla Felix...
, having overcome Armenian ruler Tigranes II, approached the borders of Caucasian Albania and was succeeded by Pompey
Pompey
Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus, also known as Pompey or Pompey the Great , was a military and political leader of the late Roman Republic...
.
After the 66-65 BC wintering Pompey launched the Iberian
Caucasian Iberia
Iberia , also known as Iveria , was a name given by the ancient Greeks and Romans to the ancient Georgian kingdom of Kartli , corresponding roughly to the eastern and southern parts of the present day Georgia...
campaign. It is reported by Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
upon the account of Theophanes of Mytilene
Theophanes of Mytilene
Theophanes of Mytilene was an intellectual and historian from the town of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos who lived in the middle of the 1st century BC. He was a friend of Pompey and wrote a book about his expedition to Asia...
who participated in it. As testified by Kamilla Trever
Kamilla Trever
Kamilla Vasilyevna Trever was a Russian historian and orientalist, and a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 29 September 1943. K.Trever specialized in the history and culture of Transcaucasia, Central Asia and Iran.- References :...
, Pompey reached the Albanian border at modern Qazakh Rayon of Azerbaijan. Igrar Aliyev
Igrar Aliyev
Igrar Habib oglu Aliyev was an Azerbaijani historian. Aliyev was the author of 160 peer reviewed journal publications and books. Many of his books are devoted to the Medes and Median Empire...
showed that this region called Cambysene was inhabited mainly by stock-breeders at the time. When fording the Alazan river, he was attacked by forces of Oroezes, King of Albania, and eventually defeated them. According to Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
, Albanians "were led by a brother of the king, named Cosis, who as soon as the fighting was at close quarters, rushed upon Pompey himself and smote him with a javelin on the fold of his breastplate; but Pompey ran him through the body and killed him". Plutarch also reported that "after the battle, Pompey set out to march to the Caspian Sea, but was turned back by a multitude of deadly reptile
Reptile
Reptiles are members of a class of air-breathing, ectothermic vertebrates which are characterized by laying shelled eggs , and having skin covered in scales and/or scutes. They are tetrapods, either having four limbs or being descended from four-limbed ancestors...
s when he was only three days march distant, and withdrew into Lesser Armenia". The first kings of Albania were certainly the representatives of the local tribal nobility, to which attest their non-Armenian and non-Iranian names (Oroezes, Cosis and Zober in Greek sources).
The population of Caucasian Albania of the Roman period is believed to have belonged to either the Northeast Caucasian peoples
Northeast Caucasian languages
The Northeast Caucasian languages constitute a language family spoken in the Russian republics of Dagestan, Chechnya, Ingushetia, northern Azerbaijan, and in northeastern Georgia, as well as in diaspora populations in Russia, Turkey, and the Middle East...
or the South Caucasian peoples
South Caucasian languages
The Kartvelian languages are spoken primarily in Georgia, with a large group of ethnic Georgian speakers in Russia, the United States, the European Union, and northeastern parts of Turkey. There are approximately 5.2 million speakers of this language family worldwide.It is not known to be related...
.
According to Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
, the Albanians were a group of 26 tribes which lived to the north of the Kura river
Kura River
Kura is a river, also known from the Greek as the Cyrus in the Caucasus Mountains. Starting in north-eastern Turkey, it flows through Turkey to Georgia, then to Azerbaijan, where it receives the Aras River as a right tributary, and enters the Caspian Sea...
and each of them had its own king and language. Sometime before the 1st century BC they federated into one state and were ruled by one king.
Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
wrote of the Caucasian Albanians in the 1st century BC:
Albania is also mentioned by Dionysius Periegetes
Dionysius Periegetes
Dionysius Periegetes was the author of a description of the habitable world in Greek hexameter verse written in a terse and elegant style...
(2nd or 3rd c. AD) who describes Albanians as a nation of warriors, living by the Iberians and the Georgians.
In 1899 a silver plate featuring Roman toreutics
Toreutics
Toreutics is a term, relatively rare in English, for artistic metalworking, by hammering gold or silver , engraving, Repoussé and chasing to form minute detailed reliefs or small engraved patterns. Toreutics can include metal-engraving - forward-pressure linear metal removal with a...
was excavated near Azerbaijani village of Qalagah
Qalagah
Qalagah is a village and municipality in the Ismailli Rayon of Azerbaijan, situated 28 km to the south-west from the rayon centre, on the forepart of Ajinohur mountain. It has a population of 991....
.
The rock inscription near the south-eastern part of Boyukdash's foot (70 km
Kilometre
The kilometre is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one thousand metres and is therefore exactly equal to the distance travelled by light in free space in of a second...
from Baku
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
) was discovered on June 2, 1948 by Azerbaijani archaeologist Ishag Jafarzadeh. The legend is IMPDOMITIANO CAESARE·AVG GERMANIC L·IVLIVS MAXIMVS> LEG XII·FVL. According to Domitian
Domitian
Domitian was Roman Emperor from 81 to 96. Domitian was the third and last emperor of the Flavian dynasty.Domitian's youth and early career were largely spent in the shadow of his brother Titus, who gained military renown during the First Jewish-Roman War...
's titles in it, the related march took place between 84 and 96. The inscription was studied by Russian expert Yevgeni Pakhomov
Yevgeni Pakhomov
Yevgeni Alexandrovich Pakhomov was a Russian, Georgian and Azerbaijani numismatist and archaeologist and a recognized authority in the numismatics of the Caucasus....
, who assumed that the associated campaign was launched to control the Derbent Gate
Gates of Alexander
The Gates of Alexander was a legendary barrier supposedly built by Alexander the Great in the Caucasus to keep the uncivilized barbarians of the north from invading the land to the south. The gates were a popular subject in medieval travel literature, starting with the Alexander Romance in a...
and that the XII Fulminata has marched out either from Melitene, its permanent base, or Armenia, where it might have moved from before. Pakhomov supposed that the legion proceeded to the spot continually along the Aras River. The later version, published in 1956, states that the legion was stationing in Cappadocia
Cappadocia
Cappadocia is a historical region in Central Anatolia, largely in Nevşehir Province.In the time of Herodotus, the Cappadocians were reported as occupying the whole region from Mount Taurus to the vicinity of the Euxine...
by that time whereas the centurion might have been in Albania with some diplomatic mission because for the talks with the Eastern rulers the Roman commanders were usually sending centurions.
In 1953 twelve denarii of Augustus were unearthed. In 1958 one denarius, coined in c. 82 AD, was revealed in the Şamaxı
Samaxi
Şamaxı is a city in and the capital of the Shamakhi Rayon of Azerbaijan. The city has a rich heritage and has provided the backdrop to major political events throughout much of its two millennia of existence. The city's estimated population as of 2010 was 31,704...
trove.
During the reign of Roman emperor Hadrian
Hadrian
Hadrian , was Roman Emperor from 117 to 138. He is best known for building Hadrian's Wall, which marked the northern limit of Roman Britain. In Rome, he re-built the Pantheon and constructed the Temple of Venus and Roma. In addition to being emperor, Hadrian was a humanist and was philhellene in...
(117-138) Albania was invaded by the Alans
Alans
The Alans, or the Alani, occasionally termed Alauni or Halani, were a group of Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoralists of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian.-Name:The various forms of Alan —...
, an Iranian nomadic group. This invasion promoted an alliance between Rome and the Albanians that was reinforced under Antoninus Pius
Antoninus Pius
Antoninus Pius , also known as Antoninus, was Roman Emperor from 138 to 161. He was a member of the Nerva-Antonine dynasty and the Aurelii. He did not possess the sobriquet "Pius" until after his accession to the throne...
in 140 AD. Sassanians occupied the area around 240 Ad but after a few years the Roman Empire regained control of Caucasian Albania.
Indeed in 297 the treaty of Nisibis stipulated the reestablishment of the Roman protectorate over Caucasian Iberia
Caucasian Iberia
Iberia , also known as Iveria , was a name given by the ancient Greeks and Romans to the ancient Georgian kingdom of Kartli , corresponding roughly to the eastern and southern parts of the present day Georgia...
and Albania. But fifty years later Rome lost the area that since then remained an integral part of the Sasanian Empire.
Parthian period
Under ParthianParthian Empire
The Parthian Empire , also known as the Arsacid Empire , was a major Iranian political and cultural power in ancient Persia...
rule, Iranian political and cultural influence increased in the region. Whatever the sporadic suzerainty of Rome, the country was now a part—together with Iberia (East Georgia) and (Caucasian) Albania, where other Arsacid branches reigned—of a pan-Arsacid family federation. Culturally, the predominance of Hellenism, as under the Artaxiads, was now followed by a predominance of "Iranianism", and, symptomatically, instead of Greek, as before, Parthian
Parthian language
The Parthian language, also known as Arsacid Pahlavi and Pahlavanik, is a now-extinct ancient Northwestern Iranian language spoken in Parthia, a region of northeastern ancient Persia during the rule of the Parthian empire....
became the language of the educated. An incursion in this era was made by the Alans
Alans
The Alans, or the Alani, occasionally termed Alauni or Halani, were a group of Sarmatian tribes, nomadic pastoralists of the 1st millennium AD who spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into modern Ossetian.-Name:The various forms of Alan —...
who between 134 and 136 attacked Albania, Media, and Armenia, penetrating as far as Cappadocia. But Vologases
Vologases
Vologases, also seen as Vologaeses, Vologaesus, Vologeses, Ologases, Valarsh , and Balash was the name of six kings of Parthia:*Vologases I c. 51–78*Vologases II c. 77–80...
persuaded them to withdraw, probably by paying them.
Sassanid period
In 252-253, Caucasian Albania, along with Caucasian IberiaCaucasian Iberia
Iberia , also known as Iveria , was a name given by the ancient Greeks and Romans to the ancient Georgian kingdom of Kartli , corresponding roughly to the eastern and southern parts of the present day Georgia...
and Greater Armenia, was conquered and annexed by the Sassanid Empire
Sassanid Empire
The Sassanid Empire , known to its inhabitants as Ērānshahr and Ērān in Middle Persian and resulting in the New Persian terms Iranshahr and Iran , was the last pre-Islamic Persian Empire, ruled by the Sasanian Dynasty from 224 to 651...
. Albania became a vassal state
Vassal state
A vassal state is any state that is subordinate to another. The vassal in these cases is the ruler, rather than the state itself. Being a vassal most commonly implies providing military assistance to the dominant state when requested to do so; it sometimes implies paying tribute, but a state which...
of the Sassanid Empire, but retained its monarchy; the Albanian king had no real power and most civil, religious, and military authority lay with the Sassanid marzban
Marzban
Marzban were a class of margraves or military commanders in charge of border provinces of the Sassanid Empire of Persia between the 3rd and 7th centuries CE....
(military governor) of the territory.
Romans obtained again control of Caucasian Albania as a vassal state for a few years around 300 AD, but soon after that the Sassanians dominated again the area for centuries until the Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
invasions.
Albania was mentioned among the Sasanian provinces listed in the trilingual inscription of Shapur I
Shapur I
Shapur I or also known as Shapur I the Great was the second Sassanid King of the Second Persian Empire. The dates of his reign are commonly given as 240/42 - 270/72, but it is likely that he also reigned as co-regent prior to his father's death in 242 .-Early years:Shapur was the son of Ardashir I...
at Naqsh-e Rustam
Naqsh-e Rustam
Naqsh-e Rustam also referred to as Necropolis is an archaeological site located about 12 km northwest of Persepolis, in Fars province, Iran. Naqsh-e Rustam lies a few hundred meters from Naqsh-e Rajab....
.
In the middle of the 4th century the king of Albania Urnayr arrived in Armenia and was baptized by Gregory the Illuminator
Gregory the Illuminator
Saint Gregory the Illuminator or Saint Gregory the Enlightener is the patron saint and first official head of the Armenian Apostolic Church...
, but Christianity spread in Albania only gradually, and the Albanian king remained loyal to the Sassanids. After the partition of Armenia between Byzantium and Persia (in 387 AD), Albania with Sassanid help was able to seize from Armenia all the right bank of the river Kura up to river Araxes, including Artsakh and Utik.
Sasanian king Yazdegerd II
Yazdegerd II
Yazdegerd II was the fifteenth Sassanid King of Persia. He was the son of Bahram V and reigned from 438 to 457....
passed an edict requiring all the Christians in his empire to convert to Mazdaism, fearing that Christians might ally with Roman Empire, which had recently adopted Christianity. This led to a rebellion of Albanians, along with Armenians and Iberians. In a battle that took place in 451 AD in the Avarayr field
Battle of Vartanantz
The Battle of Avarayr also known as Battle of Vartanantz, was fought on May 26, 451 on the Avarayr Plain in Vaspurakan, between the Armenian Army under Saint Vartan and their Sassanid rulers...
, the allied forces of the Armenian, Albanian and Iberian kings, devoted to Christianity, suffered defeat at the hands of the Sassanid army. Many of the Armenian nobility fled to the mountainous regions of Albania, particularly to Artsakh, which became a center for resistance to Sassanid Persia. The religious center of the Albanian state also moved here. However, the Albanian king Vache, a relative of Yazdegerd II, was forced to convert to the official religion of the Sasanian empire, but soon reverted back to Christianity.
In the middle of the 5th century by the order of the Persian king Peroz I
Peroz I
Peroz I Peroz I Peroz I (also Pirooz; Peirozes (Priscus, fr. 33); Perozes (Procopius, De Bello Pers. I. 3 and Agathias iv. 27; the modern form of the name is Perooz, Piruz, or the Arabized Ferooz, Firuz; Persian: پیروز "the Victor"), was the seventeenth Sassanid King of Persia, who ruled from 457...
Vache built in Utik the city initially called Perozabad, and later Partaw and Barda
Barda, Azerbaijan
Barda is the capital city of the Barda Rayon in Azerbaijan, located south of Yevlax and on the left bank of the Terter river. Once an Armenian town, and later the capital of Caucasian Albania perhaps since the end of the fourth century, Barda became the chief city of the Islamic province of Arran,...
, and made it the capital of Albania. Partaw was the seat of the Albanian kings and Persian marzban, and in 552 AD the seat of the Albanian Catholicos was also transferred to Partaw.
After the death of Vache, Albania remained without a king for thirty years. The Sasanian Balash
Balash
Balash , the eighteenth Sassanid King of Persia in 484–488, was the brother and successor of Peroz I of Persia , who had died in a battle against the Hephthalites who invaded Persia from the east.- Reign of Balash :Balash was made King of Persia following the death of his...
reestablished the Albanian monarchy by making Vachagan, son of Yazdegerd and brother of the previous king Vache, the king of Albania.
By the end of the 5th century, the ancient Arsacid royal house of Albania
Arsacid Dynasty of Caucasian Albania
The Arsacid Dynasty was a dynasty of Parthian origin, which ruled the kingdom of Caucasian Albania in the 1st - 5th century AD. They were a branch of the Parthian Arsacid dynasty and together with the Arsacid rulers of the neighboring Armenia and Iberia formed a pan-Arsacid family federation. The...
, a branch of the ruling dynasty of Parthia
Parthia
Parthia is a region of north-eastern Iran, best known for having been the political and cultural base of the Arsacid dynasty, rulers of the Parthian Empire....
, became extinct, and in the 6th century it was replaced by princes of the Persian or Parthian Mihranid
Mihranids
The Mihranids were the ruling dynasty of Caucasian Albania in the early Middle Ages. They claimed to be of Sassanian Persian descent but were probably of Parthian origin....
family, who claimed descent from the Sasanians. They assumed a Persian title of Arranshah (i.e.the shah
Shah
Shāh is the title of the ruler of certain Southwest Asian and Central Asian countries, especially Persia , and derives from the Persian word shah, meaning "king".-History:...
of Arran, the Persian name of Albania). The ruling dynasty was named after its Persian founder Mihran, who was a distant relative of the Sasanians. The Mihranid dynasty survived under Muslim suzerainty until 821-2.
In the late 6th – early 7th centuries the territory of Albania became an arena of wars between Sasanian Persia, Byzantium
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...
and the Khazar kaganate, the latter two very often acting as allies. In 628, during the Third Perso-Turkic War
Third Perso-Turkic War
The Third Perso-Turkic War was the third and final conflict between the Sassanian Empire and the Western Turkic Khaganate. Unlike the previous two wars, it was fought, not in Central Asia, but in Transcaucasia. Hostilities were initiated in 627 AD by Khagan Tong Yabghu of the Western Göktürks and...
, the Khazars invaded Albania, and their leader Ziebel declared himself lord of Albania, levying a tax on merchants and the fishermen of the Kura and Araxes rivers "in accordance with the land survey of the kingdom of Persia". Most of Transcaucasia was under Khazar rule before the arrival of the Arabs. The Albanian kings retained their rule by paying tribute to the regional powers. According to Peter Golden, "steady pressure from Turkic nomads was typical of the Khazar era, although there are no unambiguous references to permanent settlements", while Vladimir Minorsky stated that, in Islamic times, "the town of Qabala lying between Sharvan and Shakki was a place where Khazars were probably settled".
Impact of Armenian politics, culture and civilization
ArmeniaArmenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
n politics, culture and civilization played a critical role in the entire history of Caucasian Albania (Aghvank, in Armenian). This, due to the fact that after the partition of the Kingdom of Armenia by Persia and Byzantium
Byzantium
Byzantium was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 667 BC and named after their king Byzas . The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion...
in 387 AD, the Armenian provinces of Artsakh
Artsakh
Artsakh was the tenth province of the Kingdom of Armenia from 189 BC until 387 AD and afterwards a region of Caucasian Albania from 387 to the 7th century. From the 7th to 9th centuries, it fell under Arab control...
and Utik
Utik
Utik was a historic province of the Kingdom of Armenia and a region of Caucasian Albania. Most of the region is located within present-day Azerbaijan immediately west of the Kura River while a part of it lies within the Tavush province of present-day northeastern Armenia.-History:According to...
were disassociated from Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
proper and included by Persians
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
into a single province (marzpanate) called Aghvank (Arran). This new unit included: the original Caucasian Albania, found between the River Kura and the Great Caucasus; tribes living along the Caspian shore; as well as Artsakh
Artsakh
Artsakh was the tenth province of the Kingdom of Armenia from 189 BC until 387 AD and afterwards a region of Caucasian Albania from 387 to the 7th century. From the 7th to 9th centuries, it fell under Arab control...
and Utik
Utik
Utik was a historic province of the Kingdom of Armenia and a region of Caucasian Albania. Most of the region is located within present-day Azerbaijan immediately west of the Kura River while a part of it lies within the Tavush province of present-day northeastern Armenia.-History:According to...
, two territories now detached from Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
.
The Armenian medieval atlas Ashkharatsuits (Աշխարացույց), compiled in the 7th century by Anania Shirakatsi
Anania Shirakatsi
Anania Shirakatsi was an Armenian mathematician, astronomer and geographer. He is commonly attributed to having written the Geography .-Life:Scholars are split on where exactly Anania was born...
(Անանիա Շիրակացի, but sometimes attributed to Movses Khorenatsi
Movses Khorenatsi
Moses of Chorene, also Moses of Khoren, Moses Chorenensis, or Movses Khorenatsi , or a 7th to 9th century date) was an Armenian historian, and author of the History of Armenia....
as well), categorizes Artsakh
Artsakh
Artsakh was the tenth province of the Kingdom of Armenia from 189 BC until 387 AD and afterwards a region of Caucasian Albania from 387 to the 7th century. From the 7th to 9th centuries, it fell under Arab control...
and Utik
Utik
Utik was a historic province of the Kingdom of Armenia and a region of Caucasian Albania. Most of the region is located within present-day Azerbaijan immediately west of the Kura River while a part of it lies within the Tavush province of present-day northeastern Armenia.-History:According to...
as provinces of Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
despite their presumed detachment from the Armenian Kingdom and their political association with Caucasian Albania and Persia at the time of his writing. Shirakatsi
Anania Shirakatsi
Anania Shirakatsi was an Armenian mathematician, astronomer and geographer. He is commonly attributed to having written the Geography .-Life:Scholars are split on where exactly Anania was born...
specifies that Artsakh
Artsakh
Artsakh was the tenth province of the Kingdom of Armenia from 189 BC until 387 AD and afterwards a region of Caucasian Albania from 387 to the 7th century. From the 7th to 9th centuries, it fell under Arab control...
and Utik
Utik
Utik was a historic province of the Kingdom of Armenia and a region of Caucasian Albania. Most of the region is located within present-day Azerbaijan immediately west of the Kura River while a part of it lies within the Tavush province of present-day northeastern Armenia.-History:According to...
are “now detached” from Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
and included in “Aghvank,” and he takes care to distinguish this new entity from the old “Aghvank strictly speaking” (Բուն Աղվանք) situated north of the river Kura. Because it was more homogeneous and more developed than the original tribes to the north of the Kura, the Armenian element took over Caucasian Albania’s political life and was progressively able to impose its language and culture.
Armenian population of Artsakh
Artsakh
Artsakh was the tenth province of the Kingdom of Armenia from 189 BC until 387 AD and afterwards a region of Caucasian Albania from 387 to the 7th century. From the 7th to 9th centuries, it fell under Arab control...
and Utik
Utik
Utik was a historic province of the Kingdom of Armenia and a region of Caucasian Albania. Most of the region is located within present-day Azerbaijan immediately west of the Kura River while a part of it lies within the Tavush province of present-day northeastern Armenia.-History:According to...
remained in place as did the entire political, social, cultural and military structure of the provinces. In the 5th century, Armenia’s foremost early medieval historian Movses Khorenatsi
Movses Khorenatsi
Moses of Chorene, also Moses of Khoren, Moses Chorenensis, or Movses Khorenatsi , or a 7th to 9th century date) was an Armenian historian, and author of the History of Armenia....
(Մովսես Խորենացի) testifies that the population of Artsakh
Artsakh
Artsakh was the tenth province of the Kingdom of Armenia from 189 BC until 387 AD and afterwards a region of Caucasian Albania from 387 to the 7th century. From the 7th to 9th centuries, it fell under Arab control...
and Utik
Utik
Utik was a historic province of the Kingdom of Armenia and a region of Caucasian Albania. Most of the region is located within present-day Azerbaijan immediately west of the Kura River while a part of it lies within the Tavush province of present-day northeastern Armenia.-History:According to...
spoke Armenian, with the River Kura, in his words, marking the “boundary of Armenian speech” (… զեզերս հայկական խօսիցս). though this does not mean that its population consisted exclusively of ethnic Armenians.
Whatever little is known about Caucasian Albania after 387 AD comes from the text “History of the Land of Aghvank” (Պատմություն Աղվանից Աշխարհի) attributed to two Armenian authors: Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi , or Movses Daskhurantsi , is the reputed author of a 10th-century Old Armenian historiographical work on Caucasian Albania, known as The History of the Country of Albania .- Authorship :...
and Movses Daskhurantsi. This text, written in Old Armenian, in essence represents the history of Armenia’s provinces of Artsakh and Utik. Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi , or Movses Daskhurantsi , is the reputed author of a 10th-century Old Armenian historiographical work on Caucasian Albania, known as The History of the Country of Albania .- Authorship :...
, repeating Movses Khorenatsi
Movses Khorenatsi
Moses of Chorene, also Moses of Khoren, Moses Chorenensis, or Movses Khorenatsi , or a 7th to 9th century date) was an Armenian historian, and author of the History of Armenia....
, mentions that the very name “Aghvank”/“Albania” is of Armenian origin, and relates it to the Armenian word “aghu” (աղու, meaning “kind,” “benevolent”. Khorenatsi states that “aghu” was a nickname given to Prince Arran, whom the Armenian king Vagharshak I appointed as governor of northeastern provinces bordering on Armenia. According to a legendary tradition reported by Khorenatsi
Movses Khorenatsi
Moses of Chorene, also Moses of Khoren, Moses Chorenensis, or Movses Khorenatsi , or a 7th to 9th century date) was an Armenian historian, and author of the History of Armenia....
, Arran was a descendant of Sisak, the ancestor of the Siunids of Armenia’s province of Syunik
Syunik
Syunik is the southernmost province of Armenia. It borders the Vayots Dzor marz to the north, Azerbaijan's Nakhchivan exclave to the west, Karabakh to the east, and Iran to the south. Its capital is Kapan. Other important cities and towns include Goris, Sisian, Meghri, Agarak, and Dastakert...
, and thus a great-grandson of the ancestral eponym of the Armenians, the Forefather Hayk. Kaghankatvatsi and another Armenian author, Kirakos Gandzaketsi, confirm Arran’s belonging to Hayk’s blood line by calling Arranshahiks “a Haykazian dynasty.”
Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi , or Movses Daskhurantsi , is the reputed author of a 10th-century Old Armenian historiographical work on Caucasian Albania, known as The History of the Country of Albania .- Authorship :...
’s “History” and in the historical text of the Armenian early medieval author Agathangelos
Agathangelos
Agathangelos , appropriately so named, was a supposed secretary of Tiridates III, King of Armenia, under whose name there has come down a life of the first apostle of Armenia, Gregory the Illuminator, who died about 332. It purports to exhibit the deeds and discourses of Gregory, and has reached us...
, the Kingdom of Aghvank’s feudal system, including its political terminology, was Armenian. As in Armenia, nobles of Aghvank are referred to by the terms nakharar
Nakharar
Nakharar was a hereditary title of the highest order given to houses of the ancient and medieval Armenian nobility.-Nakharar system:Medieval Armenia was divided into large estates, which were the property of an enlarged noble family and were ruled by a member of it, to whom the title of Nahapet...
s (նախարար), azat
Azat
Azat was a class of Armenian nobility; the term came to designate the middle and lower nobility originally, in contrast to the naxararkʿ who were the great lords...
s (ազատ), hazarapets (հազարապետ), marzpets (մարզպետ), shinakans (շինական), etc.
Princely families, which were later mentioned in Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi , or Movses Daskhurantsi , is the reputed author of a 10th-century Old Armenian historiographical work on Caucasian Albania, known as The History of the Country of Albania .- Authorship :...
’s “History …” were included in the Table of Ranks called “Gahnamak”
Armenian nobility
Armenian nobility has a long history with many interruptions, most notable of which were the Ottoman and Russian occupations of Armenia.-Terminology:...
(direct translation: “List of Thrones,” Arm. Գահնամակ) of the Kingdom of Armenia, which defined Armenia’s aristocratic hierarchy. Princely families of Caucasian Albania were also included in the Table of Armies called “Zoranamak”
Armenian nobility
Armenian nobility has a long history with many interruptions, most notable of which were the Ottoman and Russian occupations of Armenia.-Terminology:...
(Arm. Զորանամակ) of the Kingdom of Armenia which determined military obligations of key aristocratic families before the Armenian King in times of war.
As in Armenia, the “Albanian” clergy used exclusively Armenian church terms for clerical hierarchy (katholikos/կաթողիկոս, vardapet/վարդապետ, sargavag/սարգավագ, etc.) Identifiably Armenian are also most if not all toponyms found in the “History” Not only are the names of most towns, villages, mountains, and rivers uniquely Armenian morphologically, exactly the same toponyms were and are still found in other parts of historical Armenia. They include the root kert (“town”) for towns (Arm.: կերտ, such Dastakert, Hnarakert – compare with Tigranakert or modern Stapanakert in Nagorno Karabakh), shen and kan (village) for villages (Arm. շեն, and կան, such as Karashen or Dyutakan), etc.
First names of most rulers, commoners and clergy in Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi , or Movses Daskhurantsi , is the reputed author of a 10th-century Old Armenian historiographical work on Caucasian Albania, known as The History of the Country of Albania .- Authorship :...
’s “History …” are uniquely Armenian. Many of these names survived centuries and are still used only by modern Armenians. These include: Vachagan (Վախագան), Vache (Վաչե), Bakur (Բակուր), Taguhi (Թագուհի), Vrtanes (Վրթաննես), Viro (Վիրո), Varaz-Trdat (Վարազ-Տրդաթ), Marut (Մարութ), etc. Some of these names can be translated from Armenian as common words: e.g. Taguhi means “queen” and Varaz means “wild boar.” In fact, Armenians to this day use the first name Aghvan (Աղվան) that directly refers to the Kingdom of Aghvank.
After the partition, the capital city of Caucasian Albania was moved from the territories on the eastern bank of the River Kura (referred to by Armenians “Aghvank Proper,” Arm. Բուն Աղվանք) to Partav, located in the former Armenian province of Utik. This was followed by the transfer of the Seat of the Kingdom of Albania’s religious leader (Katholicos) from territories north of Kura to Partav.
Kingdom of Albania was converted to Christianity at the start of the 4th century by none other than the Armenian evangelizer St. Gregory the Enlightener
Gregory the Illuminator
Saint Gregory the Illuminator or Saint Gregory the Enlightener is the patron saint and first official head of the Armenian Apostolic Church...
(Arm. Սբ. Գրիգոր Լուսավորիչ), who baptized Armenia into the first Christian state by 301 AD In about 330 AD, the grandson of St. Gregory, St. Grigoris, ecumenical head of the eastern provinces of Armenia, was designated bishop for the Kingdom of Aghvank. Mausoleum interning Grigoris’ remains, the Amaras Monastery
Amaras Monastery
Amaras Monastery is one of the oldest Christian sites in the world and in Nagorno-Karabakh, and is an Armenian Apostolic monastery located near the village of Sos in the Martuni county of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.- History :...
stands as the oldest dated monument in Nagorno Karabakh. Amaras
Amaras Monastery
Amaras Monastery is one of the oldest Christian sites in the world and in Nagorno-Karabakh, and is an Armenian Apostolic monastery located near the village of Sos in the Martuni county of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.- History :...
was started by St Gregory and completed by St. Grigoris himself.
According to tradition, the Amaras Monastery
Amaras Monastery
Amaras Monastery is one of the oldest Christian sites in the world and in Nagorno-Karabakh, and is an Armenian Apostolic monastery located near the village of Sos in the Martuni county of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.- History :...
housed the first Armenian school in the historical Armenia, which was opened early in the 5th century by the inventor of the Armenian alphabet St. Mesrob Mashtots. St. Mesrob Mashtots was intensely active in preaching Gospel in Artsakh and Utik. Movses Kaghankatvatsi’s “History” dedicates four separate chapters to St. Mashtots’ mission, referring to him as “enlightener” and “saint” (chapters 27, 28 and 29 of Book One, and chapter 3 of Book Two). Overall, St. Mesrob made three trips to the Kingdom of Albania where he toured not only the Armenian lands of Artsakh and Utik but also territories to the north of the River Kura.
Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi , or Movses Daskhurantsi , is the reputed author of a 10th-century Old Armenian historiographical work on Caucasian Albania, known as The History of the Country of Albania .- Authorship :...
’s “History” describes Armenian influence on the Church of Aghvank, whose jurisdiction extended from Artsakh and Utik to regions to the north of the River Kura, in the territories of the “original,” “pre-Armenian” Caucasian Albania. One of the consequences of this was that Armenian language progressively supplanted Albanian as the language of church and state (and only if there was any single “Albanian” language in the first place which is doubtful because the population of Albania/Aghvank was described as consisting of as many 26 different tribes). Although Mesrob Mashtots provided the Albanian king with an alphabet, shortly after inventing a script for his fellow Armenians in 406 AD, the main “Albanian” language, Gargarean, disappeared, with only a few fragments of inscriptions dated from the 6th and 7th centuries. In contrast, Armenian language flourished in the Armenian portion of Aghvank. The 7th-century Armenian linguist and grammarian Stephanos Syunetsi stated in his work that Armenians of Artsakh had their own dialect, and encouraged his readers to learn it. In the same 7th century, Armenian poet Davtak Kertogh
Davtak Kertogh
Davtak Kertogh was a 7th century Armenian poet, the first secular writer in Armenian literature. He is the author of "Elegy on the Death of the Great Prince Jevansher", dedicated to the first Sassanid Persian prince of Caucasian Albania, who accepted Christianity and was murdered.The only...
writes his Elegy on the Death of Grand Prince Juansher
Javanshir
Javanshir , in old Albanian Our Lion, in Persian young lion, was the prince of Caucasian Albania from 643 to 681, hailing from the region of Gardman. His deeds are the subject of legends and epic...
, where each passage begins with a letter of Armenian script in alphabetical order.
Christianization
The polytheistic religion of Albania was centered on the worship of three divinities, designated by Interpretatio Romana as SolSol (mythology)
Sol was the solar deity in Ancient Roman religion. It was long thought that Rome actually had two different, consecutive sun gods. The first, Sol Indiges, was thought to have been unimportant, disappearing altogether at an early period. Only in the late Roman Empire, scholars argued, did solar cult...
, Zeus
Zeus
In the ancient Greek religion, Zeus was the "Father of Gods and men" who ruled the Olympians of Mount Olympus as a father ruled the family. He was the god of sky and thunder in Greek mythology. His Roman counterpart is Jupiter and his Etruscan counterpart is Tinia.Zeus was the child of Cronus...
, and Luna.
Christianity started to enter Caucasian Albania at an early date, according to Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi
Movses Kaghankatvatsi , or Movses Daskhurantsi , is the reputed author of a 10th-century Old Armenian historiographical work on Caucasian Albania, known as The History of the Country of Albania .- Authorship :...
, as early as during the 1st century. The first Christian church in the region was built by St. Eliseus, a disciple of Thaddeus of Edessa, at a place called Gis. Shortly after Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
adopted Christianity as its state religion (301 AD), the Caucasian Albanian king Urnayr went to the See of the Armenian Apostolic Church
Armenian Apostolic Church
The Armenian Apostolic Church is the world's oldest National Church, is part of Oriental Orthodoxy, and is one of the most ancient Christian communities. Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as its official religion in 301 AD, in establishing this church...
to receive baptism from St. Gregory the Illuminator
Gregory the Illuminator
Saint Gregory the Illuminator or Saint Gregory the Enlightener is the patron saint and first official head of the Armenian Apostolic Church...
, the first Patriarch of Armenia.
King Vachagan III helped to implant Christianity in Caucasian Albania, through a synod allowing the church legal rights in some domestic issues. In 498 AD (in other sources, 488 AD) in the settlement named Aluen (Aghuen) (present day Agdam region of Azerbaijan), an Albanian church council convened to adopt laws further strengthening the position of Christianity in Albania.
Albanian churchmen took part in missionary efforts in the Caucasus and Pontic regions. In 682, the catholicos
Catholicos
Catholicos, plural Catholicoi, is a title used for the head of certain churches in some Eastern Christian traditions. The title implies autocephaly and in some cases is borne by the designated head of an autonomous church, in which case the holder might have other titles such as Patriarch...
, Israel
Israel (Bishop of Caucasian Albania)
Israel was the bishop of Caucasian Albania in the latter part of the seventh century. In 682 he led an unsuccessful delegation to convert Alp Iluetuer, the ruler of the North Caucasian Huns, to Christianity. Israel wrote about the customs of the Huns, including the local cult of Tengri....
, led an unsuccessful delegation to convert Alp Iluetuer
Alp Iluetuer
Alp Ilutuer was the Ilutuer of the North Caucasian Huns during the 680's CE.He is mentioned in the account of Bishop Israel of Caucasian Albania, who travelled to Alp Ilutuer's court in an unsuccessful attempt to convert him and his people to Christianity.Alp is an Old Turkic word meaning "hero",...
, the ruler of the North Caucasian Huns
North Caucasian Huns
The North Caucasian Huns were a branch of the Huns that established a polity in Daghestan in the 6th century and 7th century CE. The North Caucasian Huns probably incorporated numerous indigenous Caucasian tribes following their settlement in the area....
, to Christianity. The Albanian Church maintained a number of monasteries in the Holy Land
Holy Land
The Holy Land is a term which in Judaism refers to the Kingdom of Israel as defined in the Tanakh. For Jews, the Land's identifiction of being Holy is defined in Judaism by its differentiation from other lands by virtue of the practice of Judaism often possible only in the Land of Israel...
. In the 7th century, Varaz-Grigor, ruler of Albania, and "his nation" were christened by Emperor Heraclius
Heraclius
Heraclius was Byzantine Emperor from 610 to 641.He was responsible for introducing Greek as the empire's official language. His rise to power began in 608, when he and his father, Heraclius the Elder, the exarch of Africa, successfully led a revolt against the unpopular usurper Phocas.Heraclius'...
at Gardman.
After the overthrow of Nerses in 705, the Caucasian Albanian elite decided to reestablish the tradition of having their Catholicoi ordained through the Patriarch of Armenia, as it was the case before 590. This event is generally regarded as the abolition of the Church of Caucasian Albania, and the lowering of its denominational status to that of a Catholicate within the body of the Armenian Apostolic Church.
Islamic era
Sassanid Albania fell to the Islamic conquest of Persia
Islamic conquest of Persia
The Muslim conquest of Persia led to the end of the Sassanid Empire in 644, the fall of Sassanid dynasty in 651 and the eventual decline of the Zoroastrian religion in Persia...
in the mid 7th century and was incorporated into the Rashidun Caliphate
Rashidun Caliphate
The Rashidun Caliphate , comprising the first four caliphs in Islam's history, was founded after Muhammad's death in 632, Year 10 A.H.. At its height, the Caliphate extended from the Arabian Peninsula, to the Levant, Caucasus and North Africa in the west, to the Iranian highlands and Central Asia...
.
King Javanshir
Javanshir
Javanshir , in old Albanian Our Lion, in Persian young lion, was the prince of Caucasian Albania from 643 to 681, hailing from the region of Gardman. His deeds are the subject of legends and epic...
of Albania, the most prominent ruler of Mihranid dynasty, fought against the Arab invasion of caliph
Caliph
The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the ruler of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah. It is a transcribed version of the Arabic word which means "successor" or "representative"...
Uthman
Uthman
Uthman ibn Affan was one of the companions of Islamic prophet, Muhammad. He played a major role in early Islamic history as the third Sunni Rashidun or Rightly Guided Caliph....
on the side of the Sasanid Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
. Facing the threat of the Arab invasion on the south and the Khazar offensive on the north, Javanshir had to recognize the caliph's suzerainty. The Arabs then reunited the territory with Armenia under one governor.
By the 8th century, "Albania" had been reduced to a strictly geographical and titular
Titular see
A titular see in various churches is an episcopal see of a former diocese that no longer functions, sometimes called a "dead diocese". The ordinary or hierarch of such a see may be styled a "titular bishop", "titular metropolitan", or "titular archbishop"....
ecclesiastical connotation, and was referred to as such by medieval Armenian historians; on its place sprang a number principalities, such as that of the Armenian principality and kingdom of Khachen
Khachin principality
The Principality of Khachen , also known as Khamsa , was a medieval Armenian principality in the territory of historical Artsakh...
, along with various Caucasian, Iranian and Arabic principalities: the principality of Shaddadid
Shaddadid
The Shaddadids were a Kurdish dynasty who ruled in various parts of Armenia and Arran from 951-1174 AD. They were established in Dvin. Through their long tenure in Armenia, they often intermarried with the Bagratuni royal family of Armenia....
s, the principality of Shirvan
Shirvan
Shirvan , also spelled as Shirwan, Shervan, Sherwan and Šervān, is a historical region in the eastern Caucasus, known by this name in both Islamic and modern times...
, the principality of Derbent
Derbent
Derbent |Lak]]: Чурул, Churul; Persian: دربند; Judæo-Tat: דארבּאנד/Дэрбэнд/Dərbənd) is a city in the Republic of Dagestan, Russia, close to the Azerbaijani border. It is the southernmost city in Russia, and it is the second most important city of Dagestan...
.
Most of the region was ruled by the Sajid Dynasty
Sajids
The Sajid dynasty was an Islamic dynasty that ruled the Iranian region of Azerbaijan from 889-890 until 929. The Sajids originated from the Central Asian province of Ushrusana and were of Iranian...
of Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan (Iran)
Azerbaijan or Azarbaijan , also Iranian Azerbaijan, Persian Azarbaijan is a region in northwestern Iran. It is also historically known as Atropatene and Aturpatakan....
from 890 to 929. The region was at times part of the Abbasid
Abbasid
The Abbasid Caliphate or, more simply, the Abbasids , was the third of the Islamic caliphates. It was ruled by the Abbasid dynasty of caliphs, who built their capital in Baghdad after overthrowing the Umayyad caliphate from all but the al-Andalus region....
province of Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
based on numismatic and historical evidence.
Early Muslim ruling dynasties of the time included Rawadids, Sajids
Sajids
The Sajid dynasty was an Islamic dynasty that ruled the Iranian region of Azerbaijan from 889-890 until 929. The Sajids originated from the Central Asian province of Ushrusana and were of Iranian...
, Salarids, Shaddadid
Shaddadid
The Shaddadids were a Kurdish dynasty who ruled in various parts of Armenia and Arran from 951-1174 AD. They were established in Dvin. Through their long tenure in Armenia, they often intermarried with the Bagratuni royal family of Armenia....
s, Shirvanshahs, and the Sheki
Sheki
Sheki can refer to:* Shiki District , multiple places* Shaki, Azerbaijan, a city* Shaki Rayon in Azerbaijan* Shaki Khanate* Sheki, Ethiopia, a town in the Oromia Region of Ethiopia...
and Tiflis emirates. The principal cities of Arran in early medieval times were Barda
Barda
Barda may refer to:*Barda Rayon, a district in Azerbaijan*Barda, Azerbaijan, a town in Azerbaijan* Bârda, a village in Malovăţ Commune, Mehedinţi County, Romania*Barda, Russia, a rural locality in Perm Krai, Russia*Jean-Pierre Barda*Olaf Barda...
(Partav) and Ganja
Ganja, Azerbaijan
Ganja is Azerbaijan's second-largest city with a population of around 313,300. It was named Yelizavetpol in the Russian Empire period. The city regained its original name—Ganja—from 1920–1935 during the first part of its incorporation into the Soviet Union. However, its name was changed again and...
. Barda
Barda
Barda may refer to:*Barda Rayon, a district in Azerbaijan*Barda, Azerbaijan, a town in Azerbaijan* Bârda, a village in Malovăţ Commune, Mehedinţi County, Romania*Barda, Russia, a rural locality in Perm Krai, Russia*Jean-Pierre Barda*Olaf Barda...
reached prominence in the 10th century, and was used to house a mint
Mint (coin)
A mint is an industrial facility which manufactures coins for currency.The history of mints correlates closely with the history of coins. One difference is that the history of the mint is usually closely tied to the political situation of an era...
. Barda was sacked by the Rus
Rus' (people)
The Rus' were a group of Varangians . According to the Primary Chronicle of Rus, compiled in about 1113 AD, the Rus had relocated from the Baltic region , first to Northeastern Europe, creating an early polity which finally came under the leadership of Rurik...
and Norse
Norsemen
Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...
several times in 10th century as result of the Caspian expeditions of the Rus
Caspian expeditions of the Rus
The Caspian expeditions of the Rus were military raids undertaken by the Rus' between 864 and 1041 on the Caspian Sea shores. Initially, the Rus' appeared in Serkland in the 9th century traveling as merchants along the Volga trade route, selling furs, honey, and slaves. The first small-scale raids...
. Barda never revived after these raids and was replaced as capital by Baylaqan, which in turn was sacked by the Mongols in 1221. After this Ganja
Ganja, Azerbaijan
Ganja is Azerbaijan's second-largest city with a population of around 313,300. It was named Yelizavetpol in the Russian Empire period. The city regained its original name—Ganja—from 1920–1935 during the first part of its incorporation into the Soviet Union. However, its name was changed again and...
rose to prominence and became the central city of the region. The capital of the Shaddadid
Shaddadid
The Shaddadids were a Kurdish dynasty who ruled in various parts of Armenia and Arran from 951-1174 AD. They were established in Dvin. Through their long tenure in Armenia, they often intermarried with the Bagratuni royal family of Armenia....
dynasty, Ganja was considered the "mother city of Arran" during their reign.
The territory of Arran became a part of the Seljuk empire, followed by the Ildegizid state. It was taken briefly by the Khwarizmid
Khwarezmian Empire
The Khwarazmian dynasty or Khwarezmian dynasty, also known as Khwarezmids, dynasty of Khwarazm Shahs or Khwarezm-Shah dynasty was a Persianate Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turkic mamluk origin.They ruled Greater Iran in the High Middle Ages, in the period of about 1077 to 1231, first as vassals of...
dynasty and then overran by Mongol Hulagu empire in the 13th century. Later, it became a part of Chobanid, Jalayirid, Timurid
Timurid Dynasty
The Timurids , self-designated Gurkānī , were a Persianate, Central Asian Sunni Muslim dynasty of Turko-Mongol descent whose empire included the whole of Iran, modern Afghanistan, and modern Uzbekistan, as well as large parts of contemporary Pakistan, North India, Mesopotamia, Anatolia and the...
, and Safavid states.
Caucasian Albania and Azerbaijani historical revisionism
The history of Caucasian Albania has been a major topic of Azerbaijani revisionist theories, which came under criticism in Western and Russian academic and analytical circles, and were often characterized as “bizarre” and “futile.”In his article “The Albanian Myth” Russian historian and anthropologist Victor Schnirelmann
Victor Schnirelmann
Victor Alexandrovich Schnirelmann is a Russian historian, ethnologist and a member of Academia Europaea . He is a senior researcher of N. N. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at the Russian Academy of Sciences and an author of over 300 works, including over 20 monographies on...
demonstrated that Azerbaijani academics have been “renaming prominent medieval Armenian
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
political leaders, historians and writers, who lived in Karabakh and Armenia into “Albanians.” Victor Schnirelmann
Victor Schnirelmann
Victor Alexandrovich Schnirelmann is a Russian historian, ethnologist and a member of Academia Europaea . He is a senior researcher of N. N. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at the Russian Academy of Sciences and an author of over 300 works, including over 20 monographies on...
argues that these efforts were first launched in the 1950s and were directed towards “ripping the population of early medieval Karabakh off from their Armenian heritage” and “cleansing Azerbaijan of Armenian history.” In the 1970s, Azerbaijan made a transition from ignoring, discounting or concealing Armenian historical heritage in Soviet Azerbaijan to misattributing and mischaracterizing it as examples of Azerbaijani culture by arbitrarily declaring “Caucasian Albanians” as ancestors of modern Azerbaijanis. In this regard, Thomas de Waal
Thomas de Waal
Thomas Patrick Lowndes de Waal , is a British journalist, writer and an expert on the Caucasus. Thomas is the son of Anglican priest Victor de Waal and of writer on religion Esther de Waal, brother of Africa specialist Alex de Waal, John de Waal, barrister and potter and writer Edmund de...
, a scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a foreign-policy think tank based in Washington, D.C. The organization describes itself as being dedicated to advancing cooperation between nations and promoting active international engagement by the United States...
, writes about the political context of Azerbaijan’s historical revisionism:
"This rather bizarre argument has the strong political subtext that Nagorno Karabakh had in fact been Caucasian Albanian and that Armenians had no claim to it"
A key revisionist method used by Azerbaijani scholars mentioned by Victor Schnirelmann
Victor Schnirelmann
Victor Alexandrovich Schnirelmann is a Russian historian, ethnologist and a member of Academia Europaea . He is a senior researcher of N. N. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology at the Russian Academy of Sciences and an author of over 300 works, including over 20 monographies on...
and others was ”re-publishing of ancient and medieval sources, where the term “Armenian state” was routinely and systematically removed and replaced with “Albanian state.” American author George Bournoutian gives examples of how that was done by Ziya Bunyadov
Ziya Bunyadov
Ziya Musa oglu Bunyadov was an Azerbaijani historian, academician, and Vice-President of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan. As a historian, he also headed the Institute of History of the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences for many years...
, vice-chairman of Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences, who earned the nickname of “Azerbaijan’s foremost Armenophobe.”
According to Thomas de Waal
Thomas de Waal
Thomas Patrick Lowndes de Waal , is a British journalist, writer and an expert on the Caucasus. Thomas is the son of Anglican priest Victor de Waal and of writer on religion Esther de Waal, brother of Africa specialist Alex de Waal, John de Waal, barrister and potter and writer Edmund de...
:
"Buniatov’s scholarly credentials were dubious. It later transpired that the two articles he published in 1960 and 1965 on Caucasian Albania were direct plagiarismPlagiarismPlagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
. Under his own name, he had simply published, unattributed, translations of two articles, originally written in English by Western scholars C.F.J. DowsettCharles dowsettCharles James Frank Dowsett was the first Calouste Gulbenkian Professor of Armenian at the University of Oxford from 1965 to 1991...
and Robert Hewsen."
Robert Hewsen, a historian from Rowan College and the acknowledged authority in this field, wrote in his volume Armenia: A Historical Atlas, published by Chicago University Press:
According to Thomas de Waal
Thomas de Waal
Thomas Patrick Lowndes de Waal , is a British journalist, writer and an expert on the Caucasus. Thomas is the son of Anglican priest Victor de Waal and of writer on religion Esther de Waal, brother of Africa specialist Alex de Waal, John de Waal, barrister and potter and writer Edmund de...
, a disciple of Ziya Bunyadov
Ziya Bunyadov
Ziya Musa oglu Bunyadov was an Azerbaijani historian, academician, and Vice-President of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan. As a historian, he also headed the Institute of History of the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences for many years...
, Farida Mammadova
Farida Mammadova
Farida Jafar gizi Mammadova is an Azerbaijani historian who specialises in the history of ancient Caucasian Albania.She is the author of numerous research papers, articles and books on Azerbaijani ancient and medieval history...
, has “taken the Albanian theory and used it to push Armenians out of the Caucasus altogether. She had relocated Caucasian Albania into what is now the present-day Republic of Armenia. All those lands, churches, and monasteries in the Republic of Armenia—all had been Albanian. No sacred Armenian fact was left un-attacked.” Thomas de Waal
Thomas de Waal
Thomas Patrick Lowndes de Waal , is a British journalist, writer and an expert on the Caucasus. Thomas is the son of Anglican priest Victor de Waal and of writer on religion Esther de Waal, brother of Africa specialist Alex de Waal, John de Waal, barrister and potter and writer Edmund de...
describes Mammadova as a sophisticated end of what “in Azerbaijan has become a very blunt instrument indeed.” Both Ziya Bunyadov
Ziya Bunyadov
Ziya Musa oglu Bunyadov was an Azerbaijani historian, academician, and Vice-President of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan. As a historian, he also headed the Institute of History of the Azerbaijani Academy of Sciences for many years...
and Farida Mammadova
Farida Mammadova
Farida Jafar gizi Mammadova is an Azerbaijani historian who specialises in the history of ancient Caucasian Albania.She is the author of numerous research papers, articles and books on Azerbaijani ancient and medieval history...
are known for their anti-Armenian
Anti-Armenianism
Armenophobia is the fear, dislike of, hatred or aversion to the Armenians, Republic of Armenia and the Armenian culture, which can range in expression from individual hatred to institutionalized persecution...
public pronouncements and pamphlets.
Historical revisionism in Azerbaijan supported a number of policies on the ground, including cultural vandalism directed against Armenian monuments in Soviet and post-Soviet Azerbaijan. Armenian memorial stone crosses known as “khachkars” on the territory of Azerbaijan were regularly misrepresented as “Caucasian Albanian” both before and after Azerbaijan’s independence. Furthermore, mischaracterization of Armenian khachkars as supposedly non-Armenian monuments of Caucasian Albania was associated with acts of cultural vandalism
Cultural genocide
Cultural genocide is a term that lawyer Raphael Lemkin proposed in 1933 as a component to genocide. The term was considered in the 1948 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples juxtaposed next to the term ethnocide, but it was removed in the final document, replaced with...
against Armenian historical monuments in Nakhichevan
Nakhichevan
The Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic is a landlocked exclave of Azerbaijan. The region covers 5,363 km² and borders Armenia to the east and north, Iran to the south and west, and Turkey to the northwest...
. The events
Khachkar destruction in Nakhchivan
Khachkar destruction in Nakhchivan refers to the systematic campaign beginning in 1998 and ending in December 2005 of the government of Azerbaijan to completely demolish the cemetery of medieval Armenian khachkars near the town of Julfa , Nakhchivan, an exclave of Azerbaijan...
in Nakhichevan
Nakhichevan
The Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic is a landlocked exclave of Azerbaijan. The region covers 5,363 km² and borders Armenia to the east and north, Iran to the south and west, and Turkey to the northwest...
refer to the systematic campaign by the government of Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
to completely demolish the large cemetery
Khachkar destruction in Nakhchivan
Khachkar destruction in Nakhchivan refers to the systematic campaign beginning in 1998 and ending in December 2005 of the government of Azerbaijan to completely demolish the cemetery of medieval Armenian khachkars near the town of Julfa , Nakhchivan, an exclave of Azerbaijan...
with thousands of Armenian khachkar
Khachkar
A khachkar or khatchkar is a carved, cross-bearing, memorial stele covered with rosettes and other botanical motifs. Khachkars are characteristic of Medieval Christian Armenian art found in Armenia.-Description:...
s near the town of Julfa
Julfa, Azerbaijan (town)
Julfa , formerly Jugha and also rendered as Djulfa, Dzhul’fa, Jolfa, Dzhulfa, Džulfa, Jolfā, Jolfā-ye Nakhjavān , is the administrative capital of the Julfa Rayon administrative region of the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic in Azerbaijan.Julfa is separated by the Araks River from its namesake, the...
(known as Jugha in Armenian), Nakhchivan. Claims by Armenians that Azerbaijan was undertaking a systematic campaign to destroy and remove the monuments first arose in late 1998 and those charges were renewed in 2002 and 2005. In reaction to the charges brought forward by Armenia and international organizations, Azerbaijan has asserted, falsely, that Armenians had never existed in those territories. In December 2005, an Azerbaijani official stated in a BBC interview that Armenians “never lived in Nakhchivan, which has been Azerbaijani land from time immemorial, and that's why there are no Armenian cemeteries and monuments and have never been any.” Adam T. Smith
Adam T. Smith
Adam T. Smith is an Professor, Department of Anthropology, Cornell University. He is also Faculty Associate in the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory and the Center for East European/Russian and Eurasian Studies, Co-Director The American-Armenian Project for the Archaeology and Geography of...
, an anthropologist and associate professor of anthropology at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, called the removal of the khachkars "a shameful episode in humanity's relation to its past, a deplorable act on the part of the government of Azerbaijan which requires both explanation and repair." Smith and other scholars, as well as several United States Senators, signed a letter to the UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
and other organizations condemning Azerbaijan's government. Azerbaijan instead contends that the monuments were not of Armenian, but of Caucasian Albanian, origin, which, per Thomas De Waal
Thomas de Waal
Thomas Patrick Lowndes de Waal , is a British journalist, writer and an expert on the Caucasus. Thomas is the son of Anglican priest Victor de Waal and of writer on religion Esther de Waal, brother of Africa specialist Alex de Waal, John de Waal, barrister and potter and writer Edmund de...
, did not protect “the graveyard from an act in the history wars.”
Armenian cultural heritage on lands that were temporary associated with Caucasian Albania in medieval times also became targets of Azerbaijani nationalists during the Nagorno-Karabakh War
Nagorno-Karabakh War
The Nagorno-Karabakh War was an armed conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994, in the small enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by the Republic of Armenia, and the Republic of Azerbaijan...
. Robert Bevan writes: “The Azeri campaign against the Armenian enclave of Nagorno Karabakh which began in 1988 was accompanied by cultural cleansing that destroyed the Egheazar monastery and 21 other churches.”
Anti-Armenian cultural vandalism in Azerbaijan perpetrated with the use of revisionist theories on Caucasian Albania was also noted in northern Azerbaijan, where Norwegian archeologists were involved in the restoration of an Armenian-Georgian church in the village of Kish
Church of Kish
The Church of Kish , also known by different sources as Church of Saint Elishe or Holy Mother of God Church , is a 12th or 13th century church located in the village of Kiş approximately 5 km north of Shaki, Azerbaijan...
near the city of Shaki. Azerbaijanis erased Armenian inscriptions on the church’s walls, which led to by an official complaint by Norwegian foreign ministry.
Armenian heritage was the main but not the only target of attacks of Azerbaijani historians and politicians. Revisionist theories about Caucasian Albania have been used by Azerbaijani statesmen in the ongoing Azerbaijani-Georgian dispute over the territorial status of David Gareja monastery complex, a Georgian spiritual and historical monument partially located on the territory of Azerbaijani Republic. David Gareja is a rock-hewn Georgian Orthodox monastery complex in the Kakheti region of Eastern Georgia, on the half-desert slopes of Mount Gareja, some 60–70 km southeast of Georgia's capital Tbilisi. Giorgi Manjgaladze, Georgia's deputy foreign minister proposed that Georgia would be willing to exchange other territory for the remainder of David Gareja because of its historical and cultural significance to the Georgians. Baku disapproves of this land swap, and in April 2007, Azerbaijan's deputy foreign minister Khalaf Khalafov told a press conference in Baku
Baku
Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...
that it was "out of the question" for Azerbaijan to "give up its claims to the borderlands" including David Gareja. Khalafov then stated that the monastery "was home to the Caucasian Albanians, who are believed to have been the earliest inhabitants of Azerbaijan." Georgian art historian Dimitri Tumanishvili dismissed this claim and stated that the complex "is covered in the work of Georgian masters." "There are Georgian inscriptions everywhere dating back to the sixth century," he said "There are no traces of another culture there. After that, I don’t think you need any further proof."