Academic Articles and Book Chapters
Материалы и исследоваиня по археологии Северного Кавказа 21, 2023
Статья дает оценку недавним обсуждениям местоположения
средневекового города Магаса – столицы сев... more Статья дает оценку недавним обсуждениям местоположения
средневекового города Магаса – столицы северокавказского княжества Алании в X веке. Первая часть статьи резюмирует известную информацию о Магасе из арабоязычных, персидских и китайских письменных источников X–XIV веков. Следующая
часть статьи кратко освещает некоторые недавние предположения о местонахождении Магаса. Третья часть суммирует ранее высказанные аргументы автора в пользу идентификации Магаса с Ильичевским городищем в Отрадненском районе в восточной части Краснодарского края. Наконец, статья отвечает на критику этого предположения, особенно на аргумент, что это городище расположено слишком далеко на западе, чтобы считаться Магасом. Пытаясь дать ответ, автор излагает аргументы в пользу локализации основной территории аланских правителей на Поурупье и верхнем течении Большой Лабы.
This article assesses recent discussions over the location of the city of Magas, capital of the North Caucasian kingdom of Alania in the 10th century. The article's first part summarises the information known about Magas from Arabic, Persian and Chinese written sources of the 10th-14th centuries. Following this, the article briefly outlines several recent suggestions which have been made regarding the location of Magas. The third section of the article summarises the author's previous arguments in favour of the identification of Magas with Il'ichevsk hillfort in eastern Krasnodar Krai (see also Latham-Sprinkle, 2022). Finally, the article addresses several recent criticisms of this position, notably the argument that this site is too far to the west to be identifiable with Magas. In response, the author argues that there is good reason to believe that the original 10th century core territory of the Alan kings was located farther west than previously believed, in the Urup and upper Bol'shaia Laba valleys of Karachai-Cherkassia and eastern Krasnodar Krai.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Chronos, 2022
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Al-Masāq, Oct 28, 2023
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 2022
This article proposes that *Magas, capital city of the North Caucasian Kingdom of Alania, can be ... more This article proposes that *Magas, capital city of the North Caucasian Kingdom of Alania, can be identified with the gorodishche (hillfort) of Il'ichevsk, in Krasnodar Krai in the modern Russian Federation. The Kingdom of Alania was the most powerful polity in the North Caucasus in the tenth and eleventh centuries; however, the location of its capital has never been satisfactorily established. This article reviews the evidence of written sources on *Magas – notably Masʿūdī, Juvayni, Rashid al-Din, and the Yuan-Shi – and identifies four criteria which can be used to identify the site of *Magas. These are its occupation between the tenth and thirteenth centuries; the influence of the Alan kings over it; its massive fortifications; and its capture by the Mongols in 1239–40. All of these features can be identified at Il'ichevsk, in contrast to previously proposed sites of *Magas.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Timothy May & Michael Hope (eds.), The Mongol World , Apr 4, 2022
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi, 2018
The Alan kingdom was the most powerful polity in the medieval North Caucasus, sitting astride the... more The Alan kingdom was the most powerful polity in the medieval North Caucasus, sitting astride the western end of the Silk Roads. However, due to the relative lack of written records from the region, a number of very basic facts about it are still disputed. This paper proposes a new interpretation of one such issue- whether it comprised a single kingdom, or two.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
This paper examines the potential historical value of the Nart Sagas, a cycle of North Cau-casian... more This paper examines the potential historical value of the Nart Sagas, a cycle of North Cau-casian folk epics. It discusses the methodological problems in dating them, and especially in treating them as a corpus of entirely ancient date. In response, the author proposes the use of a 'rhizomatic' approach: treating the surviving sagas as unique, 'frozen' performances , which concentrate a number of strands, some of which may lead into other extant parallel texts. To test this theory, it is applied to a single saga, the tale of the hero Shoshlan's journey to the underworld, and this saga's apparent parallels with Sarmatian art and with early mediaeval Christian Apocalypse Literature. The paper concludes with a summary of how this method can be more widely applied, through the use of thematic analogy.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
UCD History 17 (forthcoming) (adapted version of paper given at IMBAS 2012)
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Book Reviews
Speculum, Apr 1, 2022
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
NGO Reports
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Conference Presentations
Call for Papers for sessions on the theme of "The Entangled Caucasus" at the 2023 International M... more Call for Papers for sessions on the theme of "The Entangled Caucasus" at the 2023 International Medieval Congress in Leeds, UK. To submit a paper proposal, please contact James Baillie at james.baillie@univie.ac.at and Nick Evans at n.evans1@leeds.ac.uk .
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The Medieval Caucasus network will organise a series of panels at the International Medieval Cong... more The Medieval Caucasus network will organise a series of panels at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds, UK, from 5th-8th July 2021, on the theme of 'Caucasian Climates'. Please submit expressions of interest with a paper title, academic affiliation, and 100-word abstract by 11th September 2020, to John Latham-Sprinkle at john.lathamsprinkle@ugent.be or James Baillie at james.baillie@univie.ac.at.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The Medieval Caucasus Network seeks paper proposals for panels at the International Medieval Cong... more The Medieval Caucasus Network seeks paper proposals for panels at the International Medieval Congress, which will take place in Leeds, UK, from 6th-9th July 2020. Travel bursaries may be available. DEADLINES FOR EXPRESSIONS OF INTEREST: 30th August (papers on the relationship between the Caucasus and Byzantium ONLY); 13th September for all other papers.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
This paper discusses the relationship between access to imperial courts and sovereignty in pre-mo... more This paper discusses the relationship between access to imperial courts and sovereignty in pre-modern Eurasia. Drawing on Giorgio Agamben's theory of the 'state of exception', this paper argues that the ability to extract prestigious goods and titles from imperial polities was a major source of political prestige among nomadic and sedentary polities of the steppe belt and the Caucasus.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Paper Presented at the Central Eurasian Studies Society Annual Conference, University of Washingt... more Paper Presented at the Central Eurasian Studies Society Annual Conference, University of Washington, Seattle, October 2017.
This paper examines three incidents in the history of the medieval Caucasus where indigenous leaders sided with outside invaders. Through an analysis of these incidents, this paper suggests an alternative model of political behaviour in the medieval Caucasus, more analogous to the mandala polities of South Asia than to the early European state.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
The Nart Sagas are a cycle of hero-tales common amongst the peoples of the North Caucasus. Previo... more The Nart Sagas are a cycle of hero-tales common amongst the peoples of the North Caucasus. Previous studies of these sagas have emphasised a model of them directly 'preserving' ancient Scythian, Sarmatian and Alan material. In order to test and analyse this model, this paper concentrates on a single Ossetian Saga of the hero's journey to the underworld. By doing so, it proposes that a less direct model of cultural influence may be a more appropriate way to unpick the strands of this heroic tradition.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Teaching Documents
Module Description Since his invasions of the Roman Empire in the 440s and 450s CE, Attila the Hu... more Module Description Since his invasions of the Roman Empire in the 440s and 450s CE, Attila the Hun has become a byword for cruelty and wanton destruction of civilisation. He stands in a long line of nomad conquerors, of whom he, Genghis Khan and Timur-i-Leng (Tamerlane) are the most famous today. The peoples of the steppe-the belt of grassland running from Hungary, through Central Asia, to Mongolia-have become famous for all the wrong reasons. Even in some recent scholarly literature, they have been described either as people inhabiting a wasteland so poor that they were forced to attack their neighbours to steal gold to buy food, or as so greedy that their entire cultures were centred around the acquisition of wealth. This module will use Attila the Hun's invasion of Europe to examine these ideas. We will look at how this characterisation of the peoples of Eurasia came about, and how far we can use these outside perspectives to tell us about the interior lives of these peoples. Finally, we will look at how this image of the peoples of Eurasia has been used in more recent eras, and its influence on worldviews as diverse as Conan the Barbarian, the strategic policy of Nazi Germany, and the Total War series of computer games.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Thesis Chapters
This dissertation explores some aspects of Alan religion in the 4th to 10th centuries. These incl... more This dissertation explores some aspects of Alan religion in the 4th to 10th centuries. These include the depiction of the Alans' religion in Ammianus Marcellinus' Res Gestae, Nicholas Mystikos' letters, and Moses Khorenats'i's History of the Armenians; and an examination of some elements of North Caucasian mythology from the Nart Sagas, namely the name of Soslan, the motif of the world tree, and the story of Soslan's journey to the underworld (which I developed further in my article of the same name, published in Iran and the Caucasus 20/2 (2016)).
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
Uploads
Academic Articles and Book Chapters
средневекового города Магаса – столицы северокавказского княжества Алании в X веке. Первая часть статьи резюмирует известную информацию о Магасе из арабоязычных, персидских и китайских письменных источников X–XIV веков. Следующая
часть статьи кратко освещает некоторые недавние предположения о местонахождении Магаса. Третья часть суммирует ранее высказанные аргументы автора в пользу идентификации Магаса с Ильичевским городищем в Отрадненском районе в восточной части Краснодарского края. Наконец, статья отвечает на критику этого предположения, особенно на аргумент, что это городище расположено слишком далеко на западе, чтобы считаться Магасом. Пытаясь дать ответ, автор излагает аргументы в пользу локализации основной территории аланских правителей на Поурупье и верхнем течении Большой Лабы.
This article assesses recent discussions over the location of the city of Magas, capital of the North Caucasian kingdom of Alania in the 10th century. The article's first part summarises the information known about Magas from Arabic, Persian and Chinese written sources of the 10th-14th centuries. Following this, the article briefly outlines several recent suggestions which have been made regarding the location of Magas. The third section of the article summarises the author's previous arguments in favour of the identification of Magas with Il'ichevsk hillfort in eastern Krasnodar Krai (see also Latham-Sprinkle, 2022). Finally, the article addresses several recent criticisms of this position, notably the argument that this site is too far to the west to be identifiable with Magas. In response, the author argues that there is good reason to believe that the original 10th century core territory of the Alan kings was located farther west than previously believed, in the Urup and upper Bol'shaia Laba valleys of Karachai-Cherkassia and eastern Krasnodar Krai.
Book Reviews
NGO Reports
Conference Presentations
This paper examines three incidents in the history of the medieval Caucasus where indigenous leaders sided with outside invaders. Through an analysis of these incidents, this paper suggests an alternative model of political behaviour in the medieval Caucasus, more analogous to the mandala polities of South Asia than to the early European state.
Teaching Documents
Thesis Chapters
средневекового города Магаса – столицы северокавказского княжества Алании в X веке. Первая часть статьи резюмирует известную информацию о Магасе из арабоязычных, персидских и китайских письменных источников X–XIV веков. Следующая
часть статьи кратко освещает некоторые недавние предположения о местонахождении Магаса. Третья часть суммирует ранее высказанные аргументы автора в пользу идентификации Магаса с Ильичевским городищем в Отрадненском районе в восточной части Краснодарского края. Наконец, статья отвечает на критику этого предположения, особенно на аргумент, что это городище расположено слишком далеко на западе, чтобы считаться Магасом. Пытаясь дать ответ, автор излагает аргументы в пользу локализации основной территории аланских правителей на Поурупье и верхнем течении Большой Лабы.
This article assesses recent discussions over the location of the city of Magas, capital of the North Caucasian kingdom of Alania in the 10th century. The article's first part summarises the information known about Magas from Arabic, Persian and Chinese written sources of the 10th-14th centuries. Following this, the article briefly outlines several recent suggestions which have been made regarding the location of Magas. The third section of the article summarises the author's previous arguments in favour of the identification of Magas with Il'ichevsk hillfort in eastern Krasnodar Krai (see also Latham-Sprinkle, 2022). Finally, the article addresses several recent criticisms of this position, notably the argument that this site is too far to the west to be identifiable with Magas. In response, the author argues that there is good reason to believe that the original 10th century core territory of the Alan kings was located farther west than previously believed, in the Urup and upper Bol'shaia Laba valleys of Karachai-Cherkassia and eastern Krasnodar Krai.
This paper examines three incidents in the history of the medieval Caucasus where indigenous leaders sided with outside invaders. Through an analysis of these incidents, this paper suggests an alternative model of political behaviour in the medieval Caucasus, more analogous to the mandala polities of South Asia than to the early European state.