Alania
Alania was a medieval kingdom of the Alans that flourished between the 9th–13th centuries in the Northern Caucasus. Archaeological and historical research describes Alania as a multi-ethnic political entity, incorporating Iranian-speaking Alans alongside substantial indigenous Caucasian populations, particularly Vainakh, Karachay, Balkar and Kabardinians. Several scholars emphasize strong cultural and demographic continuity between the Alan period and later North Caucasian peoples, especially among the Ingush and Chechens.
With its capital at Maghas, the location of which is still disputed, it became independent from the Khazars in the late 9th century. It was Christianized by a Byzantine missionary soon after, in the early 10th century.
Reaching its peak in the 11th century, under the rule of King Durgulel, it profited from controlling a vital trade route through the Darial Pass. It maintained close relations not only with the Byzantine Empire but also the Kingdom of Georgia, as well as the small Dagestani kingdom of Sarir; the first two also employed Alan mercenaries, who were infamous horsemen. It was responsible for spreading Orthodox Christianity among neighboring pagan peoples such as the Circassians and Vainakhs. The kingdom eventually declined from the 12th century and had largely ceased to function as a political entity by the early 13th century. In 1239/1240 the Mongols invaded, stormed and destroyed the capital, Maghas, in the process.
Name
The name Alania derives from the Old Iranian stem *Aryāna-, a derivative form of the Indo-Iranian stem *arya-. It is cognate with the name of Iran, which stems from the Old Persian *Aryānām ''.''In other sources, they are mentioned as “Ās”. In Russian chronicles and Hungarian sources they are called “Yas”.
Territory
The Caucasian Alans occupied part of the Caucasian plain and the foothills of the main mountain chain from the headwaters of the Kuban river and its tributary, Zelenchuk in the west, to the Darial Gorge in the east. In the 10th century the Arab historian al-Masʿūdī indicates that the Alan kingdom stretched from Daghestan to Abkhazia. According to Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, In the north, the Alans bordered on the Hungarians and the Bulgars. In the east they gave their name to the Darial Gorge, called "Gate of the Alans". Before the Mongol invasion, the Alans lived in the territory from the Laba River to the Argun.Society
According to al-Masʿūdī, the Alan ruler was powerful and influential among the neighboring rulers being able to muster 30,000 horsemen. He also said "The Alan kingdom consisted of an uninterrupted series of settlements; when the cock crows, the answer comes from the other parts of the kingdom, because the villages are intermingled and close together." According to Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, Alania is described as a vast country with 1,000 settlements. The population consisted of both Christians and pagans, mountaineers and nomads. Archaeological evidence indicates that many core elements of Alan settlement patterns, burial practices, and material culture developed locally from earlier North Caucasian traditions, rather than being direct continuations of steppe Sarmatian models.History
The Alans are traditionally described as an Iranian-speaking subdivision of the Sarmatians; however, archaeological and linguistic scholarship increasingly portrays Alania as a confederative society formed through the interaction of steppe Iranian groups with longstanding indigenous Caucasian populations.Material culture from Alan sites often diverges from classical Sarmatian patterns, suggesting strong local continuity rather than wholesale migration.
Ancient Alans were split by the invasion of the Huns into two parts, the European and the Caucasian. The Caucasian Alans occupied part of the North Caucasian plain and the foothills of the main mountain chain from the headwaters of the Kuban River in the west to the Darial Gorge in the east.
Alan Triskelion and Symbolism
The triskelion on the Ingush flag originates from Scytho-Sarmatian nomads who inhabited the central Caucasus, showing the continuity of their ancient cultural symbols.As vassal of Khazaria
Alania was an important buffer state during the Byzantine-Arab Wars and Khazar-Arab Wars of the 8th century. Theophanes the Confessor left a detailed account of Leo the Isaurian's mission to Alania in the early 8th century. Leo was instructed by Emperor Justinian II to bribe the Alan leader Itaxes into severing his "ancient friendship" with the Kingdom of Abkhazia, which had allied itself with Caliph Al-Walid I. He crossed the mountain passes and concluded an alliance with the Alans, but was prevented from returning to Byzantium through Abasgia. Although the Abkhazians spared no expense to have him imprisoned, the Alans refused to convey the Byzantine envoy to his enemies. After several months of adventures in the Northern Caucasus, Leo extricated himself from the precarious situation and returned to Constantinople.File:დარიალის ხეობა. ალექსანდრე როინაშვილი.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|The Darial Gorge on a 19th-century photo by Alexander Roinashvili. On the hill behind the modern Russian fortress are the remains of the medieval border castle separating Alania from Georgia.
After Leo assumed the imperial title, the land of his mountaineer allies was invaded by Umar II's forces. The Khazar Khagan, Barjik, hastened to their succour and, in 722, the joint Alan-Khazar army inflicted a defeat on the Arab general Tabit al-Nahrani. The Khazars erected Skhimar and several other strongholds in Alania at this period. In 728 Maslamah ibn Abd al-Malik, having penetrated the Gate of the Alans, devastated the country of the Alans. Eight years later, Marwan ibn Muhammad passed by the Gate in order to ravage the forts in Alania. In 758, as Ibn al-Faqih reports, the Gate was held by another Arab general, Yazid ibn Usayd.
As a result of their united stand against the successive waves of invaders from the south, the Alans of the Caucasus fell under the overlordship of the Khazar Khaganate. They remained staunch allies of the Khazars in the 9th century, supporting them against a Byzantine-led coalition during the reign of the Khazar king Benjamin. According to the anonymous author of the Schechter Letter, many Alans were during this period adherents of Judaism.
Independence and Christianization (late 9th–10th centuries)
In the late 9th century, Alania became independent from the Khazars. In the early 10th century, the Alans fell under the influence of the Byzantine Empire due to King Constantine III of Abkhazia's activities in the North Caucasus. He sent an army into Alan territory and, with the Byzantine patriarch Nicholas Mystikos, converted the Alans to Christianity. The conversion is documented in the letters of Patriarch Nicholas Mysticus to the local archbishop, Peter, who was appointed here through King George II of Abkhazia's efforts. Richard Foltz has suggested that only certain elite Alan families were Christianized, the bulk of the population continuing to follow their original pagan traditions.When Ibn Rustah visited Alania at some point between 903 and 913, its king was Christian by then. The Persian traveler came to Alania from Sarir, a Christian kingdom immediately to the east:
Later history (11th–13th centuries)
After the downfall of Khazaria, the Alan kings frequently allied with the Byzantines and various Georgian rulers for protection against encroachments by northern steppe peoples such as the Pechenegs and Kipchaks. John Skylitzes reports that Alda of Alania, after the death of her husband, "George of Abasgia", received Anakopia as a maritime fief from Emperor Romanus III. This happened in 1033, the year when the Alans and the Rus sacked the coast of Shirvan in modern-day Azerbaijan.The raids were possibly orchestrated by the Byzantine Empire and its Rus vassal in Tmutarakan, prince Mstislav, and might have been meant to intimidate the various Muslim emirates in the Caucasus in face of the planned Byzantine expansion in Armenia. The Rus raiders might have been arrivals from Scandinavia who entered Byzantium in 1030. The Alan king at that time seems to have been called Gabriel, known from a contemporary Greek seal where he styled himself by the Byzantine title exousiokrator.
Alania is not mentioned in East Slavic chronicles, but archaeology indicates that the Alans maintained trade contacts with the Rus' principality of Tmutarakan. There is a stone grave cross, with a Cyrillic inscription from 1041, standing on the bank of the Bolshoi Yegorlyk River in present-day Stavropol Krai, immediately north of Alania. Two Russian crosses, datable to ca. 1200, were discovered by archaeologists in Arkhyz, the heartland of medieval Alania.
File:Possible Alan king, Senty.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|Possible depiction of an 11th-century Alan king, perhaps Durgulel the Great, in the Senty church
The Alans and Georgians probably collaborated in the Christianization of the Vainakhs and Dvals in the 12th and 13th centuries, Georgian missionaries were active in Alania and the Alan contingents were frequently employed by the Georgian monarchs against their Muslim neighbors. The Alanian-Georgian alliance was cemented in the 1060s, when the Alans struck across Muslim Arran and sacked Ganja. In the 1120s King David the Builder of Georgia visited the Darial to reconcile the Alans with the Kipchaks, who thereupon were allowed to pass through Alania to the Georgian soil. David's son, Demetre I, also journeyed, c. 1153, to Alania accompanied by the Arab historian Ibn al-Azraq. The alliance culminated in 1187, when the Alanian prince David Soslan married Queen Tamar of Georgia, a half-Alanian herself, with their descendants ruling Georgia until the 19th century. The medieval Alanian princesses also married Byzantine and Russian Rurikid rulers more than once. For instance, Maria the Ossetian, who founded the Convent of Princesses in Vladimir, was the wife of Vsevolod the Big Nest and grandmother of Alexander Nevsky.