Nakh (Noah) folket
Necropolis in Itum Kale (Chechnya), and tower of Tsoi-Pheda protecting the peace of the dead
Nakh (Noah) folket:
Chechnya:
Ingushetia
Bats
Nakh peoples are a group of historical and modern ethnic groups speaking (or historically speaking) Nakh languages and sharing certain cultural traits. In modern days, they reside almost completely in the North Caucasus, but historically large areas of the South Caucasus may have also been Nakh.
The only healthy, living branch of the Nakh languages are now the Vainakh languages (spoken by the Vainakh peoples, namely Chechens, Ingush and Georgian Kist), due to the extinction of other peoples. The only non-Vainakh modern Nakh people are the Bats people in Northeast Georgia, but they are largely assimilated and their language is highly endangered.
Although the Vainakh are only a branch of Nakh peoples, due to the present day situation where the only well-known Nakh are Vainakh, the words Vainakh and Nakh are frequently confused. Hence the word Vainakh is mistakenly applied to historical non-Vainakh frequently.
Although today the Nakh primarily comprise the Vainakh (Chechens and Ingush) to the point that the two words are often erroneously used as similes, the Nakh peoples have once included a much broader range of nations according to some historians and linguists. Some of these proposals are largely accepted, though others are debated.
Due to the loss on much historic writings in the Caucasus, most of the research done to find which peoples are Nakh is by linguistic substratums and place names. These groups were one-by-one eliminated via assimilation, eradication or other methods, so that the only substantial Nakh groups left today are the Chechens and Ingush (and the tiny Kist and Bats groups, the latter of which is verging on extinction through assimilation).
It is widely held by various authors that Nakh nations had a close connection of some sort to the Hurrian and Urartian civilizations in modern day Armenia and Kurdistan, largely due to linguistic similarities (Nakh shares the most roots with known Hurrian and Urartian) – either that the Nakhs were descended from Hurrian tribes, that they were Hurrians who fled north, or that they were closely related and possibly included at points in the state. But although all historians agree they were closely related, there is a wide variety of views on the nature of the relationship.
Many scholars, such as Johanna Nichols and Bernice Wuethrich hold that the Dzurdzuks, or the ancestors of the Nakhs, were descended from extremely ancient migrations from the Fertile Crescent to the Caucasus, perhaps due to population or political pressures back in the Fertile Crescent.
Others who believe the so-called “Urartian version”, such as George Anchabadze and Amjad Jaimoukha, still hold that those original migrants contributed to both the genetic and cultural traits of the modern Ingush and Chechens, but that the primary ancestors were Nakh-speaking migrants from what became Northeastern Urartu.
According to ethnic Circassian Caucasus specialist Amjad Jaimoukha, at least it is certain that the Nakh constituted an important component of the Hurrian-Urartian tribes in the Trans-Caucasus and played a role in the development of their influential cultures.
It has been noted that at many points, Urartu in fact extended through Kakheti into the North Caucasus. According to Jaimoukha «The kingdom of Urartu, which was made up of several small states, flourished in the 9th and 7th centuries BCE, and extended into the North Caucasus at the peaks of its power.»
The Georgian chronicles of Leonti Mroveli state that the Urartians “returned” to their homeland (i.e. Kakheti) in the Trans-Caucasus, which had become by then “Kartlian domain”, after they were defeated.
Apparently, Xenophon visited Urartu in 401 BCE, and rather than finding Urartians, he only found pockets of Urartians, surrounded by Armenians. These Urartians, as modern scholars infer, were undergoing a process of assimilation to Armenian language and culture.
Jaimoukha notes that the first confirmed appearance of a consolidated Vainakh nation in the North Caucasus spanning the range the Zygii would later (with a few additions) was after the fall of Urartu, and notes that numerous people think that they were a regathering of Nakh tribes fleeing the crumbling state and the invasion of the Armenians, who ended up assimilating most of those who stayed behind.
The Ancient Greek chronicler Strabo mentioned that Gargareans had migrated from eastern Asia Minor (i.e. Urartu) to the North Caucasus. Jaimoukha notes that Gargareans is one of many Nakh roots- gergara, meaning, in fact, “kindred” in proto-Nakh.
Other Nakh roots throughout the Republic of Armenia, Naxcivan, and Turkish Armenia have been found, although the Nakh nature of some of these places has been disputed with other assertions put forward (for example, the Nakh root of “Nakhichevan” as nakh+che+bun is rivaled by the theory that the place name comes from Armenian roots meaning “first landing” in reference to the legend of Noah).
Jaimoukha provides a number in his book. Yerevan is thought to be the site of the similarly named ancient Èribuni (from the Nakh nation-tribe of the Èrs, which lived in the region + bun, the root in Chechen that generated the word “shelter” or “lair”). The Nakh Èr nation also contributed to a number of other roots- for example the Arax valley (Èrashki, from a Hurrian/Nakh hydronym forming suffix). Near the Èrs lived a tribe known as the Nakhchradzor. The Dzurdzuks, a name the Georgians called the early medieval inhabitants of Ichkeria later, had a name derived from the settlement of Durdukka, near Lake Urmia.
The area around Lake Sevan, known as Eriaki in Urartian times (i.e. perhaps from the Ers) also contributes a number of roots. Old Armenian name for the lake include Gegharkunik and the Sea of Gegham; whereas the old Georgian name for the lake was Lake Ereta, referring once again to the Ers who lived around it. The Georgian name for the region, meanwhile, was Gogharena, possibly drawing from the “Gargarean” root.
In addition to these, there is also the very name of Naxcivan (Nakhichevan, from Nakh+Che+Bun), and Lake Van (similarly, from Bun, although it may instead be from Urartian biani; it is nonetheless the Armenian rendering of the Ersh bun).
There may be an increasingly long list of further Nakh placenames in the South Caucasus that are less well-known, or not yet identified. The area of Nakhichevan and the site of Durdzukka on Lake Urmia (which rendered the historical Georgian name for the Chechens, the Dzurdzuks) point to an area which was on the Southeast periphery of what became Urartu.
According to that, the flight of people from the area may have taken place as early as the 9th or 8th century BC (when the area was being fought over by Urartians and Iranian tribes, the Medes), long before the invasion of Cimmerians or the rise of the Armenian kingdom. All of this, however, is based around guesswork and individual interpretation of data, as there are little remaining resources on the details of the flight north of the “Gargareans”.
However, the nature of the relationship between the Nakh in the northern and eastern reaches of the Urartian state and the Central Urartians themselves is not known. Their languages were not identical, but seem to possibly have been related (Urartian biani to Ersh buni, to use the house root). Some scholars, such as Amjad Jaimoukha, propose that the Urartians were Nakh, or passed their language on to the Nakh in some way, etc., etc.; or that the Hurrians were a common ancestor to the Nakh peoples and the Urartians.
There is much confusion, however, in how large the category of “Nakh” peoples is, whether the Urartians and Hurrians are a branch of Nakh, or conversely, whether the Nakh are a branch of Hurrians. There is also the view that the Urartians and Hurrians formed a separate linguistic branch from the Nakh, equal to it (but maybe or maybe not closer to Nakh than other branches).
The migration may have occurred much earlier than the fall of Urartu- as Jaimoukha points out, archaeological finds traced to the modern Chechens (at least according to him) date much further back. It is possible that rather than fleeing Urartu’s collapse (or those of its predecessors) they may have instead been fleeing the Urartians themselves (or their predecessors). Although the migration of Hers (a related people) to Hereti occurred later, this does not mean that the Dzurdzuks could not have fled much earlier.
A 2011 study by Oleg Balanovsky and a number of other geneticists showed that the Y-DNA haplogroup J2a4b* (a subclade of J2, located mainly in the Middle East, Caucasus and Mediterranean) was highly associated with Nakh peoples.
J2a4b* accounted for the majority of the Y-chromosomes of Ingush and Chechen men, with the Ingush having a much higher percentage, 87.4%, than Chechens, who had 51-58% depending on region (the lowest being in Malgobek, the highest in Dagestan and Achkhoy-Martan).
In their paper, Balanovsky et al. speculated that the differences between fraternal Caucasian populations may have arisen due to genetic drift, which would have had a greater effect among the Ingush than the Chechens due to their smaller population. Another possible reason for the difference is the greater absorption of foreign peoples into the Chechen populace, reflecting an older theory that the Ingush are more ‘archaic’ than other Caucasian peoples). The Chechens and Ingush have the highest frequencies of J2a4b* yet reported (other relatively high frequencies, between 10 and 20 percent, are found in the Mediterranean and Georgia).
Prehistory
The early history of the Nakh peoples has been tentatively reconstructed from linguistic analysis and archaeological evidence.
10,000-8000 BC
People speaking a language ancestral to the Northeast Caucasian languages migrated from the Fertile Crescent to the slopes of the Caucasus bringing domesticated animals, crops, and irrigation.
6000-4000 BC
Pottery was introduced to the region. Neolithic settlements near Ali-Yurt and Magas yielded clay dishes polished and drilled stones, and stone tools (such as axes and knives). Remains of settlements made out of clay bricks were found in the plains. Settlements with “cyclopean” stone walls and buildings were found in the mountains (at Doshkhakle, Kart, and other places), some of them dating to 8000 BC.
4000-3000 BC
Invention of the wheel (3000 BC), horseback riding, metal works (copper, gold, silver, iron) dishes, armor, daggers, knives, arrow tips. The artifacts were found near Naser-Kort, Muzhichi, Yi-E-Borz (now Surkhakhi), Abi-Goo (now Nazran).
4th century BC-11th century AD
The mountain clans founded an association of clans called Durzukia, which survived into the early Middle Ages despite incursions by Khazars, Huns, Arabs, Persians, Mongols and others. According to Fähnrich, these were the Zygians of classial Greek writers. The first mention of the name “durdzuki” according to the writing of the Arab writer Ibn al-Faqih and al-Baladzori falls into the first half of the 6th century, stating “the construction of Chosroes Anushirvanom (VI) in Durzukia 12 gates and stone fortifications. Georgian source Kartlis Tskhovreba clearly states that Durzuks paid tribute to the Khazars.
7th-11th centuries
State of Serir.
12th-15th centuries
The State of Simsir was a union of Vainakh teips. They started a national struggle of liberation from the Golden Horde. After the Mongol invasion Islam started its spread in the region.
Destruction of the Alan capital of Maghas and Alan confederacy of the Northern Caucasian highlanders, nations, and tribes by Batu Khan (a Mongol leader and a grandson of Genghis Khan) in 1239.
The spread of Islam seems to have started in the lowland part of the Vainakh states at this time, associated with the advent of the Arabic language and Arabic writing. Inscriptions on monuments from this time, preserved in some Vainakh villages, also testify to this.
13th-14th centuries
Independence wars against Tatar-Mongol hordes and army of Tamerlane.
17th century to nowadays
Ongoing struggle between Chechens and Russians over the independence of what is Chechnya to the Russians, but Ichkeria to Chechens; Ingush remain less openly rebellious, but still have a particularly problematic conflict with the Ossetes ; Batsbi and Kists are considered Georgians and are part of Georgia (living mainly in the Tusheti region).
1829-1859
Caucasian Imamate
Shulaveri-Shomu culture:
Shulaveri-Shomu culture is a Late Neolithic/Eneolithic culture that existed on the territory of present-day Georgia, Azerbaijan and the Armenian Highlands. It is thought to be a critical element in identifying the origins of both the Georgian and Armenian peoples.
The Shulaveri-Shomu culture is dated to mid-6th or early-5th millennia BC and is thought to be one of the earliest known Neolithic cultures. The Shulaveri-Shomu culture begins after the 8.2 kiloyear event which was a sudden decrease in global temperatures starting ca. 6200 BC and which lasted for about two to four centuries.
Shulaveri culture predates the Kura-Araxes culture and surrounding areas, which is assigned to the period of ca. 4000 – 2200 BC, and had close relation with the middle Bronze Age culture called Trialeti culture (ca. 3000 – 1500 BC). Sioni culture of Eastern Georgia possibly represents a transition from the Shulaveri to the Kura-Arax cultural complex.
In around ca. 6000–4200 B.C the Shulaveri-Shomu and other Neolithic/Chalcolithic cultures of the Southern Caucasus use local obsidian for tools, raise animals such as cattle and pigs, and grow crops, including grapes. Many of the characteristic traits of the Shulaverian material culture (circular mudbrick architecture, pottery decorated by plastic design, anthropomorphic female figurines, obsidian industry with an emphasys on production of long prismatic blades) are believed to have their origin in the Near Eastern Neolithic (Hassuna, Halaf).
Leyla-Tepe culture:
Leyla-Tepe culture is an archaeological culture of the eneolithic era, which was distributed on the southern slopes of the Central Caucasus (modern territory of Azerbaijan, Agdam district), dated 4350-4000 BC.
Leyla-Tepe culture include a settlement in the Leyla-Tepe, the lower layer of the settlement Poilu I, Poilu II, Boyuk-Kesik I, Boyuk-Kesik II, and the other at the same time.. along also revealed the burial in ceramic vessels. Similar amphora burials in the South Caucasus are found in the Western Georgia – Jar-Burial Culture.
There is similarity between the artifacts of the Maykop culture and the Leyla-Tepe culture with those found in the ancient city of Tel Khazneh l in northern Syria, the construction of which dates from the 4th millennium BC. Leyla-Tepe culture is genetically well linked with the north Ubaid period monuments, in particular, with the settlements of the district of Eastern Anatolia (Arslan-tepe, Coruchu-tepe, Tepechik, etc.).
According to some Russian scientists, media Leyla-Tepe culture were the founders of the Maykop culture, which migrated to the northern slopes of the Central Caucasus, and later, due to unfavorable climatic conditions. Correspondingly, it is supposed that the monuments of the Leyla-Tepe culture is evidence on the migration to the South and then the North Caucasus of tribes of the Ubaid period of the Middle East.
Towns were discovered in the area that is now Chechnya as early as 8000 BCE. Pottery, too, came around the same time, and so did stone weaponry, stone utensils, stone jewelry items, etc. (as well as clay dishes).
Kura-Arax Culture:
The Kura–Araxes culture, or the early trans-Caucasian culture, was a civilization that existed from 3400 BC until about 2000 BC, which has traditionally been regarded as the date of its end, but it may have disappeared as early as 2600 or 2700 BC. The earliest evidence for this culture is found on the Ararat plain; thence it spread to Georgia by 3000 BC (but never reaching Colchis), and during the next millennium it proceeded westward to the Erzurum plain, southwest to Cilicia, and to the southeast into an area below the Urmia basin and Lake Van, and finally down to the borders of present day Syria. Altogether, the early Trans-Caucasian culture, at its greatest spread, enveloped a vast area approximately 1,000 km by 500 km.
The name of the culture is derived from the Kura and Araxes river valleys. Its territory corresponds to parts of modern Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Dagestan, Ingushetia and North Ossetia. It may have given rise to the later Khirbet Kerak ware culture found in Syria and Canaan after the fall of the Akkadian Empire.
Archaeological evidence of inhabitants of the Kura–Araxes culture had shown that ancient settlements were found along the Hrazdan river, as shown by drawings at a mountainous area in a cave nearby. Structures within settlements have not revealed much differentiation, nor was there much difference in size or character between settlements, facts that suggest they probably had a poorly developed social hierarchy for at least a significant stretch of their history. Some, but not all, settlements were surrounded by stone walls. They built mud-brick houses, originally round, but later developing into subrectangular designs with structures of just one or two rooms, multiple rooms centered around an open space, or rectilinear designs.
At some point the culture’s settlements and burial grounds expanded out of lowland river valleys and into highland areas. Although some scholars have suggested that this expansion demonstrates a switch from agriculture to pastoralism, and that it serves as possible proof of a large-scale arrival of Indo-Europeans, facts such as that settlement in the lowlands remained more or less continuous suggest merely that the people of this culture were diversifying their economy to encompass both crop and livestock agriculture.
The economy was based on farming and livestock-raising (especially of cattle and sheep). They grew grain and various orchard crops, and are known to have used implements to make flour. They raised cattle, sheep, goats, dogs, and in its later phases, horses (introduced around 3000 BCE, probably by Indo-European speaking tribes from the North.
There is evidence of trade with Mesopotamia, as well as Asia Minor. It is, however, considered above all to be indigenous to the Caucasus, and its major variants characterized (according to Caucasus historian Amjad Jaimoukha) later major cultures in the region.
The extent of the Kuro-Araxes culture (light shading) shown in relation to subsequent cultures in the area, such as Urartu (dark shading).
In its earliest phase, metal was scant, but it would later display “a precocious metallurgical development which strongly influenced surrounding regions”. They worked copper, arsenic, silver, gold, tin, and bronze.
Their metal goods were widely distributed, recorded in the Volga, Dnieper and Don-Donets systems in the north, into Syria and Palestine in the south, and west into Anatolia.
Their pottery was distinctive; in fact, the spread of their pottery along trade routes into surrounding cultures was much more impressive than any of their achievements domestically. It was painted black and red, using geometric designs for ornamentation. Examples have been found as far south as Syria and Israel, and as far north as Dagestan and Chechnya. The spread of this pottery, along with archaeological evidence of invasions, suggests that the Kura-Araxes people may have spread outward from their original homes, and most certainly, had extensive trade contacts. Jaimoukha believes that its southern expanse is attributable primarily to Mitanni and the Hurrians.
They are also remarkable for the production of wheeled vehicles (wagons and carts), which were sometimes included in burial kurgans.
The culture is closely linked to the approximately contemporaneous Maykop culture of Transcaucasia. As Amjad Jaimoukha puts it: «The Kura-Araxes culture was contiguous, and had mutual influences, with the Maikop culture in the Northwest Caucasus. According to E.I.Krupnov (1969:77), there were elements of the Maikop culture in the early memorials of Chechnya and Ingushetia in the Meken and Bamut kurgans and in Lugovoe in Serzhen-Yurt. Similarities between some features and objects of the Maikop and Kura-Araxes cultures, such as large square graves, the bold-relief curvilinear ornamentation of pottery, ochre-coloured ceramics, earthen hearth props with horn projections, flint arrowheads, stone axes and copper pitchforks are indicative of a cultural unity that pervaded the Caucasus in the Neolithic Age.»
Inhumation practices are mixed. Flat graves are found, but so are substantial kurgan burials, the latter of which may be surrounded by cromlechs. This points to a heterogeneous ethno-linguistic population (see section below). Late in the history of this culture, its people built kurgans of greatly varying sizes, containing greatly varying amounts and types of metalwork, with larger, wealthier kurgans surrounded by smaller kurgans containing less wealth. This trend suggests the eventual emergence of a marked social hierarchy. Their practice of storing relatively great wealth in burial kurgans was probably a cultural influence from the more ancient civilizations of the Fertile Crescent to the south.
Hurrian and Urartian elements are quite probable, as are Northeast Caucasian ones. Some authors subsume Hurrians and Urartians under Northeast Caucasian as well as part of the Alarodian theory.
The presence of Kartvelian languages was also highly probable. Influences of Semitic languages and Indo-European languages are also highly possible, though the presence of the languages on the lands of the Kura–Araxes culture is more controversial.
In the Armenian hypothesis of Indo-European origins, this culture (and perhaps that of the Maykop culture) is identified with the speakers of the Anatolian languages.
The Maykop culture:
The Maykop culture (also spelled Maikop), ca. 3700 BC—2500 BC, was a major Bronze Age archaeological culture in the Western Caucasus region of Southern Russia. It extended along the area from the Taman Peninsula at the Kerch Strait to near the modern border of Dagestan and southwards to the Kura River. The culture takes its name from a royal burial found in Maykop in the Kuban River valley.
In the south it bordered the approximately contemporaneous Kura-Araxes culture (3500—2200 BC), which extends into eastern Anatolia and apparently influenced it. To the north was the Yamna culture, including the Novotitorovka culture (3300—2700), which it overlaps in territorial extent. It was contemporaneous with the late Uruk period in Mesopotamia.
The Kuban River is navigable for much of its length and provides an easy water-passage via the Sea of Azov to the territory of the Yamna culture, along the Don and Donets River systems. The Maykop culture was thus well-situated to exploit the trading possibilities with the central Ukraine area.
New data revealed the similarity of artifacts from the Maykop culture with those found recently in the course of excavations of the ancient city of Tell Khazneh in northern Syria, the construction of which dates back to 4000 BC.
After the discovery of the Leyla-Tepe culture in the 80s of the last century it was suggested that elements of the Maykop culture migrated to the south-eastern slopes of the Caucasus in modern Azerbaijan.
In 2010, nearly 200 Bronze Age sites were reported stretching over 60 miles between the Kuban and Nalchik rivers, at an altitude of between 4,620 feet and 7,920 feet. They were all “visibly constructed according to the same architectural plan, with an oval courtyard in the center, and connected by roads.”
Radiocarbon dates for various monuments of the Maykop culture are from 3950 – 3650 – 3610 – 2980 cal BC.
Its inhumation practices were characteristically Indo-European, typically in a pit, sometimes stone-lined, topped with a kurgan (or tumulus). Stone cairns replace kurgans in later interments.
The Maykop kurgan was extremely rich in gold and silver artifacts; unusual for the time. The Maykop culture is believed to be one of the first use the wheel.
The Maykop nobility enjoyed horse riding and probably used horses in warfare. It should be noted that the Maykop people lived sedentary lives, and horses formed a very low percentage of their livestock, which mostly consisted of pigs and cattle. Archaeologists have discovered a unique form of bronze cheek-pieces, which consists of a bronze rod with a twisted loop in the middle and a thread through her nodes that connects with bridle, halter strap and headband. Notches and bumps on the edges of the cheek-pieces were, apparently, to fix nose and under-lip belts.
In the early 20th century, researchers established the existence of a local Maykop animal style in the found artifacts. This style was seen as the prototype for animal styles of later archaeological cultures: the Maykop animal style is more than a thousand years older than the Scythian, Sarmatian and Celtic animal styles.
Attributed to the Maykop culture are petroglyphs which have yet to be deciphered.
The construction of artificial terrace complexes in the mountains is evidence of their sedentary living, high population density, and high levels of agricultural and technical skills. The terraces were built around the fourth millennium BC. and all subsequent cultures used them for agricultural purposes.
The vast majority of pottery found on the terasses are from the Maykop period, the rest from the Scythian and Alan period. The Maykop terraces are among the most ancient in the world, but they are little studied. The longevity of the terraces (more than 5000 years) allows us to consider their builders unsurpassed engineers and craftsmen.
Recentt discoveries by archaeologist A. Rezepkin include the most ancient bronze sword, dating from the second third of the 4-th Millennium BC. It was found in a stone tomb near Novosvobodnaya, and is now on display in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. It has a total length of 63 cm and a hilt length of 11 cm. The most ancient column and the most ancient stringed instrument, resembling the modern Adyghian shichepshin, dating from the late 4th Millennium B.C., now also in the Hermitage museum.
Because of its burial practices, it is in terms of the Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas seen as an Indo-European intrusion from the Pontic steppe into the Caucasus. However, J.P.Mallory point out that: «… where the evidence for barrows is found, it is precisely in regions which later demonstrate the presence of non-Indo-European populations.»
The culture has been described as, at the very least, a “kurganized” local culture with strong ethnic and linguistic links to the descendants of the Proto-Indo-Europeans. It has been linked to the Lower Mikhaylovka group and Kemi Oba culture, and more distantly, to the Globular Amphora and Corded Ware cultures, if only in an economic sense.
However, J.P. Mallory point out that «Such a theory, it must be emphasized, is highly speculative and controversial although there is a recognition that this culture may be a product of at least two traditions: the local steppe tradition embraced in the Novosvobodna culture and foreign elements from south of the Caucasus which can be charted through imports in both regions.
Gamkrelidze and Ivanov, whose views are somewhat controversial, suggest that the Maykop culture (or its ancestor) may have been a way-station for Indo-Europeans migrating from the South Caucasus and/or eastern Anatolia to a secondary Urheimat on the steppe.
This would essentially place the Anatolian stock in Anatolia from the beginning, and at least in this instance, agrees with Colin Renfrew’s Anatolian hypothesis. Considering that some attempt has been made to unite Indo-European with the Northwest Caucasian languages, an earlier Caucasian pre-Urheimat is not out of the question (see Proto-Pontic). However, most linguists and archaeologists consider this hypothesis highly unlikely, and prefer the Eurasian steppes as the genuine IE Urheimat.
The Yamna culture:
The Yamna culture (“Pit [Grave] Culture”) is a late copper age/early Bronze Age culture of the Southern Bug/Dniester/Ural region (the Pontic steppe), dating to the 36th–23rd centuries BC. The name also appears in English as Pit Grave Culture or Ochre Grave Culture.
The Yamna culture was preceded by the Sredny Stog culture, Khvalynsk culture and Dnieper-Donets culture, while succeeded by the Catacomb culture and the Srubna culture.
The culture was predominantly nomadic, with some agriculture practiced near rivers and a few hillforts. Characteristic for the culture are the inhumations in kurgans (tumuli) in pit graves with the dead body placed in a supine position with bent knees. The bodies were covered in ochre. Multiple graves have been found in these kurgans, often as later insertions.
Significantly, animal grave offerings were made (cattle, sheep, goats and horse), a feature associated with Proto-Indo-Europeans (including Proto-Indo-Iranians).
The earliest remains in Eastern Europe of a wheeled cart were found in the “Storozhova mohyla” kurgan (Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine, excavated by Trenozhkin A.I.) associated with the Yamna culture.
The Yamna culture is identified with the late Proto-Indo-Europeans (PIE) in the Kurgan hypothesis of Marija Gimbutas. It is one candidate for the Urheimat (homeland) of the Proto-Indo-European language, along with the preceding Sredny Stog culture, now that archaeological evidence of the culture and its migrations has been closely tied to the evidence from linguistics and Andronovo aDNA.
Pavel Dolukhanov argues that the emergence of the Pit-Grave culture represents a social development of various local Bronze Age cultures, representing “an expression of social stratification and the emergence of chiefdom-type nomadic social structures”, which in turn intensified inter-group contacts between essentially heterogeneous social groups.
It is said to have originated in the middle Volga based Khvalynsk culture and the middle Dnieper based Sredny Stog culture. In its western range, it is succeeded by the Catacomb culture; in the east, by the Poltavka culture and the Srubna culture.
Novotitorovka culture:
Novotitorovka culture, 3300–2700 BC, a Bronze Age archaeological culture of the North Caucasus immediately to the north of and largely overlapping portions of the Maykop culture facing the Sea of Azov, running from the Kerch Strait eastwards, almost to the Caspian, roughly coterminous with the modern Krasnodar Krai region of Russia.
It is distinguished by its burials, particularly by the presence of wagons in them and its own distinct pottery, as well as a richer collection of metal objects than those found in adjacent cultures, as is to be expected considering its relationship to the Maykop culture.
It is grouped with the larger Indo-European Yamna culture complex, and in common with it, the economy was semi-nomadic pastoralism mixed with some agriculture.
Kemi Oba culture:
Kemi Oba culture, ca. 3700—2200, an archaeological culture at the northwest face of the Sea of Azov, the lower Bug and Dnieper Rivers and the Crimea. This was a component of the larger Yamna horizon.
The economy was based on both stockbreeding and agriculture. It had its own distinctive pottery, which is suggested to be more refined that that of its neighbors.
The inhumation practice was to lay the remains on its side, with the knees flexed, in pits, stone lined cists or timber-framed graves topped with a kurgan. Of particular interest are carved stone stelae or menhirs that also show up in secondary use in Yamna culture burials.
Metal objects were imported from the Maykop culture. Strong links have been suggested with the adjacent/overlapping Lower Mikhaylovka group.
The Kemi Oba culture:
The Kemi Oba culture is contemporaneous and partly ovelapping with the Catacomb culture.
Lower Mikhaylovka group, 3600—3000 BC, a late copper age archaeological culture of the lower Dnieper River immediately underlying remains of the successor Yamna culture site named Mikhaylovka I, noted for its fortifications. It is related to the Kemi Oba culture and seems to have connections to the Maykop culture.
The Catacomb culture:
The Catacomb culture (ca. 2800–2200 BC), refers to an early Bronze Age culture occupying essentially what is present-day Ukraine. It is seen more as a term covering several smaller related archaeological cultures.
The culture was the first to introduce corded pottery decorations into the steppes and shows a profuse use of the polished battle axe, providing a link to the West. Parallels with the Afanasevo culture, including provoked cranial deformations, provide a link to the East. It was preceded by the Yamna culture. The Catacomb culture in the Pontic steppe was succeeded by the Srubna culture from ca the 17th century BC.
The name Catacomb culture comes from its burial practices. These are similar to those of the Yamna culture, but with a hollowed-out space off the main shaft, creating the “catacomb”. Animal remains were incorporated into a small minority of graves.
In certain graves there was the distinctive practice of what amounts to modelling a clay mask over the deceased’s face, creating an obvious if not necessarily correct association to the famous gold funeral mask of Agamemnon (see also Tashtyk culture).
The economy was essentially stock-breeding, although traces of grain have been found. There seem to have been skilled specialists, particularly metal-workers.
The origin of the Catacomb Culture is disputed. Jan Lichardus enumerates three possibilities: a local development departing from the previous Yamna Culture only, a migration from Central Europe, or an oriental origin. The culture is first to introduce corded pottery decorations into the steppes and shows a profuse use of the polished battle axe, providing a link to the West. Parallels with the Afanasevo culture, including provoked cranial deformations, provide a link to the East.
The Catacomb culture was ousted by the Srubna (Timber-grave) culture from ca. the 17th century.
The linguistic composition of the Catacomb culture is unclear. Within the context of the Kurgan hypothesis expounded by Marija Gimbutas, an Indo-European component is hard to deny, particularly in the later stages. Placing the ancestors of the Greek, Armenian and Paleo-Balkan dialects here is tempting, as it would neatly explain certain shared features.
More recently, the Ukrainian archaeologist V. Kulbaka has argued that the Late Yamna cultures of ca. 3200–2800 BC, esp. the Budzhak, Starosilsk, and Novotitarovka groups, might represent the Greek-Armenian-“Aryan”(=Indo-Iranian) ancestors (Graeco-Aryan, Graeco-Armenian), and the Catacomb culture that of the “unified” (to ca. 2500 BC) and then “differentiated” Indo-Iranians.
Grigoryev’s (1998) version of the Armenian hypothesis connects Catacomb culture with Indo-Aryans, because catacomb burial ritual had roots in South-Western Turkmenistan from the early 4th millennium (Parkhai cemetery). The same opinion is supported by Leo Klejn in his various publications.
Kayakent Culture:
The trend of a highly progressive Caucasus continued: as early as 3000 BCE-4000 BCE, evidence of metalworking (including copper) as well as more advanced weaponry (daggers, arrow heads found, as well as armor, knives, etc.). This period is referred to as the Kayakent culture, or Chechnya during the Copper Age. Horseback riding came around 3000 BCE, probably having diffused from contact with Indo-European speaking-tribes to the North.
Towns found in this period, interestingly, are often not found as ruins, both rather on the outskirts of (or even inside) modern towns in both Chechnya and Ingushetia, suggesting much continuity. There is bone evidence suggesting that raising of small sheep and goats occurred. Clay and stone were used for all building purposes. Agriculture was highly developed, as evidenced by the presence of copper flint blades with wooden or bone handles.
The Trialeti culture:
The Trialeti culture, named after Trialeti region of Georgia, is attributed to the first part of the 2nd millennium BC. In the late 3rd millennium BC. settlements of the Kura-Araxes culture began to be replaced by early Trialeti culture sites. The Trialeti culture was a second culture to appear in Georgia, after the Shulaveri-Shomu culture which existed from 6000-4000 BC. The Trialeti culture shows close ties with the highly-developed cultures of the ancient world, particularly with the Aegean, but also with cultures to the south, such as probably the Sumerians and their Akkadian conquerors.
The Trialeti culture was known for its particular form of burial. The elite were interred in large, very rich burials under earth and stone mounds, which sometimes contained four-wheeled carts. Also there were many gold objects found in the graves. These gold objects were similar to those found in Iran and Iraq. They also worked tin and arsenic.
This form of burial in a tumulus or “kurgan”, along with wheeled vehicles, is the same as that of the Kurgan culture which has been associated with the speakers of the Caucasian language.
In fact, the black burnished pottery of especially early Trialeti kurgans is similar to Kura-Araxes pottery. In a historical context, their impressive accumulation of wealth in burial kurgans, like that of other associated and nearby cultures with similar burial practices, is particularly noteworthy. This practice was probably a result of influence from the older civilizations to the south in the Fertile Crescent.
Kharachoi Culture:
The term Kharachoi culture denotes the Early Bronze of Chechnya. Clay jugs and stone grain containers indicate a high level of development of trade and culture. Earlier finds show that extensive hunting was still practiced.
Bronze artifacts (dating back to the 19th century BCE) in modern-day Chechnya largely correspond with those of Hurria at the time, suggesting a cultural affinity. Iron had replaced stone, bronze and copper as the main substance for industry by the 10th century BCE, before most of Europe or even areas of the Middle East.
Colchian culture:
Colchian culture (circa 1200 to 600 BC) is a late Bronze Age and Iron Age culture of the western Caucasus, mostly in western Georgia. It was partially succeeded by the Koban culture in northern and central Caucasus.
It is named after the ancient geographic region of Colchis, which covered a large area along the Black Sea coast.
Colchians was a Greco-Roman designation for ancient Mingrelians-Lazs who inhabited the west and southwest of the Transcaucasus region in prehistoric and historic times. Ancient Colchians are identified as modern western Georgians (Mingrelian-Lazs) who have originated from the early Georgian state of Colchis.
The kingdom of Colchis which existed from the sixth to the first centuries BC is regarded as the first early Georgian state and the term Colchians was used as the collective term for early Kartvelian tribes (Mingrelians-Lazs) which populated the western coast of the Black Sea.
According to the scholar of the Caucasian studies Cyril Toumanoff: Colchis appears as the first Caucasian State to have achieved the coalescence of the newcomer. Colchis can be justly regarded as not a proto-Georgian but a West Georgian (Mingrelians-Lazs) kingdom. . . .It would seem natural to seek the beginnings of Georgian social history in Colchis, the earliest Georgian formation.
Koban culture:
The Koban culture (ca. 1100 to 400 BC) is a late Bronze Age and Iron Age culture of the northern and central Caucasus. It is preceded by the Colchian culture of the western Caucasus and the Kharachoi culture further east.
The Koban culture was the most advanced culture in Chechnya before recorded history, and also the most well-known. The most well-studied site was on the outskirts of Serzhen-Yurt, which was a major center from around 11th century BC to around the 7th century BC.
It is named after the village of Koban, Northern Ossetia, where in 1869 battle-axes, daggers, decorative items and other objects were discovered in a kurgan. Later, further sites were uncovered in the central Caucasus.
The remains include dwellings, cobble bridges, altars, iron objects, bones, and clay and stone objects. There were sickles and stone grain grinders. Grains that were grown included wheat, rye and barley. Cattle, sheep, goats, donkeys, pigs and horses were kept. There were shops, where artisans worked on and sold pottery, stone-casting, bone-carving, and stone-carving.
There is evidence of an advanced stage of metallurgy. There was differentiation of professionals organized within clans. Many, such as Amjad Jaimoukha, believe the Koban culture was primarily Nakh.
Jaimoukha argues that while all these cultures probably were made by people included among the genetic ancestors of the Chechens, it was either the Koban or Kharachoi culture that was the first culture made by the cultural and linguistic ancestors of the Chechens (meaning the Chechens first arrived in their homeland 3000–4000 years ago). However, many others disagree, holding the Chechens to have lived in their present day lands for over 10000 years.
Caucasian Albania:
Albania (Latin: Albānia, Greek: Albanía, in Old Armenian: Aguank, Parthian: Ardhan, Middle Persian: Arran, Arabic: was ar-Rān.), usually referred to as Caucasian Albania for disambiguation with the modern state of 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. The native name for the country is unknown.
The term Aghuank, meaning amiable in Armenian, 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 ału (Armenian for sweet, soft, tender), which, he said, was the nickname of Caucasian Albania’s first governor Arran and referred to his lenient personality.
Movses Kaghankatvatsi and other ancient sources explain Arran or Arhan as the name of the legendary founder of Caucasian Albania (Aghvan) or even of the Iranic tribe known as Alans (Alani), who in some versions was a son of Noah’s son Yafet. 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.
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 the 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. All the right bank of the Kura river until it joined with the Aras was attributed to Arran, while the left bank of the Kura was known as Shirvan.
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 Sarmatia 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. These boundaries, though, were probably never static – At times the territory of Caucasian Albania included land to the west of the river Kura and at other times Armenia included land to the east of the river. In some instances Arran was a part of Armenia.
Originally, at least some of the Caucasian Albanians probably spoke Lezgic languages close to those found in modern Daghestan; overall, though, as many as 26 different languages may have been spoken in Caucasian Albania. After the Caucasian Albanians were Christianized in the 4th century, the western parts of the population were gradually assimilated by the Armenians and Georgians, while 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. As of the 5th century, the tribes who lived in the western part of Caucasian Albania were called the “Lpnik”.
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.
According to Armenian medieval historians Movses Khorenatsi, 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. This alphabet was used to write down the Udi language, which was probably the main language of the Caucasian Albanians.
Muslim geographers Al-Muqaddasi, Ibn-Hawqal and Estakhri recorded that a language which they called Arranian was still spoken in the capital Barda and the rest of Arran in the 10th century.
Iranian contact in the region goes back to the Median and Achaemenid times. During this Arsacid Dynasty of Caucasian Albania, the Parthian language spread in the region. 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.
The original population of the Caucasus followed different pagan religions. Under Achaemenid, Parthian and especially Sassanid influence, Zoroastrianism 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, Qabala 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.
Sophene:
The region that was to become a province of the Armenian Kingdom and of the Roman Empire, located in the south-west of the kingdom, Sophene, was part of the kingdom of Ararat (Urartu) in the 8th-7th centuries BC. After unifying the region with his kingdom in the early 8th century BC, king Argishtis I of Urartu resettled many of its inhabitants in his newly built city of Erebuni (modern day Armenian capital Yerevan).
The Urartuan state of Supani was occupied by the ancient Nakh tribe Tzov, whose state was called Tsobena in ancient Georgian historiography. The Tzov/Tsov language was the dominant language spoken by its people, and was thought to be Nakh. Tsov and its relatives in the area may have contributed to the Hurro-Urartian substratum in the Armenian language.
Around 600 BC, Sophene became part of the newly emerged ancient Armenian Kingdom of the Orontids. This dynasty acted as satraps of Armenia firstly under Median Empire, later under Persian Empire. It currently lies in southeastern Turkey.
After Alexander the Great’s campaigns in 330s BC and the subsequent collapse of the Achaemenid Empire, Sophene remained part of the newly independent kingdom of Greater Armenia. In the early 3rd century BC, at the instigation of the Seleucid Empire, which was trying to weaken the Armenian kingdom, Sophene, split from Greater Armenia, forming the Kingdom of Sophene. The kingdom was ruled by a branch of the Armenian royal dynasty of Orontids.
Around 200 BC, in his attempt to finally subjugate Armenia, Seleucid king Antiochus III conquered both Greater Armenia and Sophene, installing Armenian generals Artaxias I and Zariadres as governors-strategoi in the respective kingdoms.
Little is known of the region of Commagene prior to the beginning of the 2nd century BC. However, it seems that, from what little evidence remains, Commagene formed part of a larger state that also included Sophene. The kingdom of Commagene was an offshoot of this kingdom formed when the Seleucids detached Commagene from Sophene.
The later kings of Commagene claimed to be descended from the Orontid dynasty, and would therefore have been related to the family that founded the Kingdom of Armenia.
Following Antiochus’ defeat by the Romans at the battle of Magnesia in 190 BC, both Zareh and Artashes declared themselves independent kings. Zareh and his descendants ruled the kingdom of Sophene until it was reunified with Greater Armenia by Tigranes the Great in the 80s BC.
Pompey gave Sophene to Tigranes, after defeating his father Tigranes the Great. Sophene later become part of the Roman Empire, and was made into a province of the Roman Empire. The capital was Amida (modern Diyarbakır). Around 54, the province was ruled by Sohaemus of Emesa. In 530, Sophene was included into the province of Armenia IV. Armenian population remained until 1915’s Armenian Genocide.
Kakheti:
Kakheti is a region (Georgian: Mkhare) formed in the 1990s in eastern Georgia from the historical province of Kakheti and the small, mountainous province of Tusheti. Telavi is its capital. Kakheti is bordered by the Russian Federation to the Northeast, Azerbaijan to the Southeast, and the Georgian regions of Mtskheta-Mtianeti and Kvemo Kartli to the west.
Kakheti was an independent feudal principality from the end of the eighth century. Since the Georgian independence in 1991, Kakheti is a region in the republic of Georgia and Telavi is still its capital.
The language of the Kakh, old inhabitants of Kakheti and Tusheti in Eastern Georgia. The Kakh apparently called themselves Kabatsas and their territory Kakh-Batsa. They may or may not be ancestral to the modern Bats, and they may or may not be closely related to them. They were assimilated (completely or almost completely, depending on if one believes the theory that the Bats are descended from them) by the Kartlians to speak Georgian.
Kingdom of Hereti:
The Èr people, also known as Èrsh or (in Georgian works) the Hers, are a little-known ancient people inhabiting Northern modern Armenia, and to an extent, small areas of Northeast Turkey, Southern Georgia, and Northwest Azerbaijan. Most of their history is constructed based on archaeological and linguistic (primarily based on placenames, with some elements) data, compared to historical trends in the region and historical writings, such as the Georgian Chronicles or the Armenian Chronicles, as well as a couple notes made by Strabo.
The Ers were a constituent of the state of Urartu, which either incorporated or conquered them during the 8th century BCE. Their relation to the main Urartians (who were probably ethnically separate from them, judging from place names) is unknown. Linguistically, based on placenames, they are thought to have been a Nakh people.
The Urartian fortress Erebuni was named after them. Buni is a Nakh root, meaning shelter or home, the same root which gave rise to the modern Chechen word bun (pronounced /bʊn/), meaning a cabin, or small house. Hence, Erebuni meant “the home of the Èrs”. It corresponds to modern Yerevan (van is a common Armenian rendering for the root /bun/).
In the Georgian Chronicles, Leonti Mroveli refers to Lake Sevan as “Lake Ereta”. The name of the Arax River is also attributed to the Èrs. It is also called the Yeraskhi. The Armenian name is “Yeraskhadzor” (which Jaimoukha identifies as Èr + khi a Nakh water body suffix + Armenian dzor gorge). Interestingly, in close proximity to the South is the “Nakhchradzor” gorge, perhaps an old home of the Dzurdzuks. During the time of the kingdom of Urartu, there was a northern region near the Yerashkhadzor gorge and a little northwest of Erebuni called “Eriaki”.
Urartu in 743 BC, at the height of its power and territory. Notice the location in the Northwest of the conquered Er people – the province Eriaki (possibly a Urartian version of the name Yerashki) in the modern Yerashkhadzor gorge and the major city of Erebuni near it.
Nothing is really known about the people of Eriaki prior to their conquest or interpretation by Urartu, but the probably had lived separately before that. Urartu was originally situated around the Lake Van, but expanded in all directions, including North, probably eventually incorporating or conquering the Èrs.
Although all historians agree they were closely related, there is a wide variety of views on the nature of the relationship. The Urartians themselves were probably distantly related to the Èrs, in the very least by language, and probably more than just that. They were part of the same language family, the Northeast Caucasian family, and although they were of different branches, the Nakh branch is thought to be the closest to the Hurro-Urartian branch to which Urartian belongs.
But the period of Urartian dominance was not to last in the constant power shifts in the northern Middle East region, and this had a disastrous effect on its inhabitants, as the state’s power hollowed out and collapsed.
As the Urartian state crumbled due to internal rotting and over-extension of territory paired with attacks by nomadic and non-nomadic invaders (including Cimmerians, the state of Assyria, the state of Taos, and the Armens), the Nakh peoples living on its Northern periphery, including the Èrs (and the Dzurdzuks, their neighbors, although they had probably fled earlier, fleeing the advance of the Medes toward the Urmia Lake near around which they lived), worried about their fate if they stayed, one by one packed up and tested fate by trying to flee and settle elsewhere, often in the mountains, where fellow Nakh peoples lived.
Greek historians, such as Strabo, reported the flight of “Gargareans” (root linked to gergara or kin, Chechen, the most prominent modern Nakh language) from Urartu as the state collapsed and “returning” back into the Caucasus mountains. Leonti Mroveli also stated that “many Urartians [i.e. inhabitants of Urartu], as their state collapsed, returned to the Transcauscasus, which had mostly now become a Kartlian [i.e. Kartli, the center of the Georgian Iberian state] domain”.
It is widely held by various authors that Nakh nations had a close connection of some sort to the Hurrian and Urartian civilizations in modern day Armenia and Kurdistan, largely due to linguistic similarities (Nakh shares the most roots with known Hurrian and Urartian)- either that the Nakhs were descended from Hurrian tribes, that they were Hurrians who fled north, or that they were closely related and possibly included at points in the state.
The Georgian chronicles of Leonti Mroveli state that the Urartians “returned” to their homeland (i.e. Kakheti) in the Trans-Caucasus, which had become by then “Kartlian domain”, after they were defeated.
Apparently, Xenophon visited Urartu in 401 BCE, and rather than finding Urartians, he only found pockets of Urartians, surrounded by Armenians. These Urartians, as modern scholars infer, were undergoing a process of assimilation to Armenian language and culture.
The Kingdom of Hereti was a kingdom in the medieval Caucasus on the Georgian-Albanian frontier. Nowadays it roughly corresponds to the southeastern corner of Georgia’s Kakheti region and a portion of Azerbaijan’s northwestern districts.
The area was inhabited in earliest times by Hers (referred to as Èrs as well), Sujs, Tchilbs, and Lbins. Collectively called Hers (Heretians), these tribes came under the rule of the Iberian kingdom in the 5th century BC. It was also ruled by Caucasian Albania.
Archeological finds including many historical monuments and kurgans in the region speak of early human inhabitation. Balakan was a part of Caucasian Albania. The Èrs also inhabitaed this region along with the rest of North-West Azerbaijan.
With its decline, the area was gradually incorporated into the Iberian kingdom forming one of its duchies (saeristavo) in the 5th century and its peoples were eventually assimilated into the Georgians proper.
It was when the name Hereti first appeared in the Georgian sources. According to traditional accounts, the name of the province originated from the legendary patriarch Heroes, the son of Thargamos, who founded the city of Hereti (later known as Khoranta) at the Alazani River.
After the final disintegration of the unified Georgian monarchy in 1466, Hereti came under the Kakhetian crown. Afterwards the name of the province itself has gradually disappeared from the historic records and public usage due to successively Karakoyunlu, Akkoyunlu, Safavid and Ottoman rules.
Armenia:
In 714 BC, the Urartu kingdom suffered heavily from Cimmerian raids and the campaigns of Sargon II. The main temple at Mushashir was sacked, and the Urartian king Rusa I was crushingly defeated by Sargon II at Lake Urmia. He subsequently committed suicide in shame.
Rusa’s son Argishti II (714 – 685 BC) restored Urartu’s position against the Cimmerians, however it was no longer a threat to Assyria and peace was made with the new king of Assyria Sennacherib in 705 BC. This in turn helped Urartu enter a long period of development and prosperity, which continued through the reign of Argishti’s son Rusa II (685–645 BC).
After Rusa II, however, the Urartu grew weaker under constant attacks from Cimmerian and Scythian invaders. As a result it became dependent on Assyria, as evidenced by Rusa II’s son Sardur III (645–635 BC) referring to the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal as his “father.”
Late during the 600s BC (during or after Sardur III’s reign), Urartu was invaded by Scythians and their allies – the Medes. In 612 BC, the Median king Cyaxares the Great together with Nabopolassar of Babylon and the Scythians conquered Assyria after it had been badly weakened by civil war.
Many Urartian ruins of the period show evidence of destruction by fire. This would indicate two scenarios – either Media subsequently conquered Urartu, bringing about its subsequent demise, or Urartu maintained its independence and power, going through a mere dynastic change, as a local Armenian dynasty (later to be called the Orontids) overthrew the ruling family with the help of the Median army.
Ancient sources support the latter version: Xenophon, for example, states that Armenia, ruled by an Orontid king, was not conquered until the reign of Median king Astyages (585– 550 BC) – long after Median invasion of the late 7th century BC. Similarly, Strabo (1st c. BC – 1st c AD) wrote that “[i]n ancient times Greater Armenia ruled the whole of Asia, after it broke up the empire of the Syrians, but later, in the time of Astyages, it was deprived of that great authority …”
Medieval Armenian chronicles corroborate the Greek and Hebrew sources. In particular, Movses Khorenatsi writes that Armenian prince Paruyr Skayordi helped the Median king Cyaxares and his allies conquer Assyria, for which Cyaxares recognized him as the king of Armenia, while Media conquered Armenia only much later – under Astyages. It is possible that the last Urartian king, Rusa IV, had connections to the future incoming Armenian Orontids dynasty.
Urartu was destroyed in either 590 BC or 585 BC. By the late 6th century, Urartu had certainly been replaced by Armenia. In the early 6th century BC, the Urartian Kingdom was replaced by the Armenian Orontid dynasty.
Medieval Armenian chronicles corroborate the Greek and Hebrew sources. In particular, Movses Khorenatsi writes that Armenian prince Paruyr Skayordi helped the Median king Cyaxares and his allies conquer Assyria, for which Cyaxares recognized him as the king of Armenia, while Media conquered Armenia only much later – under Astyages. It is possible that the last Urartian king, Rusa IV, had connections to the future incoming Armenian Orontids dynasty.
The Orontids established their supremacy over Armenia around the time of the Scythian and Median invasion in the 6th century BC. Its founder was Orontes I Sakavakyats (Armenian, Yervand I Sakavakyats). His son Tigranes Orontid united his forces with Cyrus the Great and killed Media’s king. Moses of Chorene calls him “the wisest, most powerful and bravest of Armenian Kings.”
From 553 BC to 521 BC, Armenia was Achaemenid Empire’s ally, but during Darius I’s reign, he decided to conquer Armenia. He sent an Armenian named Dâdarši to suffocate the revolt, later substituting him for the Persian Vaumisa who defeated the Armenians on May 20, 521 BC.
Darius I the Great, in his famous trilingual Behistun Inscription carved in 521/0 BC by the order of Darius the Great of Persia, calls the region referred to as «Urashtu/Urartu» in Assyrian Armina/Armenia in Old Persian and «Harminuia» in Elamite, clearly equating the two, suggesting that both are somewhat part of a same continuous entity. As the Armenian identity developed in the region, the memory of Urartu faded and finally disappeared.
Around the same time, another Armenian by the name of Arakha, son of Haldita, claimed to be the son of the last king of Babylon, Nabonidus, and renamed himself Nebuchadnezzar IV. His rebellion was short lived and was suppressed by Intaphrenes, Darius’ bow carrier. After five raids Armenia resisted.
The Satrapy of Armenia (Armenian: Hayastani Satrap; Old Persian: Armina or Arminiya), also known as Orontid Armenia (Armenian: Yervanduni Hayastan) after the ruling Orontid Dynasty, was one of the satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire in the 6th century BC, which later became an independent kingdom. Its capitals were Armavir and Yervandashat.
Urartu did not give birth to a direct successor, however, the Satrapy of Armina, as an entity which emerged immediately after its fall, inherited its cultural, traditional, geographical and some linguistic aspects.
The Orontid Dynasty, or known by their native name, Yervanduni, was a hereditary Armenian dynasty and the rulers of the successor state to the Iron Age kingdom of Ararat (Urartu). Of probable Iranian origin, members of the dynasty ruled Armenia intermittently during the period spanning the 6th to at least the 2nd century BC, first as client kings or satraps of the Median and Achaemenid empires who established an independent kingdom after the collapse of the Achaemenid empire, and later as kings of Sophene and Commagene who eventually succumbed to the Roman Empire.
Greek cmomander and historian Xenophon provided important information on the Orontid Armenia. After Battle of Gaugamela (331 BC) Orontes III restored independence in Armenia. But in 201 BC, Armenia was conquered by Artashes, an Armenian commander in Seleucid Empire, who was also a descendant of the Orontid dynasty.
The last Orontid king Orontes IV was killed, but the Orontids continued to rule in Sophene and Commagene until the 1st century BC. In two inscriptions of king Antiochus I of Commagene on his monument at Nemrut an Orontes, called Aroandes (son of Artasouras and husband of Artaxerxes’s daughter Rhodogoune), is reckoned, among others, as an ancestor of the Orontids ruling over Commagene, who traced back their family to Darius I.
The presence of a Proto-Armenian population in the area already during Urartian rule is subject to speculation: It is generally assumed that Proto-Armenian speakers entered Anatolia from around 1200 BC, ultimately deriving from a Paleo-Balkans context, and over the following centuries spread east to the Armenian Highland.
A competing theory suggested by Thomas Gamkrelidze and Vyacheslav V. Ivanov in 1984 places the Proto-Indo-European homeland in the Armenian Highland, see Armenian hypothesis, which would entail the presence of Proto-Armenians in the area during the entire lifetime of the Urartian state.
After the disappearance of Urartu as a political entity, the Armenians dominated the highlands, absorbing portions of the previous Urartian culture in the process. The Armenians became, thus, the direct successors of the kingdom of Urartu and inherited their domain. Urartu is to Armenians what ancient Britons are to the English, and Gauls are to the French.
While the Urartian language was spoken by the royal elite, the population they ruled may have been multi-ethnic, and in late Urartian times largely (pre-Proto-) Armenian-speaking. Under this theory, the Armenian-speaking population were the descendants of the proto-Armenians who migrated to the Armenian Highland in c. the 12th century BC, mixing with the local Hurrian-speaking population (i.e. the “Phrygian theory,” first suggested by Herodotus).
A minority belief, advocated primarily by the official historiography of Armenia, but also supported by experts in Assyrian and Urartian studies such as Igor Diakonov, Giorgi Melikishvili, Mikhail Nikolsky Ivan Mestchaninov, suggests that Urartian was solely the formal written language of the state, while its inhabitants, including the royal family, spoke Armenian.
The theory primarily hinges on the language the Urartian cuneiform inscriptions being very repetitive and scant in vocabulary (having as little as 350–400 roots). Furthermore, over 250 years of usage, it shows no development, which is taken to indicate that the language had ceased to be spoken before the time of the inscriptions or was used only for official purposes.
This belief is compatible with the “Armenian hypothesis” suggested by Vyacheslav Ivanov and Tamaz Gamkrelidze (1984), postulating the Armenian language as an in situ development of a 3rd millennium BC Proto-Indo-European language.
According to the Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture: «The Armenians according to Diakonoff, are then an amalgam of the Hurrian (and Urartians), Luvians and the Proto-Armenian Mushki who carried their IE language eastwards across Anatolia. After arriving in its historical territory, Proto-Armenian would appear to have undergone massive influence on part the languages it eventually replaced. Armenian phonology, for instance, appears to have been greatly affected by Urartian, which may suggest a long period of bilingualism.»
Little is known of what happened to the region of Urartu under the foreign rule following its fall. The most widely accepted theory is that settlers related to Phrygians, or more specifically tribes speaking a proto-Armenian language conventionally named Armeno-Phrygians, who had already settled in the western parts of the region prior to the establishment of Urartu, had become the ruling elite under the Medes, followed by the Achaemenid Persians.
These Armeno-Phrygians, referred to as Armenians as of now, would have mingled with the disparate peoples of Urartu, resulting a fusion of languages and cultures. The Armenians multiplied in numbers and spread their language throughout the territory of Urartu. The Urartians, during its dominance, had amalgamated disparate tribes, each of which had its own culture and traditions.
Thus, when the political structure was destroyed, little remained that could be identified as one unified Urartian culture. The region formerly known as Urartu became an Achaemenid satrapy called Armina, which later became an independent kingdom called Armenia. The Urartians who were in the satrapy were then assimilated, becoming part of the Armenian ethnogenesis.
However, other Urartians might have kept their former identity. According to Herodotus, the Alarodians (Alarodioi) – believed to be Urartian remnants – were part of the 18th Satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire and formed a special contingent in the grand army of Xerxes I.
Some Urartian traditions, such as architecture and dam constructions, were absorbed in the following Persianates, and most probably persisted in the Satrapy of Armina.
The language spoken in Urartu is now extinct. Little is known of what was spoken in the geopolitical region from the time of Urartu’s fall in the 6th century BC, to the creation of the Armenian alphabet in the 4th century AD.
In ancient Persian inscriptions, references to Armina (Armenia) indicate that Urartian was still spoken, or was in a transitional period into being replaced with the Armenian language. In fact, the ethnonym “Armina” itself and all other names attested with reference to the rebellions against Darius in Armina (the proper names Araxa, Haldita, and Dādṛšiš, the toponyms Zūzahya, Tigra, and Uyamā, and the district name Autiyāra) are not connected with Armenian linguistic and onomastic material attested later in native Armenian sources. They are also not Iranian, but seem related to Urartian.
The name of the province of Ayrarat in the Kingdom of Armenia is believed to be a continuum of the Urartu toponym (or Biblical Ararat). The modern name of Mount Ararat is derived from the Biblical Mountains of Ararat (or Mountains of Urartu), and the Ararat Province of modern Armenia is in turn named after the mountain.
Armenia is described by Xenophon as a vast and rich country, with Orondas (Orontes) (Erouand, Ervanduni) ruling as satrap and Tiribaz as uparkos or vice-governor. In Xenophon’s time the Armens had not yet occupied the plain of Ararat, which was then inhabited by Saspeirs, Alarodians (Urarteans) and the oldest native tribes.
The Kartuchi (Korduq of the Armenian geography), living in the south of the Centries, were a warlike people, not subjects of the Persians. They and the Armens were in almost continuous conflict, which, says Xenophon, explains why there were no villages in existence on the right bank of the Centrides, in the vicinity of modern Serd.
The Kartuchi were a sedentary people, with a comparatively high degree of civilization. Their dwellings were described by the Greek soldiers as elegant and furnished with many copper utensils.
They had plenty of provisions and wine kept in cemented cisterns. According to Strabo, they were skilled architects, experts in the tactics of besieging fortresses. Their arms consisted of bows and slings. The bows were one and a half yards long, and the arrows more than a yard.
This mode of life does not harmonize with cattle-growing nomadic people, such as the Kurds. The Armens therefore, thinks Marquart, must have been kindred of the Khald-Urarteans. The army of Orondas, says Xenophon, besides Armens, included Mards and Khaldian mercenaries. The latter were a doughty people, noted for their long shields and spears.
The Khaldian soldiers of Orondas are considered to have been the inhabitants of Sassoun and the Khoyt Mountains, who maintained their independence until their assimilation with the Armens. As to the mercenary Mards, they were, according to Herodotus, an Iranian nomadic tribe, to be identified, in Marquart’s opinion, with the modern Kurds.
The 10th century Arabian historian Masoudi states that the Kurds acknowledged as their ancestor the chieftain Kurd, the son of Mard. In Armenian history the Kurds have been known as the “Mar people.”
The district of Mardistan, in historic Armenia, corresponds to Artaz, west of the modern Maku, South Iran. The district of Mardali (Mardaghi) must have been located to the south of Erzerum, north of the Bingöl sources. The Mards of this section of the country were evidently immigrants from the South, says Adontz.
The bulk of the tribe occupied one of the southern areas of Vaspurakan (Van), near the upper course of the Centrides River. Xenophon mentioned particularly the extremely fierce and hardy Chalyb tribe, called Chaldaioi by Strabo, living in the Pontic Mountains, and mostly engaged in iron mining and forging.
Several authors classify this people as being of the same stock as the Khaldi-Urarteans. The Taochi and the Phasian tribes, neighbors of the Chalybs, who likewise offered stiff resistance to the Greeks, are represented in the Taiq and Pasian districts of Armenia.
The above-mentioned tribes and several others, including the Kimmerian-Scythian settlers from southern Russia, dating from the 8th century BC, were all independent of Persia. Scythian tribes, the Saspeirs of Herodotus, had occupied considerable areas extending from Colchis to Media – around modern Nakhjavan and as far as Kars, Leninakan and the plain of Ararat.
Alongside the Kimmerians and Scythians should be listed the Sarmatian tribe, which includes the Siraqs and the Gogs, after whom the Armenian provinces of Shirak and Gougarq seem to have been named.
The Mesoch-Mushkians, the Outians and the Pactians were also among the inhabitants of the Armenian plateau, each having its own language or dialect, and particular kind of social life and culture. They were all eventually assimilated with the Armens, adding their numbers to the larger elements from the Khaldi and the Hittites.
Besides plenty of wheat, barley and cereals, the Armen villages had in store raisins, perfumed wine, sesame, fragrant oil of almonds and turpentine. The people were both cattle-breeders and agriculturists. They exported many horses. Herodotus calls the Armens polyprobatoi, “rich in animals.”
Distinction should be made, however, between the civilization in the different parts of the country. Stately houses with towers on the banks of the Centrides River were in striking contrast to the underground dwellings near the sources of the Euphrates.
The rural life of the Armens was indicative of a patriarchal or family character. A group of villages was surrounded with barricades and was governed by a village chief or Komarch (archon tes komes) representing the satrap.
Payment of taxes to the Persian king was made collectively. The absence of cities was noticeable.
Various clans, settled in villages under local chiefs, supplied a specified number of soldiers to the army of the nearest petty king. A general of Darius was one of these kings.
By the large numbers of the Armenian army serving under the Great Persian monarch – recruited from one section of the Armenian plateau – we are led to believe that all of the comparatively small number of new settlers were soldiers. The same was true in the Georgian and Albanian lands of the Caucasus, as pointed out by the Georgian historian, J. Tchavakhishvili.
The word eri in the ancient Iberian (Georgian) language meant both people and soldiers. The Medes, after subduing the kingdom of Urartu, utilized the Armens in keeping that turbulent people under subjection. Marquart notes that the settling of the warlike Armen colonists in the strategic places in the Armenian highlands was because of their military capacity.
From all this, Manandian reaches the conclusion that, as the ancient Slavons, so the ancient Armens were in the period of “warring democracy.” The same may be said of the Medes and the Persians of old, whose democratic organization and public assemblies point to their having a soldier population.
Hence the destruction in the ancient East, even as in the medieval West, of the cultural great powers, had been mainly achieved by the so called “barbarian” new peoples, such as the Medes, Persians and Armens.
Applying the principle to the Armens, Prof. Marr has remarked, “And now there succeeded, one after the other, warlike Aryan peoples, just as in later times came inrushing masses of Turks. These Aryan races who, at that time, were certainly savages by comparison with the natives, were nevertheless strong in their military organization, and subdued the culturally higher races, intermixed with them and created a new world.”
Attention is called by Manandian to the fact that the commercial intercourse between Babylon and Armenia was carried on for the most part by the Assyrians. Business transactions, limited in Armenia in those days, were principally in the hands of the Semitic peoples, while the Armenians were essentially farmers and cattle-breeders.
The Amazons and the Gargareans:
The Amazons are a nation of all-female warriors in Greek mythology and Classical antiquity. Herodotus placed them in a region bordering Scythia in Sarmatia (modern territory of Ukraine). Other historiographers place them in Asia Minor, or Libya.
Notable queens of the Amazons are Penthesilea, who participated in the Trojan War, and her sister Hippolyta, whose magical girdle, given to her by her father Ares, was the object of one of the labours of Hercules. Amazonian raiders were often depicted in battle with Greek warriors in amazonomachies in classical art.
The Amazons have become associated with many historical people throughout the Roman Empire period and Late Antiquity. In Roman historiography, there are various accounts of Amazon raids in Asia Minor. From the Early Modern period, their name has become a term for female warriors in general.
Amazons were said to have lived in Pontus, which is part of modern day Turkey near the shore of the Euxine Sea (the Black Sea). There they formed an independent kingdom under the government of a queen named Hippolyta or Hippolyte (“loose, unbridled mare”).
The Amazons were supposed to have founded many towns, amongst them Smyrna, Ephesus, Sinope, and Paphos. According to the dramatist Aeschylus, in the distant past they had lived in Scythia (modern Crimea), at the Palus Maeotis (“Lake Maeotis”, the Sea of Azov).
According to Plutarch, the Amazons lived in and about the Don river, which the Greeks called the Tanais; but which was called by the Scythians the “Amazon.” (origins of name?) The Amazons later moved to Themiscyra on the River Thermodon (the Terme river in northern Turkey). Herodotus called them Androktones (“killers of men”), and he stated that in the Scythian language they were called Oiorpata, which he asserted had this meaning.
The origin of the word is uncertain. It may be derived from an Iranian ethnonym *ha-mazan-, “warriors”, a word attested as a denominal verb (formed with the Indo-Iranian root kar- “make” also in kar-ma) in Hesychius of Alexandria’s gloss ἁμαζακάραν· πολεμεῖν. Πέρσαι (“hamazakaran: ‘to make war’ (Persian)”).
Alternatively, a Greek derivation from *ṇ-mṇ-gw-jon-es “manless, without husbands” (a- privative and a derivation of *man- also found in Slavic muzh) has been proposed, an explanation deemed “unlikely” by Hjalmar Frisk. 19th century scholarship also connected the term to the ethnonym Amazigh. A further explanation proposes Iranian *ama-janah “virility-killing” as source.
Among Classical Greeks, amazon was given a popular etymology as from a-mazos, “without breast”, connected with an etiological tradition that Amazons had their right breast cut off or burnt out, so they would be able to throw their javelins; there is no indication of such a practice in works of art, in which the Amazons are always represented with both breasts, although the left is frequently covered (see photos in article).
In some versions of the myth, no men were permitted to have sexual encounters or reside in Amazon country; but once a year, in order to prevent their race from dying out, they visited the Gargareans, a neighbouring tribe. The male children who were the result of these visits were either killed, sent back to their fathers or exposed in the wilderness to fend for themselves; the girls were kept and brought up by their mothers, and trained in agricultural pursuits, hunting, and the art of war. In other versions when the Amazons went to war they would not kill all the men. Some they would take as slaves, and once or twice a year they would have sex with their slaves.
The intermarriage of Amazons and men from other tribes was also used to explain the origin of various people. For example, the story of the Amazons settling with the Scythians (Herodotus Histories 4.110.1-117.1).
Herodotus reported that the Sarmatians were descendants of Amazons and Scythians, and that their wives observed their ancient maternal customs, “frequently hunting on horseback with their husbands; in war taking the field; and wearing the very same dress as the men”.
Classicist Peter Walcot wrote, “Wherever the Amazons are located by the Greeks, whether it is somewhere along the Black Sea in the distant north-east, or in Libya in the furthest south, it is always beyond the confines of the civilized world. The Amazons exist outside the range of normal human experience.”
Nevertheless, there are various proposals for a historical nucleus of the Amazons of Greek historiography, the most obvious candidates being historical Scythia and Sarmatia in line with the account by Herodotus, but some authors prefer a comparison to cultures of Asia Minor or even Minoan Crete.
In Greek mythology, the Gargareans were an all-male tribe. They had sex with the Amazons annually in order to keep both tribes reproductive. Varying accounts suggest that they may have been kidnapped, raped, and murdered for this purpose, or that they may have had relations willingly. The Amazons kept the female children, raising them as warriors, and gave the males to the Gargareans.
The Gargareans are held by some historians to be a component of the ancestry of the Chechen and the Ingush peoples, and equivalent or at least related to the Georgian name Dzurdzuks.
Strabo wrote that “… the Amazons live close to Gargarei, on the northern foothills of the Caucasus mountains”. The Amazons were attributed to the Circassians via the root maze. Gaius Plinius Secundus also localizes Gargarei at North of the Caucasus, but calls them Gegar.
Some scholars (P.K. Uslar, K. Miller, N.F. Yakovleff, E.I. Krupnoff, L.A. Elnickiy, I.M. Diakonoff, V.N. Gemrakeli) supported that Gargarei is earlier for of Ingush ethnonym. Jaimoukha suggests that the myth might have been a nod to the similarity between Circassians and Dzurdzuks, despite their very different languages. The Ancient Greek chronicler Strabo mentioned that Gargareans had migrated from eastern Asia Minor (i.e. Urartu) to the North Caucasus.
Jaimoukha notes that Gargareans is one of many Nakh roots- gergara, meaning, in fact, “kindred” in proto-Nakh. If this is the case, it would make Gargarei virtually equivalent to the Georgian term Dzurdzuk (referring to the lake Durdukka in the South Caucasus, where they are thought to have migrated from, as noted by Strabo, before intermixing with the local population) which applied to a Nakh people who migrated North across the mountains to settle in modern Ingushetia.
In addition to their importance to the ancestry of Chechens and Ingush, the Gargareans have also been considered possibly central to the formation of the Èrs, another historical (albeit now extinct) Nakh people living in Northern Armenia, Caucasian Albania and Hereti (the name Hereti is derived from them).
The national animal of the Chechen nation – Thewolf:
The wolf (Chechen: Borz) is the national animal of the Chechen nation, and it is also the national embodiment. The national feeling of Chechens towards the wolf has many aspects.
The Chechen people are symbolically said to be variously related to wolves (not in a serious way, but in an either symbolic or joking manner), probably in relation to the “Wolf Mother” legend.
It remains of the legend according to which Romulus and Remus, founders of Rome (although Romulus is often said to be the only one), were found, fed and raised by a She-Wolf, known as the Lupa Capitolina in latin, or Capitoline Wolf.
Chechens have a legend according to which they too descend from a Wolf Mother, and their connection to wolves takes various forms. They are often compared to wolves – in positive or negative ways: The Chechen nation are ‘free and equal like wolves’, a famous line recites. The founder of the Chechen nation, Turpalo-Noxchuo, is said to have been raised by a female wolf, just like the Roman heroes.
Hence, characteristics of the wolf are also frequently compared to the Chechen people in a poetic sense, including the most famous line that members of the Chechen nation are “free and equal like wolves”. Wolf clans are often equated to Chechen teips.
Chechen culture often emphasizes emulation of other characteristics of the wolf besides egalitarianism. As Jaimoukha explains in his ethnographic book on the Chechen people,
According to the Chechen ethos, the wolf is the only animal that would enter into an unequal match, making up for any disadvantage by its agility, wit, courage and tenacity. If it loses the battle, it lies down facing the foe in full acceptance of its fate – Chechen poise equivalent to the famed British ‘stiff upper lip’.
There is a saying in the Chechen language describing a person, “He/She was raised by the She-Wolf” which implies the person has admirable personality traits.
There is one myth that the mythological founder of the Chechen nation, Turpalo-Noxchuo (Chechen Hero, who Chechens are descended from “like sparks of steel”), was raised by a fabled, loving “Wolf Mother”.
Old Chechen lore holds that the sheep was actually originally created for the wolf to enjoy, but man “stole” the sheep from the wolf (this is rather interesting considering that many Chechens in the past have in fact been shepherds). According to the ethnographic historian Jaimoukha, in olden times Chechens used to observe a wolf cult that would prevent lupine raids on sheep, by observing Saturday as being a special day.
The wolf is frequently used for insignia and images, as a symbol of the Chechen nation. Common poses involve the wolf howling off the top of a mountain (Chechnya is very mountainous), laying down, or staring at the viewer.
The different poses evoke different symbolism: The wolf howling off the top of the mountain is usually an expression of national pride. In the period of 1991-1994, broadcasts in independent Chechnya bore this symbol, in that case symbolizing the struggle for national recognition. The symbol is also used by Chechens nowadays as a simple expression of being proud they are Chechen.
The wolf lying down, facing the viewer is usually a reference to the mythological “Wolf Mother” of Turpalo-Noxchuo. Staring at the viewer usually evokes a feeling of intense emotion that the artist is implying they believe is felt by the Chechen nation.
Modernly, the coat of arms of the secular separatists in Chechnya bore the wolf. The Islamists later removed it and replaced it with Arabic script, and the Russian-sponsored ruling regime removed it entirely, but the secular government in exile still uses it. In addition, many other insignia of the Chechen nation (of all three governments) use the wolf as a heraldic symbol.
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