Mountains, steppes and empires: approaches to the North Caucasus in the early middle ages
<p>People in the valleys and foothills north of the Caucasus mountain range have lived on the edge of empires for over five thousand years, while resisting incorporation into any single empire until recently. This thesis examines interactions between the agrarian empires of the Near East, the...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2016
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| _version_ | 1817931984090955776 |
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| author | Evans, N |
| author2 | Shepard, J |
| author_facet | Shepard, J Evans, N |
| author_sort | Evans, N |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>People in the valleys and foothills north of the Caucasus mountain range have lived on the edge of empires for over five thousand years, while resisting incorporation into any single empire until recently. This thesis examines interactions between the agrarian empires of the Near East, the nomadic empires of the western Eurasian steppe and the highlanders of the North Caucasus (especially, but not exclusively, the Alans) in the eighth to tenth centuries CE. The North Caucasus was a ‘hinterland’ of empires, where forms of radical social autonomy could be preserved (James Scott). This made its history distinct from imperial ‘peripheries’ in the South Caucasus and around the Black Sea coast. It was a zone of contact, where people from different cultures could sometimes find ‘Middle Ground’ (Richard White), but where patterns of imperial dominance and violence could also cast long shadows (Carolyn Nordstrom).</p>
<p>This thesis approaches the early medieval North Caucasus through writing produced in the Byzantine Empire and the ‘Abbāsid caliphate, and through Russian archaeology of the region. The ‘Abbāsid historian al-Balādhurī (chapter two) offers a perspective on the legacy of Sasanian imperialism and outlines resources that the ‘Abbāsid state could draw on from the region. Burial, settlement and landscape archaeology of the Kislovodsk Basin allow us to see the region from within, where we find a transformation of the region’s social structure between the eighth and tenth centuries (chapter three). The exceptional preservation of textiles in North-West Caucasian burial sites (chapter four) reveal how the highlanders were connected to far-flung places, resources and ideas, even while they maintained political autonomy. This remained so after the growth of Christianity in the region in the tenth century, for which Byzantine written sources and the archaeology of the region provide the crucial evidence (chapter five).
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| first_indexed | 2024-03-06T18:59:54Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:132d3cee-29c3-426a-af58-ebb3c3a3194f |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-09T03:30:42Z |
| publishDate | 2016 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:132d3cee-29c3-426a-af58-ebb3c3a3194f2024-12-01T14:03:21ZMountains, steppes and empires: approaches to the North Caucasus in the early middle agesThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:132d3cee-29c3-426a-af58-ebb3c3a3194fHistoryCaucasus, Northern (Russia)Archaeology, MedievalEnglishHyrax Deposit2016Evans, NShepard, JWhittow, M<p>People in the valleys and foothills north of the Caucasus mountain range have lived on the edge of empires for over five thousand years, while resisting incorporation into any single empire until recently. This thesis examines interactions between the agrarian empires of the Near East, the nomadic empires of the western Eurasian steppe and the highlanders of the North Caucasus (especially, but not exclusively, the Alans) in the eighth to tenth centuries CE. The North Caucasus was a ‘hinterland’ of empires, where forms of radical social autonomy could be preserved (James Scott). This made its history distinct from imperial ‘peripheries’ in the South Caucasus and around the Black Sea coast. It was a zone of contact, where people from different cultures could sometimes find ‘Middle Ground’ (Richard White), but where patterns of imperial dominance and violence could also cast long shadows (Carolyn Nordstrom).</p> <p>This thesis approaches the early medieval North Caucasus through writing produced in the Byzantine Empire and the ‘Abbāsid caliphate, and through Russian archaeology of the region. The ‘Abbāsid historian al-Balādhurī (chapter two) offers a perspective on the legacy of Sasanian imperialism and outlines resources that the ‘Abbāsid state could draw on from the region. Burial, settlement and landscape archaeology of the Kislovodsk Basin allow us to see the region from within, where we find a transformation of the region’s social structure between the eighth and tenth centuries (chapter three). The exceptional preservation of textiles in North-West Caucasian burial sites (chapter four) reveal how the highlanders were connected to far-flung places, resources and ideas, even while they maintained political autonomy. This remained so after the growth of Christianity in the region in the tenth century, for which Byzantine written sources and the archaeology of the region provide the crucial evidence (chapter five). </p> |
| spellingShingle | History Caucasus, Northern (Russia) Archaeology, Medieval Evans, N Mountains, steppes and empires: approaches to the North Caucasus in the early middle ages |
| title | Mountains, steppes and empires: approaches to the North Caucasus in the early middle ages |
| title_full | Mountains, steppes and empires: approaches to the North Caucasus in the early middle ages |
| title_fullStr | Mountains, steppes and empires: approaches to the North Caucasus in the early middle ages |
| title_full_unstemmed | Mountains, steppes and empires: approaches to the North Caucasus in the early middle ages |
| title_short | Mountains, steppes and empires: approaches to the North Caucasus in the early middle ages |
| title_sort | mountains steppes and empires approaches to the north caucasus in the early middle ages |
| topic | History Caucasus, Northern (Russia) Archaeology, Medieval |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT evansn mountainssteppesandempiresapproachestothenorthcaucasusintheearlymiddleages |