Античная древность и средние века (Dec 2024)
Searching the Khazars in Mangup: Some Critical Observations on the Data of Written and Archaeological Sources
Abstract
This article examines the available data of written and archaeological sources on the so-called “Khazar” Period in the history of Mangup-Doros, the largest Byzantine castle in the Mountainous Crimea in the Early Middle Ages. As the latest research materials show, the only source testifying to the capture of the castle of Doros by the Khazars ca 786–787 and the presence of the Khazar garrison there is the Life of St John of Gothia. However, the results of current excavations of the site indicate that the castle became a part of the Khazar Khaganate for the short term only, and its material culture from the eighth and the first half of the ninth centuries did not experienced serious changes. The ethnic structure and main occupations of the local population continued from the previous time. All the identified repairs of early mediaeval fortification structures correlate with the activities of the castle garrison in the first half of the eighth century and in the mid-ninth to late-tenth centuries, when it was a part of the Byzantine possessions in the Crimea. Particularly indicative is the evolutionary development of a number of large settlement structures currently discovered in the central area of the ancient town, testifying to the gradual formation of the urban appearance of Mangup from the sixth to eleventh century and its transformation into a typical provincial Byzantine town. The new materials of research of Mangup-Doros in the “Dark Ages” of its history presented in the study generally are of great importance for rethinking the established historiographic ideas about the significant role of the Khazar Khaganate in the history of Crimean Gothia and the entire Crimean Peninsula in the eighth and ninth centuries.
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