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Sasanidische Spuren in Der Byzantinischen, Kaukasischen Und Johannes Preiser-Kapeller From one End of the (Post)Sasanian World to the Other. Mobility and Migration between the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf in the 4th to 9th Century CE The background or »infrastructure« for the diffusion of »Sasa- that which remains how many [grains] was the pearl and how nian Elements in Byzantine, Caucasian and Islamic Art and many drams the value of the pearl? (see fg. 1)« 4. Culture« (as was the title of the conference at the RGZM We also learn from other sources that members of the in Mainz in October 2017) was provided by the mobility of Armenian elite travelled to the Central Asian frontier regions people, objects and ideas (the two latter in turn being »trans- by order of the Sasanian regime. During the reign of Great ported« by people again) within and beyond the borders King Peroz I (458-484 CE), who was involved in constan t of the (post)Sasanian world 1. Recently, empires have been warfare with the Hephthalites, noble cavalry troops were characterised as »regimes of entanglements«, establishing transferred from Armenia to the area of Harev / Herat in mod- and maintaining »network structures in which certain struc- ern day Afghanistan 5. Nearer to the lifetime of Anania, Smbat tural and habitual circumstances – principles, rules, standards Bagratuni, called »Xosrov Šum« (Khusraw´s joy), between and mutual expectations – allow for the establishment of 590 and 616 CE rose to a prominent position at the court long term linkages. (…) imperial formations (Roman Empire, of Great King Khusraw II (590-628 CE). As we learn from Ottoman Empire, Mughal Empire) are examples of regimes the Armenian history attributed to Sebēos, »it happened at of entanglements where religions and ethnicities, as well as that time that Smbat Bagratuni became pleasing in the eyes certain functionaries interact«. These linkages can also remain of King Khusraw. He gave him the marzpanate of the land effective after the fragmentation, the collapse or conquest of of Vrkan [Hyrcania, to the southeast of the Caspian Sea], an imperial sphere and exert a sustaining impact on axes of made him prince over all that region, and favoured him even mobility and exchange 2. In this paper, I describe such phe- more with honours and authority. He heaped gold and silver nomena for the Sasanian and post-Sasanian world. on him, and robed him in expensive and splendid garments. In the transition period between the Sasanian and He gave him the belt and sword that had belonged to his post-Sasanian / early Islamic period around 650 CE, the Arme- own father Ormizd. He put under his control Persian and nian scholar Anania from the province of Širak (in the central Armenian troops, and ordered him to go to the land of his area of historical Armenia) wrote a collection of mathematical appointment« 6. problems, which he used in teaching. A considerable number The following campaigns against the Turks and their vas- of them stemmed from everyday life of the Armenian elite of sals in Central Asia led Smbat Bagratuni and his Armenian the 7th century CE, which also included service to the Sasanian retainers all the way to the city of Balḫ, which they conquered Great King 3. In his problem no 2, Anania describes a journey and plundered. During these wars, Smbat Bagratuni also of one of his kinsmen from one end of the Sasanian Empire met descendants of Armenian deportees: »There was in that to the other, including also the transfer of a valuable object: country a community deported from Armenia and settled on »One man from my relatives was summoned to Balḫ [in mod- the edge of the great desert which extends from T’urk’astan ern-day Afghanistan] and found a valuable pearl. Returning and Dihistan. They had forgotten their own language, lost home, he reached Ganjak [in Azerbaijan] and sold half of the the use of writing, and lacked the priestly order. There was pearl for ffty drams per grain. And coming to Naxčavan, he also there a group of Kodrik’ [the exact origin of this group sold a quarter of the pearl for seventy drams per grain. And is unclear] who had been taken captive with our own men; arriving in Dvin [the capital of Armenia] he sold one twelfth of and furthermore not a few from the Greek empire and from the pearl for 50 drams per grain; and when he came to us in the region of Syria. The community of Kodrik’ were infdels. Širak, he had left 24 grains of this pearl. Now, work out from But over the Christians there shone a great light. They were 1 Cf. also McCormick, Origins of the European Economy. – Hodges, Dark Age 3 Greenwood, Anania Širakacʿi. Economics. – Quast, Communication. 4 Greenwood, Anania Širakacʿi 145 and 161 (text). 2 Schuppert, Verfochtene Staatlichkeit 29 (citing from a research proposal of 5 Łazar Pʿarpecʿi 258-260. – Vacca, Non-Muslim Provinces 155, n. 11. M. Mulsow / J. Rübke 2013, 17 [in German]). 6 Sebēos c. 24: 96. – Thomson / Howard-Johnston, Sebeos I, 43-44. Mobility and Migration | Johannes Preiser-Kapeller 9 confrmed in the faith and learned to write and speak their Anania, whom we also know as »lord of Širak and Ašarunik’« language. A certain presbyter among them who was named from an inscription on the Church of Mren dated to the years Abel was appointed to priestly rank in that land« 7. 638 to 641 CE 13. This settlement of Armenian and other population in the However, this was not the frst transfer of population frontier region southeast of the Caspian Sea was probably from the (north-)eastern edge of the Sasanian sphere into connected with the building and safeguarding of the Great the South Caucasus. These areas consisted of Khurāsān, that Wall of Gorgān, which since the 5th century CE motivated is the region between the city of Nīšāpūr and the River Oxus the resettlement and deportation of groups from all over the (Amu Darya), and the areas beyond that river, that is Trans- Sasanian Empire 8. oxania or in Arabic Mā warāʾu n-nahr. The latter included the However, this involvement of Armenians in the Sasanian country of Sogdia between the Oxus and the Jaxartes (Syr frontier politics in Central Asia 9 also brought about the move- Darya), centred on the valley of the Zar-afšān river with the ment of people in the other direction towards South Caucasia. renowned cities of Samarkand and Buḫārā. For Great King In Anania of Širak´s mathematical problem no 21, we read: Khusraw I (531-579 CE), al-Balāḏurī claims that »in the land »Nerseh Kamsarakan, son of Aršawir and homonymous an- of Jurzan [eastern Georgia 14] he established a city, Sughdabil cestor of this Nerseh, defeated the people of Balḫ in battle [identifed with the city of Curtaw to the southwest of Tbilisi], and captured very many of them. And on arriving at the royal which he populated with a body of Sogdians and Persians, court [in Ctesiphon], he presented to the king of the Persians making it a fortifed town« 15. Other target areas of what J. H. the usual [share] of prisoners. And having counted the usual Kramers in 1936 has called the »military colonisation of the [share], he offered to the son of the king a 1/7 part. And Caucasus« included the urban centres of Dvin and Naxčavan being dismissed by them he turned to his country [Arme- in the valley of the Araxes as well as the important passage- nia]. And he went to the house of the darikpet [the master ways across the Great Caucasus in Derbent at the Caspian of the palace] and was greatly honoured by him, not as a Sea (in Arabic Bāb al-Abwāb, lit. »Gate of Gates«) and in Dar- naxarar 10, but as one of the kings. And he gave him 1/8 of iali (coming from Persian Dar-e Alān, meaning »Gate of the the prisoners. On coming to the spasayapet, whom they call Alans«) to the north of Tbilisi. Recent excavations at the site the xoravaran [the »General of the West« 11], and being hon- of Dariali have identifed a cemetery of the garrison whose oured even more by him, he gave him 1/12 of the prisoners. oldest burials date to the period 428 to 598 CE; the fortress And having moved on, he arrived in his own country [in the was then later also occupied by Arab troops (see below) 16. province of Širak] and his younger brother Hrahat presented While all these examples so far included migrations at himself before him and he gave him 1/14 of the prisoners. the order of the imperial regime or as consequences of the And having moved on, the Armenian azatk´ [members of the state´s actions (especially warfare), other forms or mobility lower nobility] presented themselves before him and he gave took place from private initiatives. Procopius, for instance, in to them 1/9 of the prisoners. Arriving at Vałaršapat [Ēǰmiacin, the 6th century CE describes the power of attraction of the the traditional centre of the Armenian Church], he gave to Armenian capital Dvin for traders from all over the Sasanian the holy churches 1/16 of the prisoners. And when his elder Empire and beyond: »Now Doubios [Dvin] is a land excellent brother Sahak came, he gave him 1/20 of the prisoners. And in every respect, and especially blessed with a healthy climate there were 570 people left. Now work out in total, how many and abundance of good water; and from Theodosioupolis were there« 12.
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