4U1I VLJLU/VVt 1 i CHRONICA ANNUAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORY UNIVERSITY OF SZEGED CHRONICA ANNUAL OF THE INSTITUTE OF HISTORY UNIVERSITY OF SZEGED HUNGARY Editor-in-chief: Lajos Kövér Editors: Zsolt Hunyadi, István Zimonyi Editorial Board: László Koszta, Tibor Almási, László }. Nagy, Enikő Sajti, Sándor Csernus Proof Readers: jLiditli Everard (United Kingdom) Frederik Felskau (Germany) Pongracz Sennyey (USA) Articles appearing in the CHRONICA are abstracted in HISTORICAL ABSTRACT and AMERICA: HISTORY AND LIFE ISSN 1588 2039 Published by the Institute of History University of Szeged 2. Egyetem u. H-6722 Szeged Hungary e-mail: [email protected] http: //primus.arts.u-szeged.hu/chronica Printed in Hungary, on acid-free paper by E-press Ltd, Szeged Copyright © 2011, by the authors and the editors Contents ISTVÁN ZIMONYI Medieval Nomadic conference in the shadow of the Egyptian revolution (Fourth International Conference on Medieval History of the Eurasian Steppe. January 25-30, 2011. Office of the Hungarian Cultural Counsellor in Cairo 13, Gawad Hosni St. 2nd. Floor Abdin, Cairo) 3 FRANÇOISE AUBIN Two case studies of law and institutions in Chinggisid China (Yuan era) 6 LÁSZLÓ BALOGH Nicephorus Phocas and the Scythians 12 V. A. IVANOV and M. I. IVANOVA Geographical and political background of medieval nomads settling in the steppes of Eastern Europe 18 JOHANNES STEINER Some remarks on the deaths of Mongol Khans ("Deathbed scenes" and supernatural incidents) 35 NIKOLAY RYBAKOV Materials of Yenisei Manichaeism 50 GYULA WOJTILLA Agriculture versus pastoralism in Indo-Aryan prehistory 62 TATIANA A. ANIKEEVA The Kitab-i dedem Qorkut as a source for the cultural history of the Oghuz Turks 71 VASCO LA SALVIA Germanic populations and steppe people (An example of the integration of material cultures. The diffusion of the stirrup in the eastern Merovin- gian area) 78 MIHÁLY DOBROVITS On some eastern parallels of the development and consolidation of the early Hungarian state 96 SZABOLCS POLGÁR The ethnonyms Turci, Turchi in the medieval (western) European Latin sources 104 KATALIN NAGY Scabbard accessories found in a tomb of the early Migration Period on Pácin-Szenna-hill 113 SZILVIA KOVÁCS The origin of the Cumans in the Russian Primary Chronicle 125 HEINRICH HARKE and ANDREJ BELINSKIJ The 'elite plot' in the cemetery of Klin-Yar (Russia) (The emergence of a hereditary elite in the early Alanic North Caucasus?) 135 TAKASHI OSAWA A hypothesis on the etymology of the Old Turkic royal clan name ASina/ ASinas and the transformation process in the early Abbasid period 145 L. N. ERMOLENKO On the Attributes of heroic virtue (valor, glory, heroic name) in heroic poetry and ancient Turk texts 154 S. A. TEPLOUKHOV, S. V. KISELYOV and L. Yu. KITOVA Pioneers of archaeological research on nomads in medieval South Siberia. 161 AGUSTI ALEMANY Alans in Khazaria and Khazars in Alania (On the nature and role of North Iranian elements in the Khazar Empire) 168 VIRGIL CIOCILTAN Khalisen, Kabaren, Khasaren: Stamm oder Stand? 178 A. M. BELAVIN and N. B. KRYLASOVA Ancient Khakasses and the Permian Cis-Urals , 193 ELMETWALI TAMIM Cumans and Russians (1055-1240) 198 MARIA IVANICS Die Frauen der Khane in der Goldenen Horde und in ihren Nachfol- gestaaten 211 Medieval Nomadic conference in the shadow of the Egyptian revolution Fourth International Conference on Medieval History of the Eurasian Steppe. January 25-30, 2011. Office of the Hungarian Cultural Counsellor in Cairo 13, Gawad Hosni St. 2nd. Floor Abdin, Cairo ISTVÁN ZIMONYI The Department of Medieval History at the University of Szeged and the Office of the Hungarian Cultural Counsellor organized the Fourth International Confer- ence on Medieval History of the Eurasian Steppe in Cairo in January 25-30, 2011. The Medieval Nomads evolved form the conferences on the history of the Eura- sian steppe in the Middle Ages held in 1997, 2000 and 2002 at the University of Szeged. These early conferences were the forum for the Hungarian historians and orientalists and their proceedings were published in Hungarian. In 2004 it was decided to convene an International Conference on Medieval History of the Eurasian Steppe. The first conference of this kind was held in Sze- ged in 2004, the second in Jászberény in 2007 and the third in Miskolc in 2009 (Hungary). The proceedings have been published in Acta Orientalia (58: 2005) and Chronica (7-8: 2007-8). As I worked as the director of the Office of the Hungarian Cultural Counsellor in Cairo from 2007 until 2011 and I organized the former conferences with my colleages, I decided to prepare a conference in Cairo. The cooperation based on the idea that the nomadic people played an im- portant role in the medieval history of Egypt and the Hungarian Kingdom. The formation of the Hungarian tribal confederation and its history until the conver- sion to Christianity was an integral part of the medieval nomadic history. Pecheneg and Ghuzz groups moved to the Carpathian Basin in the eleventh cen- tury. Cumans and Alans joined the Hungarian Kingdom in thirteenth century af- ter the Mongol invasion and integrated into the kingdom. The medieval nomads of Eurasian steppe also played a major role in Islamic history of Egypt. The first independent Muslim dynasty of Egypt, the Tulunids were of Turkish origin in the ninth century (868-905). The Cumans known as Kun among Hungarians and Kipchaks in the Muslim sources had a strong impact on Egypt. The Kipchaks founded the Mamluk dynasty in Egypt, Syria and they brought prosperity for 3 ISTVÁN ZIMONYI Egypt and they could stop the attack of the Mongol Empire in Syria. The Bahri Mamluk dynasty (1260-1382) was of Kipchak origin. The preliminary program of the conference included 45 lectures and the par- ticipants came from France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Japan, Russia, Turkey be- sides the Egyptian and Hungarian historians. On 25 January 2011 the majority of conference participants was received at Cairo airport. The first working day started at 10 o'clock on 26 January, as the cultural counsellor I welcomed the participants and opened the conference. Pro- fessor András Róna-Tas made preleminary remarks on the study of present stage of nomadic peoples of Eurasian steppe and tributed commemoration to the late Professor Denis Sinor, the pioneer of this field of research. Mihály Dobrovits in- formed the participants about the process of publication of the proceedings of the former conference. Then the lectures were read till 6 pm in the Great Hall of the Cultural Office. On the way to the hotel in the evening we realized the unusual present of riot police around Tahrir-square. As the news of protests and demon- strations came continuously I decided to organize two sessions on 27 January to finish the professional work. 37 lectures were delivered from 15 countries (France, Germany, Hungary, Austria, Italy, Spain, Egypt, Russia, Ukraine, Tatar- stan, Bashkortostan, Tuva, Japan, Armenia, Turkey), historians, archaeologists and orientalists were involved. The majority of presentations followed by lively debate. Photo by Heinrich Harke, 29 January 2011 Cairo, Tahrir 4 MEDIEVAL NOMADIC CONFERENCE IN THE SHADOW OF THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION By 6:30 we finished the lectures and a reception was held in a fish restaurant in the evening. As the next day was Friday, the Muslim week-end and a huge demonstration was announced in Downtown, we organized an excursion to the pyramids of Dakhshur, Sakkara and Giza. At Giza we saw people in the streets after the khutba 'Friday preach'. On the way back to the hotels our buses ran into a mass protest on the July 26 bridge next to Zamalek. The protesters were at- tacked by the riot police with tear gas. We had to retreat and the bus drivers could find a roundabout way to the other bridge to approach Zamalek, so we could reach one of the hotels for the participants, but the other hotel was in Downtown in the vicinity of Tahrir Square, the centre of demonstrations and the bus driver could not risk to go there. Thus, the participants of the conference liv- ing in Zamalek shared their rooms with those who could not leave for their hotel. The internet and mobile services were shut down by the government, the partici- pants could use the landline of the hotel to inform their relatives at home. From 6 p.m. the government introduced curfew. Next morning the colleages living in the hotel of the Downtown could go home. Originally we planned to visit the Egyp- tian Museum and the Museum of Islamic Arts, but the situation was quite dan- gerous as the police left the streets uncontrolled and the prisons were opened. I adviced the participants to leave Cairo as soon as possible. Most of them safely left Cairo on 30 January, Saturday. I express special thank to my colleages from the University of Szeged, Szilvia Kovács, Balázs Sinkovics and Katalin Nagy and my colleages at the Office of the Cultural Counsellor Timea Ficsor, Aisha Ibrahim, Abdallah Abdel-Aty, Shawky Sayed Mohamed, Abdel Mokhsen and Mohammad Allam for their work during the conference. As for the publication, I thank to Zsolt Hunyadi who made ex- traordinary efforts for editing the proceedings of the conference. As a historian it was an extraordinary experience, the historians usually study the important events of the past from their present point of view, but it is another case when you feel the breeze of history on your skin. Szeged, March 2011 5 Two case studies oflaw and institutions in Chinggisid China (Yuan era)* FRANÇOISE AUBIN (Emeritus Director of Research at the National Centre for Scientific Research, CNRS, Paris) Take any textbook on Chinese history issued by the People's Republic of China for the enlightenment of foreigners: it features Genghis Khan as the sovereign of a "Chinese minority" who dominated China for a relatively short while and brought with them nothing less than chaos.