From: Steve Woodson
Message: 3066
Date: 2000-08-11
> In reply to myJohn,
>
> > Interesting from a Biblical mythology point of view. Strange how
> the
> > "kurgan fact" parallels "medieval myth". In modern times, Arthur
> > Koestler also tried similarly to connect Ashkenazi Jews to the
> > medieval Jewish Khazar Khanate.
>
> Mark wrote
> > Tried to connect? It's my understanding that the Khazarian influx,
> mixing with Sephardim originating from the west, has been proven by
> genetic testing. The Khazars, from my reading, were quite fair.
>
> In "In The Blood: God Genes and Destiny" by Steve Jones (BBC Program)
> published by Harper Collins London 1996, Jones reports that whilst
> Ashkenazi Jews do have some genetic markers that separate them from
> the surrounding Polish, Russian and Ukrainian populations, (eg.
> Tay Sachs Syndrome) these are surprisingly few. There is, he
> suggests, almost no presence of Turkic genes (less than one finds in
> Ukrainians generally), disproving Koerstler's theory.
>
> Do you have more recent work?
>
> A little on the Khazars for those on the list who may not know of
> them. They are interesting as they arose in precisely the area in
> which the PIE arose. Their spread, as Khazars, and later as Seljuks,
> offers some interesting parallels to the possible spread of early IE
> languages.
>
> The Khazars burst into history in 468 when, led by the Ashena
> dynasty,
> they took over the power vacuum created by the collapse of the Huns
> in
> the Ukrainian and North Caucasian Steppe.
>
> In 490 they were attacked by Sassanid Persians who were reoccupying
> the lands that had been taken in the period from 467 by the
> Hephthalite (White Huns) - who destoyed the Gupta Empire in India,
> and
> eventually evolved as the Rajputs.
>
> In 552 when the Juan-juan confederacy in Mongolia was destroyed by
> Chinese armies cooperating with Turks, the Turks created a new steppe
> empire reaching from Turkestan to India and Manchuria. Another
> Turkish
> army invaded the Caucasus in 576, then split apart from the main
> power
> and joined with those elements in the north Caucasas calling
> themselves Khazars.
>
> By 580 a Khazar-Byzantine alliance worked together to reinstall on
> the
> Sassanid throne crown prince Khusrau, who had fled to Byzantium.
> When
> Maurice was assasinated, the Sassanids attacked Byzantium, and
> absorbed most of the Eastern Roman Empire east of the Bosphorus.
>
> In 622 the new emperor Heraclius called for Khazars help.
>
> By 627 the Khazars are reported at the gates of Tiflis, and together
> they descended onto the plain of the Tigris. Khusrau was assasinated
> and peace was signed in 628.
>
> In the period from 630 to 830 the Khazars were a tribal coalition
> which included groups of Magyars (including the Kabars who were led
> by
> the Turkic Khazars) & also contained Iranian Chwaresm, and Alans, in
> addition to Oghuz turks.
>
> In 632 AD, according to the account of Byzantine chroniclers, khan
> Kubrat availed himself of the failing power of the Turkut khagan,
> shook off the vassal age his tribe was in, and declared himself an
> independent ruler.
>
> In 651 the Bulgars under Isperikh (643-701) (Kubrat's uccessor)
> migrated to Lower Danube (after having been attacked by a joint
> Khazar
> & Avar force).
>
> In 679 the Bulgar Empire of the steppes was completely destroyed by
> Khazars and the Turkic Eskil (From "Attila" - Hunnic renmants, later
> Szekelers or Bulgar-Turks) were incorporated into the developing
> Khazar state. The Bulgar refugees surged into Balkans, becoming
> recognised rulers over Slavs by Byzantium in 681.
>
> Between 650 and 800 Jewish refugees from Byzantine Empire & Islamic
> countries nearby (A. Koestler, The 13th Tribe) sought sanctuary
> within the Khazar Khhanate as refugees from persecution.
>
> In 683 the Khazars were again raiding Armenia. By then the Khazar
> state occupied the Northern Caucasian area & the triangular bulge to
> the north, between the lower Don and lower Volga RR, also the steppes
> between the Caucasus & Caspian. From there they spread to the
> deserts east of Volga to the Yaik River (= Ural R). Their southern
> boundary was main Caucasus range. The western boundary is Pontic
> (Black Sea) littoral from Kuban River mouth to Kerch. Their north
> west
> boundary was the Sea of Azov. The Eastern boundary was from mouth of
> Yaik River to Derbend Pass or Gate.} Their capital was the caravan
> city of Itil.
>
> In 704, Byzantine Emperor Justinian II married a daughter of a Khazar
> monarch.
>
> In 724 the Khazars were driven out of Georgia by the new power of the
> Ummayyads. It looked as though they were going to be cuaght between
> the hammer of Islam and the Anvil of Byzantine Christianity.
>
> To escape this trap, between 740 and 860 the Khazars converted to
> Judaisim, as this allowed themselves to maintain their independence
> from both the Christian Byzantine alliances, and the Muslim Arabs.
> Khagan Bulan, "called upon the representatives of Judaism,
> Christianity and Mohammedanism to expound their doctrines before him.
> This discussion convinced him that the Jewish faith was the most
> preferable, and he decided to embrace it. Thereupon he and about
> 4,000
> Khazars were circumcised; (but) it was only by degrees that the
> Jewish
> teachings gained a foothold among the population."
>
> With the south closed to them, in about 750 the Khazars crossed the
> Don River to expand to the Dnepr and Dnestr Rivers, sending envoys to
> Byzantium. There they developed as a particularly powerful trading
> emporium offering an alternative route to the Silk Road whose Persian
> end was in the hands of the muslims.
>
> The city of Tmutorokan was the end of this trade route. Founded in
> the sixth century BCE as the Greek city of Germonassus, as a part of
> the Khazar khanate it was known as Tamatarkha. A bishopric was
> probably established there in conjunction with St. Cyril's mission to
> the Khazars in about 860.
>
> Khagan Obadiah, was the first to make serious efforts to further the
> Jewish religion. He invited Jewish sages to settle in his dominions,
> rewarded them royally, founded synagogues and schools...caused
> instruction to be given to himself and his people in the Torah and
> the
> Talmud, and introduced a divine service modeled on the ancient
> communities. After Obadiah came a long series of Jewish chagans, for
> according to a fundamental law of the state only Jewish rulers were
> permitted to ascend the throne."
>
> By the end of the 9th century the Khazar state was beginning to come
> apart. In 895 the increasingly troublesome and independent Magyars
> (who speaking a Ugric tongue, had adopted the nomadic steppe culture
> of the Khazars) were expelled from Ukraine by an alliance between the
> Vikings of the north and Khazars from the east. The seven tribes of
> Magyars of Etelkõz (between the Rivers), joined by the Khazar
> Kabars,
> and under their ruler (gyula) Álmos, and his son Árpád, then
> moved
> into Hungary.
>
> The breakup seemed to occur as a result of struggles between the
> ruling family and its Turkic clans. According to ibn Habreus, Tuquq,
> leader of the Oghuzz "began his career in the army of the
> khan [beg] of the Jewish Khazars, the two peoples having been
> connected by trade for already quite some time."
>
> As many of the Oghuz Turks of the time, Tuquq fought under the blue
> banner of the Khazar Empire and rose, according to ibn Habreus, to
> the
> high rank of commander, but died early, perhaps in a military
> excursion against the Arabs or Byzantines. Having secured the
> goodwill of the Khazar Beg, Tuquq's son Seljuk was placed in the
> royal
> household, and educated and treated as such. However Seljuk found his
> differences with the Beg's wife, the Khazar Katoun (Queen), and was
> banished form the court. Seljuk found it expedient to move to the
> lands of his people beyond the Transoxus.
>
> Seljuk returned at an opportune time, circa 950 CE, finding a tax-war
> in the lands of the Oghuz and the Persian Samanids and the Turkic
> Karakhanid tribe. As proper for the warrior's son, and undoubtedly
> utilizing his Khazar training, Seljuk formed a force of Oghuz and
> invaded the Samanid-occupied city of Djand, refusing to withdraw
> until
> a rapproachment was reached between the Karakhanid and Samanids . He
> passed in Djand at the biblical age of 107 years after consolidating
> his control in Samarkand and Bukhara.
>
> Seljuk had four sons and each was a successor to his rule in Central
> Asia: Mikail (Michael), Yunus (Jonah), Musa (Moses), and Israil
> (Israel), and a grandson David; these names are obvious in their
> historical and religious connotations to Judaism, and not
> Christianity
> or Islam. Whether they were made in deference to the Khazar
> Fatherland
> their grandfather Tuquq arose from, an adherence to Judaism or Judaic
> practices, or another matter are subject for discussion.
>
> There is no evidence that Seljuk himself adopted Islam; Talbot Rice
> cites Douglas Dunlopxix in the argument that aside from the Jewish,
> Buddhist, Manichean, Nestorian and Muslim merchant populations in
> Oghuz Transoxiana, Seljuk himself held beliefs in Judaism, at least
> until and perhaps after the Muslim suzerain in the area by the
> beginning of 1000 CE.
>
> 944 was the beginning of the end of the Khazar Empire when they were
> attacked by the Kievan Rus. The end came in the brutally destruction
> by Prince Sviatoslav of the the Kievan Rus in the period from 965 -
> 969. This allowed their place on the steppe to be taken by the more
> vicious Pechenegs (Polovtsians).
>
> Pletneva, S.A. Ocherki Khazarskoi Arkheologii. [Essays on Khazar
> archeology].
>
> Regards
>
> John