Atil (also Itil) , was the capital of the

Khazar Khaganate The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...

from the middle of the 8th century until the end of the 10th century. Known to have been situated on the

Silk Road The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...

in the vicinity of the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...

, its precise location has long been unknown. In 2008, a site at

Samosdelka Samosdelka (russian: Самосделка) is a fishing village in southern Russia (about 40 km south-south-west of the city of Astrakhan) near which archaeologists reported in September 2008 that they had found the remains of Atil, the capit ...

, a village in the

Volga Delta The Volga Delta is the largest river delta in Europe, and occurs where Europe's largest river system, the Volga River, drains into the Caspian Sea in Russia's Astrakhan Oblast, north-east of the republic of Kalmykia. The delta is located in the ...

some 30 km south-west of

Astrakhan Astrakhan ( rus, Астрахань, p=ˈastrəxənʲ) is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in Southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the ...

has been identified as the site of Atil. The name ''Atil'' is from Turkic phrase meaning "great river", a name of the

Volga River The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the List of rivers of Europe#Rivers of Europe by length, longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Cas ...

History

Atil was located along the Volga delta at the northwestern corner of the

. Following the defeat of the

Khazars The Khazars ; he, כּוּזָרִים, Kūzārīm; la, Gazari, or ; zh, 突厥曷薩 ; 突厥可薩 ''Tūjué Kěsà'', () were a semi-nomadic Turkic people that in the late 6th-century CE established a major commercial empire coverin ...

in the

Second Arab-Khazar War The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds eac ...

, Atil became the capital of Khazaria.

Ibn Khordadbeh Abu'l-Qasim Ubaydallah ibn Abdallah ibn Khordadbeh ( ar, ابوالقاسم عبیدالله ابن خرداذبه; 820/825–913), commonly known as Ibn Khordadbeh (also spelled Ibn Khurradadhbih; ), was a high-ranking Persian bureaucrat and ...

, writing in ca. 870, names ''Khamlij'' as the capital of the Khazars. This is presumably a rendition of Turkic ''khaganbaligh'' "city of the khan" and refers to the city later (in the 10th century) named as ''Atil'' in Arab historiography. At its height, the city was a major center of trade, and consisted of three parts separated by the Volga. The western part contained the administrative center of the city, with a court house and a large military garrison. The eastern part of the city was built later and acted as the commercial center of the Atil, and had many public baths and shops. Between them was an island on which stood the palaces of the Khazar

Khagan Khagan or Qaghan (Mongolian:; or ''Khagan''; otk, 𐰴𐰍𐰣 ), or , tr, Kağan or ; ug, قاغان, Qaghan, Mongolian Script: ; or ; fa, خاقان ''Khāqān'', alternatively spelled Kağan, Kagan, Khaghan, Kaghan, Khakan, Khakhan ...

and Bek. The island was connected to one of the other parts of the city by a pontoon bridge. According to Arab sources of the 10th century, one half of the city was referred to as Atil, while the other was named

Khazaran Khazaran was a city in the Khazar kingdom, located on the eastern bank of the lower Volga River. It was connected to Atil by a pontoon bridge. Khazaran was later inhabited primarily by Muslims and featured numerous mosques, minarets, and madrasas ...

. Atil was a multi-ethnic and religiously diverse city, inhabited by

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

Christians Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

Muslims Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abraha ...

, Shamanists, and

Pagans Pagans may refer to: * Paganism, a group of pre-Christian religions practiced in the Roman Empire * Modern Paganism, a group of contemporary religious practices * Order of the Vine, a druidic faction in the ''Thief'' video game series * Pagan's ...

, many of them traders from foreign countries. All of the religious groups had their own places of worship in the city, and there were seven judges appointed to settle disputes (two Christian, two Jewish, and two Muslim judges, with a single judge for all of the Shamanists and other Pagans).

Svyatoslav I of Kiev ; (943 – 26 March 972), also spelled Svyatoslav, was Grand Prince of Kiev famous for his persistent campaigns in the east and south, which precipitated the collapse of two great powers of Eastern Europe, Khazaria and the First Bulgarian Empire. H ...

sacked Atil in 968 or 969 CE.

Ibn Hawqal Muḥammad Abū’l-Qāsim Ibn Ḥawqal (), also known as Abū al-Qāsim b. ʻAlī Ibn Ḥawqal al-Naṣībī, born in Nisibis, Upper Mesopotamia; was a 10th-century Arab Muslim writer, geographer, and chronicler who travelled during the ye ...

and

al-Muqaddasi Shams al-Dīn Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn Abī Bakr al-Maqdisī ( ar, شَمْس ٱلدِّيْن أَبُو عَبْد ٱلله مُحَمَّد ابْن أَحْمَد ابْن أَبِي بَكْر ٱلْمَقْدِسِي), ...

refer to Atil after 969, indicating that it may have been rebuilt.

Al-Biruni Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni (973 – after 1050) commonly known as al-Biruni, was a Khwarazmian Iranian in scholar and polymath during the Islamic Golden Age. He has been called variously the "founder of Indology", "Father of Co ...

(mid-11th century) reported that Atil was again in ruins, and did not mention the later city of

Saqsin Saqsin (a.k.a. Saksin, Saksin-Bolgar) was a medieval city that flourished from the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries. It was situated in the Volga Delta (modern-day Astrakhan Oblast), or in the Lower Volga region, and was known in pre-Mongol t ...

which was built nearby, so it is possible that this new Atil was only destroyed in the middle of the 11th century.

Samosdelka site

The archaeological remains of Atil have never been positively identified. It has been hypothesized that they were washed away by the rising level of the

. However, beginning in 2003 Dmitri Vasilyev of

Astrakhan State University Astrakhan State University (formerly Astrakhan State Pedagogical University) is a university located in Astrakhan, Russian Federation. It was founded in 1932. The traditional functions of Astrakhan State University include training specialist ...

led a series of excavations at the Samosdelskoye site near the village of

(Russian: Самосделка) in the Volga Delta. Vasilyev connected artifacts from the site with Khazar, Oghuz and Bulgar culture, leading him to believe that he had discovered the site of Saqsin. The matter is still unresolved. In 2006 Vasilyev announced his belief that the lowest stratum at the Samosdelka site was identical with the site of Atil. In 2008, this team of Russian archaeologists announced that they had discovered the ruins of Atil.

Gallery

File:В поисках Итиля.jpg File:Brick field Atil 2014.jpg File:Brick wall Atil 2014.jpg File:Potsherds (close up) Atil 2014.jpg File:Potsherds (wide) Atil 2014.jpg

References

(1997). "Itil". Encyclopaedia Judaica (CD-ROM Edition Version 1.0). Ed. Cecil Roth. Keter Publishing House. * Douglas M. Dunlop. ''The History of the Jewish Khazars,'' Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1954. * Peter B. Golden. ''Khazar Studies: An Historio-Philological Inquiry into the Origins of the Khazars.'' Budapest: Akademia Kiado, 1980. *

Norman Golb Norman Golb (15 January 1928 – 29 December 2020) was the Ludwig Rosenberger Professor in Jewish History and Civilization at the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago. Golb was born in Chicago, Illinois, United States, on 15 January 1 ...

and

Omeljan Pritsak Omeljan Yosypovych Pritsak ( uk, Омелян Йосипович Пріцак; 7 April 1919, Luka, Sambir County, West Ukrainian People's Republic – 29 May 2006, Boston) was the first Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvar ...

, ''Khazarian Hebrew Documents of the Tenth Century.'' Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1982. *Thomas S. Noonan. "The Khazar Economy." ''Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi'' 9 (1995–1997): 253–318. *Thomas S. Noonan. "Les Khazars et le commerce oriental." ''Les Échanges au Moyen Age: Justinien, Mahomet, Charlemagne: trois empires dans l'économie médiévale'', pp. 82–85. Dijon: Editions Faton S.A., 2000. *Thomas S. Noonan. "The Khazar Qaghanate and its Impact on the Early Rus' State: The translatio imperii from Itil to Kiev." ''Nomads in the Sedentary World'', eds. Anatoly Mikhailovich Khazanov and André Wink, pp. 76–102. Richmond, England: Curzon Press, 2001. *Omeljan Pritsak. "The Khazar Kingdom's Conversion to

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...

." (Journal Article in ''Harvard Ukrainian Studies'', 1978)
D. Vasilyev (Д. Васильев), "The Itil Dream (at the excavation site of the ancient capital of the Khazar Khaganate)" (Итиль-мечта (на раскопках древнего центра Хазарского каганата))

Sources

External links