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Atil (also Itil) , was the capital of the Khazar Khaganate 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 rel ...
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 A ...
, its precise location has long been unknown. In 2008, a site at Samosdelka, 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 longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catch ...
.


History

Atil was located along the Volga delta at the northwestern corner 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 A ...
. 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, 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. 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""T ...
s,
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'' (Χρ� ...
,
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 Abrah ...
, 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 M ...
, 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 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 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
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 A ...
. However, beginning in 2003 Dmitri Vasilyev of Astrakhan State University led a series of excavations at the Samosdelskoye site near the village of Samosdelka (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


Further reading

* Barthold, W. (1996). "Khazar". ''
Encyclopaedia of Islam The ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' (''EI'') is an encyclopaedia of the academic discipline of Islamic studies published by Brill. It is considered to be the standard reference work in the field of Islamic studies. The first edition was published ...
'' (Brill Online). Eds.: P. Bearman, Th. Bianquis, C.E. Bosworth, E. van Donzel and W.P. Heinrichs. Brill. *
Kevin Alan Brook Kevin () is the anglicized form of the Irish masculine given name (; mga, Caoimhghín ; sga, Cóemgein ; Latinized as ). It is composed of "dear; noble"; Old Irish and ("birth"; Old Irish ). The variant '' Kevan'' is anglicized from , a ...
. ''The Jews of Khazaria.'' 2nd ed. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc, 2006. *
Douglas Morton Dunlop Douglas Morton Dunlop (1909–1987) was a renowned British orientalist and scholar of Islamic and Eurasian history. Early life and education Born in England, Dunlop studied at Bonn and Oxford under the historian Paul Ernst Kahle (1875–1965). ...
(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 Peter Benjamin Golden (born 1941) is an American historian who is Professor Emeritus of History, Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University. He has written many books and articles on Turkic and Central Asian Studies, such as ''An i ...
. ''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 Har ...
, ''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 th ...
." (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




Atil entry from Dead Cities (in Russian)
{{Khazaria Geography of Astrakhan Oblast Defunct towns in Russia Khazar towns Populated places on the Volga Submerged places Underwater ruins Former populated places in Russia Saltovo-Mayaki culture