The Caspians ( fa, کاسپیها, ''Kaspyn''; el, Κάσπιοι, ''Káspioi'';
Aramaic
The Aramaic languages, short Aramaic ( syc, ܐܪܡܝܐ, Arāmāyā; oar, 𐤀𐤓𐤌𐤉𐤀; arc, 𐡀𐡓𐡌𐡉𐡀; tmr, אֲרָמִית), are a language family containing many varieties (languages and dialects) that originated in ...
: ܟܣܦܝ, ''kspy''; xcl,
Կասպք, ''Kaspk’''; la, Caspi, ''Caspiani'') were a people of
antiquity
Antiquity or Antiquities may refer to:
Historical objects or periods Artifacts
*Antiquities, objects or artifacts surviving from ancient cultures
Eras
Any period before the European Middle Ages (5th to 15th centuries) but still within the histo ...
who dwelt along the southwestern shores 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 ...
, in the region known as
Caspiane Caspiane or Kaspiane ( gr, Κασπιανή, hy, Կասպք ''Kaspkʿ'') was the land populated by the tribe of Caspians, after whom it received its name. Originally a province of the Medes in the 3rd-2nd centuries BC, the land of the Caspians was ...
. ''Caspian'' is the English version of the Greek
ethnonym
An ethnonym () is a name applied to a given ethnic group. Ethnonyms can be divided into two categories: exonyms (whose name of the ethnic group has been created by another group of people) and autonyms, or endonyms (whose name is created and used ...
''Kaspioi'', mentioned twice by
Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known f ...
among the
Achaemenid
The Achaemenid Empire or Achaemenian Empire (; peo, wikt:𐎧𐏁𐏂𐎶, 𐎧𐏁𐏂, , ), also called the First Persian Empire, was an History of Iran#Classical antiquity, ancient Iranian empire founded by Cyrus the Great in 550 BC. Bas ...
satrap
A satrap () was a governor of the provinces of the ancient Median and Achaemenid Empires and in several of their successors, such as in the Sasanian Empire and the Hellenistic empires.
The satrap served as viceroy to the king, though with consid ...
ies of
Darius the Great
Darius I ( peo, 𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁 ; grc-gre, Δαρεῖος ; – 486 BCE), commonly known as Darius the Great, was a Persian ruler who served as the third King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, reigning from 522 BCE until his d ...
and applied by
Strabo
Strabo''Strabo'' (meaning "squinty", as in strabismus) was a term employed by the Romans for anyone whose eyes were distorted or deformed. The father of Pompey was called "Pompeius Strabo". A native of Sicily so clear-sighted that he could see ...
. The name is not attested in
Old Iranian
The Iranian languages or Iranic languages are a branch of the Indo-Iranian languages in the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that are spoken natively by the Iranian peoples, predominantly in the Iranian plateau, Iranian Pl ...
.
[Rüdiger Schmitt]
Caspians
in '' Encyclopedia Iranica''. Accessed on 4 April 2010.
The Caspians have generally been regarded as a pre-
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch ...
people. They have been identified by
Ernst Herzfeld with the
Kassites
The Kassites () were people of the ancient Near East, who controlled Babylonia after the fall of the Old Babylonian Empire c. 1531 BC and until c. 1155 BC (short chronology).
They gained control of Babylonia after the Hittite sack of Babylon ...
, who spoke a language not identified with any other known language group and whose origins have long been the subject of debate. However,
onomastic
Onomastics (or, in older texts, onomatology) is the study of the etymology, history, and use of proper names. An ''orthonym'' is the proper name of the object in question, the object of onomastic study.
Onomastics can be helpful in data mining, w ...
evidence bearing on this point has been discovered in
Aramaic papyri from
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
published by P. Grelot, in which several of the Caspian names that are mentioned—and identified under the gentilic כספי ''kaspai''—are, in part, etymologically Iranian. The Caspians of the Egyptian papyri are therefore generally considered as either an
Iranian people
Iranians or Iranian people may refer to:
* Iranian peoples, Indo-European ethno-linguistic group living predominantly in Iran and other parts of the Middle East and the Caucasus, as well as parts of Central Asia and South Asia
** Persians, Irania ...
or strongly under
Iranian cultural influence.
In the 5th century BC, during the
Persian rule in Egypt, a regiment (Aramaic ''degel'') of Caspians was stationed in
Elephantine
Elephantine ( ; ; arz, جزيرة الفنتين; el, Ἐλεφαντίνη ''Elephantíne''; , ) is an island on the Nile, forming part of the city of Aswan in Upper Egypt. The archaeological sites on the island were inscribed on the UNESCO ...
, as attested in the
Elephantine papyri. They are called ''kspy'' in Aramaic and shared their regiment with
Khwarezmians,
Bactrians
Bactria (; Bactrian: , ), or Bactriana, was an ancient region in Central Asia in Amu Darya's middle stream, stretching north of the Hindu Kush, west of the Pamirs and south of the Gissar range, covering the northern part of Afghanistan, southwe ...
and other
Iranian peoples
The Iranian peoples or Iranic peoples are a diverse grouping of Indo-European peoples who are identified by their usage of the Iranian languages and other cultural similarities.
The Proto-Iranians are believed to have emerged as a separat ...
. They were not the only garrison on Elephantine. There was also a regiment of
Jews
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""The ...
.
The Caspians are called ''Caspiani'' in
Mela's ''De situ orbis'', ''Caspi'' in
Pliny
Pliny may refer to:
People
* Pliny the Elder (23–79 CE), ancient Roman nobleman, scientist, historian, and author of ''Naturalis Historia'' (''Pliny's Natural History'')
* Pliny the Younger (died 113), ancient Roman statesman, orator, w ...
's ''
Natural History'', and ''Caspiadae'' in
Valerius Flaccus' ''Argonautica''. In the last work, the Caspians are allies of King
Perses of Colchis
In Greek mythology, Perses (; grc, Πέρσης, Pérsēs, destroyer) is the brother of Aeëtes, Aloeus, Circe and Pasiphaë, which makes him a son of Helios, the god of the sun, by Perse, an Oceanid nymph.
Etymology
His name is derived fro ...
and appear amongst the
Scythian peoples
The Scythians or Scyths, and sometimes also referred to as the Classical Scythians and the Pontic Scythians, were an Ancient Iranian peoples, ancient Eastern Iranian languages, Eastern
* : "In modern scholarship the name 'Sakas' is reserved f ...
. They are said to have
fighting dogs that they take to their graves. This might in fact reflect a variant of the
Zoroastrian
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic on ...
custom of
sky burial
Sky burial (, "bird-scattered") is a funeral practice in which a human corpse is placed on a mountaintop to decompose while exposed to the elements or to be eaten by scavenging animals, especially carrion birds. It is a specific type of the ...
, one in which the deceased is left for the dogs to devour.
The Caspiadeans reappear in the
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...
''
Historia de via Hierosolymitana'' among the people arrayed against the forces of the
First Crusade
The First Crusade (1096–1099) was the first of a series of religious wars, or Crusades, initiated, supported and at times directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The objective was the recovery of the Holy Land from Islamic ru ...
(1096–1099). The anonymous poet, drawing on Flaccus, probably sought to connect the
Seljuk Turks
The Seljuk dynasty, or Seljukids ( ; fa, سلجوقیان ''Saljuqian'', alternatively spelled as Seljuqs or Saljuqs), also known as Seljuk Turks, Seljuk Turkomans "The defeat in August 1071 of the Byzantine emperor Romanos Diogenes
by the Turk ...
, the Crusaders' actual enemy, with the ancient Scythians.
[Nicholas Morton, ''Encountering Islam on the First Crusade'' (Cambridge University Press, 2016), p. 203.]
References
{{reflist, 2
Ancient history of Azerbaijan
Ancient history of Iran
Historical Iranian peoples
Ancient peoples of Asia
Ancient peoples of Europe
History of Talysh