Circassian History

By Kadir I. Natho

Circassian History relates the heroic struggle for survival of one of the most ancient nations in the world, with a unique language and a highly developed distinctive culture. Beginning from 1555, Circassian princes began seeking the friendship and protection of czarist Russia against the aggressions of the Ottoman Turks and Crimean Khans. However, Czarist Russia unleashed its colonial war against Circassia to build the necessary harbors on the Black Sea. Their Nart Epos and archeological finds of the Maikop dolmen and barrow cultures testify that the ancestors of the Circassians lived and prospered on the same territory at least since the advent of the Bronze Age.
Their Homeland in North Caucasus stretched from the main ridge of the Caucasus Mountains to the northeastern Black Sea and eastern Azov seacoasts. Its northern boundaries run from Lake Manych and along the Terek Riverthe northern boundary of Kabarda.
Beginning from 1555, Circassian princes began seeking the friendship and protection of czarist Russia against the aggressions of the Ottoman Turks and Crimean Khans. However, Czarist Russia unleashed its colonial aggression and conquered Circassia to build the necessary harbors on the Black Sea. Russia planned to seize Bosphorus and Dardanelles with the passage to the Mediterranean Sea, weaken the position of the Ottoman Empire, deal a powerful blow on the trade interests of Great Britain, and gain the upper hand over the European powers in the contest for world supremacy.

In this unequal war, Russia occupied Kabarda in 1779. By 1822, it stripped off the Kabardinian princes of the right to rule in their own land and subjected them and their country to the dictatorship of the commanding generals of the Russian armed forces. Thus, early and masterfully, Russia had cut off Kabarda from its western kindred and then directed its military might against Western Circassia.
During this period, Russia launched a powerful worldwide propaganda campaign, portraying the Circassians to the Western world as the marauding savages who should be obliterated from the face of the earth in order to ensure peace in the region. At the same time, Russia kept increasing its armed forces in this region. For example, during General Yermolovs time, Russia increased its army in this region from 5075,000, excluding the Cossacks. Russia added 47 new battalions since 1831 and another 40,000 soldiers in 1840. In short, a 210,000 Russian armies and 80,000 Cossack Cavalries were conducting military operations in Circassia during 18531856. Later, Russia reinforced it with 24,000 Russian infantry corps and 2 dragoon regiments and artillery.
Russia suffered colossal losses in the Russo-Circassian War. Since the time of Catherine II to 1864, 1.5 million Russian soldiers fell in this country, excluding the Cossack losses as they were not considered a part of the regular Russian army.

From the beginning until the end of the war, the Russian army had burnt and pillaged twenty, thirty, fifty, and one hundred Circassian villages at a time, destroying the harvest and driving out the cattle; the Russian army killed or uprooted the native inhabitants and settled Cossack and Russian stanitsas in the territory, according to the planned genocide. As Russian generals stated openly, Russia needed the Circassian lands, not the Circassians. Finally, Russia crushed the Circassian nation in 1864, forced them from their historical Motherland, drove them to the Black Sea shore under Russian bayonets, and threw them into the confines of the Ottoman Empire thus completing its planned genocide.
At the present time, as a result of the genocide, 90 percent of the Circassian population lives scattered all over the world. They survived the planned Russian genocide, the cold, deprivations, epidemics, and other companions of their forcible exile. They became exemplary citizens of many countries, established their own new republicsAdigey, Kabardino-Balkaria

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 3, 2009
• ISBN: 9781465316998

Kadir I. Natho

Kadir I. Natho was born in 1927 in Hatramtook, Anapa region, Caucasus. He became a refugee in 1943; survived World War II, escaped the First and Second Forced Repatriations to the Soviet Union in 1945 and 1947 from Austria and Italy, respectively; lived in various European countries; and moved to Jordan in 1948. He emigrated from Amman to the United States in 1956 and settled in New York City in 1959. He graduated from the School of American Journalism and Henry George School of Social Science (science of political economy), studied English literature, and took writing courses. His short stories were translated into Turkish and published in Kuzey Kafkasya, one of which was included in the Anthology of the Short Stories of the Caucasus in Turkey. He published a collection of his short stories, Old and New Tales of the Caucasus, in 1969, and a novel, Nicholas and Nadiusha, in 1978, which was translated and published in Russian and Circassian, in Maikop in 1992 and 1993 under the titles of Otchuzhdionyie and Tsif Lyiekher (Outcasts). A part of this novel was also translated in Kabardian and published in a series in the newspaper Adyghe Psale and in the literary magazine Oshhamakho (Elbrus) in 2007 and was included in the Selections of Literature for Reading for eleventh graders in 2013. He wrote a three-act play, Medea, in Circassian, for the State Theater of the Republic of Adyghe, the premiere of which was held in Maikop on April 28–29, 2009, which was well received even by the Russians. It was performed again and again in Maikop, Krasnodar, Nalchik, and Moscow and received first prize in the North Caucasian Drama Festival in Maikop. His Old and New Tales of the Caucasus was included in the student literature of the State University of Adyghey in 2007. He published Circassian History in 2009, which was translated in Turkish, Arabic, and Russian and published in Maikop, Republic of Adyghey; Ankara, Turkey; and in Amman, Jordan, and was translated in Kabardian, in Cherkessk in 2014. He published Memoirs in 2010, which was published in Turkish in Turkey in May 2014 and translated in Russian in Maikop. He translated and published Adighe Khabze, Custom and Traditions, by Professor Seraby Mafedzev and published Grand Abduction in 2017, based on the fact that Circassians had abducted the daughter of General Zass during the Russo-Caucassian War (1786–1864) and now has submitted for publishing the translation of the first volume of History of Adyghe Literature. He acquired G. A. Press in New York City, and, in the 1960s, published for years books and periodicals for Russian and Ukrainian authors and organizations, and his own bilingual magazine, the Circassian Star, in English and Circassian, in order to disseminate Circassian history, culture, and folklore and to revive the national consciousness of the Circassian diaspora. He devoted his time and energy to helping the Circassian community in the United States; was chairman of the Permanent Council of the Circassian Benevolent Association in Wayne, New Jersey (1987–1991); was president of the CBA (1991–1998); and was a delegate of the CBA in the Congress of the International Circassian Association in Nalchik (1991 and 2000), in Maikop (1993), in Cherkessk (1996), and in Krasnodar (1998). He organized the Institute of Circassian Studies as a branch of the CBA for the study of Circassian history, culture, and folklore and translated the books Heroic Epos, NARTS and Its Genesis, by Asker Gadagatl.

Book preview

Copyright © 2009 by Kadir I. Natho.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in

any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying,

recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without

permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

58318

Contents

Acknowledgement

Introduction

Chapter One

CIRCASSIANS

Chapter Two

Ancient Circassian History

Chapter Three

The History Of Circassia In The Middle Ages

Chapter Four

Circassian Mamelukes

Chapter Five

The Russo-circassian War

Chapter Six

The Genocide On The Circassian Nation

Chapter Seven

The Circassians In The Motherland

Chapter Eight

Circassian Diaspora

Chapter Nine

Circassians At The Present

To my dear Suad

missing image file

This material is prepared for the

Institute of the Circassian Studies of the

Circassian Benevolent Association

383 Oldham Road,

Wayne, New Jersey 04740

The Main Purpose

of the

Institute of the Circassian Studies (ICS)

of the

Circassian Benevolent Association in the

United States of America are the following:

•   to conduct research globally, collect, and disseminate in English the available material pertaining to the language, traditions, folklore, culture, literature, and history of the Circassian people;

•   to establish a library and museum for books, manuscripts, periodicals, pamphlets, newsletters, etc., and for items of historical value;

•   and to create a Web site on the Internet with the necessary modules for the dissemination of all the available information.

For more information, consult the Introduction of the Institute of Circassian Studies of the CBA (established in 1998).

Acknowledgement

I am profoundly grateful to Dr. Yanal Hajmahmud, Hani Varoqua, Fawaz Dair, Beniamin Akiuz, and Nawrez Zakaev who kept coming to New York City without a fail to solve the endless computer problems I had while writing this book. I am also deeply indebted for the same service to the lovely and charming guest from Nalchik, Ms. Zhanna Kushkhova, the ardent and passionate attorney. I would also like to thank her for helping me to revise the book and get it published. May God bless them generously for observing the sincere traditional Circassian respect to elders with which they honored me constantly and tirelessly throughout these long years.

Introduction

The purpose of this work is to present to the English reader the history of the Circassians from prehistoric times to the present. The need for it is pressing, in our opinion, for two very important reasons. First and the most urgent of them being the fact that our young generation, especially in Diaspora, is remaining sufficiently uninformed about our history for the lack of literature in a language they can read and understand. The second reason for it is more academic and universal. Circassian nation is occupying an important place in the ethnography of the world and is rich in history, literature, and folklore. Therefore, the attention of many scholars of the world is becoming increasingly attracted by such themes as (1) the ancient period connected with the Hittites (Hatoons) and Maikop Culture, (2) the Circassian Nart Epics and folklore, which is full of important historical information, (3) and the Russo-Caucasian War and the subsequent mass expulsion of Circassians from their homeland into the Ottoman Empire. Logic would suggest that to this list of topics should be added the history of Circassian Mamelukes of Egypt, who ruled this powerful state of the Middle Ages and played an important role in world politics for a long time.

We will commence this work from the traditional Circassian history in order to cover the unrecorded part of it and then supplement it with supporting evidence and existing data.

Chapter One

CIRCASSIANS

Circassians, who call themselves Adyghe, are the aborigines of the Northwestern Caucasus, one of the oldest people of the world and one of the primary inhabitants of Europe with a unique language and a distinct culture of their own.

Many scholars made valuable contributions in establishing the ethnic genesis of the Adyhgas. Some of them are B. A. Rybakov, I. M. Krupnov, M. M. Gerasimov, G. A. Melikashvili, I. M. Diakonov, Sh. D. Inal-Ipa, G. A. Klimov, Z. V. Anchabadze, V. I. Markovin, A. A. Formozov, V. P. Alekseev, L. I. Lavrov, Y. S. Krushkol, I. M. Dunayevskaya, V. G. Ardzinba, V. V. Ivanov, and N. V. Anfimov.

Most of the scholars agree that the Adyghas are one of the oldest inhabitants of the North Caucasus. Professor N. V. Anfimov claims that man first appeared in the Northwest Caucasus over three hundred thousand years ago. Numerous Paleolithic camp-sites that were found along the Black Sea coastland and on the northern slopes of the Caucasus Range bear testimony to it. According to this distinguished scholar, Adyghas have descended from the Maeotian tribes that inhabited the lands of the Kuban region, Azov and Black Sea coasts, and the Don Basin since about the eighth century BC.

There is other evidence testifying to the presence of the Adighas in this region since times primordial. For example, the plate from the Nineveh library of the Assyrian King Naram Sin, in the seventeenth century BC, relates that in 3750 BC, Wor Hatoo of the Khatts (Hittites) undertook a campaign from the North Caucasus to the valleys of the Euphrates River and established there Khattian or Akhtian (Atykha) State. He built there cities, in particular, Karkhemits. The inscriptions on the above mentioned clay tablet are confirming, writes Nurbi Lovpache, that two tribes—Khatts and Atykhs (Atkhs)—lived in the North Caucasus in the fourth millennium BC.

S. Khotko elaborates more on the Khatto-Adygha relationship. The peak of the Khattian (Hittite) civilization is dated back to the fourth and third millennium BC, he writes. As the research work of a whole number of prominent linguists and specialists in the sphere of the oldest languages in Asia Minor show the language of the Khattians is the parent language of the Abazo-Adygha people. The Kashk and Abeshla tribes of the Black Sea coasts belonged to the Khattians. Anthropologically and linguistically these tribes constituted one people with the Khattians, but they preserved political independence due to the fact that they lived in the mountains. They did not submit to Hattus, the largest center of the Khattian State, and since the sixteenth century BC, when the Khattian Empire emerged, the Kashks and Abeshlas invariably occupied hostile position, extending their raids to the Mediterranean Sea and Syria. The Khatto-Kashko-Abeshla historical and cultural association spoke the ancient Abkhazo-Ubykho-Adygha dialects and in the fourth millennium BC it represented an advanced system of civilization that had realized its identity and tried to reproduce the distinctive forms of her culture. For the sake of brevity and accuracy we shall call this group of tribes Khatts in the future. The oldest Khattian texts, which were preserved by the royal archives of Khattus, furnished to us the native name hatti of this people."

According to S. Khotko, the Khattian civilization was one of those cradles, in which grew the human society. The region of the Maikop Culture, he claims, is precisely the territory of the Sindo-Maeotians in the period of antiquity, of the Zikho-Abazgians in the early Middle Ages, and of the Circassians in the new times. The late Neolithic period, fourth millennium BC, is the initial stage of the spread of the Pontic anthropological type in the history of the Abkhazo-Adyghas in the territory of the Western Caucasus. The Abkhazian, Ubykh, and, most importantly, Adygha elements are found in the Svan, Mingrelian, and Laz languages. In the fourth and third millennium BC, as in the preceding epoch, the entire Western Caucasus and the northeast of Anatolia comprised a single ethnocultural region, within the bounds of which the people spoke in the dialects of the Abkhazo-Adygha-Khattian (Hattian) group. Gradually, however, the Maikop Culture began distancing itself from the Anatolian base. Later we shall deal more thoroughly with these data substantiating that the Circassians lived in this territory since time primordial.

Circassian Language. This was at times referred to as the Abkhazo-Adygha language. This language, with those of the Abkhazians and Ubykhs, is a branch of the Caucasian family of languages, to which in some degree could be attributed such other branches as the Kartvelian (Georgian), Vainakhian (Checheno-Ingush), as well as the East-Caucasian (Daghestanian).

The Homeland of the Circassians Is the Caucasus. Caucasus stretches from the great Caspian Sea to the Black Sea, forming a majestic natural fortress between the two continents, Asia and Europe. As such it always played a role far transcending its borders and has always been the point where ancient civilizations of the East and West met, mingled, and exchanged their ideas, knowledge, and products.

This ancient homeland of the Circassians is also famed for having eternally been a natural place of refuge for persecuted people. Circassian traditional hospitality and tolerance have undoubtedly contributed to this distinctive phenomenon of this land, which became the home of many ethnic groups, speaking among them more than forty different languages.

missing image file

Map of the Caucasus and Near East by G. de Rubruck.

See Circassia on it.

Main Resources and Economy. In the main, the mineral resources of Caucasus include petroleum, natural gas, manganese, copper, tungsten, and molybdenum. Livestock is raised on the heavily forested slopes. Wheat, barley, corn, sunflower, and many fruits and vegetables are grown in the northern piedmont of Caucasus and citrus fruits, cotton, and tea in the warmer valleys. Excellent resorts abound in Circassian Republics of Adygheya, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Karachaevo-Cherkessia as well as in Shapsugia and the Abkhazian Republic.

Bibliography

1.   A. K. Sheugen, G. A. Galkin, N. E. Aleshin, A. A. Kushu, B. E. Sheugen, Zemlia Adyghov (The Land of the Adyghas), Maikop, 1996.

2.   R. Traho, Cherkesy (Circassians), Munchen, 1956.

3.   Prof. N. V. Anfimov, Drevnyeye Zoloto Kubani (Ancient Gold of the Kuban), Krasnodar, 1987.

4.   R. I. Makhosh, Zov Rodiny (The Call of the Motherland), Maikop, 2002.

5.   S. K. Khotko, Istoria Cherkesii (History of Circassia), St. Petersburgh, 2001.

Chapter Two

Ancient Circassian History

The ancient traditional history of the Circassians, like that of any other nation, is recorded and preserved in its folklore and mythology, especially in their Nart Epics. Consisting of twenty-six cycles and seven hundred texts, this epic shows the older members of its pantheon (Narts Nesren, Tlepsh, etc.) entering the historical arena of man larger than life prior to the Copper-Bronze Age. This great epic, perhaps the oldest of its kind in the world, is satiated

missing image file

The games of the Narts

with symbolism and historical information about the ancestors of Circassians. The members of its pantheon consist of hero Nart enlighteners of different ages, beginning from the remotest prehistoric times. Since then, this epic grew with the nation, ever absorbing and incorporating new events, ideals, dreams, and aspirations of its creators in itself and conveying them to new generations in a fascinating hyperbolic style. In the process, it collected and preserved a rich storehouse of valuable information about the ancestors of the Circassians from the Mesolithic times to the Middle Ages and became the repository of their social laws and moral values. Moreover, these ideal laws of conduct, dignity, and pride of the ancient Adyghas were embodied in the Nart heroes of this epic.

Therefore, the heroes of this epic—human in size and form; superhuman in willpower, resolve, and strength; and inimitable and unequaled in heroic feats—were in all ages the dream of every Circassian to emulate and to live up to. Similarly, the lofty codes of conduct and high moral values of this epic became the norms for the upbringing of all the new Circassian generations throughout the subsequent centuries, prepared the soil for the breeding ground of the Promethean Spirit and, later on, formed the inviolable Adygha Khabza (Circassian traditions) itself.

missing image file

Nart dance

Moreover, in keeping with Johnson’s language is the pedigree of nations, the Adyghabza (Circassian language), in which this epic was composed, was constantly the unifying element for all the Circassian-speaking tribes that have appeared in the historical arena at different times under different tribal names. According to sources, some of the names were the Meots, Sinds, Tauri, Kerkets, Zikhs, Geniokhs, Dandars, Toreats, Agres, Areches, Topets, Obidiakens, Doskhis, and Cholchis.

Ancient Greeks mentioned the Maeotians in the sixth century BC. The name ‘Meote’ is a collective term which included a number of small tribes, wrote N. V. Anfimov. However, there is archeological proof that their culture took shape much earlier, between the eighth and first half of the seventh centuries BC with roots going back to the Bronze Age. According to A. Sheugen, Hypothesis exists that (pre-Maeotian) Adyghas knew well some distant countries, to which they undertook campaigns. Adygha songs and legends of the epic Narts mention frequently Indyl (Volga) River, Bukhara, and others.

We see these ‘Narts’ attending a Khasa (Conference) in Alege’s house, at the dawn of history. When summoned, Narts come to it from all the parts of Natia, from the Don, Azov, and Black Sea regions, to discuss and resolve all major problems, social reforms, and other matters to be carried out by the Narts. Natia, the country of the Narts, according to this epic, included the space encompassed by the northern slopes of the main range of the Caucasus Mountains, northern Black Sea coast to the Kerch Strait, eastern Azov Sea coast, Don and Manych rivers, Terek River, and the lower Volga at the Caspian Sea. Epic ‘Narts’ is but a part of the rich folklore of the Adyghas. Speaking of its periodization, Grekov expressed his conviction about the existence of pre-Nart hymns dedicated to pagan deities (Mezit’ha, Amysh, T’hagalege, Shibla, Tlepsh), khokh (toast) songs, legends and tales of totemic, and mythical origin, which later entered in and blended with the Adygha epic Narts. In the words of V. G. Belinski, Still higher on the ladder of development of the epos is the cosmogony and theogony of the ancients. In the first is represented the origin of the universe through primary forces and, in the second, the individualization of the forces into different deities.

The Circassian mythology, like the rich Circassian folklore, reflects much of the history, moral, spiritual, and psychological makeup of the distant ancestors of the Adyghas. It has a pantheon of both male and female cosmogonic and chthonic divinities, the former of which are considered to be more archaic and rather formless spirits, whereas the latter are seen allotted with real features. To mention just a few, the cosmogonic gods T’ha (T’hashkho), Psat’ha, Washkho, and Shibla stand nearer to natural religion, while chthonic divinities, Tlepsh, Mezit’ha, and T’hagalege are nearer to his practical activities.

Speaking of this epic, many narratologists have expressed their strong conviction that Nart Nesren is the prototype of Prometheus of the Greek mythology, and that Nart Sausiriko is the prototype of Homer’s Achileus, and that the Greeks had borrowed these stories from Caucasus during their early colonization period of the Circassian coast, had polished and written them down as their own, while their true origin remained unknown to the world.

The fact is that the ancestors of the Adyghas had created the main embryo of the epic Narts prior to the Copper-Bronze Age in their language Adyghabza in a highly poetical and epic form, with accompanying individual melodies for each. The question is, For how long a time did they exist as an ethnic group before they reached such a highly developed intellectual stage and mastery of language?

The existing yardstick for measuring the age of these distant ancestors of Circassians is the information we have about the evolution of man and the generally accepted axiom that languages give birth to nations.

According to the history of the evolution of man, Homo habilis witnessed the beginnings of human speech, ritual, and folklore. About one million years later, Homo erectus acquired the talent of learning, accumulating, and storing the knowledge of his predecessors, which he then supplemented, enriched, and transmitted to his younger generations. He made far better Acheulian-type stone tools; lived in East, South, and North Africa, Asia (India, China, and Southeast Asia), and also moved into Europe during warm periods when Pleistocene glaciers were at an ebb; and had learned to control fire and cook food. Referring to the human species of this period, Dr. Jeffrey Laitman, anatomist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said, Full command or articulate speech did not likely develop until perhaps 300,000 or 400,000 years ago. Is it absurd to think that Aydyghabza, in which our proud ancestors had created the monumental epic Narts, could be that old?

Perhaps. One thing is certain, however. The oral tradition of the Circassian, like that of any other nation, grew inseparably closely linked with the life of her people. It will not be amiss to remember, in relation with this subject, Johnson’s words: There is no tracing the connection of ancient nations but by language, therefore I am always sorry when any language is lost, for languages are pedigree of nations.

Supporting Evidence

Myths and Legends of Man

The myths and legends of man tell us that the Caucasus, the native homeland of the Circassians, is the home of the best traditions of the human race and the scene of the most popular fables of Grecian antiquity. Some of the reasons this is attributed to the Caucasus include the Ark of Noah that is said to have grounded here on the top of Mt. Elbrus before reaching its resting place on Mt. Ararat. Prometheus is said to have been chained to a rock on Mt. Kazbek for having stolen fire from the gods and given it to mortals. It was from this mountainous land of Colchis that Jason had carried off both the Golden Fleece and Media, the daughter of Aetis, king of Colchis. The crest of Mt. Shalbuz, on the borders of Daghestan, was the perch of the Anka, the giant vulture of Thousand and One Nights, whose widespread wings obscured the light of the sun, and compared to which the eagle and condor were but mere hummingbirds. Even the Simurg, the immortal bird that nests in the branches of the Tree of Knowledge, the distant king of birds—according to Firdausi’s Mantiq al-Tayr (Parliament of Birds) in his Book of Kings—has his castle in the Kaf Mountains that ring the earth. And it is here in the Caucasus where, through the mists of legend, we can glimpse at the little gallant state of the Amazons, which, the tradition says, existed between the present Minor Kabarda and Svanethy until their warlike queen Marpessa had fallen in love with Thulme, the chief of the Circassians. Of a not any less importance is the fact that the white race is considered to have originated here in the Caucasus and is called the Caucasian race.

Archeological Finds

Bone remains of anthropoids and Acheulian-type tools of pre-Ice Age found in the Caucasus belong to the end of the Tertiary period. Other archeological finds show activities of man in the Northwestern Caucasus during the Ice Age. According to E. I. Krupnov, man had appeared in Northwestern Caucasus seven hundred thousand years ago. The lower jaw of a Pithecanthropus, which lived here six hundred thousand years ago, was discovered in the Azekh Cave, in Azerbaijan. Thus, the process of the settlement of man in Caucasus, the homeland of the Circassians, begins with the appearance there of Pithecanthropus, the most ancient man.

Some of the Archeological Finds in the Region

58318-NATH-layout.pdf58318-NATH-layout.pdf

Earliest dwelling places of primitive men in the Caucasus, which belong to the epoch of Early (Lower) Paleolithic Era, were discovered by Soviet archeologists in Armenia and Abkhazia and, more recently, in Adigheya, on the banks of Psekoups River. Also found here were typical hacks and plates. In 1925, in Khagiokh Village, an Acheulian epoch (700,000-120,000) stone tool was found on the banks of Belaya River. Similar finds were discovered on the banks of rivers Fortepianka, Afips, and Psekoups. Other archeological finds in this region, which are too numerous to mention, show that, throughout the Stone and Bronze Ages, the population of the Northwestern Caucasus kept growing. Their activities were increasing here, improving their tools and weapons, adding cattle breeding and farming to hunting, gathering fruits, and mastering their metal processing skills. Above all, they kept steadily advancing their culture, improving their social structure, establishing strong moral codes of conduct, polishing their manners, and building a rich folklore for the preservation and transmission to their younger generations.

Copper-Bronze Age replaced the Stone Age at the end of the third millennium BC. The copper ring found in one of the 121 graves in the Nalchik burial place is dated back approximately to the same time. It is possible that this find indicates the beginning of this transitional period. The information about this age is mainly obtained from barrows and dolmens—the distinctive burial places for the given period in Circassia.

Maikop Culture is considered to be represented by the Maikop barrows. Excavated by N. I. Veselovski in 1897, it attracted the attention of the entire world by the rich inventory it contained. Nevertheless, it is far from being the only one of its kind in this region. The barrows at Staromyshastski, stanitsas Kazanski, Belorechenski, Armavir City, and hamlet Ziserman of the Kuban region yielded burials contemporary with those of Maikop. The entire territory of Western Europe of the Bronze Age (except for Greece) did not produce such a rich burial as the Maikop barrow, wrote E. I. Krupnov. The extravagantly rich burials of the Kuban with their vessels of gold and silver, their ornamental canopies, evidently belonged to barbarous chieftains, wrote Jacquetta Hawkis, referring to these archeological finds.

According to S. Khotko, Maikop tribes used to get into contact with the people of the steppe, the bearers of the Pit Culture. The Pit People occupied the lands on the Don River and Azov Sea. In literature, they were mostly seen as the pre-Indo-Europeans. Burials distinctive to them in the Transkuban region speak a great deal about the intercourse of the Maikop tribes with the Steppe Indo-Europeans as well as about the advance of the Maikop people north up to the Lower Don. This is substantiated also by the antiquities of the Leventsovski settlement, the lower layer of which is saturated with the ceramics of the Maikop type. The northernmost Maikop settlement is fixed on the Khortitsa Island in Zaporozhie, continues S. Khotko. "The advancement to the Eastern Caucasus for the Maikop tribes was entailed not only intercourse with the Neolithic population in the mountains but also with the people of the steppe, as the ‘Maikopians’ pushed them out of the steppes of the Cis-Caucasus. G. A. Klimov disclosed typological parallelisms of the early Adygha and all-Indo-European phonemic systems.

"On the territory of Chechenia the ‘Maikopians’ met with the counterflow of migrant tribes of the Kuro-Arakian groups. These tribes were the kinsmen of the Hurrites (), whose language is particularly similar to the Nakhian and Daghestanian. The most eastern treasure of the Maikop Culture—the Logovo settlement—has noticeable Kuro-Arakian characteristics. The Bamout barrows on the territory of Chechenia have also the traces of an affluent Maikop population. The territory of the present Chechenia always was the place of association of the Adygha and Nakhian ethnic groups during the subsequent centuries: Minor Kabarda took its seat in this place during the last 600 years (up to the mid-nineteenth century) . . .

"The pre-Abkhazian-Adygha ethnic group divided into three groups, which could be determined with a great degree of conventionality as the Abkhazian, Ubykhian, and Adygha at the end of the third and beginning of the second millennia BC. The Khattians began to assimilate among the Indo-European-Nesites in the same period. Gradually the Maikop Culture lost her ties with Hattusa. Partly this could have been caused by the intervention of the tribes of the dolmen culture. According to V. I. Markovin, the ‘dolmenians’ squeezed the Maikop tribes from the Black Sea extending from Gelenjik to Gagra. Late Maikop treasures are missing in the dolmen region. In all probability the dolmen builders were the same Japhetic people, as the Basques, Khattians, and Abkhazo-Adyghas. We can assume that the isolation of the Ubykhs from the general pre-Abkhazian ethnic people is connected with the process of assimilation of the ‘dolmen people.’

The conventional opinion on the ethnic composition of the Western Caucasus in the end of the second millennium BC comes to the fact that the ‘Maikopians’ are the distant ancestors of the Adyghas, and the ‘dolmenians,’ of the Abkhazians. We must note that similar simplified perception is hardly lawful. Only in the Abazo-Circassian period, in the thirteenth and eighteenth centuries, the northern boundary (although boundary is here too relative a notion) of the Apsua speaking clans oscillated from Anapa to Pitsunda several times, not to mention the complex picture of the genesis and settlement of the Bjedoughs, Sadzes, Abazins, and Ubykhs. In connection with this the Maikop Culture is examined by us as the single Abkhazo-Adygha expanse.

Widespread use of copper began in Circassia at the end of the third millennium BC. Moreover, the Copper-Bronze Age flourished here during the second and the beginning of the first millennium BC, when the local technique of processing copper, then that of bronze, was mastered.

Copper-Bronze Age treasures of the Kuban, and adjacent North Caucasus regions, were divided, in 1929, into chronological: Early-Kuban, Mid-Kuban and Late-Kuban Cultures.

Early-Kuban Culture is the most ancient period of the Copper-Bronze Age and is dated back to the end of the third and the beginning of the second millennium BC. This culture was formed at the dawn of the Bronze epoch and spread west to Taman peninsula and East to the territory of present-day Chechenia and Ingushetia.

Collective dolmen burials of this culture appeared in the mountain regions of Northwestern Caucasus at the beginning of the second millennium BC. They are found on both the northern and southern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains and along the Black Sea coast. In Laba and Belaya river basins, they are met in large groups, constituting huge tribal cemeteries. Over 200 dolmens are located in the Deguakski glade, 300 in Khagiokh, 350 on the Bolyrski road, and so on. Some of the beads found here are supposed to have come here, to the Kuban, through Transcaucasia and by means of intertribal intercourse, from the distant countries of Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Iran, and China.

Mid-Kuban Culture is represented by an extensive group of dolmens and barrows, located at the foothills and in the adjacent steppe strip. They are widely spread throughout the Northwestern Caucasus, enveloping the Kuban basin to the West and stretching to the East to western region of Daghestan. They received a visible influence from the steppe Catacomb Culture, but are genetically tied with the preceding type of the Novosvobodni barrows and have their own distinct traits. They are met with in the steppe and on both banks of the Kuban (Briukovski district, Rogovski, Kavkazski, and others) and beyond the Kuban (Uliap, Khatazhukay, stanitsa Kelermesski, Nekrasovski, Novo-Labinski, and others) and show the expansion of metallurgy, the appearance of the so-called storehouses of foundrymen, the existence of local copper tool-making industry.

Late-Kuban Culture is dated from the eleventh to seventh centuries BC. These barrow burials have poor tomb inventory. In addition to the large quantity of local metal tools and weapons produced here in the Kuban, other items came here from neighboring hearths of metallurgy, primarily from the regions of Colchido-Koban metallurgy of Central Caucasus and Western Transcaucasia, from the northern steppe regions of Don, Ukraine, and Volga. On the other hand, copper and bronze items manufactured in the Kuban and Black Sea regions of Circassia were spreading westward into Crimea and southern Ukraine. Evidently, extensive intertribal intercourse was already established here during this period.

According to Jacquetta Hawkis, the population of the Mesolithic Age in the Pontic region had been considerable, ancient civilizations of Iraq and Persia began to reach it. Great communal graves on the Sea of Azov and in central Cis-Caucasia suggest the support of a food-producing economy. Grave goods and mass burials show signs of trade with Iraq. Such contacts become more obvious in the earliest culture of the Kuban, known mainly from richly furnished graves covered by enormous mounds. These remarkable tombs may well suggest that the agents of Oriental civilization came to this metalliferous region seeking copper, gold, and silver to satisfy the demand of Mesopotamian cities.

Referring to this period, A. A. Yessen wrote, At a considerable later times, on the same territory, have formed the Adigha and Abazin tribes, who are undoubtedly genetically tied to a very substantial degree with the local population of the distant past. The cultural unity of the Northwestern group of Caucasian tribes, who are known to us in new times, thus have appeared, evidently, not later than the Late Bronze Age.

58318-NATH-layout.pdf

.

58318-NATH-layout.pdf

.

58318-NATH-layout.pdf

BARROWS OF THE SEVENTH AND FIFTH CENTURIES B.C.

58318-NATH-layout.pdf

.

58318-NATH-layout.pdf

The Tribes of Dolmen Culture. Maikop Culture did not extend into the mountain regions. During that time (2400-1400 BC) there lived other tribes, who left behind them distinct dolmens. These dolmens are called Isp Oona by Adyghas. In their earlier forms, dolmens appeared in the outskirts of the present-day Maikop at the end of the third millennium BC. The southeastern boundary of the extension of these dolmens ran along the Eshera-Tsebelda line. These unique monuments exist only in Circassia and Abkhazia, stretching on the Black Sea coast from Taman to Ochamkhivari. Their main mass is in the mountains above Maikop. In groups and singly, they can still be found in the regions of Khamishki Village, Kamennomostski Settlement, Abadzekhski and Novosvobodni stanitsas, and in the upper reaches of rivers Fars, Khodz, Pshish, Psekoups, Afips, Oubin, Ila, Khabla, Antkhir, Bouhgoundyr, and Abin. In the Boghatyrski glade, 240 dolmens are preserved. On the Black Sea coast, they can mostly be found up to Tuapse and Psezuapse rivers in the south and in the north up to stanitsa Raevski and Taman peninsula. According to M. A. Kerasheva, there are 2,200 dolmens in the Kuban region.

North Caucasian Archeological Culture. Dolmen-builder tribes lived neighboring with the tribes of Maikop Culture. The North Caucasian Archeological Culture took place, mainly in the second millennium BC, in the steppe and mountain regions of North Caucasus. The tribes of this culture, who inhabited in the steppe part of it, led a settled way of life, cattle breeding, farming, and metallurgy being the basic form of their economy. The Adygha and Abadzekh tribes, who to a considerable degree were genetically tied with the local autochthonous population of the distant past, were formed somewhat later on the same territory.

The Same Geographical Territory. The historical information preserved in the epic Narts is confirming that the territory of the habitat of the Nart heroes and of the barrow and dolmen builder tribes was the same. We see that in the toponymic names mentioned in the older epic songs. They show us Nart Shebatinoko bravely galloping to the Narts, who lived in single families along the Tena (Don), Pshiza (Kuban), Ingige, Warpa, Laba, Pshish rivers, in the Caucasus Mountains, along the Black Sea coast, Kerch Strait, and Khy Meoutta (Azov Sea) regions. When he meets Nart Chemakhozh, he does not inquire him about a village or town (perhaps men did not have them yet), but asks him to show the tip of the path leading to the old house of Alege. We realize that he is traveling in a world, in which the strongest rules, where men move about mounted and armed with a sword or lance, alone and self-reliant, bravely seeking for a challenge and adventure. He is now in the Tersa land, which begins from the place where Laba falls into Pshiza and stretches to the mountains of the Caucasus.

In both the Adygha and Abkhazian Nart epic texts, Steney is washing in Pshiza (Kuban) River, Nart Shebatinoko is bathing his horses in Warpa, Laba is the river the Narts keep swimming across, and Pshisha is the river the sister of Nart Shaochas is shoving the boat across. Some of the Natkhuage people lived along the Nat River. The place where Sausiriko froze the Inizh (Giant) in was Khy Shutsa (Black Sea). The place from where the Setymukos are coming is the Tuapsa region. The place where Nart Nesren is chained is mount Caucasus. And the territory encompassed by the above mentioned places is the geography of the Adigha epic Narts and of the above-mentioned barrow and dolmen-builder tribes.

missing image file

The map of the territory of the Narts

All the above-mentioned data contains sufficient proof that (1) the ancestors of Adyghas, the creators of the epic Narts, in their language Adyghabza, were one of the oldest people in this region; (2) were steadily growing there in numbers and influence, united by a common language, traditions, and culture; and (3) they were the creators of the above-mentioned unique cultures.

Written Evidence

Ancient Kildani Source and the Legend. Exactly when did the Hatoons (Khattians) go from the Caucasus to Asia Minor, Anatolia, is still vague. Nevertheless, different Adygha legends say that many thousands of years ago powerful Adygha tribes undertook campaigns from the coasts of the Maeotian (Azov) and Black Seas into Asia Minor, where they remained for a long time. This version is supported by written evidence. The ancient Egyptians (of Anauria) wrote about these Hatoons in 4000 BC.

According to this version, the inscription on a stone found in ancient Hildani (Kildani), confirms that Wor Hatoo, the leader of the Hatoons, had conquered the Hildani country in 3750 BC. The Hatoons ruled over a vast territory, beginning from south Caucasus to north Syria, Baghdad, Basra (the present vilayet of Aleppo, Konia, Spuasa, Trapezund, and Arzurum). There was a time when they extended their possessions up to Egypt.

New Theory—Hittites and Atykhas. A comparatively new theory has surfaced among Circassian historians, which is claiming that the Hittites were the descendants of Atykhas, the distant ancestors of Adyghas.

According to the proponents of this theory, the word Atykha, the primary ethnic name of the ancestors of Adyghas, sprang up from Tygha (Sun), which was connected with the sun cult about six thousand years ago. The chronology of the period of appearance of related tribes given by these historians is as follows: Akhtians lived in the third millennium BC. Atykhas named the Hatts. According to N. Lovpache, Atykhas, Hatts, and Kasskians lived in the Northwestern Caucasus, united by the Hattian language (it seems that the names Hattian and Khattian are used interchangeably to designate the same people). In the second half of the third millennium BC, Hattians descended from the Atkhians and Kashkians. In the second millennium BC, the Khets inherited the Hattians and lived in the same state. A whole number of combination of words, closely corresponding with the Adygha folklore of our days, are preserved in the, pre-Khettian, Hattian ritual texts, according to R. Khuage.

According to A. S. Klein, the return of the Hattian-speaking Kashks from Asia Minor to North Caucasus and the arrival of Indo-Arians from Europe took place at the end of the third millennium BC. It is probable that these were the people whom Wor Hatoo had led to Asia Minor in 3750 BC. This is supported by the fact that the Kaskian tribes, who lived northeast of the Khattian State and who were evidently related to the Abkhazo-Adigha tribes, began gaining strength in 1900 BC (Vsemirnaya Istoria, V I, M., 1955, p. 375).

Evidently the names hatt and khet were originally given by the ancestors of Adyghas to certain groups of their people at various times, denoting the nature of their occupation. Early in history, when men still lived mainly by hunting, the ancestors of Adyghas were well-known for breeding excellent hunting dogs. This was probably the time they named hatt (dog givers) the group of their people, who bred such hunting dogs. Perhaps, that is why the vocabulary of the Adygha language abounds with the words and names that begin with ha (dog): hatt or hatty (dog giver), hachia (guest), hachesh (guesthouse), hatir (respect), hade (corpse), hadesh (nether world), haffy (loan); first names: Hapaq, Hanash, Hatikhou; surnames: Hatoo, Hatty, Hatkhy, Haghour, Hakhoo, Hachaku, Hatighu, Hatighoghu, and so on.

Similarly, somewhat later, the name khet was given by the same Atykhas to a group of their people, who were apt to move from place to place, to travel, to wander. Formerly, Wo wou khet? or Khet washish? meant Are you a Khet? or Are you from the Khets? in the language of Adyghas.

No doubt, this theory needs more study and substantive facts. Nonetheless, it deserves credit for the attempt to cover the existing gap about the origin of the Hittites, who waged war with Egypt and Syria for a thousand years, whose captains marshaled and led the hosts of David and Solomon, who were the rivals of the Pharaohs in peace and war from the 12th to the 20th dynasty, who pushed a wedge-like colony down through Syria as far as Hebron and Egypt, and made a lodgment in the land of Goshen.

It should also be pointed out here that the ethnic name Hittite is only the English rendition of Hatts, Khatts, Khets, Kassks, and Hatoons. Arabs call them Hetheen or Hatheen.

In the Old Testament, the Hittites are mentioned as one of the aboriginal tribes of Palestine because when the Israelites entered the Promised Land, they were one of the tribes living there. Abraham bought the cave Mechpelah, near Hebron, from the sons of Heth (Gen. xxiii [23]). Essau married Hittite wives (Gen. xxvi [26]). Jerusalem was the bastard offspring of an Amorite and a Hittie (Ezek. xvi. 3 [16:3]).

Some historians place the Land of Hatti essentially in the highland country of Asia Minor and its capital, at Boghazkoy, in the north of it. Other historians claim that Hittites actually had two capitals, Kadesh on the Orontes and Karchemish on the Euphrates.

O. R. Gurney writes, The historical ‘Land of Hatti,’ . . . in the second millennium BC, was a state, later an empire, created by kings ruling from the mountain fastness. This kingdom and its official language have become known as ‘Hittite,’ and the name must now be accepted. But the ‘Hittite’ language was not indigenous in Asia Minor, and the name Hatti was given to the country by the earlier people of the land, whom we call Hattians. The Indo-European Hittite language was superimposed on the non-Indo-European Hattian by an invading people.

This is the prevailing language and manner of some historians in explaining the origin and the language of the Hittites. The subject matter, however, is far from being solved. Still the origin and the language of the Hittites remain unstudied sufficiently and in need of a more solid substantiation. This state of the subject matter gives more strength to the theory that the Hittites sprang up from the ancestors of the Circassians.

In the opinion of R. I. Makhosh, one well-substantiated central idea can clearly be traced in all viewpoints and versions of the emergence and genesis of the Adyghas: the idea that different tribes and peoples (pre-Sumerians, Sinds, pre-Arabs, and Arians) came to the land of the Caucasus since time primordial. According to N. Lovpache, these Caucasians (the descendants of the ancient Atykhas) lived there. They, like an inlet, absorbed in themselves everything alien that came in, and assimilated them, while they mainly remained themselves. We discover this remarkable trait of our distant ancestors, reading about their long and thorny voyage. Here are some more proofs about the fact that the Adyghas were the long, longtime dwellers in the Caucasus.

At the dawn of the Bronze Age (the second part of the third millennium BC), a tribal union was formed, the basis of which constituted the mountaineer-Adyghas of the Caucasus. The other members of this tribal union were the southerner Hatts (Khatts, Hittites) from Sumer and the Indo-European Arians. Later on, the Mediterranean Iberian bearers of the rite of dolmen burials had joined them. Specialists call this fellowship the Union of the Maikop Tribes. This is another proof supporting the theory that the Adyghas were ancient dwellers of the Caucasus.

N. Lovpache claims that the fortified camp discovered on Mt. Naghyzhiye () near Maikop City, beyond the Belaya River, was the center of union of tribes. He supposes that here had emerged the city of Hattusa, which was later repeated in Asia Minor. M. I. Makhosh writes, Another substantially large city of the period of the Maikop Culture, which was excavated by the archeologist M. K. Teshev, also existed in the valley of the Psinako River in the district of Tuapse. Presumably this city was called Tapsek.

In short, there are two points of view, or two versions, on who are the Khatts (Hatte, Hittites): One group supposes that all the proto-Adyghas, who had founded the origin of our people, were called Hatte. The other group considers that only one of the proto-Adygha tribes, who had left the Caucasus and undertook the campaign to Asia Minor, was called by that name.

Archeological and linguistic proofs exist indicating that the Adyghas, Abkhazians, Pyrenean Basques, and Arians of Central Europe had some kind of interrelationships and points of contact in the remote past. Perhaps, that is the reason A. S. Klein has suggested that the Adyghas have descended from the Indo-Arians of Central Europe.

In his book Istoria Cherkesii, S. Khotko elaborates on this subject matter and places it in a time frame work. Regularly pre-Khattian sources are discovered in Anatolia, the antiquity of which is stunning: some of them date back to the eighth millennium BC. In all likelihood the Khattian civilization was one of those cradles in which grew the human society. During the last years the original theory of Chinese-Caucasian linguistic family was generated. According to this idea the Abkhazo-Adyghas and the Khattians represented the western independent wing of this vast family of languages. Taking into account that the Abkhazo-Adyghas, as well as the Khattians, belong to the Pontic type of the Mediterranean Sea and Balkan small race (according to the Russian classification), who were always considered the ‘purest’ type, the divergence of the pre-Circassian and pre-Chinese languages can entirely be dated back to the Neolithic epoch.

S. Khotko examines the relationships of the Khattians and Abkhazo-Adyghas in his Ocherki Istorii Cherkesov. He writes, "The list of ethnological comparisons between the Abkhazo-Adyghas and Khattians can be commenced from one name of the Kasks—the ethnicon ‘Abeshla’—‘Apesila,’ which was mentioned in the inscription of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser I (1115-1077 BC). The given ethnicon is being compared with the ethnicons of the Western Caucasus of the Hellenistic epoch: ‘Apsil’ and ‘Abazg,’ and also with the ethnicon ‘Apshil,’ which was used in the Kartlian literature of the early Middle Ages for the designation of one of the

Abkhazian tribes.

"The ethnic tie of the Khatts and Kasks with Abkhazo-Adyghas does not provoke any doubt, at least, in the context of the linguistic aspect of the ethno genesis. V. V. Ivanov considers that phonetic accordance does not leave place for objection in the fact that, in its vocabulary the Khattian is the language of ancient North Caucasian family and reveals a particular similarity with the western Caucasian languages. Another linguist, who studied this problem, I. M. Diakonov, came to the conclusion that the Khattian language demonstrates ‘certain traits of similarity with the Abkhazo-Circassian languages.’ One of the latest opinions on the problem was expressed by the Polish linguist, Jan Brawn: ‘on all the planes of its structure, phonological, morphological, syntactical and lexical, the Khattian language reveals clear similarity with the material of the northwestern group of the primordial languages of the Caucasus. The time has come to begin detailed, comparative-historical study of the Khattian language on the one hand and that of the Abkhazo-Adyghas, on the other. It is impossible to prepare for the complex, scholarly comparative-historical grammar of the northwestern group of the Caucasian languages disregarding the Khattian, which is like the ‘Sanskrit for the mentioned linguistic group.’ Khattian place-names demonstrate also considerable degree of consonance with the toponymic materials of the Abkhazo-Adyghas. Thus, for example, similar appear to be the names of the Khattian cultural center Lychtsin and the cult center of the medieval Abkhazia—Lykhny. The Kaskian and Abkhazo-Adygha toponyms and hidronyms are so much similar by the sound, as if they were named by one ethnic group and during one historical epoch: Gagra, Achandara, Parpara, Atara, Dakhara, Achigvara, Sinop, Aripsa, Apsareya, Tuapse, Akampsis, Duabzou, Akhyps, Khyps, Lashyps, Dagarypsh, Rapsh, Soops, and many others.

"One of the more significant lexical coincidences is the term ‘Washkho.’ G. A. Melikishvili for the first time drew the attention of specialists on the community of the Khattian ‘Washab’ and Adygha ‘Uasho’ (Washo) and considered this identity quite important for the confirmation of the kinship of the Khattians and Abkhazo-Adyghas. ‘One of the most significant lexico-morphological matches,’ noted Sh. D. Inal-ipa, ‘between the Khattian and Abkhazo-Adygha languages is the complete similarity in form and meaning of the name of the god Washkho, the ancient religious-mythological image, who was known to the aborigines of Asia Minor way back in the second millennium BC, and which is not completely forgotten today in the circle of the Abkhazo-Adygha peoples—in all the Abkhazo-Adygha languages the term: Abkhazian—‘Washkhua’; Ubykhian—‘Washkhva’; Adygheyan—‘Washkho,’ and Kabardinian—‘Washshkhua,’ are made use of mainly as an expression of the most faithful vow and assurance; less frequently it is used as ‘god’ among the Ubykhs, ‘god of oath’ for the Kabardinians, and ‘firmament’ for the Adygheyans, and so on. In the texts of the Khattian language of Asia Minor the word ‘Washkho’ is met with in the meaning of ‘deity,’ and ‘god in general.’

The number of similar historical-cultural parallels between the Khattians and Abkhazo-Adyghas are extremely extensive and cited, in particular, in the works of V. G. Ardzinba. Thus, the above mentioned materials are allowing us to establish the existence of the very old epoch (preceding the antiquity) in the Western Caucasus of a powerful proto-Abkhazo-Adygha ethnic people. It occupied extensive territory in the North Black Sea and Azov Sea regions under the ‘label’ of Cimmerians, and a considerable part of Anatolia (Asia Minor) under the ‘label’ of Khattians and Kaskians. In the twelfth and eleventh centuries BC, the enclave in Asia Minor of the proto-Abkhazo-Adyghas ceases its existence. The reasons for the ruin of the Khettian kingdom and of the kindred Kaskeian union of tribes is connected in the historiography with the expansion of the so-called ‘the peoples of the sea,’ whose ethnicity is not cleared up to now. Considerably later, in the seventh century BC, the history of the Cimmerians comes to an end, probably under the pressure of the Scythians. Just the same, as some researchers think, the history of the Cimmerians continued under the name of the Sinds and Maeotians in the Western Caucasus.

To sum it up, these are the prevalent views of the historians and scholars on the origin of the Circassians. No doubt that they will still be studying and debating the subject matter for some time to come. In the meantime, it can safely be assumed that the ancestors of the Circassians were the people who, at the dawn of the Copper-Bronze Age, had created the monumental Nart Epic in the Adigha language, highly poetical in form and style, which was the supreme institution for the traditional upbringing, psychological makeup, and moral aspirations of the Circassian nation, the repository of their codes of law, manners and conduct; the epic that is a storehouse of raw historical information of the nation since times primordial, which also has preserved the pantheon of some of the most important Circassian heroes and enlighteners, whom all the new Circassian generations have always tried to imitate.

Cimmerians and Maeotians

Cimmerians, whose country lay along the northern shore of the Black Sea, including the Tauric Chersonese, are considered one of the oldest inhabitants of the Northwestern Caucasus. Consisting of a whole number of ethnic groups and tribes (Maeotians, Sinds, Dandarians, Torets, and others), they had established their empire many centuries before our era. Early in the first millennium BC, they represented a powerful tribal union and occupied the steppe region of the Black Sea coast, Crimea, and Northwestern Caucasus. According to the information obtained from the clay tablets found in Nineveh, the capital of Assyria (seventh century BC), The country of Gamirr has evoked terror in the States of the Near East and Asia Minor.

In the opinion of S. Khotko, "The intercourse with the Steppe was always an important factor in the formation of the protracted history of the Abkhazo-Adygha people. In the literary sources the first known people on the territory of the northern Black Sea coast and in the Western Caucasus was Cimmerians. In what relationship did the Cimmerians and the mountaineers of the Western Caucasus sojourn? Did their contemporary people call the ancient Abkhazo-Adyghas by this ethnic name? And if the Cimmerians were another people, were the Abkhazo-Adyghas part of their power? All these questions ought to be examined for the purpose of reproducing the full picture of the Abkhazo-Adygha historical and cultural type in the first half of the first millennium BC. The acknowledged specialist on the problem of ethnic attributes of the Cimmerians, L. A. Elnitski noted that ‘speaking of the Cimmerian culture, we must bear in mind the northern- and western-Caucasian culture of the epoch of the early metal as a whole, which is tied in the foothills with distinct transitional stages of the culture of the Scythians of the Black Sea region.’

Singling out the period of antiquity in the history of the Abkhazo-Adyghas is closely linked with the necessity of systematizing our conceptions of the historical past of the Western Caucasus.

Other sources say that it was probably in the seventh century BC, when the Cimmerians, driven from their homes by the Scythians, overran Asia Minor, plundered Sardis and destroyed Magnesia, but failed in an attempt on Ephesus and were driven back by Alyattes of Lydia. As the Maeotians were part of the Cimmerian tribal union, it is quite possible that this information is confirming the traditional memory of the Adygha folklore referred to above.

According to other sources, the period the Scythians pushed the Cimmerians from this region is dated to the end of the eighth century BC. After that, the Cimmerians are said to have fallen apart into several groups and dispersed. Dr. Shawkat al-Mufti claims, Only Sinds and Kemirgeii, who constituted the main group, being Circassians, remained in Caucasus and continued to live there under the same names as different tribes of the Adygha people.

The Sindo-Maeotian Culture was developed in the first millennium BC. Then, the Maeotians and other mountain tribes constituted the basic population of Northwestern Caucasus. Their names were found in ancient Greek, Roman, and Eastern literary sources. Hecateus of Miletus (sixth century BC) gave the earliest information about the Maeotian tribes. Later on, Strabo wrote that to the Maeotians belong Sinds, Dandari, Toreats, Agris, Arrakhis, Tarpets, Obidiakens, and Doskhis. The Bosporus inscriptions mention Sinds, Dandarians, Torets, Psesses, Fateans, and Doskhians as Maeotian tribes. One inscription called Perisad, the king of the Sinds and all the Maits (Maeotians).

Maeotians. The term Maits, Meots, or Maeotians is collective and is applied to many kindred tribes, who inhabited the Northwestern Caucasus, Kuban basin, and Eastern Azov Sea coast. The Maeotians are considered the ancestors of the Adighas.

Corroboration of the continuity of the Maeoto-Adyghas is found in archeological finds, linguistic data, and geographical names. Proper names mentioned in the inscriptions on stone slabs of Bosporus can still be met among the Adighas: Bagos, Dzadeu, Bleps, and so on. Other names as Psao, Psekhako, and the ancient names of the Kuban as Psat, Opissas, or Psatei contain the Adygha root word psy (water). Moreover, archeological finds discovered in the Maeotian town sites on the territory of Adygheya (Takhtamukay, Novo-Vochepshiy, hamlet Krasni) confirmed that the Maeotian Culture continued to develop here up to the early Middle Ages. Naturally, therefore, some scholars are attributing the ancient Maeotian population to the Adygha massive.

Maeotian Territory. The ancient geographer Scylac Coreandian (521-482 BC) furnishes the order of the settlement of these Maeotian tribes as follows:

1.   Sauromats—on the banks of Tana (Don) River.

2.   Maeotians—on the coasts of the Maeotian (Azov) Sea.

3.   Sinds—occupied almost the entire Taman peninsula and Black Sea coast up to the present-day Anapa City.

4.   Kerkets—inhabited the Black Sea coast from Anapa to Gelendjik.

5.   Akheans—lived along the southeast seacoast from Gelendjik. Heniokhs were their neighbors.

6.   Heniokhs—bordered on the southeast with the Great Dioscuria.

7.   Colchians—were situated between the Heniokhs and Phasis (Phazis, Rion) rivers.

According to Strabo, The Kerkets, who are also called Torites, are a people fair, kind and quite experienced in navigation. F. Scherbina asserts that Kerkets are undoubtedly our contemporary Circassians and the Torets—a tribe quite closely related to them. Worthy of attention is the conclusion reached by Scherbin about the succession of the Adygha-Maeotians: The descendants of the Sinds, Kerkets and Torets, are the Circassians or, more precisely, two tribes of them: the Natkhuages, who were occupying during the latter times Sindica and part of the Black Sea littoral, and the Shapsughs, whose possessions stretched from the North across the ridge up to . . . Gelendjik and further to the South.

In short, the majority of ancient authors place the territory of the Maeotians on the eastern coasts of the Azov Sea and in the lower and middle flows of the Kuban River. Based on archeological data, the boundary of this territory is the Azov Sea on the West, Black Sea on southeast, and the northern slopes of the Caucasus range on the South. The Maeotians in the steppe bordered with the Sarmatians on the North and extended their territory to the Stavropol plateau on the East. During this period, the Maeotians were on the stage of military democracy.

Thus, the Maeotians inhabited the entire basin of the lower and middle flows of the Kuban River. Their other kindred tribes lived on Uroup River and along the Kuban River.

Sinds, one of the Maeotian tribes, were engaged in agriculture, cattle breeding and fishing, had advanced crafts, blacksmithing, and earthenware production. Demand for the exchange of their articles and product was growing. Therefore, they had peaceful and friendly relations with the Greek settlements in Sindica.

*     *     *

This is how Strabo describes the ethnic map of the Western Caucasus: The Asiatic part of the Kingdom of Bosporus and Sindica are situated next to the sea; the Akheans, Zigs, Heniokhs, Kerkets, and Makropogons (long beards) live beyond them. Above them lie the gorges of the Phteirophags (lice eaters). Beyond the Heniokhs is situated Colchida . . . Thus, says S. Khotko, conventionally speaking, the Kerkets were displaced from the Sindo-Maeotian sector of the coast to the Colchidian sector: "Before Strabo no other author had placed the Kerkets in Colchida. If the information of Atemidor of Ephesus and Strabo, the historians of the wars of Mithridatus, actually reflected the real changes in the locations of the Western-Caucasian tribes, then it should be assumed that the proto-Abkhazo-Adyghas were considerably displaced from the north to the south in the first half of the first century BC. Both the migration of the Kerkets and the appearance of the Zigs on their traditional habitat bear a strong testimony on it. Moreover, from this time on appear two more tribes, presumably of North Caucasian origin—the Abazgians and Apsilians—who have occupied part of the territory of the Heniokhs and part of the territory of the Colchians."

Greek Colonization did not have expansionist character, in the opinion of V. Yurgovich. They were settling in the cities that were in existence earlier. I. Tolstoy and N. Kondakov think that first the Phoenicians began visiting this place; the Greeks followed them later and began establishing their colonies here.

The process of the Greek colonization had a large swing early in the sixth century BC along the coast of Sindica, from Taman to Gelendjik. By the middle of that century, Greek colonies Hermonasa, Kepi, Patrei, and Phanagoria were founded in ancient Sindica. The Eustatheus places the date the latter was established in 540 BC. Archeologists discovered also many Greek settlements dating to the sixth century BC near Novorossiysk, between the rivers Abrau and Durso.

By this time, the coastal Sinds had began yielding to the higher Greek culture, but the old traditions and culture continued to exist in the remote parts of the country. The productive capacities kept growing and social relations advancing. As a result, local state was formed in Sindica, now with a king at the head.

The state of Sindica was established in the second half of the fifth century BC, according to the conventional view of historians. Its kings minted their own coins with the inscription of Sindoi and with the depiction of a wheel and the head of a horse. The coins used in the towns of the Kingdom of Bosporus indicate that Sindica had a monetary unity.

The kings of Sindica had also developed a written language, based on the Greek alphabet in the fifth century BC. Representatives of the nobility of Sindica participated in the life of the Greek colonies, competitions and games. By the fourth century BC, they had also substantially expanded their trade relations to the East through the Volga and southern Ural steppes and over the mountain passes with Southern Caucasus.

ANCIENT SINDICA

58318-NATH-layout.pdf58318-NATH-layout.pdf

Sindica Harbor (Gorgippea, Anapa) was the capital of Sindica. Other more prominent cities were Phanagoria (Sennoy settlement), Hermonassa (Taman), and Kepi (on the eastern shore of the Taman bay). Ancient authors also preserved the names of other towns and settlements, which existed on the Taman peninsula. They were Korokandama, Patrei, Achilis, Cimmeri, Tiramba. Phanagoria, which was situated on the former channel of the Kuban River (Antikit or Hipanis of the ancients); it had concentrated into its hands all the trade with the tribes of the Kuban basin and quickly grew into a large city, occupying a dominating position. Hermonassa (stanitsa Tamansk) was the second largest town.

Polien, in his story about Princess Tirghataw, wrote of Czar Hekape of Sindica in the fifth century BC. The state of Sindica lasted for about one hundred years and had its own kings. However, being surrounded by powerful and warlike neighbors, she could not preserve her political independence and was obliged to become part of the Kingdom of Bosporus in the fourth century BC. Levkon I, the son of Arkhont, completed the annexation of Sindica.

Maeotians and the Kingdom of Bosporus. Maeotians, the ancestors of the Circassians, had played an important role in the Kingdom of Bosporus, which was formed shortly after the fall of the Cimmerian Empire, in