Derbent: the Iron Gate, its towers cut down by the Tartars
Editorial contextReturning south along the Caspian, Rubruck passed Derbent, the 'Iron Gate'. The town ran more than a mile between mountain and sea, with a strong castle on top, very strong walls without ditches and towers of large polished stones; but the Tartars had cut down the tops of the towers and the battlements to the height of the walls. The land within, he says, used to be like a paradise.
It has very strong walls without ditches, and towers of large polished stones; but the Tartars destroyed the tops of the towers and the battlements of the walls, levelling the towers with the wall. Within that city the land used to be like a paradise.
Working translation
Original wording
Fortissimos muros habet sine fossatis, et turres de lapidibus magnis et politis; sed Tartari destruxerunt summitates turrium et propugnacula murorum, equantes turres muro. Infra illam civitatem solebat terra esse sicut paradisus.
About Tartars (Mongols of the Ilkhanate frontier)
Continue in this sourceCarpini and Rubruck in the original Latinc. 1245 to 1329 · 19 passagesCaptured in Daghestan: dragged behind horses, shot with blunted arrows
Editorial contextAfter a shipwreck on the Caspian coast, Struys and his companions were stripped by one band and then seized by another, who took them for spies of the rebel Razin. He describes being tied to horses' tails and driven barefoot through thorns, then bound to a tree and struck with arrows whose points had been blunted to make the torment last. Russian slaves of the prince vouched that they were Dutch, which saved their lives (two pages later).
they tied us to the tails of their horses, making us follow backwards and barefoot through the brambles and thorns with which the road was covered … tie me to a tree, where they pierced me with arrows whose iron they had blunted
Working translation
Original wording
ils nous attachèrent à la queue de leurs chevaux, nous faisant suivre à reculons & les piés nus, au travers des ronces & des épines dont le chemin étoit tout couvert … me rattacher à un arbre, où ils me percèrent à coups de flèches dont ils avoient émoussé le fer
About Tartars of Daghestan (the men of 'Sultan Osmin')
Keep in mind
His own ordeal, but told in a ghost-written book that heightens every drama.
The Iron Gate city of Alexander razed by the Tartars
Editorial contextSent west with 10,000 horsemen, the Mongol general Jebe ('Gebesagada') took towns before they knew he was coming, killing the armed men but, Sanudo says, sparing the people and leaving gold untouched. At the Caucasus he reached Alexandreta, built by Alexander, later called the Iron Gate, which blocks the way from deep Asia. The Tartars entered it suddenly and 'overthrew both citizens and place from the foundations'.
and he came to the great mountain Caucasus, where Alexander built Alexandreta, which was afterwards called the Iron Gates. This blocks the passage from deep Asia to the greater. This impregnable city the Tartars, entering the land suddenly, overthrew from its foundations, both citizens and place.
Working translation
Original wording
peruenitque ad magnum montem Caucasum, vbi Alexandretam Alexander ædificauit, quæ postea Portæ ferreæ dicta est. Hæc transitum prohibet de profunda Asia ad maiorem. Hanc autem inexpugnabilem ciuitatem, intrantes subitò terram Tartari, tam ciues quam locum funditus euerterunt.
About Mongols under Jebe ('Gebesagada')
Keep in mind
Compiled history; the attribution of Derbent's walls to Alexander is medieval tradition (they are Sasanian).
Transcribed from the page image; long s normalized.
Dagestan Tartars versus Lezgi Tartars
Editorial contextCook admits writers were confused about the peoples of the eastern Caucasus and sets his own rule: 'Dagestan Tartars' for the hill people between Derbent and Circassia, 'Lezgi Tartars' for those south and south-east of Derbent to the Kura. It shows 'Tartar' being used simply as a label for Muslim mountaineers who spoke many languages.
The difference between the Dagestan and Lesgee Tartars, I think is not clear in authors; I therefore desire my readers to remember, that I call the Dagestan Tartars, those who inhabit the hills between Derbent and Circassia; and I call those who inhabit the hills south, and south-east of Derbent, all the way to the north banks of Cura, Lesgee Tartars.
About Dagestani highlanders
Continue in this sourceJohn Cook's travels as a doctor on Russia's Tartar frontier1730 to 1749 · 11 passagesDerbent's stone towers, cut down by the Tartars
Editorial contextRubruck passed through the Iron Gate (Derbent) on the Caspian. He credits Alexander the Great with building it, following medieval legend, and describes a narrow town with strong walls and towers of dressed stone. The Tartars had levelled the tops of the towers and the parapets, making them even with the walls. Rockhill's note says Muslim geographers credited the Persian king Khosrow Anushirvan.
The next day we came to the Iron Gate, which Alexander the Macedonian made … It has very strong walls without moats, and towers of great dressed (politis) stones ; but the Tartars have destroyed the tops of the towers and the parapets of the walls, making the towers even with the walls.
About Tartars (Mongols)
Keep in mind
The Alexander attribution is legend; the walls are Sasanian Persian work.
Tarki, capital of 'Dagestan Tartary'
Editorial contextPeter the Great's army camped below Tarki, seat of the shamkhal. Bruce describes a town of over 3,000 houses on a hillside, without walls, with two-storey flat-roofed houses where women walked in the evening, each with its own garden and spring.
This city of Tarku, being the metropolis of Dagestan, contains above three thousand houses, and is very full of inhabitants ; the houses all two stories high, platformed at top, standing close to each other : the women walk upon them in the cool of the evenings, as the men do in the streets. Every house has a garden stored with all kinds of delicious fruits
About Kumyks ('Dagestan Tartars')
Continue in this sourcePeter Henry Bruce's memoirs of service under Peter the Great1700 to 1733 · 12 passagesTowers on the hills credited to Alexander
Editorial contextCook describes Derbent's huge walls of natural shell-stone and then notes towers on the hills to the west. The inhabitants told him Alexander the Great built them and ran them all the way to the Black Sea to hold back the Dagestan Tartars. This echoes the old legend of Alexander's wall against Gog and Magog.
Upon the tops of the hills, west from Derbent, are to be seen some towers, which the inhabitants say were built by Alexander the Great; and that he continued these towers from Derbent west to the Black Sea, in order to curb the Dagestan Tartars.
About 'Dagestan Tartars' (Muslim highlanders)
Keep in mind
Local tradition; the Derbent walls are Sasanian Persian work of the 6th century, not Alexander's.
A 'Tartarian or Circassian' village of four hundred houses
Editorial contextMarching south from the Terek, the embassy reached a large village of 300 to 400 houses called Andreofske Derevna, ruled by a prince named Alish under Russian protection. Cook is unsure whether to call it Tartar or Circassian. The prince, drunk from celebrating, showed the scars of many raids and boasted of horses stolen from Turkey and Georgia.
at seven o'clock at night we arrived, very cold, in a large Tartarian or Circassian village, called Andreofske Derevna, consisting of between three and four hundred houses. The prince of this village is called Alish, and is under the protection of Russia.
About Kumyks or Kabardians (called Tartars or Circassians)
Continue in this sourceJohn Cook's travels as a doctor on Russia's Tartar frontier1730 to 1749 · 11 passagesCould anyone know the name 'Tatar' in the 6th century?
Editorial contextIn a note, Frähn discusses a 16th-century Ottoman writer who claimed the Persian king Anushirvan (6th century) built the Caspian Gates for fear of 'Turks and Tatars'. Frähn replies that although Arab writers mention the Tatars earlier than some scholars thought, the name can hardly have been known that early in western Asia. It is a scholarly warning against reading 'Tatar' back into ancient history.
for although Arab writers mention the Tatars earlier than is noted in the excellent Mémoires sur l'Arménie (vol. II, p. 263), one can hardly assume that their name was known so early in western Asia.
Working translation
Original wording
denn erwähnen gleich Arabische Schriftsteller der Tataren früher, als in den trefflichen Mémoires sur l'Arménie T. II. p. 263 angemerkt ist; so früh kann man wohl kaum Bekanntschaft mit ihrem Namen im westl. Asien annehmen.
About Tatars (as a name)
Keep in mind
Editorial, not Ibn Fadlan.
Tarku, an unwalled capital of a thousand houses
Editorial contextOn the way home the embassy spent five weeks at Tarku (Tarki), capital of Dagestan, whose people Olearius calls Tartars. The town had no walls and about a thousand houses built in the Persian manner, set among rocks full of fossil shells. He found the local lords frightening: over dinner, he says, they talked only of robbing and selling people.
The City is not wall'd. It may contain a thousand houses, built according to the Persian way, but not so well. These Tartars, as also those of … and the others who live more Northerly, are called Kaitacks
About Kumyks and other Dagestan 'Tartars'
A note on this quote
The scan is too rough to double-check this quote by machine. Compare it with the page.
Muslim Tartars with stone crosses and Christian feast days
Editorial contextCook says all the Tartars from Astrakhan to Derbent were Sunni Muslims, but he suspected many had once been Christians. They held yearly gatherings they could not explain, which he says fell on Greek Orthodox feast days, and he was told there were many stone crosses in the hills where they still met.
The Tartars from the borders of Astrachan to Derbent, are all Mahometans, of the sect of the Turks; but some things make me believe, that a majority of them had formerly professed the Christian religion. They have meetings at certain times of the year, where they divert themselves, without being able to account for the cause, any other way than that their ancestors did so before them
About 'Tartars' between Astrakhan and Derbent (Kumyks and Dagestani peoples)
Keep in mind
Cook's inference; the crosses are reported, not seen.
A Tartar town with whitewashed clay walls
Editorial contextThe Russian embassy of 1746 passed a Tartar town under Russian protection, ruled by a prince called Alt Sheff, on a high river bank on the road north of Derbent. It had about 300 houses with clay walls whitened with lime. The diarist grumbles that its people were the most skilful thieves in the world.
…arrived at a tartar town under the Russian protection; though otherwise a kind of independent state. The prince of it was called Alt Sheff: it stands on a high bank on the north side of the river …, and contains about 300 houses; the walls of which are of clay whitened with lime. The inhabitants are the most acute thieves in the world,
About Tartars of northern Dagestan (probably Kumyks)
Continue in this sourceJonas Hanway's history of British trade over the Caspian1743 to 1745 · 17 passagesPlundered by the Kaitaks, 'a Tartar tribe'
Editorial contextAfter a storm wrecks one of their boats on the Caspian shore, Nikitin's party is seized and robbed by the Kaitaks near Tarki. The Shah of Shirvan then negotiates with the Kaitak prince, his brother-in-law, for their release. The footnote labels the Kaitaks a Tartar tribe of Daghestan, an example of how widely the label was stretched.
A storm having arisen at sea, the smaller boat was wrecked on shore. Then came the Kaitaks and made the whole party prisoners, and we came to Derbend
About Kaitaks (called a Tartar tribe by the editor)
Keep in mind
The Kaitaks of Daghestan were a Caucasian people; 'Tartar tribe' is the 1857 note's label, not Nikitin's.