Who pulled down Madzhar
Editorial contextWhen Klaproth arrived only two burial chapels were left. He explains that nearby colonists tore the ruins down for bricks, and that Count Paul Potemkin had most of what remained demolished to build the fortress-town of Yekaterinograd; peasants carried off the rest, and inscribed stones ended up in their yards.
The destruction of these remains of antiquity has been occasioned chiefly by the settlement of several colonies, which have established themselves in this neighbourhood, and have pulled them down for the sake of the serviceable bricks. Their total demolition, however, is to be ascribed more particularly to Count Paul Ssergeitsch Potemkin, who ordered the greatest part of the buildings remaining in his time to be taken down
About Russian and Armenian settlers; Count P. S. Potemkin
Continue in this sourceJulius Klaproth's travels in the Caucasus and Georgia1807 to 1808 · 14 passagesMountain Tartars who remember a lost capital
Editorial contextKlaproth reports the origin tradition of the Turkic mountain peoples the Georgians called Bassiani: their elders say they once lived on the steppe of the Kuma up to the Don, with a magnificent capital, Ckirck Madshar ('forty stone buildings'), which they identify with the ruins at Madzhar, before being driven into the high mountains.
Their elders report that they were long ago settled in the steppe of the Kuma as far as the Don… Their capital, which is said to have been very magnificent, was named Ckirck Madshar, which in their language signifies the forty stone buildings, or the forty four-wheeled waggons… They assert that the ruins of Madshar, which yet subsist, are the remains of this city.
About Bassian Tartars (Balkars and Karachay)
Keep in mind
An oral tradition; the dates are uncertain even to the tellers.
Madzhary: streets of tombs, not a town
Editorial contextOn the Kuma River Pallas visited the famous ruins of Upper Madzhary. In 1780 there were still thirty-two buildings, but settlers had since carted away the fine bricks. The ruins stood in rows, which made 'the ignorant' think they were the streets of a large town; Pallas concludes it was a great cemetery of domed sepulchral mosques. (Madzhar is now known to have been a Golden Horde trading town of the 1300s.)
…they have formerly stood in rows; a circumstance that has induced the ignorant to suppose they were the streets of a large town. But, upon close investigation, it appears that this place was a famous cemetry appropriated to persons of distinction;
About a Muslim people 'perhaps of Tartar origin'
Keep in mind
His 'cemetery, not a town' verdict reflects his view that nomads did not build towns.
Whose town was Madshar?
Editorial contextFrom inscriptions he could read, Güldenstädt dated the town to about 500 years before his visit. The mosques and Muslim tombs told him the people were Muslims, and the history of the region told him they were Nogais. So, he says, the older idea that the ruins belonged to the Magyars (Hungarians), prompted by the name, should be dropped: if Hungarians ever lived here, the Tatars must have driven them out earlier.
From some inscriptions I recognised that the place … was inhabited about 500 years ago, and the style of the prayer-houses and mausolea shows that the inhabitants were Mohammedans and, according to the history of this region, Nogais. The present-day Madschars or Hungarians therefore lose the claim to these ruins that people had granted them
Working translation
Original wording
Aus einigen Inschrifften habe ich erkannt, daß der Ort … etwan vor 500 Jahren bewohnt gewesen, und die Bauart der Bethäuser und Mausoläen zeigt, daß die Einwohner Mohamedaner, und nach der Geschichte dieser Gegend Nogaier gewesen. Die heutigen Madscharen oder Ungarn verlieren also das Recht, welches man ihnen auf diese Trümmer zugestand
About Nogai Tatars; Hungarians (Magyars)
Keep in mind
The Nogai attribution is Güldenstädt's inference. The town flourished under the Golden Horde in the 1300s (Ibn Battuta passed through it), before the Nogai Horde became the steppe power.
The myth that Hungarians came from Madzhar
Editorial contextKlaproth traces a legend: in 1728 Gerber saw 'handsome stone houses' at Madzhar and guessed from the name that the Hungarians (Magyars) came from there, a notion copied onto maps. Klaproth calls it absurd: the name is Tatar for stone buildings, and the ruins are Golden Horde.
It is yet called Madshar, an appellation which is given by the Poles and Turks to the Hungarians, and by which the latter commonly distinguish themselves. It is probable that the founders of the kingdom of Hungary were originally from this country. Thus we see that Gerber was the first who broached the absurd opinion that the Hungarians derived their origin from Madshar
About Hungarians (Magyars); Golden Horde Tatars
Keep in mind
A name-based origin legend that Klaproth rejects.
A stone woman with a Nogai face
Editorial contextCrossing the steppe north of the Caucasus, Güldenstädt stopped at a crude, very stout female statue of shell conglomerate on a low mound, facing east, hands over the belly, four strings of beads round the neck and a peaked cap on the head. He thought the face and headdress Nogai, and a page later concluded that such statues were raised in memory of noble Nogais buried there. He met more of them all the way to the Donets and the Dnieper.
Here, to the right of the road, stood a shapeless female statue of ordinary human size but, in proportion, extraordinarily stout … four loosely hanging strings of corals surround the short neck; the head is very large and round, the face flat and broad, the nose quite flat … the physiognomy is Nogai
Working translation
Original wording
Hieselbst stand rechts am Wege eine unförmliche weibliche Statue, von gewöhnl. Menschengröße, aber in Proportion von ausserordentlicher Dikke … den kurzen Hals umgeben 4 schlafhängende Reihen Korallen; der Kopf ist sehr groß und rund, das Gesicht flach und breit, die Nase ganz flach … die Physionomie ist nagajisch
About Nogai Tatars (as Güldenstädt judged the makers)
Keep in mind
His Nogai attribution rests on the look of the face and headdress. Modern archaeologists usually attribute these steppe ‘stone women’ (kamennye baby) to the medieval Cumans (Polovtsians).
Madzhar's brick buildings, described in 1772
Editorial contextKlaproth quotes the naturalist S. G. Gmelin, who saw the ruins in 1772 when they were best preserved: a great city on a plateau, with fortified mansions at the edge. The bricks were like those Astrakhan Tatars still made; walls were bonded mostly with clay and plastered and whitewashed inside; buildings were square, octagonal or round, up to nine fathoms high and topped by pyramids or domes.
The bricks resemble those still made by the Tartars of Astrachan, that is to say, they are broader and thicker than ours. In the external walls, a mortar composed of lime and sand is used only here and there, the cement generally employed being clay alone… The figure of the buildings yet preserved is square, octagonal, and circular.
About Golden Horde Tatars
Keep in mind
Gmelin called it 'a magnificent Scythian city'; Klaproth corrects the attribution to the Golden Horde.
Ruins 'all of Tartar origin', and a palace the Kalmyks would not live in
Editorial contextIn his appendix Matthew Guthrie lists brick ruins on the Akhtuba, at Madzhary on the Kuma (32 buildings in 1780, only four by 1793) and near the Terek, which Pallas had drawn, and calls them all of Tartar origin from their shape, construction and inscriptions. He follows Pallas in thinking them tombs or shrines, because Mongols so loved camp life that the Kalmyk princes of his day would not live in a palace Russia built for them.
all of Tartar origin, as is evident from several kinds of proof, viz. shape, construction, and inscriptions… I am of Pallas's opinion with regard to the sepulchral or religious destination of all those ruins, from the known attachment of the Monguls to a camp residence, which to this day prevents their descendants, the Calmuc princes, from inhabiting a palace built for them by the crown of Russia
About Golden Horde Tatars; Kalmyks
Keep in mind
Second-hand from Pallas; Klaproth (W056) later argued Madzhary was a real town, not just a cemetery.
Fifty brick tombs at Madshar
Editorial contextAt the famous ruins of Madshar on the Kuma, Güldenstädt counted about fifty buildings of fired brick. He insists they were not houses but mausolea, each over an underground vault where the coffins stood. West of them were two ruined mosques, one still with its minaret. Of ordinary houses nothing was left, and he guesses they had been built of light timber frame and wattle, like local houses in his own day.
Madshar … contains … about 50 different buildings of brick … They are not dwelling houses but mausolea, all provided with an underground vault … Between the two [mosques] there may well have been dwellings … Presumably they were built in the manner still usual in these parts, of light timber framing and wattle.
Working translation
Original wording
Madshar … enthält … ohngefähr 50 verschiedne Gebäude von Baksteinen … Es sind nicht Wohnhäuser, sondern Mausoläen, alle mit einem unterirdischen Gewölbe versehen … Zwischen beiden mögen wohl Wohnungen gestanden haben … Vermuthlich waren sie nach der, noch izt in diesen Gegenden üblichen Bauart, von leichtem Fach- und Flechtwerk.
About Nogai Tatars (as Güldenstädt judged the builders)
Keep in mind
Pallas notes on the previous page that Güldenstädt left only hasty, incomplete measurements of Madshar. Modern archaeology treats Majar as a Golden Horde trading town of the 1300s.
Proof that Madzhar was built by Kipchak Tatars
Editorial contextKlaproth sets out his evidence that Madzhar was a Tatar town: the shape of its buildings and burial chapels, which match a Tatar cemetery near Tbilisi; walls decorated with coloured glazed tiles, a Tatar and Mongol fashion; Arabic gravestones; coins of the Golden Horde; and mentions in Asian histories. He also opened a brick vault himself and found a wooden coffin.
The following facts, however, afford incontestable proofs that Madshar was a town built and inhabited by Ckipdshack Tartars. I. The form of the buildings and sepulchral chapels is characteristic of Southern Asia… The fashion of adorning the walls with tiles, which are glazed on one side with different colours, is also Tartar and Mongol.
About Kipchak Tatars (Golden Horde)
Continue in this sourceJulius Klaproth's travels in the Caucasus and Georgia1807 to 1808 · 14 passagesThe stone houses of ruined Madjar on the Kuma
Editorial contextDescribing the Kuma steppe, the book says the land once had settled people, as shown by ruined towns. On the left bank of the Kuma lie the ruins that Kalmyks call Madsharinka Balgusun, 'the beautiful city Madjar': a ditched enclosure with house foundations, gravestones with inscriptions and seven stone houses still standing. One Arabic inscription was said to record that the people of Madjar left the city for lack of wood and moved into the mountains.
… houses and various gravestones with inscriptions, and also seven standing stone houses of moderate size. The gravestones are said to have partly Arabic, partly unknown inscriptions. On one with an Arabic inscription it is said to read that the people of Madjar left the city because of a shortage of wood and moved into the mountains.
Working translation
Original wording
… Häuser und verschiedenen Grabsteinen mit Inschriften, auch noch sieben stehende steinerne Häuser von mäßiger Größe. Die Grabsteine sollen theils arabische, theils unbekannte Aufschriften haben. Auf einem mit arabischer Inschrift soll stehen: daß das Volk der Madschari die Stadt wegen Holzmangel verlassen und ins Gebürge gezogen sey.
About Former inhabitants of Madjar; named by Russians, Kalmyks and Tatars
Keep in mind
The inscription's content is reported ('soll stehen', 'is said to read'), not read by the author.
OCR normalized (checked against the page image; the OCR text is badly garbled).
A Muslim gravestone dated 1346
Editorial contextKlaproth read Arabic gravestones at Madzhar: one for 'Sina, son of Mohammed, son of Chalil' of AH 747 (1346-1347), another for a judge of AH 777 (1375-1376), which he carried away. All dated stones he saw belonged to the 8th Islamic century. He notes Pallas missed them because peasants had built them into their yards.
Here is buried the deceased, who needs the mercy of God in eternity, Sina, son of Mohhammed, the son of Chalil..... in the year of the era seven-and-forty and seven hundred.
About Muslim Tatars of the Golden Horde
Continue in this sourceJulius Klaproth's travels in the Caucasus and Georgia1807 to 1808 · 14 passagesCoins struck at Sarai, capital of the Golden Horde
Editorial contextKlaproth reads the coins found at Madzhar: nearly all were minted at Sarai or New Sarai, the Golden Horde capitals, under khans from Mengu-Timur to Tokhtamysh and Pulad (1270s to 1408), some with names in Mongol script. One is struck at Astrakhan. The latest coin helps date the town's end to about 1400.
The great Ssulthan Ghajats Eddunia (the prop of the world) Toktégu-chan, the Just… Coined at Ssarai, the capital, in the year 715; that is, A.D. 1315.
About Golden Horde (Genghisid khans)
Keep in mind
The Arabic legends are garbled in the OCR; the translations are Klaproth's.
Were the builders of Madzhari Tatars? Gmelin guesses 'Scythians'
Editorial contextGmelin admits he knows too little medieval history to say who lived at Madzhari. He reports that in 1735, when Tatars still held the district, the Astrakhan governor Tatishchev sent an armed party to search the ruins and received a writing on blue, very strong paper and some coins, which Tatishchev took for 'Scythian'. Gmelin guesses a 'Scythian tribe called Madshar' lived there and mentions a claim that the Ingush of the Caucasus descend from them. On the previous page he says the Tatar grave mounds around the site probably did not belong to Madzhari, since the Madzharians 'were probably not Tatars'.
The former Astrakhan governor Tatishchev sent some people in 1735, when the Tatars still held this district, … to investigate the Madzhari ruins … They brought him a writing on blue, very strong paper and various coins, which this historian took for Scythian. … Presumably a Scythian tribe called Madshar lived here
Working translation
Original wording
Der ehemalige Astrachanische Gouverneur von Tatistschew schickte im Jahr 1735, als die Tataren diese Gegend noch inne hatten, einige Leute … zur Untersuchung der Madsharischen Ruinen … Man brachte ihn eine Schrift auf blauen, sehr festen Papier, und verschiedene Münzen, welches dieser Geschichtsforscher für Scytische hielt. … Vermuthlich wohnte hier ein Scythischer Stamm der Madshar hieß
About A supposed 'Scythian tribe called Madshar'
Keep in mind
An open guess by Gmelin. Modern archaeology treats Madzhari as a Golden Horde trading town, so 'Scythian' here reflects 18th-century uncertainty.
A city driven out by tarantulas
Editorial contextA story said the people of the 'city' at Madzhary had been driven away by swarms of great tarantulas, which is why the stream is called Byvalla, from the Tartar 'by' (tarantula) and 'valla' (bad). Pallas says there is no basis for it: despite searching diligently, he never found a single tarantula there.
There is no foundation for believing what is related of this supposed city, that its inhabitants have been expelled by great numbers of the large tarantula, or Phalangium araneodes, from which traditionary account the rivulet Byvalla has received its name; By, being the Tartar word for the tarantula, and valla, signifying bad or evil.
About local tradition about the Madzhary ruins
Continue in this sourcePallas's travels through southern Russia and the Crimea1793 to 1794 · 20 passagesStone statues on the burial mounds
Editorial contextAlong the Tashla Pallas saw the rough-hewn stone statues that stand on burial mounds across the steppe from the Kuban to the Dnieper, always facing east. From their dress and faces he judged that a people related to the Mongols made them. In a footnote on the next page he quotes Rubruck, who credited them to the Cumans, and argues that different monuments on the steppe came from different nations. (Most are now thought to be Cuman (Polovtsian) work of the eleventh to thirteenth centuries.)
If we may judge from the costume and form of the face, they uniformly appear to have been made by a people related to the Mongolians, who formerly inhabited those countries. … All these statues are erected on moderately large sepulchral hills, and their faces are exposed towards the East.
About a people 'related to the Mongolians'
Continue in this sourcePallas's travels through southern Russia and the Crimea1793 to 1794 · 20 passagesThe Kuban Tartars, raiders subject to the Turks
Editorial contextDescribing the Torghut country between the Volga and the Yaik, Tulishen places to the west the Ho-pang, which Staunton identifies as the Cuban Tartars, also called Mang-vu-te (Mangyt, a Nogai clan name). He says they were subjects of the Turkish sultan and constantly raided both Russians and Torghuts. It shows a Chinese writer mapping the Nogai Tatars by their own clan name.
lies the country of the Ho-pang (Cuban Tartars) otherwise called Mang-vu-te, a nation subject to Kung-ke-eur Khan, king of the Tu-li-ye-se-ko, (Turks). This people are constantly in the practice of coming across the boundary, in order to attack and plunder their Russian and Tourgouth neighbours.
About Kuban (Nogai) Tatars
Keep in mind
The identification 'Cuban Tartars' is Staunton's gloss in brackets.
A Nogai murza's fresh grave of cut stone
Editorial contextOpposite the mouth of the Tashla, Güldenstädt found the new grave of a Yedisan Nogai murza buried the previous winter. Blocks of shell conglomerate, dug from the grave pit itself and squared, had been laid loose in a man-sized rectangle about three feet high. A second grave like it lay further on. It shows a living steppe people marking graves with cut stone, and on the same page he suggests the same rock could supply building blocks for the planned Russian colonies.
[the grave] of a Yedisan murza buried here last winter. Shell conglomerates cut into square blocks, taken from the pit of the grave itself, had been laid loose one on another, about 3 feet high, in an oblong rectangle proportioned to a man's size.
Working translation
Original wording
im vorigen Winter hier begrabenen Jedissanischen Mursa. Zu Quadersteinen gehauene Muschel-Conglomerate, die aus der Grube des Begräbnisses selbst genommen, waren in einen länglichten, der Menschengröße proportionirten Vierek, an 3 Fuß übereinander, loß gelegt.
About Yedisan Nogais
Continue in this sourceGüldenstädt's travels through southern Russia and the Caucasus1768 to 1775 · 13 passagesKarachay marriage and the 'price of blood'
Editorial contextKlaproth describes the Karachay as usually monogamous and unusually kind to their wives. As among other Tartars, the bride's parents receive a kalym (bride price), here called 'the price of blood'; a rich groom sends the bride a full outfit and she is brought to him at night, followed by three days of feasting and dancing.
In general they take only one wife… so that here, as among the Europeans, the wife is the companion, and not the menial servant, of the husband… Among them, as among the other Tartars, the parents, on the marriage of a daughter, receive a kalim, which is here termed the price of blood.
About Karachay Tartars
Keep in mind
Klaproth's Karachay material came mainly from one Armenian informant.
The Natukhai, 'originally Tartars'
Editorial contextVorontsov told Spencer he had been visited at Anapa by a prince of the Natukhai, a tribe 'originally Tartars' who had fled into the Caucasus after Russia conquered the lands of the Kuban and Azov. Spencer calls them Russia's most uncompromising enemies there. The Natukhai are usually counted as a Circassian (Adyghe) tribe.
he had been honoured with a visit from a Circassian prince, chief of the Natouhay tribe, originally Tartars, who had fled into the mountains of the Caucasus upon the conquest of the provinces on the banks of the Kouban and the sea of Azov.
About Natukhai (Circassian tribe said to be of Tatar origin)
Keep in mind
The Tatar origin is a claim reported at second hand.