Alani | |
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 Map showing the migrations of the Alans | |
| Languages | |
| Scythian, Alanian | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| Ossetians |
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The Alans (Latin: Alani) were an ancient and medieval Iranic nomadic pastoral people who migrated to what is today North Caucasus[1][2][3][4][5] – while some continued on to Europe and later North-Africa. They are generally regarded as part of the Sarmatians, and possibly related to the Massagetae.[6] Modern historians have connected the Alans with the Central Asian Yancai of Chinese sources and with the Aorsi of Roman sources.[7] Having migrated westwards and becoming dominant among the Sarmatians on the Pontic–Caspian steppe, the Alans are mentioned by Roman sources in the 1st century CE.[1][2] At that time they had settled the region north of the Black Sea and frequently raided the Parthian Empire and the South Caucasus provinces of the Roman Empire.[8] From 215 to 250 CE the Goths broke their power on the Pontic Steppe,[4] thereby assimilating a sizeable portion of the associated Alans.
Upon the Hunnic defeat of the Goths on the Pontic Steppe around 375 CE, many of the Alans migrated westwards along with various Germanic tribes. They crossed the Rhine in 406 CE along with the Vandals and Suebi, settling in Orléans and Valence. Around 409 CE they joined the Vandals and Suebi in crossing the Pyrenees into the Iberian Peninsula, settling in Lusitania and Hispania Carthaginensis.[9] The Iberian Alans, soundly defeated by the Visigoths in 418 CE, subsequently surrendered their authority to the Hasdingi Vandals.[10] In 428 CE, the Vandals and Alans crossed the Strait of Gibraltar into North Africa, where they founded a kingdom which lasted until its conquest by forces of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I in 534.[10]
Eventually in the 9th century those Alans who remained under Hunnic rule established the regionally powerful kingdom of Alania. It survived until the Mongol invasions of the 13th century CE. Various scholars regard these Alans as the ancestors of the modern Ossetians.[8][11]
The Alans spoke an Eastern Iranian language which derived from Scytho-Sarmatian and which in turn evolved into the modern Ossetian language.[2][12][13] The name Alan represents an Eastern Iranian dialectal form of Old Iranian term Aryan,[1][2][14] and so is cognate with the name of the country Īrān (from the gen. plur. *aryānām).[15]
- ^ a b c Golden 2009.
- ^ a b c d Abaev & Bailey 1985, pp. 801–803.
- ^ Waldman & Mason 2006, pp. 12–14
- ^ a b Brzezinski & Mielczarek 2002, pp. 10–11
- ^ Zadneprovskiy 1994, pp. 467–468
- ^ Alemany 2000, p. 1.
- ^ Zadneprovskiy 1994, pp. 465–467
- ^ a b "Alani". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 2015. Archived from the original on 4 November 2013. Retrieved 1 January 2015.
- ^ "Spain: Visigothic Spain to c. 500". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 2015. Retrieved 1 January 2015.
- ^ a b "Vandal". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. 2015. Retrieved 1 January 2015.
- ^ Shnirelman, Victor (2006). "The Politics of a Name: Between Consolidation and Separation in the Northern Caucasus" (PDF). Acta Slavica Iaponica. 23: 37–49.
- ^ Alemany 2000, pp. 5–7.
- ^ For ethnogenesis, see Walter Pohl, "Conceptions of Ethnicity in Early Medieval Studies" in Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings, ed. Lester K. Little and Barbara H. Rosenwein, Blackwell, 1998, pp. 13–24.
- ^ Alemany 2000, pp. 1–5.
- ^ Abaev, V. I.; Bailey, H. W. (26 August 2020), "ALANS", Encyclopaedia Iranica Online, Brill, retrieved 16 November 2023