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Revisiting the Question of the Time and Place of Writing of the Caucasian Albanian Palimpsest According to Numismatic Data (Part II)
 
PIIS086919080021669-2-1
DOI10.31857/S086919080021669-2
Publication type Article
Status Published
Authors
Alexander V. Akopyan 
Occupation: Senior Researcher, Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Affiliation: Institute of Oriental Sciences of RAS
Address: Russian Federation, Moscow
Journal nameVostok. Afro-Aziatskie obshchestva: istoriia i sovremennost
EditionIssue 5
Pages146-159
Abstract

This article concerns the dating of the Caucasian Albanian palimpsest (Gospel of John) on the basis of a refined interpretation of the monetary term **zaizowzńa. In the second part of paper, based on the refined denotation of the coin term **zaizowzńa, the question of the possible place of writing of the Albanian palimpsests is discussed. The area where the coins denoted by this term circulated for the longest time is identified; it geographically coincides with the Kingdom of Heretʽi (late 8th – early 11th centuries) in the upper valley of Alazani River. A conclusion is drawn that the Albanian palimpsest could have been created in the Kingdom of Heretʽi, where Armenian Christianity was prevalent until the first half of the 11th century.

KeywordsCaucasian Albania, Gospel, Hereti, imitations, Islamic numismatics, Sasanian numismatics, zuza
Received27.10.2022
Publication date30.10.2022
Number of characters35807
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Table of contents

II. ON THE PLACE OF WRITING OF THE ALBANIAN PALIMPSEST: PECULARITIES OF THE MONETARY CIRCULATION IN THE KINGDOM OF HERETʽI (LATE 8TH – EARLY 11TH CENTURIES)
1 In memoriam Jim Farr (1948–2018), first reader of this article
2 As it was shown in the first part of the work [Akopyan, 2021], based on the analysis of the time of existence of the Albanian coin term **zaizowz-ńa, which denoted a set of various imitations of the coins of Hormizd IV and pre-reform Arab-Sassanian coins, the time when Sinai edition of the Albanian Gospel was completed, is necessary to limit from the beginning of the 6th century and until the beginning of the 10th century (herein the publishers attribute the writing of the manuscript from the end of the 7th century to the 10th century, leaning towards a later date) [CAPS 1, p. I–32]. In the development of this analysis, in the second part of the work, an attempt is made to identify the area of ​​writing the Albanian palimpsest.

II. ON THE PLACE OF WRITING OF THE ALBANIAN PALIMPSEST: PECULARITIES OF THE MONETARY CIRCULATION IN THE KINGDOM OF HERETʽI (LATE 8TH – EARLY 11TH CENTURIES)
3 The place where the Albanian palimpsest was written is never discussed by its publishers – by default it’s assumed to be in Caucasian Albania, and a special part of the publication is devoted to this geographical and political concept [CAPS 1, p. vii-xix]. However, taking into account the publishers’ opinion already quoted above that the manuscript was written in the period “between the late 7th century and the 10th century, with a later date being a bit more probable than an earlier one” [CAPS 1, p. I-32], such general geographical definitions can only be used for delineating the historical territory of the Caucasian Albania (and even more broadly – the historical territory of the Albanian world), since at the specified time its territory was occupied by several states with various levels of independence and with different state religions – Orthodox or Armenian Christianity and Islam. Is it possible to determine more accurately the political formation in which the liturgical Albanian (for purposes of the Albanian Church of Armenian Christianity) could be used in the indicated time period up to the end of the 10th century on the basis of a refined reading and etymology of a hapax? In this regard, it seems appropriate to point to one observation which may shed light on the location where the Albanian manuscripts were written.
4 The Sasanian zuzas started to circulate intensively in Armenia and Caucasian Albania in the 3rd-4th centuries [Mousheghian, 1997, p. 78-79] and somewhat later in Kʽartʽli. The observed vector of their penetration is logical – from Araxes to the north, so in the Caucasian Albania the Sasanian drachmas started to prevail by the mid-5th century [Pakhomov, 1959b, p. 9], and in Eastern Georgia from the second half of the 5th century [Tsotselia, 2003, p. 27-28]. A significant number of hoards and individual finds of the Sasanian coins evenly cover the entire region, so that the numismatic data in East Transcaucasia cannot be a basis for defining a particular area of ​​ the Sasanian drachma-zuz circulation. As already mentioned, the beginning of Islamic coinage in Transcaucasia did not change the monetary supply overnight – for quite some time, up to the 10th century, mixed hoards consisting of Sasanian drachmas and Arab dirhams (including Sasanian-type Arab-Sasanian coins and drachmas of Ṭabaristān) have been discovered in the Transcaucasia.
5 However, it is indicative that half (thirteen out of twenty-seven or twenty-five) of the known mixed Sasanian-Islamic coin hoards were found on a small area in the upper course of the Alazani River (Arm. Lop‛nas [Hewsen, 2001, p. 45], Lowbnas [Movsēs Kałankatvacʽi, 1984, p. 69]) up to the confluence of the Muxax River (mod. Qaraçay), above the beginning of the proper Alazani (Arm. Ałowan) [Hewsen, 2001, p. 45] (the topography of hoards from the upper Alazani is outlined in fig. 9; their catalogue is given in the Table 1, where coins are divided into the following types: zūzās – Sasanian coins and a Sasanian-type Islamic coins and dirhams – purely epigraphic Islamic coins; a methodologically important grouping of Arab-Sasanian coins together with Sasanians, and not with epigraphic Islamic dirhams continues the tradition established by I.L. Dzhalagania [Dzhalagania, 1979]). In its turn, the topography of the other fourteen (or twelve?) hoards reveals a high dispersion and is not reducible to any historical and cultural area.1 1. Other 14 (or 12) Sasanian-Islamic coin hoards from the rest territory of Transcuacasia: Askeran (1934 and 1935; maybe these are two parts of one hoard), Barda (1940), Dilipʽi (1949), Gaṙni (1930), Gedabey (1964), Karchag (1903), Manglisi (2017), Martuni (1962) and Nerkʽin Getašen (1961) (maybe these these are two parts of one hoard), Paṙavakʽar 1970, Qazax 1961, Syunikʽ 1986, Yardımlı 1967.
6 The outlined territory in the upper Alazani was occupied by the northern part of the historical region of Lpinia (Geo. Heret‛i, Arm. Lp‛ink‛, ašxarh Lp‛noc‛, Arab. Lībān), more precisely – Lpinia in the narrow sense [Gadzhiev, 1998]. Lpinia occupied the area between the Gates of Dido and the Gates of the Šakʽi, mentioned by Ibn al-Faqīh as abwāb al-Dūdāniya and abwāb al-Šakkī [Ibn al-Faqīh, 1902, p. 15], the latter, apparently, were in the area of the Zaqatala Wall [Pakhomov, 1950], also known as sadd al-L.b.n. Lpinia in the west (which was not a part of the First Albanian kingdom, nor part of the Albanian marzpānate) and the region of Čor/Derbent in the east were two very special regions on the western and eastern “ends” of Caucasian Albania. Both of them occupied strategically important “regions of border walls”, keeping Transcaucasia from the mountaneers of Caucasus. Their geographical position indicates that they were the outer parts not of proper Albania, but rather of the polyethnic Albanian world of the 5th–7th centuries (or Albania in the broadest sense by M.S. Gadzhiev [Gadzhiev, 2015, p. 39]), which was opposite to the ethnically Armenian or Georgian regions of Transcaucasia. A simple comparison of the titles of the Transcaucasian Catholicoi of the 6th century serves as a clear illustration of this – the detailed and triple title Catholicos of Ałuankʽ, Lpinkʽ and Čor [Movsēs Kałankatvacʽi, 1984, p. 91, 121, 171] contrasted with the short titles like Catholicos of Greater Armenia or Catholicos of Kʽartʽli.

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