38 CHAPTER 1
all these tribes shared the same ethnicity the way M. Artamonov believes, call-
ing all of them Bulgars.83 The fact that from the seventh century onwards only
Bulgars and Khazars are mentioned in the steppes of Eastern Europe (frag-
mentary accounts depict the Sabirs and the Barsils as already being part of
Bulgar or Khazar unions) indicates the merging of many of the tribes in these
two large communities, but does not entail that in the period between the fifth
and the seventh centuries they constituted a single whole. The same applies
to the identification of the Sabirs with the Khazars, which is seen in the works
of Al-Masudi.84 This should not be understood in an ethnic sense, since the
main lands of the Khazars were actually former lands of the Sabirs. On the
other hand, the archaeological culture associated with the Bulgars between
the eighth and tenth centuries is quite homogenous and specific, allowing for
the assumption that their ethnic and cultural differentiation was present also
in the previous period.
According to B. Vainberg, it is quite possible that the Khazars emerged as
a tribal group in the area around the middle reaches of the Syr Darya. This is
indicated not only by similarities between the Dzhetyasar culture and some
elements in the pottery (especially in the Terek-Sulak Interfluve, between the
third and the eighth centuries) and the burial rites (the pit graves with niches)
of the Eastern European population, but also by an account by Al-Khwarizmi
from the 830s. In his Book on the Appearance of the Earth he mentions the city
Al-Khazar, located on the middle reaches of the Syr Darya.85 Suhrab, who
copied Al-Khwarizmi’s work in the first half of the tenth century, calls the Syr
Darya “the river of the Khazar”.86 On the basis of Claudius Ptolemy’s Geography
(second century AD) Al-Khwarizmi located Al-Khazar in Inner Scythia. B.
Vainberg and T. Kalinina associate these accounts with the Chronicle of
Michael the Syrian (twelfth century).87 According to him, during the reign
of the Byzantine emperor Maurice (582–602) three brothers, only two of
whom are mentioned by name—Khazar(ig) and Bolgar(ios), set out from
Inner Scythia and more precisely from Mount Imeon.88 Bolgar left his brothers
83 According to Artamonov 1962, 127–128, the intermixing of the Sabirs and the Khazars was
facilitated by their common ethnicity: both were actually Bulgars.
84 Golden 1980, 133; Dunlop 1967, 27–28.
85 Vainberg 1990, 221, 287; on this account, see also Kalinina 1988, 17–18, 39–40, 50, and 74–76;
Kalinina 2002, 46–47; Kalinina 2005a, 103; Kalinina 2006, 30.
86 Vainberg 1990, 287; Kalinina 1988, 117 and 125; Kalinina 2006, 30.
87 Vainberg 1990, 286–287; Kalinina 2006, 30; Kalinina 2002, 46; Kalinina 2005a, 103.
88 On the various aspects of the translation regarding Imeon, see Stepanov 1999a, 26. Several
different views exist on the location of Imeon. It could be the Tian Shan, Pamir, Pamir and
Hindu Kush, or the whole mountain range of Tian Shan-Pamir-Hindu Kush.