The “Internal” Ethnic Communities in Khazaria 241
also notes the similarity between the pottery found in Sarkel with that from the
late period of the Dzhetyasar culture and the “cities of the Oghuz” along the
lower reaches of the Syr Darya.72 Already in 1958, M. Artamonov presumes that
the Khazar garrison there consisted not of Pechenegs, but of Oghuz.73 Single
specimens of such pottery have been found in settlements, located along the
upper reaches of the Severski Donets.74 Besides the Don Region and the Taman
Peninsula (Samkerts), such pottery can also be found in centers in Dagestan,
associated with the Khazars. During the ninth and tenth centuries, this type of
pottery became widespread in Middle Asia as well (in Khwarezm, and espe-
cially Kerder, Ferghana and South Kazakhstan). Perhaps the change in the
course of the Syr Darya in the early ninth century caused a massive migration
of Oghuz southwards and westwards (in the immediate vicinity of Khazaria—
on the Ustiurt Plateau and in the Lower Volga Region). It is quite possible that
part of this population made up the royal guards in Khazaria, the Larisiyah
(al-Arsiyah).75 Incidentally, similar pottery, dating from the period between
the tenth and the eleventh centuries, has also been found in the largest center
of Volga Bulgaria, Biliar.76
The relations between the Khazar Khaganate and the Oghuz Yabghu State
are unclear and at the very least controversial. In the mid-tenth century,
Al-Masudi mentions that each winter when the Volga froze over, the Oghuz
(whose winter pastures were situated in this area) crossed the river on their
72 Pletneva 1996, 12.
73 Artamonov 1958, 77–78.
74 Liubichev 2004, 290.
75 Zilivinskaia, Vasil’ev, and Grechkina 2006, 31–33; Zilivinskaia and Vasil’ev 2006, 52–53;
Vainberg 1990, 257–259 is of a similar point of view, associating the Larisiyah with the
population of the Kerder culture along the lower reaches of the Amu Darya (on the terri-
tory of Khwarezm), which moved there from the Dzhetyasar region of the Syr Darya. The
Larisiyah are regarded as a community, close or akin to the Alans. Al-Masudi observes that
they migrated to Khazaria from Khwarezm and constituted the paid guard of the Khazar
king (7 000 men) (Zakhoder 1962, 155–157). This observation is usually supplemented by
Al-Biruni’s account of the Ases. He writes that the Ases lived somewhere along the lower
reaches of the Amu Darya (possibly in the area of the Kerder culture) and migrated to the
territory of the khaganate (and more precisely, to the coast of the Khazar (Caspian) Sea)
when the river changed its course. According to Al-Biruni, the language of the Ases was
a mixture of Khwarezmian (i.e. Eastern Iranian) and Pecheneg (most probably Turkic)
(Artamonov 1962, 407; Bubenok and Radivilov 2004, 12; Gabuev 2000, 59). According to
Bubenok and Radivilov 2004, 17, the account of the Khazar Larisiyah indicates not only a
commercial, but also a military cooperation between Khazaria and Khwarezm during the
ninth and tenth centuries.
76 Khalikov 1976, 45.