Last Updated: March 25, 2023
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The sequel is The Maternal Genetic Lineages of Ashkenazic Jews (October 2022)
A new candidate for Atil's location has emerged! It's Semibugry, a large Khazar-era city that was discovered in 2019 by researchers from Astrakhan, including Damir Solovyov. They continued to dig in the summers of 2020 and 2021. I added what we know so far about Semibugry's remains to my Atil page.
The Genetics of the Medieval Khazars is our new page summarizing the results obtained so far from scientific teams around the world that have worked with genuine Khazar DNA and Saltovian DNA. The latest study was led by Tatiana Tatarinova of the University of La Verne and included Y-DNA, mtDNA, and autosomal DNA. Tatarinova's team concluded that the Khazars' DNA doesn't match the Ashkenazic Jews' DNA. They also confirmed that the Khazars included members with a combination of Caucasoid and Mongoloid origins. Both of these findings match statements in the 3rd edition of The Jews of Khazaria, which was written two years earlier. All but one of the bonafide Khazars studied show significant Mongoloid ancestry from the original Turkic homeland in southern Siberia and Central Asia.
"O nakhodke sosuda s graffiti v Mariupole" by Eduard Ye. Kravchenko and V. K. Kul'baka was published in Russian (with an English summary) in the journal Arkheologicheskii al'manakh No. 21 (2010) on pages 386-395.
This article describes Khazar-era artifacts found in the city of Mariupol in southeastern Ukraine.
They include two Arabic dirhams that were used as pendants, mirror fragments, and a pot (shown on the bottom of page 389) that bears two drawn symbols: a Jewish menorah and a plus sign that's interpreted as a Christian cross. The authors believe the potter was neither a Jew nor a Christian but was a pagan who was familiar with these other religions that were practiced in Khazaria at the time. Was the plus sign really not a tamga? Some other authors disagree with the hypothesis that that plus sign was Christian.
In his article "Iudaizm, khristianstvo, islam v khazarskom kaganate po arkheologicheskim dannym (kratkiy obzor)" ("Judaism, Christianity, Islam
on archaeological data in Khazaria") in volume 8 (2018) of the journal
Prinosi kum bulgarskata arkheologiya on pages 139-145, Valery S. Flyorov
agrees that among artifacts currently unearthed it depicts a unique image
of a Jewish Khazarian menorah (with 7 candles above a rhombus) "S bol'shoy
doley veroyatnosti" (with a high degree of probability) (page 140).
Having said that, Flyorov regards it as Jewishly inappropriate to find a
menorah in a kitchen and thus believes that the pot was made by a
"neophyte" (page 141). He also points out that the pot was found in a
grave together with other artifacts, including a mirror, a copper chain,
and two dirham coins originating from 8th-century Baghdad, and burials
with objects typify paganism rather than standard Judaism (page 140). The
rhombus within the menorah is also unusual and "raises questions" (pages 139).
Flyorov disagrees with the idea that the pot's "small clumsily incised
oblique cross with equal bars" was inspired by Christianity (page 139).
Over a thousand years ago, the far east of Europe was ruled by Jewish kings who presided over numerous tribes, including their own tribe: the Turkic Khazars. After their conversion, the Khazar people used Jewish personal names, spoke and wrote in Hebrew, were circumcised, had synagogues and rabbis, studied the Torah and Talmud, and observed Hanukkah, Pesach, and the Sabbath. The Khazars were an advanced civilization with one of the most tolerant societies of the medieval period. It hosted merchants from all over Asia and Europe. On these pages it is hoped that you may learn more about this fascinating culture.
"The khaganate of the Khazars was of the upmost strategic importance for the
Byzantines for several reasons. First of all, it controlled the routes to the
southern Caucasus, thus playing a central role in the geopolitics of the area.
... Secondly, the Byzantine possessions in Crimea... were bordered by the
Khazars, who represented a major piece in the puzzle of nations who competed
for domination of the region. ... Finally, the Khazar Empire lay at a crossing
of trading routes linking the Russian steppes with Central Asia..."
- The Emperor Theophilos and the East, 829-842
by Juan Signes Codoñer, "Section V: The Khazar Flank", page 335.