Most of what modern historians know about the ancient Mesoamerican people called the Chichimeca came from the records of the Aztecs (Mixeca) who acknowledged them as their ancestors, as well as the accounts of the early Spanish settlers of northern Mexico, particularly those of Gonzalo de las Casas. The Chichimeca were also associated by the Aztec as the direct ancestors of the Toltec people whose empire they later adopted. The Chichimec Nomads are recorded on the Bible Timeline Poster with World History during 1170 AD.
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The early Spanish accounts of the northwestern Mesoamerican people called Chichimeca were informative but also riddled with prejudice. The term “Chichimeca” itself was considered derogatory as it had various unpleasant meanings in the Nahuatl language, including “sons of dogs” and “rope suckers.” It was the Nahuatl equivalent of the term “barbarians” as many of them lived a nomadic lifestyle, engaged in hunting, and resisted the Spanish efforts to colonize them. The term, however, did not represent a single group of people, but different groups that lived north of the Valley of Mexico, including nomads, semi-nomads, and sedentary agriculturalists.
“Map of the location of prominent Chichimeca peoples around 1550.”
One of the earliest accounts of the Chichimeca people came from Gonzalo de las Casas wherein he noted that the Chichimeca, just like dogs, hunted so they could eat (hence, the “sons of dogs” term). According to Las Casas, they were proficient in using bows and arrows and were known as fierce warriors who frequently fought their own people, as well as the Spanish colonizers. He noted that there were four Chichimeca tribes (nations): the Zacatecos whose name means “grass” in Nahuatl, the Guachichiles who were known for their colorful and elaborate headdresses, the peaceful Pames tribe, and the fierce Guamari. Other tribes, such as the Otomis, Tepehuan, Caxcanes, and Tecuexes, were added to the list of Chichimeca people later on.
The Spanish conquistadores labeled the Chichimeca barbaric because, unlike their neighbors in central and southern Mexico, they did not seem to practice any religion. The Tepehuan, however, worshiped carved idols and practiced ritual cannibalism which they seemed to have adopted from the southern tribes. Later research also showed that northern Chichimec semi-nomads worshiped the sun and the moon. Unlike central and southern Mesoamerican peoples, they sacrificed deer instead of human hearts to their deities.
References:
Picture By Grin20 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Gradie, Charlotte M. “Discovering the Chichimecas.” The Americas 51, no. 1 (1994): 67-88.
Russell, Philip L. The Essential History of Mexico: From Pre-Conquest to Present. Routledge, 2015.
A mysterious Mesoamerican people called the Toltec rose from their obscure origin to prominence after the fall of the central Mexican city of Teotihuacan around 650 AD. It is possible that the Toltecs descended from the Chichimecas, a nomadic Nahua people who came from the north, as well as the Nonoalcas who were remnants of the Teotihuacan population that migrated north when the city fell. These people switched from a nomadic lifestyle to a sedentary one around 650 AD. Tula, the Toltec capital that was also known as Tollan (Palace of the Reeds), was nothing more than a tiny village at that time. The Toltec’s capitol in Tula was overthrown during 1170 according to the Bible Timeline with World History.
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The population of Tula grew as the years passed, and the city was home to around 30,000 inhabitants at its peak. Its influence reached from the southwestern frontier of the present-day United States and into the city of Chichen Itza in the Yucatan Peninsula. They folded into their empire the neighboring nomadic tribes which added troops to the Toltec military and allowed them to become a Mesoamerican military power during the ninth century. What pushed the Toltecs to conquer the neighboring tribes was their veneration of the Mesoamerican god of war and strife, Tezcatlipoca (Smoking Mirrors), who required periodic human sacrifice to be pacified. Traces of the ruthlessness of the Toltecs were found in the Maya city of Chichen Itza where they erected a tzompantli (skull rack) and the Chac Mool (Toltec reclining figure with hollowed center where the heart of a captive was placed) after they subdued the Maya residents.
After a period of expansion, the Toltecs mysteriously disappeared when they abandoned the magnificent city of Tula. The city itself had declined by the end of the eleventh century, and Toltecs migrated to other areas. Archeological evidence recovered from the site showed that the Toltecs left the city because of a combination of internal strife and external threats. The twelfth century ushered in a drastic climate change that resulted in widespread droughts. The city also showed signs of a violent end, such as fire and destruction, that perhaps contributed to its collapse by 1100 AD. The Toltecs reached a near-mythical status in the years that followed. They were later venerated by the Mixeca or Aztecs as their ancestors.
The Hohokams (the “vanished ones” in O’odham language) were Native Americans who lived in the southern parts of Arizona to the northern portions of the Mexican state of Sonora. The culture flourished between 100 BC and 1500 AD. They were the ancestors of modern day Pima people or Akimel O’odham who spoke a variant of the Uto-Aztecan language. The Hohokams were known for their innovative irrigation systems in areas that they settled, particularly the Gila and Salt River valleys. These canals allowed them to grow food that was enough to support their people and allowed them to thrive in an inhospitable environment. Their society was highly organized and complex—something which they shared with the other Southwest Culture peoples, such as the Mogollon and the Anasazi. Hohokam built Platform mounds between 1100 -1200 AD according to the Biblical Timeline with World History.
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“Map of Hohokam and neighboring cultures, c. 1350”
The Hohokam settlements showed a distinct Mesoamerican influence, as shown in the ballcourt and platform mounds they constructed. The earliest mounds were built around 800 AD, but the majority were constructed between 1150 and 1350 AD. Platform mounds were typically rectangular in shape which covered an area of hundreds to thousands of square feet and reached up to ten feet high. Many of these earthworks can be found in Pueblo Grande, Mesa Grande, Plaza Tempe, and Tres Pueblos. As much as fifty platform mounds were discovered in thirty Hohokam villages in recent years. At the culture’s peak, there must have been around a hundred platform mounds.
The Hohokams usually built the mounds along major canals, and initially did not build structures on top. By 1250, however, the Hohokams began to build homes for their leaders and priests, as well as temples on top of the mounds. The construction of these platforms was pretty simple. The Hohokam started by building a single cell made of adobe, granite, and sandstone. Other cells would be built around it, and the structure would be filled with trash and soil. The top was covered with a natural cement made of calcium carbonate called caliche. Structures would be built on top of the finished mound. The largest mounds in the Salt River Valley reached up to 30 feet high and were as big as a football field.
The Prehistoric Indian culture called the Hopewell (or Hopewellian) flourished in the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys during the Formative period of North America. Just like the Poverty Point, Adena, and Mississippian cultures, the Hopewell culture was known for the great mounds their people built in Ohio and some portions of Illinois. Some of the most well-known mounds were first discovered in the property of a farmer named Captain M.C. Hopewell in Chillicothe, Ohio, from which the Hopewell name was taken. These mounds reached up to forty meters high and contained multiple burials. Some of the mounds were geometric in shape, but others were shaped like animals, particularly the massive Serpent Mound found in Peebles, Ohio. The end of the Hopewell culture is recorded on the Biblical Timeline with World History during 1150 AD.
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The Hopewellians were known for their vast trade networks from which they imported obsidian, copper, shells, mica, and alligator bones from different parts of the present-day United States. Many of these objects were recovered from the Hopewell sites. They were also master craftsmen who specialized in making stone pipes, ceramics, obsidian spear points, and jewelry. These objects were later deposited under the mounds as grave goods.
The Hopewell people cultivated the Native American staple of corn, beans, and squash. They continued hunting and gathering food over the years. For reasons still unknown, the Hopewell culture disappeared between 700 and 1300 AD. Just like other cultures, archeologists point to climate change, drought, warfare, and epidemics as possible causes of the end of the Hopewell Culture.
References:
Picture By Heironymous Rowe at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Dunbar, Willis Frederick. Michigan: A History of the Wolverine State. Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans Pub., 1965.
Hall, Robert L. An Archaeology of the Soul: North American Indian Belief and Ritual. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
Waldman, Carl, and Molly Braun. Encyclopedia of Native American Tribes. New York, NY: Facts on File, 1988.
“Who Were the Hopewell?” Archaeology Magazine Archive. Accessed October 12, 2016. http://archive.archaeology.org/online/features/hopewell/who_were_hopewell.html.
The ancient capital of the Chimu Empire called the Chan Chan is located hundreds of miles from the Inca capital of Cuzco. It seemed that over the years, the Inca had eclipsed their distant neighbors. Although the Chimu Empire was relatively smaller than what the Inca people built in their heyday, it remains as one of Peru’s most important cultures and the magnificent city of Chan Chan as its enduring legacy. The height of the Chimu Culture at Chan Chan, Peru is recorded on the Biblical Timeline with World History during 1100 AD.
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Origin of the Chimu and Height of the Empire’s Power
“Location of Chimú culture”
According to Chimu legend, their ancestors sailed from the north by means of rafts or balsas. They were led to the coast of Peru by a single ruler. When he died, he was replaced by eleven successors who ruled the fledgling republic. This form of government continued until the rise of the powerful ruler Chimu Capac.He expanded the state’s domain by conquering neighboring peoples. Chimu-appointed governors ruled these vassal states on his behalf. They paid tribute to the Chimu which further contributed to the empire’s wealth.
The Chimu people were the direct inheritors of the collapsed Moche Culture which flourished in the Moche Valley between 100 and 800 AD. The Chimu settled in the valley around 900 AD (a hundred years after the disappearance of the Moche in the area). The city grew between 1100 and 1200 AD. At the empire’s peak, Chimu rulers controlled an area of as much as 500 kilometers from its base in the city of Chan Chan (“Sun-Sun” in Yunga or Mochica language) in the Moche Valley. The city covered an area of about eleven square miles. It was enclosed by a high defensive wall that protected its 200,000 or so inhabitants.
The Ancestral Pueblo people (Anasazi in Navajo language) were masters of shaping the landscape to make it habitable and the unique houses they built on the Four Corners (Arizona, Utah, New Mexico, and Colorado). Which the most recognizable hallmark of their culture. Their first recorded houses were shallow pit-houses that they built during the Basketmaker II period (1200 BC-500 AD). These later evolved into deep pit-houses during the Basketmaker III (500 AD-750 AD) period. The cliff dwellings in Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon, and Canyon de Chelly were developed around 1100 AD according to the Bible Timeline with World History.
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The first Great Houses appeared in the Mesa Verde area and at Chaco Canyon around the Pueblo I period (750-900 AD). The Mesa Verde area was temporarily abandoned during the greater part of 900 AD. It wasn’t repopulated until 1000 AD. The Chaco Canyon area dominated the region during the Pueblo II period (900-1150 AD). However, the arrival of the Pueblo III period (1150-1300) was marked by violence in the Ancestral Pueblo communities. This pushed the people to switch from exposed pit-houses and great houses to carved cliff dwellings.
Mesa Verde
Located on the Colorado side of the Four Corners, the Mesa Verde National Park was home to many of the Ancestral Pueblo’s ancient cliff dwellings. As much as twenty-four cliff dwellings the size of a village (as well as more than 500 houses nestled in alcoves) were carved on the side of the canyons all over the National Park. The largest and most magnificent of these dwellings was the Cliff Palace (built and occupied between 1200 to 1280). Richard Wetherill, a local rancher, discovered this site in 1888 and called the people who used to live there by the Navajo name “Anasazi.”
“Gila Cliff Dwellings as seen from a gorge below.”
Chaco Canyon
Hundreds of miles south of the Colorado-New Mexico border lies the ruins of Chaco Canyon and its magnificent cliff dwellings. It was also home to many of the Ancestral Pueblo’s Great Houses and kivas (ceremonial rooms) before it was known for the cliff dwellings. At its peak (between 1075 to 1100), the main area of Chaco Canyon covered up to ten square kilometers and housed up to three thousand people.
Canyon de Chelly
Perhaps the most picturesque of the Ancestral Pueblo cliff dwellings were the ones located in the Canyon de Chelly near the Arizona border of the Four Corners. The area itself contained more than 2,500 archaeological sites that the Native Americans built between 1500 BC and 1350 AD. The Ancestral Pueblo built their cliff dwellings around 1100 AD but abandoned them around 1300 to be resettled later by the Navajo Indians. The must-see cliff dwellings in the Canyon de Chelly include the White House Ruins, Antelope House, and Mummy Cave.
References:
Picture By Tony Dutson, Tony Dutson Photo Gallery; color-corrected by Howcheng. – http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/byways/photos/30078, Copyrighted free use, Link
Cremin, Aedeen. The World Encyclopedia of Archaeology. Richmond Hill, Ont.: Firefly Books, 2012.
United States. National Park Service. “List of Sites–American Southwest–A National Register of Historic Places Travel Itinerary.” National Parks Service. Accessed October 5, 2016. https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/amsw/sitelist.htm.
The Inca people had as much as forty stories of origin, but two of the most prominent were the Pacariqtambo Legend and the Lake Titicaca Legend. According to the Pacariqtambo Legend, the creator Viracocha and the sun god, Inti decided to create the first man called Manco Capac. He and his siblings were created in three caves in the Tambo Tocco hill in a mythical place called Pacariqtambo. (The rise of the Incas in Peru is recorded on the Bible Timeline with World History during 1100 AD.)
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Only eight of those original siblings survived—four males and four females—and they were later married off to each other. Those who emerged from the Capac Tocco cave (one of the three caves where they were created) were Ayar Manco and Mama Ocllo; Ayar Auca and Mama Huaco; Ayar Cachi ad Mama Cora; and Ayar Cucho and Mama Rahua . They elected Ayar Manco as king (he received the title Capac or king) and later led the group to find the land of their own.
“Viracocha”
When they emerged from the cave, Manco Capac carried with him a golden staff which he used to test whether they had reached the land intended for them or not. If it sank in the ground, it meant that the place was where they would settle but if it did not, they had no choice but to continue their journey. He led them from Pacariqtambo northward to the the valley of Cuzco, and there the golden staff sank into the soil. Three of his brothers were later eliminated, while Manco Capac fathered a son by Mama Ocllo named Sinchi Rocha who later became his successor.
The Lake Titicaca myth pointed to the civilization that flourished in the distant Peru-Bolivia border as the Inca’s origin. It tells the creation of Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo by the sun god Inti in an island on the sacred Lake Titicaca. The place where the Wari culture and Tiwanaku culture of Bolivia flourished. Inti commanded the couple to go and civilize the world, so just like in the Pacariqtambo myth, they traveled north until they reached the valley of Cuzco. Manco Capac also carried a golden staff which he used to test the soil along the way to see whether it was the intended place. The golden staff sank into the soil when they reached the valley of Cuzco. They erected the royal palace and the temple of Inti in the same ground where the golden staff sank.
Behind the Myths
The Inca stories of were often dismissed as myths. Other scholars thought that perhaps there was some kernel of truth behind these fantastic stories. Based on the archaeological evidence recovered from the Inca capital, they found that Cuzco was conquered by the Wari in 600 AD. The Wari controlled the valley for around 300 years. When the Wari empire collapsed around 1000 to 1100 AD, the center of power shifted to the nearby Chuki Pukyu site in the Cuzco Valley. The remnants of Wari empire in the Chuki Pukyu were later overthrown when the Inca empire rose to prominence in the fifteenth century.
The valley had long been in the periphery of the Lake Titicaca cultural sphere. Archaeologists uncovered evidence of foreign influence in Chuki Pukyu which were possibly of Wari origin. During the twelfth century, migrants poured into Chuki Pukyu. They brought with them two important evidence of their presence. First was the remains of their ancestors which they transported from their Lake Titicaca homeland and reburied in niches of the temple walls in Chuki Pukyu. Second was the amount of Mollo culture (from northern Bolivia) ceramics recovered in the same area.
Based on the evidence, the reburial of the remains in niches and the presence of Mollo culture ceramics supported the myth that the Inca people came from the Lake Titicaca region. Also, Tambo Tocco refers to “caves” or “windows” in Quechua language of Peru, but the words translate to “niches” in the Aymara language of Bolivia. It may have referred to the niches in which they reburied their ancestors in Chuki Pukyu.
References:
Picture by Public Domain, Link
Canseco, María Rostworowski De Diez. History of the Inca Realm. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
McEwan, Gordon Francis. The Incas: New Perspectives. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2006.
Steele, Paul R., and Catherine J. Allen. Handbook of Inca Mythology. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004.
Muslim-Dominated Spain Between the Tenth and Twelfth Centuries
In 711, a mix of Arab and Berber warriors landed in Spain to remove its Visigoth rulers and proceeded to fold it into the Umayyad realm. They changed its name from Hispania to al-Andalus. The Umayyads’ hold on the caliphate remained strong even after three hundred years of rule. The tenth century was the height of the caliphate’s power but by 1025 al-Andalus was divided into thirty small competing kingdoms called the Taifa (muluk al-tawa’if) that were held by different prominent families. Each family had its own court, and private armies made up of Berbers (native North Africans) and saqaliba (Slavs and other northern warriors). This led to the Almoravids being driven from Zaragoza by King Alfonso I of Aragon during 1118 AD according to the Bible Timeline Chart with World History.
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The Christian north slowly reemerged from obscurity in the eleventh century, but the Iberian Peninsula was still overwhelmingly Muslim. The Muslim Taifas were forced to pay the neighboring Christian kingdoms tributes or indemnities (parias) to ward off their attacks. By 1080, the independent Taifa kingdoms went down from thirty to just nine which included Zaragoza (held by the Hudid family), Seville, Toledo, Badajoz, Almeria, Majorca, Granada, Albarracin, and Alpuente.
The Arrival and Domination of the Almoravids in al-Andalus (1050-1118)
The majority of Morocco’s Berbers practiced Islam since the religion’s arrival in 680 AD. But more than three hundred years later, Abdallah ibn Yasin (a member of the Gazzula Berber tribe who dominated from 1050 to 1059) felt that the Islam the Berbers followed was only superficial. He had traveled across the Strait of Gibraltar before and saw how serious the people of al-Andalus were in practicing Islam. So he imposed a “pure” form of the religion to his followers. This Marrakesh-based movement was called the Almoravid. Just like the Prophet Mohammed before him, ibn Yasin attacked and conquered neighboring tribes which he considered as infidels.
“The Almoravid empire at its greatest extent, c. 1120.”
Ibn Yasin died in 1059 AD, but the Almoravid movement had spread to the other parts of Morocco. In the years that followed, these hardy Berbers had conquered the Strait of Gibraltar. The Almoravids’ rise to prominence coincided with the rise of the Castilian king Alfonso VI of Leon and Castile. They united the kingdom after he allegedly had his brother, Sancho the Strong of Leon, assassinated. With Sancho dead, Alfonso now had his brother’s army under his command. With the army came the formidable general El Cid (Rodrigo Diaz). The general conquered Toledo while in service of Alfonso VI, but El Cid turned into a mercenary for the Taifa king of Zaragoza when he was driven out from Alfonso’s court out of jealousy for his accomplishments.
Angered at El Cid’s choice of a new employer, Alfonso attacked the other Taifa kingdoms until he reached Toledo. He conquered the cities of Coria and Toledo between 1079 and 1085. The remaining Taifa kings had no choice except to accept that Alfonso would conquer their kingdoms soon or send an urgent appeal for help to the powerful Almoravids in Morocco. The Almoravids’ leader Yusuf ibn Tashfin agreed to this offer and crossed the Strait of Gibraltar with 12,000 men to help the Taifa kings. Alfonso’s troops and the Taifa kings’ army (along with the Almoravid reinforcements) met in the Battle of Sagrajas (Zallaqa) in 1086. The Castilian king had to retreat from Zaragoza after his troops were defeated in this battle. Although they temporarily repelled Alfonso, the Almoravid-Taifa victory did not have any significant effect on what remained of al-Andalus. The Taifa kings continued to squabble over the next few years. The Taifa kings were also afraid that the Almoravids would eventually wrest their territories away, so they sent ibn Tashfin and his troops on their way home back to Morocco in 1088.
They recrossed the Strait of Gibraltar in November of 1088, but the Taifa kings’ fears proved true when the Almoravids under ibn Tashfin came back to Spain in 1090 as conquerors. They took Granada in 1090, Almeria and Seville in 1091, and Badajoz in 1094. They faced El Cid in Levante but retreated in 1093; El Cid was left to rule Valencia in 1094 until his death in 1099. By 1104, the Almoravids ruled southern Spain except for the Taifa of Zaragoza which was held by the Hudid family. It served as a buffer state between the Christian north and Almoravid south until 1110.
Out of Zaragoza
The Almoravids besieged El Cid’s Valencia stronghold in 1099. The great Spanish hero later died in the city on July 10, 1099. When El Cid’s widow Jimena saw that the defense of Valencia was impossible, she sent an urgent appeal to her cousin, King Alfonso VI, to escort her and her followers out of the city. By 1102, all of El Cid’s followers had left Valencia, while Zaragoza was still held by the Hudid family as an independent Taifa. In 1110, the last Hudid ruler al-Mustain set off in an expedition against the Christians but was killed at Valtierra. His son failed to secure his throne after his father’s death, so an Almoravid ruler named ibn al-Hajj took over Zaragoza on the 30th of May, 1110.
Alfonso brought with him a formidable army when he launched the siege of Zaragoza in May 1118. The overwhelmed Almoravid governor was forced to send an urgent plea to the governor of Valencia for reinforcements. However, the governor of Valencia sent only a few of his men to the besieged city. The Almoravids of Zaragoza were finally driven out of their domain in December 1118.
References:
picture By Omar-Toons – Own workÉlaborée depuis File:Almoravid-empire-01-fr.svg ;Modifiée selon les entrées Almoravides sur Larousse.fr et Qantara-Med.org, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Catlos, Brian A. Muslims of Medieval Latin Christendom, C.1050-1614. Cambridge University Press, 2014.
Ḥusain, Muẓaffar, Syed Saud. Akhtar, and B. D. Usmani, eds. A Concise History of Islam. New Delhi: Vij Books India, 2011.
Luscombe, David Edward, and Jonathan Riley-Smith, eds. The New Cambridge Medieval History, Volume 4: C.1024–c.1198, Part 2. Vol. IV. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
The Muslim world had split by the time the first half of the tenth century rolled in. The Abbasid caliphs under Buyid control continued to rule in Baghdad; the Samanids ruled Khorasan in the east. The Saffarids’ ruled directly to the south; the Umayyad Caliph in Cordoba; the Hamdanids near the Mediterranean coast; and finally, the Ziyarids south of the Caspian Sea. Another dynasty appeared during the latter half of the tenth century, but this time, the formidable newcomers came not from the Arabs nor the Persians, but from the ranks of the slaves-turned-warriors: the Turks. The Turkic Muslims took India in 1030 AD according to the Bible Timeline with World History.
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The prominent Turkic general Alp Tigin was under the service of the Samanids when he rebelled after the death of the emir in 963 AD. He tried to install his own son on the Samanid throne, but this attempt failed so he and his family fled east to avoid the new emir’s assassins. They went as far as present-day Afghanistan and conquered the city of Ghazni. Alp Tigin, however, had to be temporarily content with this tiny city as his domain. The renegade general died twelve years later. He was succeeded by his son Abu-Ishaq and his son-in-law Sabuktigin as rulers of his tiny domain.
The ambitious Sabuktigin convinced his co-ruler Abu-Ishaq to ask Mansur (the Samanid emir) permission to rule their tiny domain in exchange for their loyalty. The Samanid emir agreed and made Abu-Ishaq the legitimate governor of Ghazni with Sabuktigin as his successor. When Abu-Ishaq died some time later, Sabuktigin rose to become his successor and immediately expanded his domain by attacking the city of Kandahar. The Samanids were already suspicious of Sabuktigin, but they could not do anything about this as they were busy managing the Karakhanids who raided their profitable silver mines.
“Bust of Alp Tegin”
Mahmud al Ghazni’s Expansion and Islam in India
One person who could not afford to ignore the Ghaznavid threat was Jayapala, the Hindu king of the Kabul Shahi kingdom, who immediately prepared his army to counter Sabuktigin’s. He launched a preemptive strike against Sabuktigin which the Turkic governor/king effectively countered, and this miscalculation cost Jayapala a lot of his territories. Jayapala suffered defeat after defeat in the years that followed. By the time Sabuktigin died in 997 AD, his kingdom was greatly reduced.
Sabuktigin left the crown to his son Ismail, but another son, Mahmud, fought with him for the domination of the expanding Ghaznavid Empire. Mahmud won the civil war, deposed his brother, and faced his father’s long-time nemesis, the king Jayapala, near Peshawar in November of 1001. The Hindu king was once again defeated by the fierce Ghaznavid army. He became so disheartened that he set himself on fire after his defeat. His successor, Anandapala, continued the resistance against the Ghaznavids but was forced to surrender and negotiate a peace treaty in 1011. He was succeeded by his son, Trilochanpála. His kingdom was so greatly reduced by then that he and his remaining army were forced to go into exile into the mountains. He was the last of the Kabul Shahi kings.
The defeat of the Kabul Shahi opened the way into India. By 1018, Mahmud had conquered the Gurjara-Pratihara kingdom in northwest India then drove out King Rajyapala from his capital Kannauj. Mahmud had conquered most of northwestern India by 1025, and his troops sacked an important Hindu temple when they arrived in the coastal town of Somnath. It was alleged that he removed the statue of the Hindu god Shiva and sent the rest of the statue’s body back to Ghazni after he destroyed the statue’s head. According to tradition, he had the rest of the statue positioned outside a mosque in Ghazni where worshipers stepped on it as they entered the building.
References:
Picture By Vikiçizer – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link
“Maps of the Middle East.” Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Accessed October 5, 2016. https://cmes.uchicago.edu/page/maps-middle-east.
Morgan, David, Anthony John Stanhope Reid, and Michael Allan Cook, eds. The New Cambridge History of Islam, Volume 3: The Eastern Islamic World (Eleventh to Eighteenth Centuries). Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Thapar, Romila. Somanatha: The Many Voices of a History. London: Verso, 2005.
Utbi, Abu Al-Nasr Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd Al-Jabbar. The Kitab-I-Yamini: Historical Memoirs of the Amir Sabaktagin and the Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna. London: Printed for the Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland, 1858.
The Turkic groups of people that emerged from Central Asia during the Medieval Period were a force to be reckoned with wherever they went. These hardy nomads streamed out of their homelands in Central Asia and Southern Siberia and initially lived in the frontiers of major empires of the medieval period, such as the Han, Tang, Persian, Abbasid, and Byzantine. From the Central Asian steppes, they reached the frontiers of the Middle East and Eastern Europe where they proceeded to carve empires of their own through their mighty warriors. The Sultan became Muslim during 1000 AD where it is listed on the Biblical Timeline with World History.
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Some of the most resilient groups of Turkic people were the Oghuz Turks (later known as Western Turks) whose first known homeland was in the area of the Altai Mountains in present-day Western Mongolia. They left the Altai Mountain area during the eighth century and settled in Transoxiana, an area located in parts of present-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan. This area was later called Bilad-al-Turk or the “land of the Turks” by medieval Arab geographers. The land on which the Oghuz Turks settled on bordered the domain of the Ghaznavid Empire to the west. A warrior named Tughril (a chieftain of the Oghuz Turks who descended from a leader named Seljuk) rose from his people’s nomadic heritage and paved the way for his descendants to build a distinctly Central Asian and Muslim empire of their own.
“Lake Kucherla in the Altai Mountains”
Tughril: The Seljuk Sultan
Before they made contact with Arabs, Persians, and other Central Asian peoples, the ancient Turkic people of Central and Northern Asia practiced shamanism and worshiped the sky god Tengri. The Uyghurs of Central Asia, another Turkic people, converted to Manichaeism in the eighth century, while others converted to Buddhism during the domination of the Tang. The Oghuz were surrounded by Muslim empires when they settled in Transoxania, so it was only a matter of time before they started to absorb the teachings of Islam and become Muslims themselves.
The Oghuz Turk warrior Tughril (or Togrul) was the grandson of a man named Seljuk and he first rose as the chieftain of his tribe in 1016 while his people were still in Central Asia. While Sultan Mahmud al-Ghazni was conquering territories in northwestern India, Tughril also carried out expeditions with his own warriors to conquer the whole Oxus region. When Mahmud died in 1030, Tughril took advantage of the opportunity and led his warriors into the western portion of the Ghaznavid empire to conquer it. Eight years later, he fought his way with his brother Chaghri and their troops into the Ghaznavid capital Nishapur, deposed its ruler, and declared himself the Muslim sultan of the Seljuk Turks. Tughril would lead his warriors twenty years later into the eastern frontier of the Byzantine empire and launch the first of the many Seljuk Turk raids on the declining state. He received a portion of the Byzantine empire’s eastern frontier as a ransom for the captives and paved the way for the entrance of the Turkic people into Europe.
References:
Picture By Dmitry A. Mottl – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link
Bradbury, Jim. The Routledge Companion to Medieval Warfare. London: Routledge, 2004.
Karasulas, Antony. Mounted Archers of the Steppe: 600 BC – AD 1300. Oxford: Osprey, 2004.
Peacock, A. C. S. The Great Seljuk Empire. Edinburgh University Press, 2015.
Slatyer, Will. Ebbs and Flows of Medieval Empires, AD 9001400. Place of Publication Not Identified: Trafford On Demand Pub, 2012.
