This article is a part of citations from the works of W.B. Henning, an outstanding philologist of Iranian languages, with bearings on the history of the Türkic peoples. For us, the article is valued because it provides a historical outline of the Acathyrsi/Acatiri/Acatziri Scythians, one of the  Scythian horse nomadic tribes known from the works of the Classical authors. The subject of the work is reading of a Paikuli inscription, omitted from this citation.

Page numbers are shown at the beginning of the page NNN (Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 1952) and at the end of the page [NNN] (Reprint). Empty bracket [] indicate placeholders for omitted characters. Page breaks in continuous text are indicated by //. Some diacritics are dropped, to avoid font conflicts. The subheadings in bold blue, bold highlighting, and (Pinyin transcriptions) are added for the posting. Diacritical c is shown as ch, diacritical s is shown as sh, and χ retained as x to denote voiced h.

501 [387]

Perhaps the most exotic among the many strange kings and rulers mentioned in the inscription of Paikuli is the Khagan of the Aq-Aqatärān or ‘White Khazars’. This is the meaning which the late E. Herzfeld, in his edition of that inscription, attributed to a group of words in the Middle Persian version which he read as h'k'n ZY 'kka'n. As the inscription dates from the last decade of the 3rd century (probably from AD 293), his interpretation seems to involve a double anachronism: in the title, and in the national name.

The title of Khagan (properly Qaγan or Xaγan) ¹ became known in the West first in the middle of the 6th century; it was then borne by the rulers of the Avars ² and their enemies, the Turks. Whether it was known in Persia at an earlier date is doubtful; for the mention of a 'Xaqan, king of the Turks' under Bahram Gor (Bahram Gur, Warahran, Varahran, Vahram, Bahram V) (AD 420-438) in the Pahlavi Xuday-namag (Khwaday-namag, ca. 642) (Book of Kings) ³ is probably proleptic (Anticipating and answering objections in advance), ⁴ even though among the Juan-juan (Avars) ⁵ of Central Asia Khagan was the imperial title from the beginning of the 5th century. (Bahram V is celebrated for his fight with Ephthalites, called Ephthalite Huns and Ephthalite Turks, and victory over their king, called “Xaqan, king of the Turks” in Arabic translation of Khwaday-namag)

1 Central Asian forms: Bailey, JEAS., 1939, 90. The list of 'Oriental variants' given by G. Moravcsik, Byzantinoturcica, ii, 280, under χαγανος, is strangely incomplete; not even Arabic and Persian xaqan is mentioned; while one and the same Armenian form (xak^can) is quoted in two different transliterations.
2 So-called Pseudo-Avars.
3 Noldeke, Tabari, 99; Tajarib al-Umam, i, 153 sqq.
4 The collocation with 'Turks' suffices to discredit the Xaqan; Marquart, Eransahr, 52 sqq., judged differently (Apparently, discreditation is purely philological on “correct” spelling or pronunciation, because factual discreditation of the annals is insupportable).
5 D. Sinor, in his paper Autour d'une migration de peuples au v' sitcle, J.A., 1946-7, 34 sqq., has thrown doubt upon the identity of the Juan-juan with the (true) Avars, which I continue to regard as firmly established. The determining factor, it seems to me, is the story of the defeat suffered by the true Avars at the hands of the Turks, Theophylactus Simocatta, VII, 7. According to it, the remnants of the Avars flee to Ταυγαστ (Tabgach, Ch. Toba) and the Μουκρι: we know now that these are the names of (Northern) China and Korea. This fits well with the history of the Juan-juan, but excludes the possibility of placing the Avars in the neighborhood of the Ural. — On Μουκρι = Skt. Mukuri — Tibetan Muglig see Pelliot apud Bagchi, Deux Lexiques, II, 348, cf. my Sogdica, p. 7. It has not so far been recognized that this name is found also in the Orkhon inscriptions, in the form Bokli or rather Bükli: the list of the nations that came to mourn the passing of Bumin qaγan and Istami qaγan (i E 4 = ii E 5) opens with Bükli cholig il (Thomsen 'das feme Bokli Volk') and continues with Tabγach; the list began in the east (onra kün toγusiqda); the Bükli qaγan (i E 8 = ii E 8) had been the easternmost of the enemies with whom the Turks had had to fight, in former times, at the behest of the Chinese (on this passage see Schaeder, Iranica, 39, n. 6). Thus when the Turkish report reproduced by Theophylactus declared that the Avars fled to Ταυγαστ/Tabγach and Μουκρι/Bükli, we should understand 'to our eastern (mainly hostile) neighbors'.
502 [388]

It is certain that the Juan-juan were responsible for giving to the title the wider currency which, it enjoyed for many centuries; but, as the late Professor G. Haloun assured me, it was unquestionably in use even before the rise of the Juan-juan, among the Sien-pi (Syanbi, 鲜卑 Pinyin Xianbei) and the T'u-yü-hun (Tuyuhun) (a branch of the Sien-pi) (Syanbi). ¹ The dominion of the Sien-pi (about AD 155-402) was confined to Mongolia and never extended to the area of Chinese Turkestan (East Turkestan), which, however, was subjected to raids by the T'u-yü-hun, who on one occasion sacked Khotan; whether the Persians, by the end of the 3rd century, had ever heard of either may well be doubted. Nevertheless, as we know now that Sassanian rule, under Shapur I, reached 'to the limits of Kas = Kashghar', ² and that news of political developments was constantly transmitted from China to Samarkand at that very time, ³ we cannot rule out the possibility that some bearer of that title might have come to the notice of the Persians even as early as AD 293.

The problem posed by 'KKTL'N, the presumed national name, is more complicated; Herzfeld hesitated between Aq-Aqataran and Aq-Katiran, between ’Ακατιροι and White Khazars. The Ακατιροι or ’Ακατζιροι, a nation known only through Priscus (Panites) and a single reference in Jordanes, are a favorite subject for scholarly comment.

According to Priscus, who mentions them six times (four times in frg, 8, once each in frgg. 30 and 37, ed. C. Müller, F.H.G., iv, 82b19, 83a10, 86b18, 89a17, 105a2, 107b16), they inhabited, together with other nations, την προς τον Ποντον Σκυθικην (tin pros ton Ponton Skythikin = Skythian Pontus), and were compelled (except for a small portion) to submit to Attila's rule in about AD 448 (he deputed his eldest son); they were a Σκυθικην εθνος (Scythian ethnos), but are once referred to as οι ’Ακατιροι Ουννοι (the Akatir or Acatir Huns) (frg. 30). ⁴ Some ten years after Attila's death, in about AD 463, they were subdued, after a bitter fight, by the Σαραγουροι (Saragurs, a tribe Sary = Ptolemy's Siracs = Yellow, i.e. Kipchaks, members of Bulgarian confederation), who had been driven out from their country by the Σαβιροι (Sabirs/Subars/Sivars/Chuvashes), who in their turn had been expelled by the Avars (frg, 30). ⁶ Even before Attila had forced the Ακατιροι to join his state, they had been in negotiation with Byzantium; there the Σαραγουροι, their new masters, at once sent ambassadors, who met with a friendly reception. A few years later, in about AD 466, the Σαραγουροι ’Ακατιροις και αλλοις εθνεσιν επιθεμενοι επι Περσας εστρατευον (Akatir Saragurs and various pagans struck the top of Persia); finding the Caspian Gates (at Derbend) too well defended, they crossed the Caucasus by the Alan Gates ¹ and devastated Iberia and Armenia (frg. 37). This last passage indicates that the ’Ακατιροι lived to the north of the Caucasus and, as they are also placed in the Scythian lands on the Black Sea, one would naturally localize them in the steppes between Kuban, Don, and Volga.

1 See Parker, Thousand years, 139, 153, 161; China Review, 24 (1899), p. 34 (可汗 (kagan) about AD 265). Cf. Marquart, Eransahr, 53, n. 2.
2 See BSOAS., xii, 54.
3 ibidem, 601 sqq.
4 The obvious but often challenged inference; that they were Huns, has rightly been defended by E. A. Thompson, Attila and the Huns, 10 aq, J. Harmatta, Acta Arckaeologica Acadetniae Scientiarum Hungaricae, i, 1951, 137 aq., again attributes a loose use of the name 'Huns' to Priscus, on the ground that those writing 'immediately after Priscus', Malalas, Procopius, Agathias, etc., used the term as vaguely as he used 'Scythian'. He misses the point of Thompson's argument; which is precisely that these authors, in fact, wrote a long time, two and three generations, after Priscus.
5 Re-examination of the photograph of the Sogdian Nafnamak (Naf-namak, Naf Namak) (see my Sogdica, p. 8) has shown that the name in line 17 ends in -yry and that the preceding letter is -p- rather than -k-. The resulting (s)[.]pyry can hardly be restored otherwise than as s[’]pyry  —  Sabir-e (-e is Sogdian ending). There were thus remnants of the Sabirs in the neighborhood of Turfan long after the migration of the 5th century; it is scarcely accidental that it is precisely near Turfan that many scholars of rank have placed their home-country (cf. P. Sinor, loc. cit., 15 sqq., who disagrees).
6 This migration has recently been discussed at length by D. Sinor in the article quoted above, p. 501, n. 5.
1 The names of the crossing-places are confused, here as almost always. See Marquart, Eransahr, 99 sqq., who reversed the sequence of the 'Gates'.
503

This conclusion, which necessarily results from the study of Priscus, is flatly contradicted by the single reference to the Acatziri in Jordanes. He enumerated, Getica, 5, 37, a number of nations, beginning with the Vidivarii, who occupied the mouth of the Vistula; east of them, on the coast of the Baltic, lived the Aesti, a peaceful people famous as the' collectors and exporters of amber. Quibus in austrum adsidet yens Acatzirorum fortissimo, frugum ignara, quae pecoribus et venationibus victitat; ultra quos distendunt supra Mare Ponticum Bulgarum sedes... hinc iam Hunni, ...bifariam populorum rabiem pullularunt; nam alii Altziagiri, alii Saviri nuncupantur ... (thereof to the south sit yenning very strong Acatzir people, ignorant of fruits, which custom is by flocks and hunting; farther away and above the Black Sea is the seat if Bulgars. . . from there the Huns, ... begin in two ways; one is Altziagiri, and another is called Saviri) If the Acatziri thus adjoined the people of the amber coast on the south, ² they must have lived in the neighborhood of Warsaw (Wrong assumption, they did not live there, they were pasturing there, in the summer season; their winter quarters were in warmer places, where horses could get food from under the cover of snow). The difficulties to which attempts at harmonizing the data of Priscus and Jordanes lead are best illustrated by the remarks Marquart made on the problem in the preface to his Osteurovaische und ostasiatisclie Streifzuge: on page xxii the Acatziri are placed around Korosten (100 miles WNW of Kiew) (Kiev, Kyiv; this is on the summer route, toward the Warsaw), which is not south, but south east of Samland (Samland/Sambia peninsula in East Prussia, annexed by Russia after WWII), and a long way off (about 400 miles) (Hence, Estonia extended 400 miles from the Baltic); on page xxiii we find their home in the land of the Mordwins — 1,000 miles directly to the east of the starting point; and on page xxiv they have moved back viel naher (much closer) to the 'middle Dnepr' (All makes sense very nicely considering the southeastern direction of the Dnieper valley that served as a highway for the herds). Such perplexity is common to all authors who are not bold enough to reject Jordanes' statement altogether (Sic!). ³ It goes without saying that whenever in a matter touching the Huns Priscus, a first-rate historian who wrote of the events of his own lifetime from first-hand knowledge, is in conflict with Jordanes, a compilator (compiler) writing about 100 years after Attila, it is the latter that must be rejected (Sic!). The paragraph under review, with its enumeration of various nations prominent in different periods, bears all the marks of hasty compilation. One could say that if in Jordanes' authority it began with quibus, the relative pronoun no doubt referred to some nation other than the Aesti; but one may retain the description of the Acatziri and, though with less assurance, their proximity to the Bulgars ⁴ (first mentioned for AD 482), which would date the information in the last years of the 5th century (or the first of the 6th). There is no reliance on this author of whom it has been said that 'even in the passages which are based on Priscus Jordanes displays his genius for misunderstanding the most straightforward narrative his source could supply to him'. ¹

Ptolemy's Suvar Domain, ca 127 AD	Jordanes' Acatzir Domain, ca 500 AD, Khazar Domain per S.Pletneva

1 The names of the crossing-places are confused, here as almost always. See Marquart, Eransahr, 99 sqq., who reversed the sequence of the 'Gates'.
2 D. Sinor, loc. cit., p. 2, boldly asserts that Jordanes ... les [= Acatziros] situe a l'est des Estoniens.
3 Outright rejection has at least been envisaged by E. A. Thompson, op. cit., p. 96.
4 Where precisely one is to imagine their seats is not by any means clear.
1 E. A. Thompson, op. cit., (Attila and the Huns) p. 13.
504

(The following philological exercise on Acatzirs = Khazars is irrelevant, historically the Acatzirs = Heroditus' Acathyrs and the Khazars are well traced and can't be confused, but the cited sources are informative)

If then the ’Ακατιροι, a gens fortissima, occupied the area that shortly after was dominated by the Χαζαροι, the suspicion arises that these two nations were one and the same. The Khazars appear suddenly, in great power, in AD 626, when they support the Emperor Heraclius in his second campaign against Persia. As their organization at that time resembled that of the (Western) Turks (i.e. Western Türkic Kaganate), they have sometimes been regarded as an offshoot of the hitter; but the coincidence in their titles (qaγan, yabγu, shad ²) may equally be due to imitation of their powerful eastern neighbors. That they were not recent arrivals in the lands on the northern side of the Caucasus is suggested by the story of their origin ³ (Theophanes and Nicephorus) which let them come from Βερζιλια (Bersilia) ⁴: Marquart has fully proved ⁵ that this was a name of Daghestan (Dagestan); it is confirmed by a few passages that may indicate their presence in that area even before the rise to power of the Turks.

2 This title (shad) is also mentioned by Kirakos Ganjakec'i, Venice, 1865, p. 98; the translation of the passage quoted (from Brosset) by Chavannes, Documents, 253, n. 7, is somewhat inaccurate. '[List of the bishops of Albania] Ter Viroy, 33 years. He had spent many years imprisoned at the court of Xosrov the king of Persia, but after his death was freed and returned to his country. He redeemed the Armenians, Iberians, and Albanians made captives by Šat^c the Xazir, the son of Jabu-xak^cani, who had enslaved our land; he founded five [sic] towns in the name of Šat^c: Šat^car, Šamk^cor, Šak^ci, Širuan, Šamaxi, Šaporan.' That Viroy returned only after the death of Khosrau II is stated also ibidem, p. 30, where the last Sassanian kings are enumerated in these terms: ' After Xosrov, the king of Persia, Kawat took the kingship; he released from captivity Viroy, the Catholicus of Albania, whom his father had imprisoned. After Kawat, Artašir; then Xoream by decree of Heraclius; then Xosrov, and after him Born and Zarmanduxt —-all these were short-lived; and then Yazkert.'
3 The contrary passage in Sebeos has been made to refer to the Khazara only by arbitrary emendation; by changing i carayut^ciwn 'into the servitude (of the great Xak^can, etc.)' into i carayut^cene 'out of the servitude' (Marquart, WZKM., xii, 1898, p. 191),
4 The corresponding national name in pseudo-Zachariah (see presently), B’GRSYQ, has been restored as B’GRSYLQ by Marquart. An even easier correction would be B’RSYGQ, directly = the Armenian Nom. Barsilk^c (Barselk^c), which occurs beside Ba(r)silk^c; Syriac G = y perfectly answers to Armenian l. If this correction is accepted, Armenian intermission will have to be assumed; this is in any case recommended by the final -Q, which is best explained as the ending of the Armenian nominative .— In view of the remarks made by D. Sinor, loc. cit., p. 63, it must be stressed that the -k^c of such Armenian names as Barsilk^c, Sawirk^c, belongs solely to the nominative; the form in which Barsilk^c (Barselk^c) appears most frequently in texts is in fact Barslac^c. — The Syriac form BES’LY’ (Michael and from him Barhebraeus) does not go back to John of Ephesus, as K. H. Menges, Byzantion, xvii, 276 claims; see below.
5 Streifziige, 489 sq., cf. p. 485.
[390] 505

The Pahlavi Xuday-namag mentioned the Khazars not only under Hormizd IV (AD 578-590), ⁶ but even under Khosrau ¹ (AD 531-578)1; yet all its undisputed references ² are so vague that they may well be proleptic (Anticipating and answering objections in advance). Of far greater, indeed decisive, importance is the list of Hunnic nations in the appendix to the Syriac Chronicle ascribed to Zachariah of Mitylene ³; the relevant part of this appendix, which was written in AD 555, ⁴ i.e. at the beginning of the Turkish expansion, well before it had any effect on the neighborhood of the Caspian Sea, is based on reports of returned prisoners of war in contact with Albanian missionaries who had labored to the north of the Caucasus 20 to 30 years earlier. ⁵ One of the names in this list is KSR = Xasar (or Xasir), ⁶ evidently an early form of Xazar; yet Marquart, ⁷ not without justification, identified the name (which he transcribed Kas(i)r) with ’Ακατζιροι, no doubt on account of the company by which KSR is surrounded: Σαραγουροι, Ονογουροι, Ιτιμαροι, etc. The truth of the matter is that here, where the historical context leads us to expect the ’Ακατζιροι, we find them under a new name, Xasar (Xasir); the list thus provides the sought-for link between the two national names.

6 Noldeke, Tabari, 270 — Tajarib al-Umam, i, 219⁷. Marquart's attempt to prove that Hormizd's mother had been the daughter of a Khagan of the Khazars (WZKM., xii, 199 sq.) carries little conviction. — It may not be superfluous to warn students against accepting at its face value Marquart'a phrase die Chazaren welche in den gleichzeitigen Urkunden zuerst in der Kirchengeschichte des Johannes von Ephesus a. 585/86 genannt werden (Streifziige, 46) (the Khazars which are in the concurrent documents were first listed in the history of the Church of St. John of Ephesus about 585/86). In this form this assertion was never correct (it should have read wurden in the place of werden) (were in lieu of be); it has been disproved by none other than Marquart himself. The matter stands thus: Barhebrteus, in a passage about the Avars, mentions the Khazars twice, firstly in an allusion to a 'Khaqan, king of the Khazars', secondly as having been named 'Khazars' after the eldest of three brothers (in an eponymic story). The importance of this text was recognized by Maiquart, Chronologic der altturkischen Imtchriften, 1898, 82 sqq. On reading his book, Noldeke informed Marquart that Barhebraeus' story probably derived from the lost chapters of the Ecclesiastical History by John of Ephesus, who wrote in AD 585-6; the headings of the lost chapters in question (3rd part, book 6, chaps. 45 sqq.) are preserved and give some indication of their contents; the name Khazar is not mentioned in them. Barhebraeus, however, used John not directly, but at second hand through Michael the Syrian (end of 12th century); the latter was not then accessible to Marquart (see WZKM., xii, 1898, 198 sq.). Later Marquart secured the relevant text of Michael and discussed it fully (Streifziige, 1903, Addenda, 479 sqq.). It now emerged that in the first passage, which he in fact had copied from John, Michael had 'Khagan the king of the Abaris ("Αβαρεις)', as was to be expected; and that the second passage (about the three brothers, two of whom came to Alan = BRS’LY’, the eldest being named Xazarig) was not derived from John at all, but from a much later source (not earlier than AD 678 in Marquart's judgement) (It appears that this passage alludes that Xazar was a clan name of the Sabirs, who had their state in Dagestan, bordering on the north of the Alans, and the clan name Xazar was received after the name of the brother Xazarig, with few disputed etymologies).
1 Noldeke, Tabari, 155, 166, 167; Tajarib al-Umam, i, 181^l2, 182⁶, 183², 192¹⁰, 198⁷.
2 Disputable are all passages that contain interesting details (Tabari, i 895^{1 16}, 896⁴ = Noldeke, Tabari, 157,159): here Marquart imported the name into the text by an emendation (WZKM., xii (1898), 169, n. 6 = Chronologie der Alttbrkischen Inschriften, 96, n. 2), which, since Tajarib al-Umam, i, 179³ ([]) agrees with the MSS. of Tabari, is only acceptable if it is referred back to the Pahlavi text, in which *’PGL and *HČYL (= Xazir as in Arm.) were indistinguishable. — There is no certain occurrence of the name Xazar in an existing Pahlavi text; the curious ’TWL in Bahman Yašt, iv, 58, ed. Anklesaria, was emended by H. W. Bailey first into HPTL = Hephthalites (BSOS., vi, 1932, 946), later into HČL = Khazars (BSOAS., xi, 1943, 1 sq.).
3 Translated by F. J. Hamilton and E. W. Brooks, p. 328.
4 ibidem, p. 327.
5 ibidem, p. 329. The story is extraordinarily confused, but nevertheless there is no reason to doubt the author's truthfulness; on the Albanian mission see Marquart, Streifziige, 489. That the list was not derived from Greek sources is assured by the forms of the names (names transliterated from Greek into Syriac are invariably recognizable as such); to describe it as eine aus griechischer Ueberlieferung... zusammengestellte syrische Volkerliste (...from a Greek tradition . compiled Syrian Volker list) (Schaeder, Iranica, p. 40) does it no justice. Attention should be paid also to the names in the lines immediately preceding the list, Gurzan, Arran, Sisagan, etc., none of which admits Greek transmission. Incidentally, Marquart was so thoroughly convinced of the independence of the passage from Greek influence that he used forms found in it to argue for Syriac transmission of a report on Turkish affairs preserved by Theophylactus Simocatta (see WZKM., xii, 189 sq.).
6 cf. F. W. K. Muller, Ostasiatische Zeitschrift, 8, 312.
7 Streifziige, 356, n. 1.
[391] 506

The identity of the ’Ακατζιροι with the Khazars was taken for granted by the anonymous geographer of Ravenna (end of 7th century ?), who wrote quos Chazaros . . . Jordan is Agaziros vocal (168^13-14J. In modern times it has been rejected as often as asserted. The case for rejection has been built chiefly on the differences between the forms of the two names ^l; it has been grossly overstated by Marquart. ² Yet there is no sound objection to the explanation (originally put forward by H. H. Howorth) that Ακατζιροι is a compound name consisting of aq 'white' and the name that later appeared as Xazar. One naturally has to assume that Xazar is Khazarian ³ development of an earlier Xacir (with c = ц), via Xasir, the stages being marked by Χοτζιροι, ⁴ Syriac Xasir (Xasar), and Armenian Xazir ⁵; as virtually nothing is known of the language of the Khazars (presumably a Hun dialect), he would be a bold man who asserted that a sound change of intervocalic -c- to -s- (and further to -z-) was impossible in their language, or that it had not possessed the sound -c-. That, further, the compound name Aq-xacir might be pronounced as Aqacir (or sound like that to a foreigner) and therefore be rendered ’Ακατζιροι, ⁶ can hardly be denied. Since history points to the Khazars' being the heirs of the ’Ακατζιροι, and since the Khazars (as is well known) consisted of two distinct racial groups, White Khazars and Black Khazars, ⁷ this explanation is much to be preferred to the Turcologists' favourite derivation, aγač-äri 'wood-men', ⁸ which is scarcely better than a popular etymology. ⁹

1 e.g. by Kaspar Zeuss, Die Dtutschen und die Nachbarstdmme (1837), 714 sq.
2 Streifziige, 41, n. 2, 43.
3 To meet Marquart's principal objection.
4 On this form see Moravcsik, op. cit., ii, 289 sq. (with references). — No weight, perhaps, should be attached to the fact that in the fragments of Priscus the name appears as Κατζιροι, in one place (Κατζιρων frg. 8 Müller, p. 83^a10 = Excerpta de legalionibus 130²⁴ de Boor).
5 Full value should be given to the Armenian form; of the nations whose historical records we possess none was so close to the Khazars as the Armenians. Xazir suffices to exclude *Qasar (so, e.g. Pelliot, T’oung Pao, xx.xvii, 1944, 98, n. 1) from serious consideration as the original form.
6 τζ is used for c as often as for č, cf. Moravcsik, op. cit., ii, 44. Marquart's assumption that Syriac s may have been used to reproduce foreign č (Eranšahr, 253, n. 5) is unacceptable.
7 In the heat of arguing against Howorth's theory, Marquart, who otherwise admitted no connection between Acatziri and Khazars, went so far as to say that, on the contrary, die ’Ακατζιροι entsprechen vielmehr den Schwarz-Chazaren (the Acatzirs correspond rather to the Black Khazars) (op. cit., 41, n. 2, at the end).
8 Notwithstanding the existence of such a word, both as appellative and as tribal name, 800 years and more after the time of Attila: in Houtsma's Glossar, p. 30², and apparently in Rasid ad-Din, see Marquart, loc. cit. (I have not found the passage). As a tribal name it exists even nowadays, in Khuzistan, where a conglomeration of Turkish, Tajik, and Lur tribes is called ا ق ڝ ک = Aγaj-eri, Farsname-yi Nasiri, ii, 270; O. Mann, Mundarttn der Lur-Stamme, p. xvii; the oilfield situated within the tribal area has recently often been mentioned in the newspapers, in the guise of Agha Jari (this is the spelling one finds also on maps). As I notice belatedly, the scholar to whom these pages are dedicated has already drawn attention to this name (The Tribes of Western Iran. Journal of the Anthropological Institute, lxxv, 1945, 77).
9 Jordanes' description of the Acatziri, gens . . . frugum ignara quae pecoribus et venationibus victitat ( people, ignorant of fruits, which custom is by flocks and hunting), lets one envisage them as typical nomads of the steppe, certainly not as 'woodmen'. Strangely enough, Marquart found support in it for his suggestion that they were ein echtfinnisches Fischer- und Jägervolk (a real Finnish fishing and hunting people) (op. cit., p. 40) (Sufficient number of nomadic pastoralist tribes live in the wooded area called forest-steppe and hunt in the woods to dismiss this exaggeratedly distilled image of the steppe dwellers).
[392] 507

Whether the Khazars (White or Black) descended from the Acatziri ¹ or not, it is at any rate clear that neither figured in the records of history before the middle of the 5th century; and therefore it would be surprising to find either in the inscription of Paikuli (The identity of Classical Acathyrs with late Classical Acatziri is a well-established historical fact).

1 For reasons that will become clear presently, no attempt is made here to discuss the form of the Pahlavi name, ’KKTL’N.
508

(The rest of the article is irrelevant for the Acatziri history, and is not cited)