Sabir people

Near East in 500 AD, showing the Sabirs and neighboring peoples.

The Sabirs (Savirs, Suars, Sawar, Sawirk among others; (Greek: Σάβιροι,[1]) were a nomadic Turkic equestrian people who lived in the north of the Caucasus beginning in the late-5th -7th century, on the eastern shores of the Black Sea, in the Kuban area,[2] and possibly came from Western Siberia.[3][4][5] They were skilled in warfare, used siege machinery,[6] had a large army (including women[7]) and were boat-builders.[8] They were also referred to as Huns, a title applied to various Eurasian nomadic tribes in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe during late antiquity. Sabirs led incursions into Transcaucasia in the late-400s/early-500s, but quickly began serving as soldiers and mercenaries during the Byzantine-Sasanian Wars on both sides. Their alliance with the Byzantines laid the basis for the later Khazar-Byzantine alliance.[9]

  1. ^ Golden 1980, p. 256.
  2. ^ Maenchen-Helfen 1973, p. 432.
  3. ^ Sinor 1990, p. 200–201.
  4. ^ Golden 1992, p. 104.
  5. ^ Golden 2011, p. 146.
  6. ^ Golden 2011, p. 112.
  7. ^ Golden 2011, p. 91.
  8. ^ Golden 2011, p. 113:In the 559 siege of Thracian Chersonese they fashioned small boats
  9. ^ Golden 1980, p. 35.

© MMXXIII Rich X Search. We shall prevail. All rights reserved. Rich X Search