E3: Radmich Slav tribesman, 8th century
This ordinary Slav tribesman only has a spear and dagger, while the rectangular shape of his large shield is hypothetical. His clothing is largely of linen; the simple embroidered pattern around the neck and cuffs of his tunic has been tentatively identified with the Radmich tribe, which lived along the upper reaches of the Dnieper river and its tributaries, on the north-western frontier of Khazar territory.
F1: Khwarazmian cavalryman of Arsiya Guard, 9th–10th centuries
Many of the Khagan’s Muslim Arsiya units originally came from one of the militarily and technologically most sophisticated (as well as one of the wealthiest) regions of Central Asia, and, when settled at the Khazar capital of Atil, they remained a military elite. This man has therefore been given the finest known arms and armour of the eastern provinces of the Islamic Caliphate, including a one-piece steel helmet with silvered stars riveted to the surface, a purely decorative silvered finial and a brow-band decorated in the same manner. The very short nasal bar may have protected the lacing of the deep aventail’s facial flap, which is here shown unlaced. In addition to a long-sleeved mail hauberk under his coat, he wears a steel lamellar cuirass and separate tassets covering the thighs, with alternate rows of the lamellae gilded. His baggy trousers are confined by felt-lined leather gaiters, with upper and lower coloured lines around the whitened surface, and lacing up the inner legs. His double-edged straight sword has a silvered bronze hilt that includes a sleeve which passes outside the throat of the scabbard, and his shield is edged with tufted coloured wool. The khanjar at his right hip was a weapon shared by many peoples of the steppes. His horse (background) has relatively plain modern harness, but the silvered ‘muzzle-bit’ is an item that may have dated from pre-Islamic times.
F2: Viking raider, 10th century
This unfortunate has been hunted down on the banks of the lower Volga in 914. The Scandinavian raiders who became known as Varangians, and who created the first Russian state, were significantly better armed than the indigenous Slavs and Finns who inhabited these areas. Initially their daring and ferocity also enabled them to overawe some Muslim peoples along the shores of the Caspian Sea, but eventually they were expelled by both Muslims and Khazars. The man shown here has been given the mixture of equipment which would come to characterize the Varangians and the armies of early Kievan Rus. Thus the mail hauberk, shield and sword could be seen as Viking, while the segmented helmet and mail aventail might be considered early Russian.
F3: Khazar light cavalryman, 9th century
Not all Khazar cavalrymen were heavily armoured, even during the Khaganate’s period of greatest prosperity. This man only has a long-sleeved mail hauberk plus a shield, sabre and archery equipment. His colourful coat is in the distinctively Turkish double-breasted style, showing contrasting lining and applied woven decorative bands at the edges. The horse’s harness is ornamented in the steppe style, but the snaffle bit lacks vertical psalion bars. Some sources show an additional single strap terminating in a loop attached to the apex of the usual reins; this was probably not just a leading rein, but an aid to controlling the horse when the rider was using both hands to shoot the bow.
G1: Magyar woman, 10th century
This scene is imagined in the interior of a turf-roofed timber house dug partly below ground level, and heated by a large clay oven. Most information about Magyar female costume comes from the period immediately after the western Magyars migrated from Ukraine across the Carpathian mountains onto the Great Hungarian Plain, but there is little reason to believe that the dress of either men or women had changed significantly during the previous few decades. The costume illustrated is based upon archaeological finds, the limited pictorial sources, and some hints in the written texts. Her elaborate hair decoration consists of large gold discs hanging from open ‘triangles’ at the ends of gold chains attached to her two ‘ponytails’; it is enough to identify her as a woman of wealth and social status.
G2: Khazar Jewish warrior, 9th century
How far the conversion of the Khazar ruling elite to Judaism filtered down into lower ranks of society remains a matter of scholarly debate; it may perhaps have been confined to the higher aristocracy, and the elites of some Khazar sub-tribes. Whether the Judaism practised by the Khazars was mainstream or otherwise is also a matter of some dispute. The prosperous tribesman shown here, wearing a fine silk coat under his war gear, has been given a kippah skull-cap and payot side-locks, though there is no real evidence for these being adopted by the Judeo-Khazars. Apart from a recently discovered segmented helmet with Jewish symbols on the front and back, which he carries, this man is equipped in typical Khazar style: a mail hauberk, a cuirass of large iron lamellae, iron shoulder plates, and strapped-on iron greaves. His weapons are a fine Khazar sabre with a lightly curved hilt and silvered fittings, and a war-flail with a bronze weight.
G3: Vyatchian Slav tribesman, 8th–9th centuries
The Vyatchi Eastern Slavs, from the Oka river basin south of present-day Moscow, were undoubtedly poor in comparison with their Khazar overlords, despite the metal torque worn around this man’s neck and his finely made leather boots. With neither helmet nor armour, his only protection is a substantial wooden shield, here leaning against the wall with one light and one heavier javelin; he also has an axe in his belt. The embroidered strips at the neck, chest, upper arms and hem of his linen shirt are again believed to have served as a form of tribal identification.
H1: Khazar commander
The wealth of the Khazar Khaganate, which had attracted the predatory attentions of the Varangian Rus, was reflected in the equipment of its military elites. However, there now appears to have been less use of lamellar armour and a seemingly greater reliance on fine-quality mail, like the short-sleeved hauberk worn by this senior figure handing over his sabre and axe to a victor in token of surrender. His helmet is still of segmented construction, similar to those of the Muslims to the south and the Rus to the north, and has a mail aventail which could probably be tied beneath the chin. His shield is probably of leather-covered wood, but might equally have been entirely of hide, and imported from far beyond Khazar territory. The shirt worn beneath his hauberk is, for example, of pink Chinese silk; his woollen coat is not only covered in patterned Persian silk but is cut in an originally Arab-Persian style as a kaftan, rather than in the considerably overlapping double-breasted Turco-Mongol manner. The embroidered ‘blanket’ which is tailored to go over and around the rump of his horse (background) was probably made locally.
H2: Khazar warrior
Hardly visible, the wounded warrior who accompanies his commander would also illustrate the multi-cultural character of the later Khazar Khaganate. Under his fur-trimmed cap, his long hair tied into pigtails is typically Turkish. His off-white coat, originally of Alan or Persian style, has blue edging at neck and cuffs and a broad band of red, yellow and blue patterned Persian silk all the way down the front, which is fastened with silver clasps. He might have a short double-edged broadsword imported from Russia, but with a German-made blade. His archery equipment and horse harness would still be of typical nomadic steppes types.