Faction: The Avars

[Lion.Kanzen]

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According to the historian Sergey Tolstov, Avarians originated in Khurasan, south-east of the Caspian Sea, and migrated to the Caucasus.^[10] These geographical origins apparently link them to the Hurrians of Subartu.^[10]

The earliest mention of the Avars in European history is by Priscus, who reported in 463 AD that a combined legation from the Saragurs, Urogs and Unogurs had requested an alliance with Byzantium. The legation claimed that in 461 their peoples had been displaced by the Sabirs, as a result of pressure from the Avars.^[11]

It is not clear whether or in what way the Caucasian Avarians are related to the early "Pseudo-Avars" (or Pannonian Avars) of the Dark Ages, but it is known that with the mediation of Sarosius in 567, the Göktürks requested Byzantium to distinguish the Avars of Pannonia as "Pseudo-Avars" as opposed to the true Avars of the east, who had come under Göktürk hegemony.^[12] The modern Arab Encyclopaedia states that the Magyars originated in this area.

The Avar invasion of the Caucasus resulted in the establishment of an Avar ruling dynasty in Sarir, a medieval Christian state in the Dagestani highlands.

 

Old Avarian popular symbols appearing on stone and felt

During the Khazar wars against the Caliphate in the 7th century, the Avars sided with Khazaria. Surakat is mentioned as their Khagan around 729–30 AD, followed by Andunik-Nutsal at the time of Abu Muslima, then Dugry-Nutsal. Sarir suffered a partial eclipse after the Arabs gained the upper hand, but managed to reassert its influence in the region in the 9th century. It confronted the weakened Khazars and conducted a friendly policy towards the neighbouring Christian states of Georgia and Alania.

 

 

 

 

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The Avar Khaganate was a khanate established in Central Europe, specifically in the Pannonian Basin region, in 567 by the Avars, a nomadic people of uncertain origins and ethno-linguistic affiliation.[8][9] Several theories propose a partially Mongolic, Turkic or Tungusic origin.[5][3] As the Göktürk Empire expanded westwards, the Khagan Bayan I led a group of Avars and Bulgars out of their reach, eventually settling around 568 in what used to be the Roman province of Pannonia.

Arrival in Europe.

In 557 the Avars sent an embassy to Constantinople, marking their first contact with the Byzantine Empire—presumably from the northern Caucasus. In exchange for gold, they agreed to subjugate the "unruly gentes" on behalf of the Byzantines. They conquered and incorporated various nomadic tribes—Kutrigurs and Sabirs—and defeated the Antes. By 562 the Avars controlled the lower Danube basin and the steppes north of the Black Sea.[10] By the time they arrived in the Balkans, the Avars formed a heterogeneous group of about 20,000 horsemen.[11] After the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (reigned 527–565) bought them off, they pushed northwestwards into Germania. However, Frankish opposition halted the Avars' expansion in that direction.

Seeking rich pastoral lands, the Avars initially demanded land south of the Danube River in present-day Bulgaria, but the Byzantines refused, using their contacts with the Göktürks as a threat against Avar aggression.[12] The Avars turned their attention to the Carpathian Plain and to the natural defenses it afforded.[13] However, the Carpathian basin was then occupied by the Gepids. In 567 the Avars formed an alliance with the Lombards—enemies of the Gepids—and together they destroyed much of the Gepid Kingdom. The Avars then persuaded the Lombards to move into northern Italy, an invasion that marked the last Germanic mass-movement in the Migration Period.[citation needed]

Continuing their successful policy of turning the various barbarians against each other, the Byzantines persuaded the Avars to attack the Sclavenes in Scythia Minor (modern Dobruja); their land was rich with goods and had never been conquered before.[11][page needed] After devastating much of the Sclavenes' land, the Avars returned to Pannonia after many of the Khagan's subjects deserted to the Byzantine Emperor. By 600 the Avars had established a nomadic empire ruling over a multitude of peoples and stretching from modern-day Austria in the west to the Pontic-Caspian steppe in the east

 

 

 

[Stan`]

That last guy look really amerindian to me ><

So that civ would be for part II ?

[Lion.Kanzen]

10 minutes ago, stanislas69 said:

That last guy look really amerindian to me ><

So that civ would be for part II ?

No this are the enemies of Byzantines, Lombards and another civs / tribes 5th-7th.

Yes nomadic looks Amerindians, that's why Columbus call Indians to Pre Columbian civs  he try to reach the Great Khan in India or Asian.

Edited May 2, 2018 by Lion.Kanzen

[Lion.Kanzen]

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Origins
The origin of the European Avars is unclear. Information is derived primarily from the works of Byzantine historians Menander Protector and Theophylact Simocatta. The confusion is compounded by the fact that many clans carried a particular name because they believed it to be prestigious, or it was attributed to them by outsiders describing their common characteristics, believed place of origin or reputation.[3] Such a case has been seen repeatedly for many nomadic confederacies.
According to the research of historian András Róna-Tas[4], the Avars formed in central Asia through a fusion of several tribal elements, in the classical age. Rona-Tas suggests that Turkic Oghurs migrated to the Kazakh steppe, possibly moving south to inhabit the lands vacated by the Huns. Here they interacted with a body Indo-European-speaking Iranians – forming the Xionites (Hunas). Sometime during the 460s, they were subordinated by the Mongolic Ruanruan. The Ruanruan imposed their own rulers– referred to as Uar -at the head of the confederacy. Being a highly cultured people, the Ughurs rose to prominence within the tribal confederacy. The 6th century historian Menander Protector noted that the language of the Avars was the same (possibly meaning similar) as that of the Huns. If language is an indicator of origin, this supports the theory that they might have been an Oghuric Turkic people[5]. The connection with the Rouran has prompted some scholars to suggest that the European Avars’ ruling core was Mongolic, although this has been disputed by others.[6]
 

Early in the sixth century, the confederacy was conquered by the Gokturk empire (the Gokturks were previously yet another vassal tribal element under Ruanruan supremacy). In his History of the World, Theophylact Simocatta noted that the (Gok)Turks “enslaved the entire Ohgur tribe, which was one of the most powerful, .. and was accomplished in the art of war”. One body of people, perhaps wishing to evade Gokturk rule, escaped and migrated to the northern Caucasus region c. 555 AD. According to Simocatta, their new neighbours believed them to be the true Avars. They established diplomatic contact with the Byzantines, and the other nomadic tribes of the steppes lavished them with gifts. However, the Gokturks later persuaded the Byzantines that these nomads were not the real Avars, but were instead a group of "fugitive Scythians" who had fled from the Gokturks and stolen the prestigious name of Avar[7]. Hence they have subsequebtly called pseudo-Avars (or Eurasian Avars).
For all the theories, historian Walter Pohl asserted in 1998, instancing the detailed attempts made by H. W. Haussig in 1953[8] and K. Czeglèdy in 1983[9] and his own methodological objections[10]:"It is pointless to ask who exactly the forefathers of the European Avars were. We only know that they carried an ancient, very prestigious name (our first hints to it date back to the times of Herodotus); and we may assume that they were a very mixed group of warriors who wanted to escape domination by the Gokturks."[11] If the Avars were ever a distinct ethnic group, that distinction does not seem to have survived their centuries in Europe. Being an 'Avar' seems to have meant being part of the Avar state (in a similar way that being 'Roman' ceased to have any ethnic meaning).What is certain, by the time they arrived in Europe, the Avars were a heterogeneous, polyethnic people [12][13]. Modern research shows[14] that each of the large confederations of steppe warriors (such as the Scythians, Xiongnu, Huns, Avars, Khazars, Cumans, Mongols, etc.) were not ethnically homogeneous, but rather unions of multiple ethnicities. The skeletons found in European Avar graves show heterogeneity, including some Asiatic features.

The Early Avar Period (580-670)
Like Attila before him by about 580 the Avar Khagan, Bayan, established supremacy over practically all Slavic, Hunno-Bulgar, and Germanic tribes.[19] When the Eastern Roman Empire was unable to pay subsidies or hire Avar mercenaries, the Avars raided Rome's Balkan communities. According to Menander, to sack Dalmatia in 568, Bayan commanded ten thousand “Kutrigurs” effectively cutting Byzantium's land link with North Italy and the West. However, during Maurice’s Balkan campaigns in the 590s Avars experienced setbacks. Being defeated in their homeland, some Avars defected to the Byzantines in 602,[20] but Emperor Maurice decided against returning home as was customary, but rather to maintain his army camp beyond the Danube throughout the winter, which caused the army to revolt (602). This gave the Avars a desperately needed respite. The ensuing civil war prompted a Persian invasion and after 615 gave the Avars a free hand in the undefended Balkans. An invasion of northern Italy was attempted in 610. Payments in gold and goods reached the record sum of 200,000 solidi shortly before 626
 

 

Avar cavalry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avar_Khaganate

 

Edited May 2, 2018 by Lion.Kanzen

[Lion.Kanzen]

https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2015/12/27/626-ad-avar-siege-of-constantinople/

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The Avars were a Mongolian peoples, known to the Chinese as the Juan-Juan. In the Fourth Century they were one of many Mongol and Turkic groupings to trouble the northern borders of the Chinese Empire. At this time there was political chaos in China, the north of which fragmented into numerous local states. The restlessness and upheaval, on both sides of the Great Wall, mirrored what was happening in Europe at the same time.
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The Eurasian Avars were a nomadic people of Eurasia, who appeared in central and eastern Europe in the 6th century. They are known to history as Avars, though the Romans called them "pseudo-Avars." Avar rule persisted over much of the Pannonian plain up to the early 9th century.

HISTORY

The 6th Century historian Menander Protector noted that the language of the Avars was the same as that of the Huns, appearing as an Altaic Oghuric Turkic branch like modern Chuvash or Turkic Bulgarian and Khazar. It has been argued that their ruling class was related to the presumably Mongolic Zhuan Zhuan (Rouran), although this is questioned (mainly on geographical and chronological grounds ), while the majority were part of the Turkic peoples. Nevertheless, historian Walter Pohl asserted in 1998, instancing the detailed attempts made by H. W. Haussig in 1953 and K. Czeglèdy in 1983 and his own methodological objections: "It is pointless to ask who exactly the forefathers of the European Avars were. We only know that they carried an ancient, very prestigious name (our first hints to it date back to the times of Herodotus); and we may assume that they were a very mixed group of warriors who wanted to escape domination by the Turks."
The Avars were driven westward when the Sassanid Persians – allied with the Göktürks – defeated the Hephthalites in the 550s and the 560s. They entered Europe in the 6th century A.D., subjugating peoples such as the Kutrigur Huns as they went. Their first recorded official contact with the Roman world was in the winter of 558/59, when their embassy arrived in Constantinople and negotiated a treaty by which they were to subdue unruly gentes on behalf of the Empire, and receive payments and rights in return. Having been bought off by the Eastern Emperor Justinian I, they pushed north into Germany (as Attila the Hun had done a century before), eventually reaching as far north as the Baltic.

Finding the country unsuited to their nomadic lifestyle (and the Franks stern opponents), they turned their attention to the Pannonian plain, which was then being contested by two Germanic tribes, the Lombards and the Gepids. Siding with the Lombards, they destroyed the Gepids in 567 and established a state in the Danube River area. Their harassment soon (ca. 568) forced the Lombards to try their luck in northern Italy, an invasion that marked the last Germanic mass movement in the Migrations Period.

According to Menander, the Avar leader Bayan (c565 - c600) then commanded 10,000 Kutrigurs to sack Dalmatia in 568, effectively cutting Byzantium's land link with North Italy and the West. By about 580, Bayan had established his supremacy over practically all the various groups of "barbarian" warbands along the Balkan frontier, a monopoly of power that only Attila had briefly enjoyed before him. When the Eastern Roman Empire found itself unable to pay subsidies or hire Avar mercenaries, the Avars took to raiding Roman communities in the Balkans as well. At first, the Byzantines resisted successfully, even crossing the Danube to harass the Avars in their homeland, but the Emperor Maurice's decision to maintain his army camp beyond the Danube throughout the winter instead of returning home as was customary caused the army to revolt (602). The ensuing civil war prompted an opportunistic Persian invasion and gave the Avars a free hand in the now undefended Balkans. An invasion of northern Italy was also attempted in 610. Walter Pohl notes that payments in gold and goods reached the record sum of 200,000 solidi shortly before 626

.
In 626, the Avars and the Persians jointly besieged but failed to capture Constantinople. Following this defeat, the Avars retreated to Pannonia, leaving most of the Balkans in the hands of Slav tribes, with neither Avars nor Byzantines able to reassert control. Most of the Avars' subject peoples became independent, with just Pannonia remaining under direct Avar rule.

By the early 9th century, internal discord and external pressure started to undermine the Avar state. It was finally liquidated during the 810s by the Franks under Charlemagne and the First Bulgarian Empire under Krum. After the fall of the Avar Empire around 800 the name Avar and the self-identified constructed ethnicity it carried disappeared within a single generation. An Avar presence in Pannonia is still certain in 871 but thereafter the name is no longer used by chroniclers: "It simply proved impossible to keep up an Avar identity after Avar institutions and the high claims of their tradition had failed." The Avars are also likely to have merged with Slavs, who had formed new states in the region: the principality of Nitra in the north (later Great Moravia) and the Balaton Principality in the central parts of Pannonia. Their remnants were probably the "Huns" encountered by the invading Magyars in the 10th Century. Their hypothetical descendants, the Szekely (who apparently preserved the Avar Dragon Totem well into the 15th century), were relocated to Transylvania in the 12th century. In the Republic of Hungary there are a number of Avar ruins, mostly burial mounds, that display symbols nearly identical to those of the Caucasian Avars.
Some claim that the Avars were the first tribe to introduce the stirrup to Europe. However, the subject is under debate and other candidates for the importers include the Huns.


 

 

[niektb]

funny fact: they're already included in the faction list  

 

[Lion.Kanzen]

Just now, niektb said:

funny fact: they're already included in the faction list  

 

Yes, their history look decisive for many empires.

[Lion.Kanzen]

https://weaponsandwarfare.com/2015/12/27/626-ad-avar-siege-of-constantinople/

[Alexandermb]

[Lion.Kanzen]

Very Roman old style those shield. interesting. more little.

[tlauick_19]

https://arrecaballo.es/edad-media/los-avaros/el-ejercito-avaro/

-Jinetes ávaros. A la izquierda jinete ligero, a la derecha jinete pesado y un infante eslavo

Jinete ávaro siglo VII. Está armado con lanza y arco siglo. Autor Zvonimir Grbasic 

Anillo o ring ávaro. En el centro del mismo guardaban sus riquezas

Movimientos ávaros del siglo VI

Guerreros ávaros siglo VI-VII: A Jinete pesado ávaro; B infante mercenario eslavo combatiendo a un finfante pesado bizantino C. Autor Mikhail V. Gorelik

Jinetes ávaros contra carolingios a comienzos del siglo IX. Autor Angus McBride

[0leg]

You are making a major mistake. The Avars of the Caucasus which have migrated there from Iran, are not linked with the Pannonian Avars at all. Their name similarity is only a coincidance. The early medieval Avars (pannonian Avars) are Turkic. The Avars in Dagestan have nothing in common with them.

 

this flag belongs to the Avar Khanate, in Dagestan, not the Pannonian Avars, again, the two have nothing in common. 

Edited March 10, 2021 by 0leg

[Lion.Kanzen]

1 hour ago, 0leg said:

You are making a major mistake. The Avars of the Caucasus which have migrated there from Iran, are not linked with the Pannonian Avars at all. Their name similarity is only a coincidance. The early medieval Avars (pannonian Avars) are Turkic. The Avars in Dagestan have nothing in common with them.

 

this flag belongs to the Avar Khanate, in Dagestan, not the Pannonian Avars, again, the two have nothing in common. 

It is good to have people who know a lot about the civilizations that we are sometimes trying to represent, suggestions like these are welcome and allow us to delve a little deeper into said civilizations and have a clearer approach, I hope you can continue helping us by providing much more material to be able more or less to discern a little more these factions that are difficult for us since it is a very turbulent and dark period of universal history, I hope more of  your suggestions, thank you very much.

[Ultimate Aurelian]

On 14/05/2018 at 2:49 AM, tlauick_19 said:

Anillo o ring ávaro. En el centro del mismo guardaban sus riquezas

 

Could be reference for Wonder, or fortress.

For Roster maybe something like this

Avar Barracks:

Infantry archer

Cavalry archer

Cavalry Spearman

Cavalry Axeman/Swordsman?

 

Allied Camp:

Slavic Spearman

Slavic Javelinist

Gepid Swordsman

 

Siege Workshop:

Ram

Siege Tower

Traction Trebuchet

 

Fortress:

Champion Spear cavalry

Champion cavalry archer

 

Dock:

Slavic ''Monoxylos'' (Canoe)

[Radiotraining]

Fantastic reference!! Thanks for sharing!! It's a bit difficult to find good resources about Avars.

Also, good suggestions for the roast of units! It's absolutely a good basis to work on!

 

What's the idea of the "allied camp"? something like a mercenary camp, or more like cartaginese embassies?

Edited November 3, 2021 by Radiotraining

[Ultimate Aurelian]

The idea was barrack to train infantry from allies and conquered peoples, not sure if they should have metal cost since are not really mercenaries.

I decied to merge Avar Barrack with Stable since it would be awkward to have a building just to train foot archers.

Edited November 3, 2021 by Ultimate Aurelian