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Concept
Atil
Summary
Atil, also Itil, was the capital of the Khazar Khaganate from the mid-8th century to the late 10th century.
Known to have been situated on the Silk Road, in the vicinity of the Caspian Sea, its precise location has long been unknown. In 2008, a site at Samosdelka, a village in the Volga Delta that is some 30 km south-west of Astrakhan has been identified as the site of Atil.
The name Atil is from the Turkic phrase meaning "great river", a name of the Volga River.
Atil was located along the Volga delta at the northwestern corner of the Caspian Sea. Following the defeat of the Khazars in the Second Arab-Khazar War, Atil became the capital of Khazaria.
Ibn Khordadbeh, writing in ca. 870, names Khamlij as the capital of the Khazars. This is presumably a rendition of Turkic khaganbaligh "city of the khan" and refers to the city later (in the 10th century) named as Atil in Arab historiography.
At its height, the city was a major center of trade, and consisted of three parts separated by the Volga. The western part contained the administrative center of the city, with a court house and a large military garrison. The eastern part of the city was built later and acted as the commercial center of the Atil, and had many public baths and shops. Between them was an island on which stood the palaces of the Khazar Khagan and Bek. The island was connected to one of the other parts of the city by a pontoon bridge.
According to Arab sources of the 10th century, one half of the city was referred to as Atil, while the other was named Khazaran.
Atil was a multi-ethnic and religiously diverse city, inhabited by Jews, Christians, Muslims, Shamanists, and Pagans, many of them traders from foreign countries. All of the religious groups had their own places of worship in the city, and there were seven judges appointed to settle disputes (two Christian, two Jewish, and two Muslim judges, with a single judge for all of the Shamanists and other Pagans).
Svyatoslav I of Kiev sacked Atil in 968 or 969 CE.
Official source
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