# Maskut

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{{Short description|Group of tribes that lived in the eastern Caucasus}}
[[Image:Map of Persian Armenia and its surroundings.svg|thumb|300px|Map of the [Caucasus](/source/Caucasus) in the 5th-century. The Maskut lived between [Derbent](/source/Derbent) and [Shaporan](/source/Shabaran)]]
The '''Maskut''' (also known as '''Mazkut''', '''Muskur''') were a group of [Massagetae](/source/Massagetae)n-[Sarmato](/source/Sarmatians)-[Alanian](/source/Alans) tribes located in the eastern part of the [Caucasus](/source/Caucasus), along the western coast of the [Caspian Sea](/source/Caspian_Sea).{{sfn|Gadjiev|2021|pp=207–213}} They lived between [Derbent](/source/Derbent) and [Shaporan](/source/Shabaran), which corresponds to present-day northeast [Azerbaijan](/source/Azerbaijan) and southeast [Dagestan](/source/Dagestan) ([Russia](/source/Russia)). The name "Maskut" is also sometimes used to refer to a geographic area, rather than an ethnic group.{{sfn|Gadjiev|2020|p=28 (see note 3)}}{{sfn|Gadjiev|2017|p=125}} The first wave of these tribes arrived in the 3rd-century from the [Volga–Don Canal](/source/Volga%E2%80%93Don_Canal) and the northern coast of the Caspian Sea.{{sfn|Gadjiev|2021|p=209}} The modern Russian-Dagestani historian [Murtazali Gadjiev](/source/Murtazali_Gadjiev) suggests that these tribes had immigrated as a result of not only climate changes and longing to explore new regions, but as well as due to concurrent conflicts.{{sfn|Gadjiev|2021|p=210}}

The Sarmato-Alan burial sites in Dagestan between the 3rd and 5th centuries are regarded as part of the Maskut settlement. In 216, these tribes attacked [Armenia](/source/Kingdom_of_Armenia_(antiquity)), and also participated in the war between Armenia and [Sasanian Iran](/source/Sasanian_Empire) in the mid 3rd-century.{{sfn|Gadjiev|2021|p=207}} An unnamed king of the Maskut, along with other Caucasian rulers, is mentioned in the [Middle Persian](/source/Middle_Persian) [Paikuli inscription](/source/Paikuli_inscription) of the Sasanian [King of Kings](/source/King_of_Kings) (''[shah](/source/shah)anshah'') [Narseh](/source/Narseh) ({{reign|293|303}}).{{sfn|Gadjiev|2021|p=210}} In the inscription, Maskut is transliterated in Middle Persian as ''mskyt'n'' (''mas(a)kitan'' / ''mas(a)ketan'') which is identical to the [Greek](/source/Greek_language) Μασσᾰγέται and [Latin](/source/Latin) ''Massagetae''.{{sfn|Gadjiev|2021|p=210}} In the first half of the 4th-century, a second wave of Sarmato-Alanian tribes from the northwestern Caspian coast along with a group of Alans from the [North Caucasus](/source/North_Caucasus) started to migrate to Maskut.{{sfn|Gadjiev|2021|p=211}}

In {{circa|440}}, Maskut was briefly seized by the [Huns](/source/Huns) led by [Attila](/source/Attila) ({{reign|434|453}}), which is also reflected by the contemporary Armenian historian [Elishe](/source/Elishe)'s choice to refer Derbent as a "Hun fortress, "Hun garrison", and "Hun Gate." ''Shahanshah'' [Yazdegerd II](/source/Yazdegerd_II) ({{reign|438|457}}) retaliated by leading two military expeditions against the Huns in Maskut, recapturing Derbent and heavily fortifying it afterwards.{{sfn|Gadjiev|2021|pp=207, 214}}

According to the 10th-century Arab historian [al-Masudi](/source/al-Masudi) (died 956), the ''shahanshah'' [Kavad I](/source/Kavad_I) ({{reign|488|496|498/9|531}}) had a "town built of stone" in the Maskut settlement. The location of this town, however, is uncertain.{{sfn|Gadjiev|2017|pp=125–126}}

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==Sources==
* {{cite book | last = Gadjiev | first =  Murtazali |author-link=Murtazali Gadjiev | title = Construction Activities of Kavād I in Caucasian Albania | year = 2017 | pages = 121–131 | url = https://brill.com/view/journals/ic/21/2/article-p121_2.xml | publisher = Brill }}
* {{cite book |last=Gadjiev |first=Murtazali |title=From Albania to Arrān: The East Caucasus between the Ancient and Islamic Worlds (ca. 330 BCE–1000 CE) |publisher=Gorgias Press |year=2020 |isbn=978-1463239886 |editor-last=Hoyland|editor-first=Robert|pages=29–35|chapter=The Chronology of the Arsacid Albanians|url=https://www.academia.edu/43005774|url-access=registration}}
* {{cite journal |last=Gadjiev|first=Murtazali|title=Armenia and the Land of the Mazkut‘ (3rd–5th Centuries AD): Written Sources and Archaeological Data|journal=Electrum |date=2021|volume=28 |pages=207–219|url=https://www.academia.edu/49520010|url-access=registration|doi=10.4467/20800909EL.21.014.13372|doi-access=free}}

== Further reading ==
* {{cite book | last=Minorsky | first=Vladimir | author-link = Vladimir Minorsky | title = A History of Sharvān and Darband in the 10th-11th Centuries | year=1958 | publisher=W. Heffer & Sons, Ltd. | location=Cambridge }}

Category:History of Dagestan
Category:Ancient history of Azerbaijan

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Maskut](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maskut) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maskut?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.