Caucasian Albania
Caucasian Albania is a modern exonym for a former state located in ancient times in the Caucasus, mostly in what is now Azerbaijan (where both of its capitals were located). The modern endonyms for the area are Aghwank and Aluank, among the Udi people, who regard themselves as descended from the inhabitants of Caucasian Albania. However, its original endonym is unknown.
Caucasian Albania | |
|---|---|
| 2nd century BC – 8th century AD | |
Caucasian Albania in the 5th and 6th centuries | |
| Status | Initial state/s unknown; later vassal kingdom and province of the Sasanian Empire and the Rashidun, Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates |
| Capital | Kabalak (Qabala); Partaw (Barda) |
| Common languages | Caucasian Albanian, Parthian, Middle Persian, Armenian |
| Religion | Paganism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism |
| Historical era | Antiquity |
• Established | 2nd century BC |
• Disestablished | 8th century AD |
| Today part of | Azerbaijan Russia Georgia Armenia |
The name Albania is derived from the Ancient Greek name Ἀλβανία and Latin Albanía. The prefix "Caucasian" is used purely to avoid confusion with modern Albania of the Balkans, which has no known geographical or historical connections to Caucasian Albania. Little is known of the region's prehistory, including the origins of Caucasian Albania as a geographical and/or ethnolinguistic concept. In the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD, the area south of the Greater Caucasus and north of the Lesser Caucasus was divided between Caucasian Albania in the east, Caucasian Iberia in the center, Kolchis in the west, Armenia in the southwest and Atropatene to the southeast.
In 252, Caucasian Albania acknowledged the suzerainty of the Sasanian Empire, appearing among its provinces in Shapur I's inscription at the Ka'ba-ye Zartosht. The kingdom would remain an integral part of the empire until its fall. By the end of the 3rd-century, the kings of Caucasian Albania were replaced with an Arsacid family, and would later be succeeded by another Iranian royal family in the 5th century AD, the Mihranids.