Tinto Maps #18 - 13th of September 2024 - Persia & Caucasus

[GenericUsername1444]

Armenia starting as vassal to Georgia is definitely debatable. Mentions of their relationship and obligations to the Mongols leans much more towards being their vassals, rather than Georgia. Georgia broke free a decade ago, but no mention of Armenia.

I'm fairly certain Giorgi V led a pan-Caucasian uprising against the Ilkhanate with the support of the Armenian lords of the region, and he bestowed upon them their traditional hereditary titles of Amirspasalar.
I think this could be represented in-game through an International Organisation, with looser vassalage, unlike with Meskheti.

 

[Jimboiil]

Are there any playable Syriac nations? It doesn't make sense that zero tribes were effectively self governing in the ungovernable mountains in the north. Also why are Assyrians called Syriacs when Iraqis are still called Iraqis in this game?

 

[SuperLexxe]

I'm fairly certain Giorgi V led a pan-Caucasian uprising against the Ilkhanate with the support of the Armenian lords of the region, and he bestowed upon them their traditional hereditary titles of Amirspasalar.
I think this could be represented in-game through an International Organisation, with looser vassalage, unlike with Meskheti.

If you can find something about that rebellion mentioning the Armenians, I can add it on my map

 

[GenericUsername1444]

If you can find something about that rebellion mentioning the Armenians, I can add it on my map

You should ask @giorgi1999, he's evidently much more knowledgeable about Georgian history than I am.
Like I said, I think Armenia should be in an IO with Georgia, but who am I to say.

 

[Ispil]

Are there any playable Syriac nations? It doesn't make sense that zero tribes were effectively self governing in the ungovernable mountains in the north. Also why are Assyrians called Syriacs when Iraqis are still called Iraqis in this game?

Honestly I just can't find any evidence that they had full autonomy at the time. Any place that they reside, I can usually find evidence of someone else being in control.

Like, it's almost certain they they were doing their own thing, but not at the sort of "location-owning" level. Doesn't help that Timur went and tried to wipe them all out shortly after the start date.

 

[Doxapar Orumf]

Honestly I just can't find any evidence that they had full autonomy at the time. Any place that they reside, I can usually find evidence of someone else being in control.

Like, it's almost certain they they were doing their own thing, but not at the sort of "location-owning" level. Doesn't help that Timur went and tried to wipe them all out shortly after the start date.

maybe can be vassals then,or tributaries?

 

[Ispil]

maybe can be vassals then,or tributaries?

The issue is that I can't find any evidence of an actual sort of polity, rather than just "people with a lot of autonomy". The most likely candidate, Sinjar, is indicated by Ibn Battuta as being inhabited by Kurds. Cizre was ruled by Bohtan (as mentinoed before), and Bara (presuming that it's one and the same with the Dara mentioned by Ibn Battuta) is in ruins.

There's just nothing really there to point to and say "hey, we have evidence of an independent polity".

 

[Linbot#6018]

Honestly I just can't find any evidence that they had full autonomy at the time. Any place that they reside, I can usually find evidence of someone else being in control.

Like, it's almost certain they they were doing their own thing, but not at the sort of "location-owning" level. Doesn't help that Timur went and tried to wipe them all out shortly after the start date.

Would it make sense to represent them as an SOP?

 

[Ispil]

Would it make sense to represent them as an SOP?

I don't think an SoP makes sense, either. They weren't really... doing the sort of thing that SoPs tend to do. There was no overall centralization of efforts to do anything, or really any attempts to do things other than live their lives.

We're talking incredibly small religious communities living in remote communities in harsh terrain. It's not really that anything regarding their lifestyle prevented them from being participatory in whatever state happened to rule the territory in which they reside; it was more the circumstance, and (generally speaking) the hostility of the states that tended to surround them.

I honestly think just having those pops belong to whatever state that owns the location, plus the usual blows to control due to harsh terrain and the like, is sufficient to represent them. Ideally (in the mod that I plan on making regarding religion) there'd be a building-based country representing the actual structure of the Church of the East (something that I want to do for every church, mind you, when applicable).

 

[uncle sia]

Well it mostly sounds about right which is honestly surprising given usual pdx attention to persia, i only have some minor issues:
1. Why is the area between andika and andimeshk somaleh instead of gotvand?
2. The small size of aligudarz(yes it has a z at the end)and also not including azna as its own location
3. The demographics of khuzesan isnt right, the major urban centers such as shushtar, shush, dezful, behbahan, ramhormorz and even ahvaz(whats left of it in this date anyways)are predominantly not either lur or arab bu persian, with some lur and arab(tho in actuality prior to safavids, arabs are sparse in khuzestan)population in them with ramhormoz and behbahan having a big lur presence(although the latter is mostly based off safavid era stuff and honestly they could just be persians at this date)
4. Very nice job at including iranian adhari but imo the inclusion of turkic azeri isnt right at this date bc the area was still predominantly iranian adhari rather than turkic with considerable turkmen minority being present in some cities and also some of the countryside, the mass turkification of azarbaijan doesnt happen up until the safavid era.

 

[uncle sia]

Is Azeri supposed to be Iranian and Adhari Turkic?

Exactly the opposite

 

[uncle sia]

Where are Qashqai people of Fars? They migrated around Seljuk era to Fars so they definitelly should be present in 1337.
View attachment 1187148

Also, the region between Georgian and Shirvan should have some Udi or Tsakhur culture, original inhabitants of Caucasian Albania related to Lezgin
View attachment 1187151

Too early for qashqais by some centuries, they are a result of qizilbash rule and resettlement

 

[uncle sia]

A lot of inaccuracies. There is almost no distinction between Khorasanis and Tajiks. Tajiks are just Persian speakers from Afghanistan, Tajikistan and parts of modern day Uzbekistan (Samarqand and Bukhara and other regions within the country) and this region was called Khorasan.
The Khwarizmian culture is highly inaccurate, it should only be present in Khwarizm region (Near the Aral sea) to a very small extent as most of them were wiped out by the mongol invaders in the 1210s and were replaced by Turks.

Transoxiania's major centers like Samarkand and Bukhara and most of its rural areas as well should instead be majority Persian speaking people (Tajik, even tho I suggest you change it to Khorasani), and there isn't a single credible historian in the world that disagrees with this.

Also do note that there was a small Jewish presence in Bukhara (Bukharan Jews) who spoke Persian.


Even to this day, Samarkand and Bukhara are majority Tajik and I am saying this as someone who has relatives in Samarkand and Bukhara. (I am from Afghanistan)
Here's a quote from a historian on the importance of the Persian (the language of Tajiks who are the only Persian speakers in Transoxiania) in Transoxiania (under chagatai khanate)

''Black, Edwin (1991). The Modernization of Inner Asia. M.E. Sharpe. pp. 32–33. The administrative and bureaucratic language of towns and khanates was Persian. Whereas Persian was the dominant literary language of the area, Chagatai shared its distinction by being the only Turkic literary language in Central Asia from the fourteenth to the early twentieth century.''

If Persian was the dominant language of the area, it means that the Persian speakers (Tajiks) were the dominant people of the area.
Even to this day, Tajiks are majority in Samarkand and Bukhara.

''Even so, one has merely to spend a few moments on the streets of Samarkandor Bukhara – the country’s second and third largest cities – to realize that mostpassers-by are speaking amongst themselves in Tojikī, not Uzbek.''
Reference : A History of the Tajiks: Iranians of the East, page 11, Richard Foltz


I would also point it the fact that the Afghan culture (which should be replaced by Pakhtun/Pashtun culture) wasn't as dominant in 1337 as shown on the map. Places like Farah province and Zaranj wouldn't and has never been majority Pashtun (Could argue with Farah city as it is half Tajik, half Pashtun today). If you look at the demographics of the Farah province, 70% of its population speak Persian/Dari and only 30% Pashtu. So this proves only 30% of Farah province is Pashtun. (Pashtun immigration to the north of modern day Afghanistan started in the 19th century)

File:Map of Languages (in Districts) in Afghanistan.jpg - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Source is from the 1985 central statistics office of Afghanistan
Here's a map of the languages of Afghanistan in each district. Dari or Persian Dari is the mother tongue of the Tajiks and Hazaras. So Hazaras would be majority in Bamyian and surrounding areas.

Do note that the migration of Turkic peoples from northern and eastern Central Asia to Transoxania and Afghanistan was a gradual event that took several centuries. Therefore, there were no major Turkic cities in modern Afghanistan in 1337.

Here is a map that better shows the region where the Hazaras live (they also live in the big cities like Kabul, Herat and Mazar-e-Sharif, but they are in the minority):
View attachment 1187916

You have shown Ghor province as being majority Hazara, again that is factually incorrect. Ghor province (the origin place of the Ghurids who were Tajiks/Khorasanis and Kartids were related to Ghurids) was and still is majority Tajik with around 40% of it being Hazaras in the East.

Please do take this into consideration and correct the inaccuracies.
Thank you for taking the time to read this the comment.

Imo tajik, persian and khorasani should all be one single culture

 

[Ispil]

Also, why on earth is all of Transoxiana Sunni without any religious minority? The Chaghatai Khanate converted to Islam only in 1326, and it didn't even stick! Merv is the seat of a Christian archbishopric, and in two years you have the execution of six Franciscan friars in Almaliq.

Per my suggestion above, the top-level rule of the Chaghatai Khanate should be Sunni (as should the state), but most of their subjects are either Tengri or Buddhist. The Barlas are a notable exception.

To update on this, I'd say going off of this book, Transoxiana should be lacking in Nestorians in general. Merv I suppose might be an exception, but I'm rather lacking in any details that I can find at the moment (too many PDFs locked behind paywalls).

 

[Ispil]

To update on this, I'd say going off of this book, Transoxiana should be lacking in Nestorians in general. Merv I suppose might be an exception, but I'm rather lacking in any details that I can find at the moment (too many PDFs locked behind paywalls).

Alright this book is wrong. Managed to get a hold of "NESTORIAN CHRISTIANITY IN CENTRAL ASIA".

("At the time" is 1291, for context)

So some amount of Nestorian (and Catholic, evidently) minorities that are rapidly on their way out. Transoxiana should be more Muslim than East Turkestan (a majority in 1337 should be Sunni, with significant Tengri minorities and minor Nestorian/Catholic minorities), which should be more Tengri with some Buddhism as well.

Basically, the further east you go, the less Muslim the population should be, though it is certainly spreading at this time.

 

[Linbot#6018]

Imo tajik, persian and khorasani should all be one single culture

Especially since there are multiple examples of Persianate empires forming that ruled over both Iran and Central Asia. In general, I don't really see any strong argument for making these all different cultures, and many reasons for them to be unified.

 

[arkh4ngelsk]

Since there's been discussion of it I thought I'd take a crack at trying to reduce the wastelands in Turkmenistan a bit. I'll divide this into two parts, one that I'm much more confident about and one that's much more uncertain. First, the area around Merv oasis:

These location names are from the UNESCO World Heritage tentative list for Turkmenistan: https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5521/

First, Khurmuzfarra. It's located approximately 31 km north of Merv at the modern site of Uly Kishman, and is described an important trade link between Merv and Khorezm, suggesting that a corridor linking it to the north might be useful. It was apparently recorded as existingas early as the 10th century and up to the 15th century, so it would fit into 1337.

Second, Geok-Gumbez. Unlike Khurmuzfarra, there's not a clear modern location given that corresponds to it, but it was apparently 70 km north of Merv and on the route connecting Merv to Amul, which is what determined my placement. The description given suggests it was inhabited in the 14th century.

There are other locations given; however, these are either described as abandoned by 1337 or no date is given, so I did not include them.

Next, the area along the Caspian Sea coast:

I'm much less confident about these locations, and relying mainly on Wikipedia. It's not clear to me if Cheleken as a name dates back to 1337, but the Wikipedia articles for the city of Hazar and the Cheleken Peninsula suggest it was in use within Project Caesar's timeline (at least by 1715), and also that it was inhabited during the game's timeline (also during the 18th century). This travel website suggests it was settled by the Turkmen Ogurjaly tribe during the 14th century, though I'm not sure how reliable of a source it is.

Since Cheleken probably shouldn't be a totally isolated location, I added Uly Balkan from the mountain range (could alternatively just be called Balkan) to the east of it. I can't find any clear evidence that it was inhabited during Project Caesar's timeline, but it is habitable (one of Turkmenistan's larger cities, Balkanabat, is located there).

As stated, I know this isn't particularly strong evidence, but it would definitely help break up the wasteland along the eastern Caspian Sea coast that a lot of people have commented on, and given that the Cheleken area was inhabited during the game's timeline it seems like a fair addition. It could possibly even be uncolonized at the start. That said, I wouldn't object to excluding it due to a lack of information.

 

[Ispil]

Oh, @SuperLexxe, one more suggestion and this one is an important one:

Amir Vali is a very important figure, factoring into the histories of the Jalayirids and the Sarbadars, as well as the history of Mazandaran. He would inherit Astarabad from his father and wound up battling with both the Sarbadars and Jalayirids for territory in that region.

 

[ZigTheNorweigan]

Armenia starting as vassal to Georgia is definitely debatable. Mentions of their relationship and obligations to the Mongols leans much more towards being their vassals, rather than Georgia. Georgia broke free a decade ago, but no mention of Armenia.

Will you integrate Aramenians Armenia vassal structure to your map? His post seems quite credible!

 

[ZigTheNorweigan]

This really makes it sound like Gilan should be multiple different tags.

Here is a source I found that has some info on that topic:

https://archive.org/details/Rabino19181920Gilan/page/n1/mode/1up

What would those tags be?