Eskenderov B. E. Western Provinces of Ancient Caucasian Albania, 2nd Century BC — 6th Century AD

Bedirkhan E. Eskenderov
Independent Researcher (Russia, Kaspiysk)
ORCID: 0000-0001-7556-8440
Email: b.eskenderov@mail.ru

 Download | Back to the Content № 1. 2026

UDC 94(395.6)
DOI: 10.58529/2782-6511-2026-5-1-32-39

ABSTRACT. The article is devoted to the history of Caucasian Albania, specifically its northwestern territories. Caucasian Albania has generally received little scholarly attention, primarily due to the paucity of historical materials that have survived to this day. The northwestern provinces studied in the article, namely Hereti, Movakani and Kambisena-Kambechani, even against such a meager background, stand out due to the minimum amount of information available about them. Analyzing available data presented in historiography and published sources leads, in addition to clarification of territorial boundaries, to adjustments of some milestones in the political and social history of these provinces, and to unexpected conclusions. Thus, the region of Kambisena-Kambechani may have belonged to ancient Armenia in the early stages, but later authors indicate it as a province of Caucasian Albania. However, the region of Hereti, which was originally part of Albania, at some point left the Albanian kingdom and became subject to the neighboring Georgian principality and switched to the Georgian language. But what is interesting is that the population of Hereti itself — the Hers that actually gave rise to the ethnotoponym Hereti — has survived to this day under a different name — the Ingiloys. Having lost both their language and their original culture during the course of their difficult history, they have still preserved their ethnic identity and even their own self-designation in their environment. The research revealed that their language may have also been preserved. Some written artifacts suggest that they are written in the once extinct language of the Her people.

KEYWORDS: Caucasian Albania, Hereti, Movakani, Kambisena, Hers, Ingiloys, Sinai palimpsests

For citation: Eskenderov B. E. [Western Provinces of Ancient Caucasian Albania, 2nd Century BC — 6th Century AD]. Istoriko-geograficheskiy zhurnal [Historical Geography Journal], 2026, vol. 5, no. 1, pp. 32–39. DOI: 10.58529/2782-6511-2026-5-1-32-39 (In Russian).

Received 3 March 2025
Accepted 19 September 2025

© 2026 The Author

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