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13 A HISTORY OF SHARVAN AND DARBAND
A.D. one of the languages of Albania (that of the Gargar-s near Partav)1
was reduced to writing by the Armenian clergy who had converted the
Albanians to Christianity in its Armenian form. According to Moses of
Khoren, III, ch. 54, this Albanian language was "guttural, rude, barbaric
and generally uncouth". The forgotten alphabet, the table of which
was found by the Georgian Prof. Shanidze in 1938, consisted of fifty-two
characters reflecting the wealth of Albanian phonetics,2 The Arab
geographers of the tenth century still refer to the "Ranian" language
as spoken in Barda'a.3 At present, the language of the Udi, surviving
in two villages of Shakki, is considered as the last offshoot of Albanian.4
Living as they did on open plains, the Albanians were accessible to
the penetration of their neighbours and, at an early date, lived in a state
of dependence on the Persian Empire and the Armenians. In 359 the
Albanian king Urnayr took part in the siege of Amid by the Sasanian
Shapur II. In 461 the rebel king Vach'e lost his throne and the country
was apparently taken over by the direct Persian administration. Even
under the Sasanians Sharvan, Layzan and other principalities of the
northern bank of the Kur were completely separated from Arran.
Towards the end of the sixth century a new dynasty, issued from a
Mihran5 sprang up in Arran and was soon converted to Christianity,
1 Besides the Gargars (whose name has survived in that of a river flowing south
of Barda'a) we know of several other tribes in the northern zone near the Caucasian
range. Pliny, n.h., 6, 10, n, mentions Silvi and Lupenii (in Armenian Chttb and
Lip*in). The eastern ward of the borough of Jar (north-eastern Kakhetia), now
called Tsilban, may have preserved the name of the former. In Baladhuri, 194,
sadd ctl-l.b.n ought to be translated perhaps not as "a wall of sun-baked bricks"
but rather as "the wall of the *Libin (Lip*m-k*)", as confirmed by I. Khurdadhbih,
123, who, among the Caucasian passes, refers to Bab L.ban-shah (sic). On the
possible connection of Lip*in and Fllcm see below p. 101, n. i.
2 A. Shanidze, 'The newly discovered alphabet of the Caucasian Albanians',
Tbilisi 1938 (in Russian with a Georgian and a French resume) describes also seven
epigraphic documents presumably in Albanian. According to the Vestnik Ak,
nauk S.S.S.R., 1949, No. 7, p. 98: "some Albanian inscriptions were found in 1948
for the first time on the territory of (the Soviet) Azarbayjan". These fragments
of lapidary inscriptions have come to light during the building of the Mingechaur
dam.
3 One of the MSS. of Istakhri, EGA, IV, 405, refers to it as sahla "easy", which
seems to be a mistake.
4 In particular, it can be the remnant of the speech of the ancient Utii. N. S.
Trubetskoy in ZDMG, 1930, p. *iii, expressed the opinion that the Chechen,
Lak (Qumukh) and TJdi form a group issued originally from the ancient Aeyoi
(*Aijyat, cf. Strabo, XI, 5, i, Arm. Lek-k*), To them he opposes the Andi-Avar-
Samur group consisting of putative descendants of the ancient Albanians. This
second group, according to Troubetskoy, seems to have infiltrated into the Lek-Lah
territory and broken its unity.
5 The family of Mihran (of Rhages, Rayy) was of Parthian origin. The famous
pretender Bahrain Chubin belonged to it.