This volume offers a handbook of sources to, and proper names of the Alans. The scattered nature of sources and their dispersion in time, space and intermediary languages may explain the lack of a comprehensive guide to ancient people, a nomadic tribe of Iranian stock, of the Eurasian steppes. The first exhaustive key to the sources to, and the proper names of the Alans. The scattered nature of sources and their dispersion in time, space and intermediary languages may explain the lack of a true comprehensive guide to this important ancient people, a nomadic tribe of Iranian stock, living from one end of the Eurasian steppes to the other. Documents from ancient up to medieval times regularly make, in a wide variety of languages, mention of the Alans.
With his Sources on the Alans Agustí Alemany now provides us for the first time with a reliable and exhaustive handbook by collecting, classifying, translating (or summarizing) all reports on the Alans written in Greek, Latin, Medieval Latin, Byzantine, Arabic, Armenian, Catalan, Georgian, Hebrew, Iranian, Mongol, Russian, Syriac and Chinese languages.
The volume will also be frequently used as an Onomasticon. With time tables and indices on authors and passages. A reference work in the truest sense.