This chapter presents an overview of the corpus of Turco-Islamic inscriptions from the late seventh/thirteenth to the twelfth/ eighteenth century in Crimea, covering the Golden Horde and later Crimean Khanate periods. It also offers a short account of the history and the context of the related epigraphic research. A general survey of the extant material is followed by an investigation of the nature of these epigraphs and a closer look at some specific examples. In addition, this chapter explores what we can glean from the language and structure of the inscriptions, the selection of passages from textual sources, and what the information they convey tells us about the individuals they were made for, patronage relations, and titulature. These inscriptions not only provide useful historical data but also contain much detail pointing to the larger socio-religious and cultural environment of their period. We see this chapter as an initial step towards promoting greater awareness about this material and thus facilitating its incorporation into the corpus of inscriptions of Islamic lands.

Historical context

Conquered in the mid-seventh/thirteenth century by the Mongols, the Crimean Peninsula rapidly became one of the core regions of the Golden Horde Khanate (mid-seventh/thirteenth to ninth/fifteenth century). Crimea was part of the trading routes connecting the eastern and western lands of the Chinggisid Empire; also, through its important harbours such as Sudak and Caffa (Ottoman Kefe, Russian Feodosia), it linked the northern and southern shores of the Black Sea, thus connecting Anatolia with the Northern Steppes and Central Asia. With the conversion of the Golden Horde khans and most of the population to Islam around 1300, the vast empire became part of the Islamic cultural sphere. Besides the former cultural centres in the Volga basin (where most material evidence is based on archaeological excavations) and a group of monuments in Khwarazm, the Crimean Peninsula holds the most important still-standing edifices and the sole in situ epigraphic remains of the Golden Horde period (other than an inscription on a minaret in Urgench). Together with this material, epitaphs on tombstones and cenotaphs from different historical cemeteries – particularly at the mosque-cum-madrasa in the newly founded settlement of Qirim (also known as Solkhat; now commonly referred to Eski Qirim in Crimean Tatar or Staryi Krym in Russian), a town which evolved rapidly into the administrative centre in the peninsula – bear witness to its flourishing intellectual milieu.