Alani

Gold and cornelian earrings from a tomb in the Bruznoe necropolis at Simferopol on the Black Sea. These finely-wrought earrings belong to the Alani culture of the 3rd to 4th centuries. The Alani (or Alans) – described by the Romans as a warlike people that specialized in horse-breeding – were overwhelmed by the Huns in the late 4th century and fled westward into Gaul; many, however, went to North Africa with the Vandals. (Hermitage, St Petersburg).

A nomadic pastoral people in the ancient world, speaking an Iranian language and occupying steppe land to the northeast of the Black Sea. The Alani migrated into the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire and were mentioned in Latin literature in the 1st century. They had the reputation of being a warlike people, specializing in horse breeding, and they eventually split into two groups.

The first group moved further westwards, with other Germanic peoples, and reached what are now France, Portugal, Algeria, and Tunisia, where they joined with the Vandals. Under Gaiseric, who ruled from 428–77, they invaded Italy and captured Rome in 455. The second group moved eastwards and settled in and to the north of the Caucasus mountain range and these Alani became the ancestors of the present-day Ossetes, numbering about 600,000, whose language still has many features of Old Iranian. Christianity reached Ossetia in the 12th century, but the spread of the Mongol empire in the 13th century forced the Alani to move into the mountainous regions.