Alan

The Alans were an Iranian-speaking Sarmatian people who dominated the Pontic-Caspian steppe from the first century. Fourth-century Hunnic attacks split them: one branch rode west with the Vandals as far as North Africa, while others settled the Caucasus foothills.

In the late ninth century they threw off Khazar rule and built Alania, with its capital at Maghas; early tenth-century Byzantine missionaries converted them to Eastern Orthodoxy. Alania grew rich on the Darial trade, and in 1187 Georgia's Queen Tamar married an Alan prince.

Early in the thirteenth century it fragmented into clans; in 1239 to 1240 the Mongols stormed Maghas and carried off thousands of horsemen as imperial guards as far as China, while another band fled to Hungary. In 1337 Alan communities still held the Caucasus foothills, but Timur's 1395 invasion broke their lowland power and drove survivors into gorges, where they became the Ossetians.