An exam paper says: «Typical of the end of the 30s of the 13th century». The options give events of 1230, 1238, 1330 and 1340. The task tests reading time more than knowing an event. And how do historians know the past at all — the millennia without writing from stone tools, the Middle Ages from inscriptions dated by the hijri calendar, a people’s memory from its epics? This lesson is the key to the whole course: what history studies, how the past is divided into stages, what kinds of sources exist and how years are counted.
What does history study?
History is the science that studies the past of human society on the basis of sources. It asks not only «what happened?» but also «why did it happen and what did it lead to?», tracing the links between causes and results. The Greek writer Herodotus, who lived in the 5th century BC, is called «the father of history»; his word historia means «inquiry, learning by asking». History is therefore not a story to memorise but an investigation built on evidence.
The history of Azerbaijan studies the past of the Azerbaijani people and of the lands they live in — Northern and Southern Azerbaijan — from the earliest times to the present. One of the first serious scholarly works in this field is «Gulustani-Iram», completed by Abbasgulu agha Bakikhanov in 1841: he told the history of Shirvan and Dagestan in chronological order, checking different sources against each other. Studying history also has a practical use: a society that knows the mistakes of the past tries not to repeat them.
PrehistoryDefinition
The period before the invention of writing. Our knowledge of it comes mainly from archaeological finds. The first groups of humans appeared on the territory of Azerbaijan about 2 million years ago.
The main stages of historical development
Textbooks divide the development of human society into four great stages: primitive society, slave-owning society, feudalism and capitalism. This division rests on how society was organised — who owned the land, the tools and the labour. Development did not happen everywhere at the same time: when the first states arose in Western Asia, many parts of the world still lived in primitive communities. Historians therefore also divide the time line by great turning points.
| Period | Approximate limits | Starting point | Azerbaijani events that fall in this time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primitive community (prehistory) | from the first humans to the late 4th millennium BC | the appearance of the first human groups | the first human groups (c. 2 million years ago), Azykh Cave |
| Antiquity | late 4th millennium BC – AD 476 | the invention of writing (Mesopotamia, Egypt) | Manna, Atropatene, Caucasian Albania |
| Middle Ages | 476 – late 15th century | the fall of the Western Roman Empire | the Shirvanshah state is founded (861) |
| Early modern and modern period | late 15th century – 1918 | the Great Geographical Discoveries | the Safavid state (1501), the khanates |
| Contemporary period | 1918 – today | the end of the First World War | the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (1918), independence restored (1991) |
- c. 2 million years ago
First human groups in Azerbaijan
Prehistory: the primitive community begins.
- late 4th millennium BC
Writing appears
The first writing systems in Mesopotamia and Egypt mark the start of Antiquity.
- 776 BC
The first Olympic Games
The Greeks later counted years by Olympiads.
- 753 BC
The legendary founding of Rome
Romans counted years «from the founding of the city».
- 5th century BC
Herodotus writes his «Histories»
Herodotus is called «the father of history».
- 476
Fall of the Western Roman Empire
Taken as the end of Antiquity and the start of the Middle Ages.
- 622
The Hijra: start of the hijri calendar
The Prophet Muhammad moves from Mecca to Medina.
- 1258
The Mongols take Baghdad
The sources date it to the hijri year 656.
- 1492
Columbus reaches America
The Great Discoveries: a conventional start of the modern period.
- 1841
Bakikhanov completes «Gulustani-Iram»
A. Bakikhanov’s history of Shirvan and Dagestan.
- 1918
The First World War ends
A conventional start of the contemporary period; the same year the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic is founded.
Historical sources and auxiliary sciences
A historical source is anything that lets us study the past: a tool, a building, a coin, an inscription, a document, an epic, a photograph. By the time they were made, sources fall into two groups. A primary source was created in the period being studied — a ruler’s inscription, say, or a dagger from a grave. A secondary source was written later on the basis of primary ones — a historian’s book or a textbook. Sources also differ by kind:
| Kind of source | What it includes | Example from Azerbaijan |
|---|---|---|
| Material (archaeological) | tools, weapons, ornaments and household objects, buildings, graves | stone tools from Azykh Cave, the Gobustan rock carvings, bronze objects from burial mounds |
| Written | stone inscriptions, coins, chronicles, books, archive documents, newspapers and letters | Assyrian and Urartian cuneiform inscriptions; the Latin inscription of a Roman legion at Gobustan; the Albanian palimpsest; «Gulustani-Iram» |
| Oral | epics, legends, tales, bayati verses, proverbs — later written down | «The Book of Dede Korkut», «Koroghlu» |
| Ethnographic | customs, rituals, clothing, food, everyday life | Novruz rituals, carpet-weaving traditions, wedding customs |
| Linguistic | place names (toponyms), personal and tribal names, the origin of words | old words preserved in the names of rivers, mountains and villages |
| Audio-visual | paintings, photographs, films, sound recordings | photographs and newsreels of the 20th century |
Each kind of source is studied by its own auxiliary historical science. Archaeology (from Greek archaios, ancient, and logos, science) studies material culture through excavation; epigraphy studies writing on stone, metal and other hard materials — inscriptions; numismatics studies coins; palaeography studies old manuscripts and how scripts changed; ethnography (from ethnos, people) studies the everyday life and customs of peoples; chronology (from chronos, time) studies the reckoning of time and the order of events. Writing itself developed: first pictographic (picture) writing, then ideographic (idea) writing, and later alphabetic writing. Archaeological dating methods are explained in «Sources and historiography: how historians verify facts».
Interactive
When I began to write the past of my homeland, I saw that there was no ready and complete chronicle. So I read the works of Arab and Persian authors, the chronicles of neighbouring peoples and the books of Russian and European scholars.
Where the reports contradicted each other, I compared them with old coins, with writings on stones and with the traditions living among the people, and set aside what was not convincing. I wrote the history of the lands of Shirvan and Dagestan, from the most ancient times to the Peace of Gulistan concluded between Russia and Iran, in the order of events and in Persian.
Source tasks
Problem
1. Identify the author and the work. Which clues did you use?
2. Why did the author check written reports against coins and inscriptions? Give two reasons.
3. Infer two results not stated in the text: what did this way of working give to the historical scholarship of Azerbaijan?
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Solution
2. Reasons: a) writers could contradict each other or distort events to praise a ruler; b) a coin or an inscription is a primary source made at the time of the event and carries a ruler’s name and a date. Marks: two reasons — 1; one reason — ½.
3. Results (examples): a) comparing sources — source criticism — became the basis of a scholarly approach in Azerbaijani historiography; b) coins and inscriptions (numismatics, epigraphy) came into focus as important sources; c) the work itself became one of the main sources for later historians. Marks: two well-founded results not in the text — 1; one result — ½; repeating the text — 0.
Counting years: BC, AD and the hijri calendar
There is no history without chronology: unless an event is placed in time, its causes and results cannot be understood. Ancient peoples counted years from different starting points: the Greeks from the first Olympic Games (776 BC), the Romans from the legendary founding of Rome (753 BC). The widely used Christian era counts years from the traditional date of the birth of Jesus. Years after it are AD (our era), years before it BC. BC years run backwards and there is no year zero: 1 BC is followed directly by AD 1.
Most medieval Azerbaijani inscriptions, coins and chronicles are dated by the hijri calendar. It starts from the Prophet Muhammad’s move from Mecca to Medina — the Hijra (622). The hijri calendar is lunar: its year is about 11 days shorter than the solar year, so 33 hijri years are roughly 32 Gregorian years. Two formulas are enough for an approximate conversion (G — Gregorian year, H — hijri year):
G ≈ H − H : 33 + 622
H ≈ (G − 622) + (G − 622) : 32
| Unit or rule | What it says | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Century | 100 years; half a century — 50 years, a quarter — 25 years | 13th century — 1201–1300 |
| Millennium | 1000 years (10 centuries) | 4th millennium BC — 4000–3001 BC |
| Finding the century of a year | drop the last two digits and add 1; if the year ends in 00, do not add 1 | 1236 → 13th century; 1300 → 13th century; 331 BC → 4th century BC |
| Time between two BC dates | subtract the smaller number from the larger | 776 BC – 753 BC: 776 − 753 = 23 years |
| Time between a BC and an AD date | add the numbers and subtract 1 (there is no year zero) | 53 BC – AD 476: 53 + 476 − 1 = 528 years |
How to read DİM period phrases
Test items often give a date not as a number but as a phrase: «first quarter of the 13th century», «second half of the 5th century BC», «late 4th millennium BC». A student who can turn these into years discards half of the options at once. In our era time runs from smaller numbers to larger ones; in the BC era it is mirrored: the beginning of a century has the larger numbers.
| Phrase | AD (13th century) | BC (5th century BC) |
|---|---|---|
| century | 1201–1300 | 500–401 BC |
| first half | 1201–1250 | 500–451 BC |
| second half | 1251–1300 | 450–401 BC |
| first quarter | 1201–1225 | 500–476 BC |
| second quarter | 1226–1250 | 475–451 BC |
| third quarter | 1251–1275 | 450–426 BC |
| fourth quarter | 1276–1300 | 425–401 BC |
| beginning / middle / end | c. 1201–1230 / 1240–1260 / 1270–1300 | c. 500–470 / 460–440 / 430–401 BC |
| the 30s | 1230–1239 | 439–430 BC |
| end of the 30s | c. 1237–1239 | c. 432–430 BC |
1. Identifying the period (closed, 5 options)
Problem
Choose the year that fits «the first quarter of the 14th century»:
A) 1299 B) 1324 C) 1326 D) 1350 E) 1401
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Solution
2) First quarter = 1301–1325 → C (1326, first year of the second quarter) and D (1350, last year of the second quarter) are out.
Answer: B (1324).
2. Combination: material sources
Problem
Which are material sources?
1. a stone chopper from Azykh Cave
2. an Assyrian king’s cuneiform inscription on stone
3. a clay vessel from Kultepe
4. «The Book of Dede Korkut»
5. a bronze dagger from a burial mound
A) 1, 2, 4 B) 2, 3 C) 1, 3, 5 D) 3, 4, 5 E) 1, 5
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Solution
2) Item 2 is carved in stone but gives its information as text → it is a written source (the trap!).
3) Item 4 is oral literature that was written down later.
Answer: C (1, 3, 5). Option E leaves out 3 and is incomplete.
3. Chronological order (coded answer)
Problem
Put the events in chronological order:
1. the legendary founding of Rome
2. the Hijra
3. the century in which Herodotus lived
4. the first Olympic Games
5. the fall of the Western Roman Empire
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Solution
2) Among BC dates the larger number is older; AD dates follow in increasing order.
Answer: 4, 1, 3, 5, 2.
4. Calculation: converting a hijri date
Problem
The sources date the Mongol capture of Baghdad to the hijri year 656.
a) Which Gregorian year is this, approximately?
b) Which century, half and quarter does it fall into?
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Solution
Check: H ≈ (1258 − 622) + 636 : 32 ≈ 636 + 19.9 ≈ 656 ✓.
b) 1258 → drop the last two digits (12) and add 1 → 13th century; 1251–1300 → second half; 1251–1275 → third quarter.
Remember
- History studies the past of human society on the basis of sources and explains causes and results; Herodotus is «the father of history», and A. Bakikhanov’s «Gulustani-Iram» (1841) is one of the first serious scholarly works on the history of Azerbaijan.
- Textbooks divide social development into four stages (primitive society, slave-owning society, feudalism, capitalism) and time into conventional periods: Antiquity (to 476), the Middle Ages, the modern period and the contemporary period (from 1918).
- Sources are primary or secondary; by kind they are material, written, oral, ethnographic, linguistic or audio-visual. They are studied by archaeology, epigraphy, numismatics, palaeography, ethnography and chronology.
- There is no year zero: to find the time between a BC and an AD date, add the numbers and subtract 1. A hijri year has about 354 days: G ≈ H − H : 33 + 622.
- In the BC era the «beginning» and «first half» of a century are the larger numbers: the first half of the 5th century BC = 500–451 BC; «the end of the 30s of the 13th century» is roughly 1237–1239.