Turkomen
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Turkomen (Turkoman) is a term used to identify Turkic speaking nomadic peoples, such the Pechengs and Seljuk Turks, who occupied most of the Great Eurasian Steppes by 1000 A.D. after the Huns pushed Indo-Iranian dialect tribes such as the Samaritans and Sogdians from the plains. Turkomen is a distinctive term used to identify nomadic Turkic speaking people from other settled Turkic speaking people.
[edit] Turkomen Society
The Turkomen people organized themselves into extended kinship networks and practice pastoral herding techniques on the Great Eurasian Steppes.
[edit] Turkomen Warriors
The Ghazi Warrior Code The nomadic Turkomen's military tradition of mounted warriors who fought with a composite bow and were know for expert skirmishing on the battlefeild and their devastating ambush technigues. The skill of the Turkomen mounted warriors was realized early by the Sassanid Empire's Shahs who enlisted the horsemen as mercenaries to fight the invading Arab forces of the Abbasid Caliphate. The first encounters with the Arab forces saw were against Turkomen warriors who wore a leather scaled armor but the mounted warriors would later adopt the metal armor of the Chinese and Abbasid Empires that were connected by the Silk Roads through the Great Eurasian Steppes. Although originally employed to fight the invading Arabs the Abbasid Caliphate would later use the horsement as mercenaries against the Fatimid and Buyid Caliphates leading to the eventual usurption of the Abbasid Caliph by Tugrul Beg, a Seljug Turk, who would create the Seljug Sultanate.
