Alans/Ases on a Medieval Chinese Map
The purpose of this study is a new historiographical presentation of the medieval Chinese geographical map and the information about the Alans contained in it. The map was introduced into European historiography in 1863 by Archimandrite Palladius. Fourteen years later E.V. Bretschneider presented a detailed publication of the map along with comments on the names indicated on it. However, despite the fact that over the past century and a half the publication of E.V. Bretschneider has been reprinted repeatedly, including in 2018, the information presented in it and description of it have not been subjected to critical analysis. The latter circumstances suggest the relevance of a new historiographical representation of the map and its description. It was found that the map correctly conveys the relative position of the locations indicated on it. At the same time, E.V. Bretschneider was probably inaccurate in his assumption about the scale of the map, indicating it to be 100 li for one division of its coordinate grid. Based on the analysis of the relative positions of some names on the map and their real locations, it can be assumed that its scale should be 200 li. In addition, the map as a whole correctly conveys the names of the locations indicated on it, in particular, the people of the Alans/Ases. The use of two names to designate this people on the map and in the treatise «Lands of the North-West» in the official «History of the Yuan [dynasty]» leaves no doubt that the medieval Chinese and Mongols under the names Alans/Ases meant the same people. The study was carried out using the method of comparative historical analysis, the inductive method, as well as systemic chronological and retrospective analytical methods.