Tamta's World
The Life and Encounters of a Medieval Noblewoman from the Middle East to Mongolia

The compelling story of a thirteenth-century Christian noblewoman ransomed to the family of Saladin, and made a ruler by the Mongols.

Antony Eastmond (Author)

9781107167568, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 20 April 2017

460 pages, 158 b/w illus. 6 maps
25.3 x 18 x 2.7 cm, 1.11 kg

'… the volume is superbly illustrated: much can and should be learnt about Tamta’s world simply by examining the plates in the light of Eastmond’s highly knowledgeable and thoroughly comprehensible commentary.' David Morgan, The Times Literary Supplement

This book tells the compelling story of a Christian noblewoman named Tamta in the thirteenth century. Born to an Armenian family at the court of queen Tamar of Georgia, she was ransomed in marriage to nephews of Saladin after her father was captured during a siege. She was later raped and then married by the Khwarazmshah and held hostage by the Mongols, before being made an independent ruler under them in eastern Anatolia. Her tale stretches from the Mediterranean to Mongolia and reveals the extraordinary connections across continents and cultures that one woman could experience. Without a voice of her own, surviving monuments - monasteries and mosques, caravanserais and palaces - build up a picture of Tamta's world and the roles women played in it. The book explores how women's identities changed between different courts, with shifting languages, religions and cultures, and between their roles as daughters, wives, mothers and widows.

1. A new world of encounters: the life of Tamta Mqargrdzeli
2. Tamta's origins: the world of the Mqargrdzelis
3. Tamta, Ivane and Akhlat in 1210
4. Al-Awhad and Tamta's first marriage
5. Women and power
6. Akhlat: identity and life in the medieval city
7. Tamta: Ayyubid wife of al-Ashraf Musa
8. Tamta: a Christian at the Ayyubid court
9. Tamta at court
10. Akhlat, builders and buildings
11. Tamta and the Khwarazmians
12. Tamta and the Mongols
13. Tamta as ruler of Akhlat
14. Afterlife.

Subject Areas: History of other lands [HBJQ], History [HB], True stories [BT]