In the 4th/10th century, the Persians, the Georgians and the Arabs referred to this people by the name ‘Kashak’ (Akiner, 231). Al-Masʿūdī (p. 287) and Ibn al-Wardī (p. 47) refer to the Kashak when they speak of those living in the northern Caucasus. ‘Kashak’ seems to have been a Georgian name derived from ‘Kasogi’ in Ossete (Ossetian). The Turks called them ‘Cherkas’, a name which has been prevalent since the 7th/13th century: originally it did not desig…