Heraclius planned to take Persia in a pincer, himself from the west through Armenia and the Göktürks from the north through the Caucasus.[1] Börü Shad’s arrival before Derbent in 627 opened the coordinated offensive.[1] He brought about forty thousand warriors from Central Asia to the siege of Tiflis. There Byzantine siege engines and Göktürk cavalry were combined for the first time.[2] He held off a Persian counter-attack. After two months Tong Yabgu withdrew to Suyab, and Börü Shad was left before the city with tens of thousands of men. After the emperor’s victory at Nineveh, Tong Yabgu came back, and he and Börü Shad entered and sacked Tiflis.[3]

The Armenian history of Movses Dasxuranci names the commander only by his rank, Šat.[4] It calls him once the nephew of the king of the north and elsewhere his son.[5] In its account of the Caucasus campaign Tiflis fell in a second siege. The king of the north left the army to Šat when he went home with the treasure.[6] The Göktürks left no record of him. The Jebu Khakan of the Armenian tradition is the ruler who was Heraclius’s ally in the war of 602 to 628. He is identified with the Yabgu Khan, that is with Tong Yabgu himself. The Khazars were still part of the Göktürk polity at that time.[7]

© Emre-E Yavuz 2026 The Caucasus campaign of the western Göktürks and Rome and the march of Heraclius into Persia, 626–630, in eight time slices. Modern map on a base of Natural Earth, after the Armenian History of the Albanians, Theophanes, Nikephoros, Sebeos and the Georgian chronicle. The stations are those the sources name; the way between them is drawn. The realms are drawn as areas: the Göktürks after the Turkic Atlas map of the civil war, Persia and Byzantium after Cliopatria (Seshat, CC BY 4.0); no source describes their borders in these years, which stand as soft edges. KhazarsCaucasian AlbaniaGeorgiaEgeria (Lazica)KurSasanian PersiaByzantium Advance guard, 626 Derbent KhazarsCaucasian AlbaniaGeorgiaAtrpatakanByzantium Šat, 626/627 Derbent Camp on the Araxes KhazarsCaucasian AlbaniaGeorgiaEgeria (Lazica)AtrpatakanArcaxByzantium Jebu Xak'an, 627Heraclius, 627 Derbent Partaw Tiflis Atsqur GeorgiaShirakGogovitHer and ZarewandAtrpatakanAsorestanGreat Zab Heraclius, 627 Tiflis Chamaetha Ganzak Nineveh Great ZabLesser ZabAsorestanAtrpatakan Heraclius, 627–628 Nineveh Dastagerd Ctesiphon AsorestanAtrpatakan Heraclius, 628 Dastagerd Ctesiphon Siazouros Barzan Ganzak KhazarsGeorgiaCaucasian AlbaniaAtrpatakan Jebu Xak'an, 628/629Šat, 628/629 Tiflis Partaw Caucasian AlbaniaArmeniaGeorgiaArcaxAtrpatakan Čorpan Tarxan, 629/630 Partaw Lake Sevan Tiflis

  1. 626 The Roman offer

    Heraclius wanted the Caucasus opened. Theophanes and Nikephoros place him in Lazica, on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, when he sought allies in the north. The Armenian History of the Albanians has him send a noble named Andre north with promises of immense treasure. Jebu Xak'an, the viceroy of the king of the north, accepted and sent about a thousand picked horse archers back with the envoy. They rode through the gates of Čoł past the Persian garrison, came down on the Kur, crossed Georgia and Egeria and swore oaths with the emperor face to face. The source takes them across the sea to the royal palace and names no place; the way between its stations is drawn.

  2. 626–627 Šat's raid

    Soon after the treaty a first raid fell on Albania at Heraclius's command. Khosrow asked the raiders at whose command they had entered his country and offered them twice what the emperor could give. For that year they went home through the same gates. Then the king of the north sent the promised army under his nephew, called Šat after his princely rank. Šat raided Albania and part of Atrpatakan and camped on the Araxes. From there the raiders demanded that Khosrow give back the Roman lands, the prisoners and the wood of the Cross. Khosrow answered that their houses had long been allied through sons and daughters, and called the emperor a slave of his. The Armenian History of the Albanians dates Šat's raid to the beginning of Khosrow's thirty-seventh year; one reckoning reads this as the summer of 626, a second as the summer of 627.

  3. 627 Before Tiflis

    Jebu Xak'an came himself with his son. The wall that the Persian kings had built between the Caucasus and the Caspian fell at the very outset, and the defenders of Partaw fled to the mountains of Arcax. The northern army then swept over Georgia and laid siege to Tiflis. Theophanes has Ziebel break through the Caspian gates into Adraigan and the emperor set out from Lazica to join him; the Georgian chronicle brings Heraclius by way of Atsqur in Upper Kartli. Before the town Ziebel kissed the emperor's neck while the Persians looked on, and Nikephoros has Heraclius set his own crown on the chieftain's head. Sahraplakan brought a thousand horsemen of the palace guard to relieve the city. The besiegers wore themselves out, and Heraclius sent his ally home for the summer. The townspeople hung a pumpkin drawn as Jebu Xak'an on the wall and drove a spear into it. One reckoning puts the meeting in 626, a second in 627, a third in 628.

  4. Sept. 627 The march to Nineveh

    Ziebel picked forty thousand men for the emperor and went back to his own land. From September Heraclius marched south with them. Sebeos traces the way through Shirak, across the Araxes at Vardanakert and through Gogovit and Her and Zarewand into Atrpatakan. The winter and the constant Persian attacks wore the northern allies down, Theophanes says, and they slipped away little by little until all had gone home. On 9 October the Roman army rested for a week in the land of Chamaetha, while the Persian general Razates reached Ganzak behind it. On 1 December Heraclius crossed the Great Zab and camped near Nineveh. On 12 December the armies met there, and Razates fell with nearly all his officers.

  5. 627–628 Dastagerd and Ctesiphon

    After the battle Heraclius crossed the Great Zab. His officer George seized the four bridges of the Lesser Zab by night, and on 23 December the army crossed them and kept Christmas in the mansions of Iesdem. The emperor destroyed the palaces of Dezeridan and Rousa, crossed the bridge of the Tornas and spent New Year's Day in the palace of Beklal. Khosrow fled from Dastagerd to Ctesiphon and crossed the Tigris. Heraclius kept the Epiphany at Dastagerd and pulled down its palaces. On 7 January he marched on and camped twelve miles from the river Narbas, which lay twelve miles from Ctesiphon; its bridges were cut, and it had no ford. Sebeos has him camp outside Ctesiphon and burn the royal palaces around the city.

  6. 628 The return to Atrpatakan

    From there Heraclius went on to Siazouros and through February burnt the villages and towns of the district. In March he spent seven days at the village of Barzan. There, Theophanes says, a Persian officer came over to him with word that Khosrow's eldest son was ready to rise against his father. Khosrow was deposed by that son, Kavadh, whom Theophanes calls Siroes, and put to death in February 628. The new king made peace with the emperor. Sebeos brings Heraclius back to Atrpatakan. The way from Barzan to Ganzak is drawn after a lost dispatch of the emperor, sent from the camp near Ganzak on 15 March.

  7. 628–629 The fall of Tiflis

    In the Armenian History of the Albanians the storm from the north came down a second time. Jebu Xak'an returned with his son Šat and laid siege to Tiflis, which no longer had brave defenders. After two months his men climbed on one another, topped the wall and killed all they found. The Persian governor and a Georgian prince were blinded for having drawn the king as a blind man, then strangled and flayed. Jebu Xak'an went home with the treasure and sent Šat with the army to the land of the Albanians. The Georgian chronicle tells it differently: Heraclius took the town after its prince Stephanos fell in a sortie, and his officer Jibghu took the citadel while the emperor marched on by way of Gardaban. One reckoning puts the fall in the spring of 629, a second soon after the accession of Kavadh in 628.

  8. 629–630 Šat in Albania

    Šat's bands fell on every canton of Albania on the same day. The catholicos of Albania, hunted through the mountains of Arcax, came at last with the nobles and their gifts to Šat's camp north of Partaw. There Šat swore by the life of his father Jebu Xak'an that the raiding would stop. His father, he said, had received the three kingdoms of the Albanians, the Lpʿinkʿ and Čoł as his royal patrimony for ever. In the second year of the Persian king Artashir the prince of the north taxed the craftsmen, the merchants and the fishers of the Kur and the Araxes after the Persian cadastre. He sent Čorpan Tarxan ahead into Armenia with about three thousand men, and a Persian army of ten thousand was destroyed on the shore of Lake Sevan. The northern army halted in the passes of Armenia, Georgia and Albania. There a message came from Jebu Xak'an to Šat: “Brigands have fallen upon me, and you shall never see my face again.”

  • Place named in a source (position as commonly identified)
  • Position disputed or approximate
  • Extent of a realm, inferred; border uncertain (soft edge)
  • Caucasian Albania and Iberia, fought over in the war (hatched)
  • Movement named in a source (route drawn)
  • Route between the stations a source names (way inferred)
  • Route after a modern reconstruction
The Caucasus campaign of the western Göktürks and Rome and the march of Heraclius into Persia, 626–630, in eight time slices. Modern map on a base of Natural Earth, after the Armenian History of the Albanians, Theophanes, Nikephoros, Sebeos and the Georgian chronicle. The stations are those the sources name; the way between them is drawn. The realms are drawn as areas: the Göktürks after the Turkic Atlas map of the civil war, Persia and Byzantium after Cliopatria (Seshat, CC BY 4.0); no source describes their borders in these years, which stand as soft edges.

References

  1. ^ a b Yavuz 2025, p. 361
  2. ^ Yavuz 2025, p. 368
  3. ^ Yavuz 2025, p. 370
  4. ^ Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, p. 88
  5. ^ Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, p. 95
  6. ^ Movsēs Dasxurancʿi; Dowsett 1961, p. 94-95
  7. ^ Golden 1992

Sources

Literature

  • Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
  • Peter B. Golden, An Introduction to the History of the Turkic Peoples (1992)
  • Charles J. F. Dowsett (trans.), The History of the Caucasian Albanians by Movsēs Dasxuranci (1961)

Related

What links here18

Persons
Börü Khan · Chorpan Tarkhan · Heraclius · Tong Yabgu
States
Byzantium · Khazar Khaganate · Sasanian Persia · Western Göktürk Khaganate
Conflicts
Göktürk Expansion along the Silk Road · Göktürk Expansion into Europe · The Caucasus campaign, 627–629
Battles & Events
Battle of Lake Sevan (629–630) · Meeting of Heraclius and Ziebel (627) · Siege of Tiflis (627–629) · The Göktürk–Byzantine alliance
Places
Derbent · Tiflis
Institutions and Titles
Shad

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Börü Shad.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/persons/boru-shad/

Last revised: 8 November 2026