Khamkhi (Ingush: Хамхе, romanized: Khamkhe) is an ancient city-settlement in Dzheyrakhsky District of Ingushetia. It is part of the rural settlement of Guli (administrative center rural settlement).

On the territory of the city-settlement there is an architectural complex "Khamkhi", represented by many historical objects: megalithic cyclopean tower-type dwellings, 4 combat towers, 4 semi-combat and 16 residential towers, as well as 10 crypt burial grounds. Currently, these objects of Ingush architecture and the entire territory of the settlement are included in the Dzheyrakh-Assa Museum-Reserve and are under state protection.

Geography

Khamkhi is located in Mountainous Ingushetia, on the left bank of the Assa river, on the territory of the historical region "Khyakhale" (from the Ingush "three-town"), being one of its three largest ancient cities-settlements.

History

On the territory of Khamkhi, the remains of megalithic cyclopean dwellings dating back to the 2nd-1st millennium BC were recorded. It is here that scientists localized the ancient ethnonym Khamekits, mentioned by the ancient historian and geographer Strabo (transcribing the words "Khamekits" and "Khamkheti" as the "Country of Khamkhs").

In the late Middle Ages, Khamkhi was territorially part of the Khamkhin society as its center. The settlement is ancestral home for the following Ingush teips: Khamkhoevs, Izmailovs, Bekbuzarovs, Martazanovs, Katsievs, Adzhievs, Matsievs, Umarovs, Bersanovs, Fatkhilgovs, Kadievs.

In the second half of the 18th century (1770s), the German researcher J.A. Güldenstädt indicated Targim among the total number of Ingush villages and districts. Khamkhi was mentioned as an Ingush village in 1823 by S. M. Bronevskiy [ru].