Godina izdanja: Ostalo
ISBN: Ostalo
Jezik: Ruski
Autor: Strani

Transoxiana history and culture
zbornik radova na ruskom i engleskom jeziku - istorija, arheologija, arhitektura, istorija religije, ..
Taškent 2004
tvrd povez
441 strana
25 cm
odlično očuvano

Transoxiana / Sogdia / Sogdiana

An ancient and fairly amorphous region, this was the home to one of the oldest series of states in Central Asia and was situated in and around the river basin of the lower Amu Darya (the River Oxus) where it empties into the Aral Sea, and north-eastern Persia. Its territory varied greatly depending on who was ruling it, but at its height it stretched into most of Afghanistan, eastern Persia, central Turkmenistan and southern Kyrgyzstan, plus central and southern Uzbekistan and all of Tajikistan (which together made up the core of ancient Transoxiana). The name now belongs to a province in modern Iran and a region in north-western Uzbekistan.

Transoxiana, the crossroads between Central Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East, was located around the southern coast of the Aral Sea, and in the cities of Bukhara and Samarkand. The earliest known rulers in the region, when it was known as Sogdia or Sogdiana, to differentiate it from the neighbouring Bactria, are placed in the 600s BC, shortly before the warlike tribe of the Massagetae were recorded as bordering the area to the north in 530 BC. Then it was conquered by the Persians, and for the most part remained governed by them until the tenth century AD.

Sogdiana, or Sogdia, bordered ancient Scythia, separated from it by the River Tanais (otherwise known as the Iaxartes or Syr Darya).

(Additional information by Edward Dawson, from Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus: Books 11-12, Volume 1, Marcus Junianus Justinus, John Yardley, & Waldemar Heckel, and from External Links: the Ancient History Encyclopaedia, and Zoroastrian Heritage, K E Eduljee, and Talessman`s Atlas (World History Maps).)


c.2200 - 1700 BC


An indigenous Bronze Age culture emerges in Central Asia between modern Turkmenistan and down towards the Oxus, the somewhat nebulous region known as Transoxiana. It is known as the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex, or Oxus Civilisation, and Indo-European tribes who have not taken part in the exodus to the west or south soon integrate themselves into it. In fact, these Indo-Europeans seem to remain in the old homeland to the north of the Black Sea and Caspian Sea longer than other Indo-European groups, at least partially generating the Sintashta and Andronovo cultures to the east. It may be this Oxus culture, or a neighbouring Indo-European group which feeds off its progressive nature, that forms the `spiral cities` of the Kazakhstan steppe.

Climate change from around 2000 BC onwards greatly affects this civilisation, denuding it of water as the rains decline. The people are forced to migrate southwards, with some groups penetrating into central Anatolia as the Hittites, who conquer already settled Indo-European peoples over the course of a century, and the Kaskans. Other groups cross the Afghan rivers and the Hindu Kush mountains and enter India between 1700-1500 BC.