Bactria (Archaeology)

Co-authored with Ruth Young. Simultaneously published as ‘Zentralasien 500 v. Chr.-600 n. Chr.’ In Dumont Weltatlas der Kunst, heraus. John Onians. Köln: Verlag Dumont, 2004. Reprinted in The Art Atlas, ed. John Onians. London: Laurence King, 2008.

A thesis paper presented at the Conference held on Oriental Faculty in June 2019, concerning in brevi some results of my course paper of the 3-rd year.
The course paper was devoted to the Bactrian greetings formulae and their historical meaning.

Данная книга посвящена одному из самых интересных, но недостаточно изученных пери-одов истории Бактрии: эпохе бронзы-ран-него железа вплоть до падения Ахеменидско-го господства под ударами армии Александра Македонского. Работа основана на результа-тах исследований автором археологических памятников Северной Бактрии (самыми вы-дающимися среди них являются памятники Бандыханского оазиса и Талашкантепа), а так-же на великих открытиях и достижениях со-ветских археологов и историков. Хотя книга носит научно-популярный харак-тер, в ней затронуты и в какой-то мере раз-решены некоторые кардинальные проблемы Бактрии этой эпохи, в частности происхож-дение цивилизации Маргуш, которая, по мне-нию автора, была создана дравидами, и пре-бывание ассирийцев и мидийцев в Бактрии, зафиксированное в ряде археологических свидетельств, реабилитирующих в какой-то степени сведения древнегреческого автора Ктесия Книдского.

In this paper, two dialectically related lines of argument will be pursued. On the one hand, build- ing upon the model of the Achaemenid «imperial paradigm» recently laid out by Wouter Henkelman, it con- tends that a corpus of luxury tableware allegedly coming from Bactria might provide further archaeological evidence for the «institutionalization process» of the empire’s Far East which is implied by the steadily grow- ing evidence coming from Persepolis. On the other hand, particular attention shall be paid to the sociopoliti- cal role played by the objects discussed, both from the standpoint of the Persian (royal as well as satrapal) court, which this tableware most likely produced and circulated through the whole empire, and from that of the individuals who made use of it. The comparison of the Bactrian evidence with parallel finds known from other satrapies across the imperial domains, from Egypt to Armenia and from Chorasmia to Gāndḥārā, will provide the background against which to explore the human-thing entanglements that the consumption of these culturally dense objects set in motion and mediated, as well as the consequences of said entangle- ments for the history of Achaemenid power in Bactria. It will in fact be argued that, if on the one hand they played a paramount role in consolidating the position of the imperial ruling class – and in expanding its members’ social networks both on the regional and the broader, imperial scale, on the other, both the objects per se and their social affordances (what they did as well as what they enable the owners to do) also opened up significant sociopolitical space for the local élites in order to negotiate their status both within the wider Achaemenid world and, what perhaps matters most, in that of the Central Asian societies in which they lived.

This paper investigates cultural adaptations of ancestral traditions between the Hellenistic and local elites in Western and Central Asia from an iconographic and symbolic point of view. It is recognized that the hegemonic Greek population made use of symbols such as the cornucopia and the mural crown (together with those emerging from the local background) in order to reiterate their control over resources. This can be also maintained from a merely symbolic perspective where the divinities legitimize the power of the new rulers and grant a fortunate, wealthy rule over a fertile rich-producing land. In considering select examples of material culture, this paper will look at the diffusion of some “western” symbols and their popularity in various later artefacts of the Indo-Iranian borderlands. Following the introduction of Hellenistic elements in the eastern regions the religious imagery was subject to a series of adaptations that in some cases had a longer life in local variations. This can be exemplified by the appropriation of “adapted symbols” by subsequent waves of conquerors that ended up in controlling the land that formerly was under the rule of Seleucus I.

The Tillya-tepe burial site was located in Bactria (Afghanistan) at a nodal point on major trade and communication routes between Rome and China, the northern steppes and India, in a period which represented a high point in trans-Eurasian connectivity. Six 1 st century CE elite graves were excavated, producing thousands of objects whose admixture of artistic styles and motifs reflected Tillya-tepe's pivotal position between different cultures. Many of the gold artefacts, including jewellery, costume appliqués and even some weaponry, featured plant imagery. This research concerns the three most prolific floral motifs. Scholars generally refer to them as 'rosettes', but they represent real species: roses, poppies and narcissi, and are depicted in a manner derived from Graeco-Roman conventions. In this thesis these flowers are first studied on artefacts from Tillya-tepe, and then on objects from Hellenistic, Roman, Bactrian, Sarmatian-Alan and Parthian cultures. Tracing a motif in this degree of detail provides specific information about artistic transmission between various peoples. Because these flowers are identified, it is possible to enhance the visual evidence with information from relevant texts, demonstrating that they had wider cultural values in Graeco-Roman and Iranian society. Plant iconography is an under-investigated area of research, and a methodology for its study is provided. I assemble a corpus of evidence which firstly shows how plant imagery can be used to track the transmission of artistic influences. Then, I demonstrate that plant images were not only used for decorative purposes, but were also sometimes applied in a systematic and meaningful manner in the centuries around the Common Era, including at Tillya-tepe. I argue that the concentrated study of floral images is a valuable tool to help understand both the objects they decorate, and the societies which produced them. In this way, plant iconography is used to position the artistic productions of Tillya-tepe within the wider history of art, bringing with it a greater understanding of the status and roles of these enigmatic people.

The ceramic – and particularly fine ware – production in Bactria / Tokharistan of the Kushan-Sasanian period shows typical characteristics
both in morphological and decorative treatment that make it different from the preceding production of the Great Kushan period. In this study, I would like to shed some more light on the decoration of fine ware cups with a simple motif: the frontal depiction of a lion head / face. Sources of origin, symbolic meaning, spatial distribution and importance for dating of the given pottery group and related issues is addressed.

The work led by the Soviet-Afghan Mission directed by I. T. Kruglikova from 1969 to 1979 in northern Afghanistan, and especially the excavations made by V. I. Sarianidi, remains until today the base of any research on Iron Age in Central Asia. Some previously unpublished photographs taken by V. I. Sarianidi illustrate the excavations undertaken at two major sites, Tillya-Tepe and Naibabad, showing both architectural remains during the process of excavations and pottery. The researches acccomplished and published in the past few years allows a better understanding of this huge work that remains unique.

Alexander the Great at Susa (324 B.C.)  in: Cincia Bearzot, Franca Landucci (eds). ALEXANDER’S LEGACY. Atti del Convegno Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Milano 2015, Roma: «L’Erma» di Bretschneider 2016, 61-72.

ABSTRACT
After his return from India Alexander was faced with the need to reorganise his state. In some satrapies the governors and military commanders had taken advantage of the many years when he was away, busy on other fronts, and there had been atrocities, embezzlements, and rebellions. Alexander had to bring the building of his empire to completion and restructure his armed forces completely. These changes show very clearly the nature of his political programme in the period when he was continuing the pro-Iranian policy he had announced in Parthia/Khorasan in 330. The main decisions defining Alexander’s policy in 324 and 323 were made at Susa, and they will be the subject of this article. They have to be examined in the wider context of Alexander’s policy.

In this study, dedicated to the memory of Zeev Rubin, I explore one important facet of Iranian kingship between Alexander and Islam: the art and ritual of Achaemenid and Seleucid funerary monuments and their impact on later Macedonian and Middle Iranian kingship in Western and South Asia. The relationship of Achaemenid royal traditions to those of their Hellenistic and Iranian successors is one of the perennial problems of the Middle Iranian period, and impacts this topic as well. I explore to what extent – if at all – did Seleucid and Middle Iranian monumental and ritual practices engage the traditions of the Achaemenids, and to what extent were new royal practices created and 'Iranized,' with contemporary Macedonian, steppe nomadic or even South Asian royal traditions appropriated as raw material.

Catalogue of the exhibition held in Venice 2018-2019 on the art of anthropomorphic figures, from Spain to the Indus, 4th and 3rd millennium BC. The circulation of exotic materials such as lapis lazuli, obsidian or chlorite, encouraged stylistic and iconographic relations between far away cultures and a parallel evolution from the ubiquitous image of the naked female inherited from Neolithic traditions, to the more complex iconography of the Bronze Age depicting deities, rulers, hybrid genies

(222 plates of illustrations will be in special file. The pages' numeration is special for each big chapter. For real book numeration move the cursor to the right border of each pages / 222 таблицы иллюстраций будут в специальном файле. Нумерация по техническим причинам – отдельная для каждого большого раздела. Подлинную нумерацию стрнице в книге можно выяснить, подведя курсор к правой границе каждой страницы).
ABSTRACT:
In this book, you will find a complex research of the clothes of Iranian-speaking peoples beginning from their appearance in the world politics and in the written sources of the 7th–6th cc. BC and up to the Islamization of Iran and Transoxiana in the 7th–8th cc. AD. The accessories of the costume (except belts), the military costume, the rulers’ crowns and the costume materials themselves are not the subject matter of the text; but the hairstyle and sometimes tattoos are being under consideration. The first three chapters are devoted to analysis of the main periods of pre-Islamic history of the Iranian world (the time bounds being different for different regions): [1] the Achaemenid-Scythian time (the 7th–6th cc. BC — 4th–3rd cc. BC, for Transoxiana—up to the mid. of the 2nd cc. BC); [2] the Parthian-Sarmatian time (the 4th/3rd cc. BC — the 3rd/4th cc. AD); [3] the Sassanid and Early Medieval time (the 3/4th — the 7/8th cc. AD). The sections of these chapters deal with materials on the 13 peoples: (1) the Persians of the Achaemenian time; (2) the Early Scythians; (3) the Scythians of the “classic” period (the 5th–4th cc. BC); (4) the “Pazyrykians” of the Altai; (5) the Chorasmians (for all the 3 periods); (6) the Parnes—Parthians of Iran; (7) the Sarmatians and Early Alans; (8) the Yuech-chihs / Kushans of Bactria; (9) the Sogdians (the 2nd and 3rd periods); (10) the Indo-Scythians of Gandhara; 11) the Persians of the Sassanid time; (12) the Khotano-Sakas of Southern Xinjiang (the 2nd and 3rd periods); (13) the Tokharistanians (with other ethnic elements). As far as each of the above-mentioned peoples is concerned the above-stated ideas are analyzed and new materials (including unpublished ones) are taken into account, the details of many depictions are defined and the data on peoples are generalized for the first time. First of all, we have studied the costume of these 13 peoples, which gives the most abundant and many-sided information on the costume as clothes in real life are a mass phenomenon and can be studied productively and correctly only in big series (in case of single depictions rare costume elements and the looks of gods of foreign origin are mistakenly taken for typical ones).
The main tasks of the book are: 1. The reconstruction of the look of the ethnic clothing complex for each of the above-mentioned peoples: the silhouette, the cut (the information about the latter is limited) and the decorative prin-ciples, the last task being the most labour-intensive. The results allow of a reliable attribution of many artifacts from museums and private collections. 2. Eliciting the aesthetical ideal of different ethnic groups reflected in the costume; the analysis of the depictions of supposed representatives of a certain people in the art of other countries for defining the degree of the authenticity in the costume depiction and its representativeness for this ethnic group. 3. The comparative analysis of the costume of each separately taken synchronous people in each of the three main historical epochs; the analysis of the costume of each ethnic group in different periods for defining the character of the costume evolution and heredity. 4. The retrospective eliciting of the look of the original costume of the most ancient Iranians and the “costume” traces of the Iranian penetration to the west of Iran. 5. Eliciting the type of the costume contacts of ancient Iranian-speaking peoples and the difference in their importance. 6. The analysis of the summarized data on the least studied significant functions of the costume aiming at eliciting the specificity of the Iranian world and some of its peoples.
We suggest a complex approach including following elements: (1) dealing with all kinds of sources alongside ob-serving the most possible scope of facts on each studied people (in case of a technical impossibility, the representative statistic excerpts are studied); (2) the proper selection of the costume décor remnants from burials under analysis (only the accounts and publications of high quality are used) excluding significantly fragmented and stylized depictions and, for some regions, images of gods; (3) the analysis of the material according to the linguistic and ethnic principles—not a regional one (which is not typical for modern research on the costume history); (4) considering all the main costume attributes of the ethnic group as a single costume complex that reflects the specificity of the people; 5) the description of the costume of each ethnic group according to the common program in chapters 1–3; (6) considering ethnic complexes against the background of the synchronous neighbouring ones and both earlier and later ones up to their successors in the 19th–20th cc. AD (otherwise the rightfulness of most conclusions is difficult to guarantee); (7) the analysis of costume evolution of separate ethnic groups under the influence of different factors; (8) compiling a special summary tables on the costume of each people (each drawing in them not being an exact copy of a definite depiction, but given in the most appropriate foreshortening without unnecessary details interfering with perception).
MORE INFORMATION: 2nd Internet ed., Moscow: X-lab, 2011: http://www.narodko.ru/article/yatsenko/eurazia/ .

CONTENTS:
PREFACE 5
CHAPTER 1. The Achaemenian-Scythian time (7th/6th cc. — 4th/3rd cc. BC) 29
1.1. The Persians 29
1.2. The European Scythians 47
1.3. The Pazyryk culture of the Altai Mountains 83
1.4. The Khorasmians 102
The main conclusions 106
CHAPTER 2. The Parthian-Sarmatian time (3rd cc. BC — 3rd/4th cc. AD) 112
2.1. Parthian Iran 113
2.2. The Sarmatians, the Early Alans and the “Late Scythians” 131
2.3. The Yuech-chihs/Kushans 170
2.4. The Khorasmians 187
2.5. The Indo-Scythians 192
2.6. The Sogdians 197
2.7. The Khotano-Sakas 201
The main conclusions 207
CHAPTER 3. The Sasanian and Early Medieval (Pre-Islamic) time (3rd/4th–7th/8th cc. AD) 212
3.1. Sasanian Iran 213
3.2. The Sogdians 231
3.3. Tokharistan and the neighboring regions to the South 247
3.4. The Khorasmians 262
3.4. The Khotano-Sakas 266
The main conclusions 274
CHAPTER 4. The mechanisms of the costume contacts and
the ways of evolution of the costume of ancient Iranians.
The symbolism of costume 279
4.1. The mechanisms of the costume contacts 280
4.2. The ways of evolution of the costume of various peoples 314
4.3. The sign functions of the costume 322
The main conclusions 362
CONCLUSION 364
APPENDIX. The suggestions on the methods of fixation and description of the costume relics
in burial complexes 367
Glossary 370
BIBLIOGRAPHY 371
Abbreviations 416
List of Iluustrations (in English)          418
List of illustrations (in Russian) 423
Illustrations 435-657
Summary                    658
Contents                      663

Abstract
The anonymous Soter Megas coins of the Kushan period have posed the problem of their attribution since they were first discovered in the early 19th century. This study, based on an examination of over a thousand examples, shows that their issue probably began in the final years of the first Kushan king Kujula Kadphises (c. AD 50 – 90) and continued through the reign of his son and successor Wima Takto (c. AD 90 – 110). All the former attributions are examined and analysed in the light of a new classification based on a re-examination of the coins.
The coins issued without a king’s name after those with the name of the first Kushan king Kujula Kadphises have for long presented a problem for Kushan studies, because, although it is widely agreed that they are Kushan issues, they mostly lack the name of the ruler issuing them. These anonymous coins, referred to in earlier numismatic literature as issues of the ‘nameless king’, are also known as ‘Soter Megas’ coins because of the Greek titles ΣΩΤΗΡ ΜΕΓΑΣ (meaning the Great Saviour, or the Saviour, the Great) which appear on them. These epithets follow the imperial title ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΣ ΒΑΣΙΛΕΥΩΝ (Basileus basileuōn), which literally translates as ‘ruling king’, but is probably meant to represent ‘king of kings’, as it is so translated on bilingual Greek-Prakrit (Kharoshthi) coins of this series (Konow 1929: lxix). This ‘vast and mysterious coinage’ (Rosenfield 1967: 18) has been found in large numbers over an area stretching from north of the Oxus River in current day Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, through Afghanistan and Pakistan and into northern India.

В статье рассматриваются две основные проблемы: 1. о существовании древнейшей стадии развития колесничного дела у индоевропейцев, на которой в уже изобретённую колесницу с дисковыми или спицевыми колёсами запрягали быков; 2. об индоафганском антропологическом типе как древнейшей человеческой популяции, начавшей говорить на индоевропейских языках, т.е. обосновывается прародина индоевропейцев в пограничье Ирана–Индостана с антропологической точки зрения.

Alexander A. Semenenko. Eurasian bull chariots as the oldest form of chariot transport of Indo-Europeans // Nature – Man – Society: From Past to Present. Collection of papers in honor of Nadezhda Dubova’s jubilee / Edited by Mikhail N. Guboglo and Vladimir V. Kufterin. – Moscow: Staryi sad Publ., 2020. — P. 134–144.

The article deals with two main problems: 1. the existence of the earliest stage of chariotry development characterized by yoking bulls into the already invented chariot with solid or spoked wheels; 2. the Indo-Afghan anthropological type as the earliest human population that started to speak Indo-European languages, that is the theory of the Indo-European homeland in the border region between Iran and Hindustan is substantiated from the anthropological point of view.

First discovered in 2001, and fully published in 2012, a corpus of more than 200 graffiti from the cave Hoq on ancient Dioscourides, modern Socotra, constitutes an invaluable resource shedding a rare light on trade routes of the ancient Indian Ocean. Whereas more abundant evidence has previously been available to document the activities of Roman merchants, while evidence attesting the role of their Indian counterparts has been comparatively scarce, it now becomes possible to move beyond the traditional bias towards ‘Romano-centric’ narratives, thus, providing a fuller account of ancient long-distance trade in the region. Specifically, the graffiti introduce us to traders and travellers, Buddhist monks and Yavanas, hailing from Roman Egypt, Palmyra, Axum, Hadramawt, Western India, Bactria and Gandhara. Accordingly, the aim of this paper is to appraise the importance of the Hoq graffiti for Indian Ocean studies, analyse the import of the evidence for our knowledge about the organisation of trade, and outline the resulting corrigenda to the orthodox picture of ‘Indo-Roman trade’.

K. Grønlund Evers, ‘Cave of Revelations: Indian Ocean trade in light of the Socotran graffiti,’ in "Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology" 10–11 (2014–15): 19–37.

Note1: This is a digital version 2.0 differing slightly from the printed article in that it contains some corrections and, most importantly, full references to graffiti.
Note2: This digital v.2.1. further corrects a minor misreading on p. 25, so that the corrected reference now reads "Burrows 1940: #324."

"Despite nearly two centuries of fascination in the scholarly world with the history of Sogdian culture there are still many under-researched areas. In particular, the history of the dissemination and inculturation of Christianity among Sogdians is one such area, which despite material and textual witness has not been studied autonomously. Instead, it has been incorporated into a broader discourse of the geographical-historical spread and enculturation of Christianity into the Central Asian landmass.
The existing studies on religions in Sogdiana have represented Sogdian society as a mosaic of religious communities with Zoroastrianism as a main religion which overshadowed the historical and socio-cultural significance of other religions such as Christianity among the Sogdians. This dissertation contends that Christianity among Sogdians, both in their native country and in the Diaspora, had a significant presence and that Sogdian Christians were instrumental in both inculturing Christianity as well as transmitting it to other ethnic groups.
This argument emerges from contextual and comparative ‘case studies’ of diverse material culture and textual evidence affiliated with Sogdians and Christianity. The evidence covered in this dissertation collectively constitutes a unique source supplying information about aspects of ‘Sogdian Christianity,’ such as its material and textual manifestations and its interrelationship with both its immediate cultural milieu and wider Christian oikoumene. In what follows, this dissertation will try to explain, through the testimony of the material and literary evidence, that Christianity among the Sogdian people had a footing in the local context and was expressed in local material and textual culture.
"

The appropriation of particular symbols of Indian and Central Asian goddesses, characteristic of the Indo-Iranian borderland, will be examined in this chapter by looking at how such symbols entered and influenced different cultures over time. Iconography can be one of the ways of studying the sacred across cultures, which should not be limited to a simple synchronic analysis of an exclusive aspect of religious phenomena; rather, it should be an investigation that takes into account the multilinear, disordered, overlapping attributes that characterise divinities. 1

The present contribution examines some recent archaeological discoveries in order to bring some elements towards the identification of the Achaemenid occupation period in the Central Asian provinces of the empire. It comes back on the chronology of the Middle and Late Iron Age, aiming to clarify the sometimes improper use of the label “Achaemenid” in Central Asia. To do so, we present the results of some recent work on the Yaz II-III pottery assemblage, in correlation with stratigraphic excavations, leading to the identification of some typo-morphological criteria allowing identifying the Late Iron Age/”Achaemenid” levels. A reassessment of the recent excavations shows a territorial reorganization before the arrival of the Achaemenids, since the Middle Iron Age. While the religious architecture shows evidence of a continuous evolution since the beginning of the Iron Age, the buildings properly attributed to the Achaemenid occupation period are limited to some fortified constructions (Cheshme-Shafa, Kyzyl Tepa, Bactrian circular sites). Altogether, these data reflect the appearance of some socio-political entities since the Middle Iron Age, which evolve by their own under the Persian Achaemenid control, whose traces are visible through the military control over the territory.

В монографии рассматриваются археологические материалы погребальных памятников раннего и среднего бронзового
века, могильников Фархор и Кангурттут 2. Погребальный инвентарь этих могильников свидетельствует о формировании в середине — второй половине III тыс. до н. э. на территории Южного Таджикистана местного варианта древнебактрийской культуры, тесно связанного с культурной общностью населения Ирана и Афганистана. Несколько позднее, в конце III — начале II тыс. до н. э, рассматриваемая территория входила в зону формирования культуры Окса или Бактрийско-Маргианского археологического комплекса. В Южном Таджикистане эта культура представлена погребальными комплексами Гелота и Дарнайчи. Данные материалы позволяют по-новому оценить этнокультурные процессы, происходившие на юге Таджикистана в
исследуемую эпоху.

This paper studies the motif of the palmette on Greek bronze ovoid situlae, mainly of the 4th century BC. It traces its origin through Late Archaic and Early Classical examples to Ionia and Athens and discusses the two principal groups named after the find-spots of two typical paradigms: the Vratsa and Waldalgesheim groups. A detailed typology of several subgroups is developed in the text and organised in a catalogue as an appendix. The spread of the motif on various toreutics and jewellery is documented from Hellenistic Bactria to the Celtic North and West, as well as in Thrace and Scythia. The paper argues that this wide diffusion of the palmette-and-scrolls motif owes much to the circulation in these areas of Greek metal vases, and especially of bronze situlae.

This article adds to the debate on the elusive search for original homeland of Sanskrit speakers of India by establishing linkage of archaeology, language and legends of Hyperboreans. It brings the readers up todate on how India's caste system evolved.

In study of ancient history, seldom does it happen that one can find sources directly related to everyday life of the ordinary people. The regular tools of the historians, texts, stop short of commenting the life of the people and concern themselves most often with politics or religion. Economy is mostly glanced upon by the study of coins, which mostly indicat commerce and market activity and tell us less about production of goods and the non-market oriented economy. Archaeology can be exceptionally useful in understanding the exploitation of land by people and the way they lived, grew their food, or manipulated their environment. This, sadly, has been done less for Afghanistan, where archaeology is most often interested in finds of more conventional archaeological goods such as art objects and monumental architecture 1 . This is why it has been an extra-ordinary event, at least for the history of the Iranian World, for a large collection of primary material relating to economy to have surfaced. These documents, dubbed the "Bactrian Documents" 2 are a collection of records of economic transactions, marriage contracts, slave manumissions, tax lists, and correspondence that have 1 D. W. MacDowall and M. Taddei, "The Pre-Muslim Period," in The Archaeology of Afghanistan: From Earliest

This article combines historical analysis with international-relations theory to contend that geopolitical developments around the Eastern Mediterranean in the middle third century BCE were indirectly responsible for the emergence of the Parthian state and a new international system of states in the ancient East. Since the death of Alexander the Great, the Seleucid Empire had ruled over much of the East; however, disastrous military conflicts at home and abroad in the West caused a sudden decline of Seleucid power in the 240s-
230s BCE. The troubles of the Seleucid state caused what political scientists call a power-transition crisis that damaged Seleucid hegemony over the East when the Seleucid satraps of Parthia and Bactria declared their independence. Moreover, the deleterious civil wars between Seleucid dynasts in the West and the rebellions of eastern satraps encouraged the nomadic Parni tribe from the Central Asian steppe (later known as the Parthians), who had been seeking a new homeland for decades, to invade northeastern Iran and establish a new kingdom. With the Parni’s successful conquest of Parthia and its immediate consequences, a new interstate system of tripolarity between the Seleucid Empire, Bactrian Kingdom, and the newly formed Parthian state emerged in the ancient East.

Until relatively recently, the centuries between Xiongnu and Türk domination in the Mongolian steppelands (both north and south of the Gobi Desert) appeared as an archaeological »dark age«. At the same time, the steppe empire of the Rouran has, compared to the polities of the Xiongnu and the Türks, received relatively little attention by modern historians.
In recent years however, archaeological discoveries have started to throw new light on this period, shattering long-held assumptions and, at the same time, generating new questions. Among the most important of these recent discoveries are five 5th century elite tombs found at Yihe-nur in southeastern Inner Mongolia.
Previous studies dealing with these sumpotously furnished tombs have been focused on detailing connections with the contemporary Northern Wei court culture, labeling the tomb owners either as »Xianbei« or as »Gaoche«. However, a closer look at a set of two exquisite parade belts and a peculiar type of pectoral found at Yihe-nur, suggests that the tomb owners of Yihe-nur also adhered to fashions that were much more
common in the steppes and in the »Western Regions« than in the Chinese heartland, pointing to elite networks spanning far across Central Eurasia. Finally, this paper will inquire into the question how a better understanding of the Rouran polity and its elites can shed additional light on these elite networks in the northern Chinese frontier and beyond during the 5th and early 6th century.

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This article proposes a new approach to three of the most persistent problems in the study of Iranian art and religion from the coming of Alexander to the fall of the Sasanians: the development of Iranian sacred architecture, the legacy of the Achaemenids, and the development of the art and ritual of Iranian kingship after Alexander. Canepa explores the ways in which the Seleukids contributed basic and enduring elements of Iranian religious and royal culture that lasted throughout late antiquity. Beyond stressing simple continuities or breaks with the Babylonian, Achaemenid or Macedonian traditions, this article argues that the Seleukids selectively integrated a variety of cultural, architectural and religious traditions to forge what became the architectural vocabularies and religious expressions of the Middle Iranian era.

Ancient economy has commonly been studied in the context of commerce and trade, less attention being paid to the production side of the economy. Additionally, artificial periodizations based on political change, including the division of Near Eastern history to the pre-Islam and Islamic periods, has prevented historians from considering issues such as economic growth in the long term. The present paper, focusing on the production side of the Sasanian economy, tries to establish certain principles and introduce possible criteria to study the economic history of the Sasanians. Regions of Khuzistan and Tokharistan/Bactria provide useful examples and comparisons for illustrating some of the points.

This article brings an up‑to‑date evaluation of the archaeological research in the core of the Bactro‑Sogdian borderlands, i.e., in the vicinity of the Darband Wall, Baysun District, southern Uzbekistan, including the
most recent results of the fieldwork of the Czech‑Uzbek archaeological expedition. These are combined with the fruits of the efforts of other local and international teams busy in this region for the last twenty years in
a spatiotemporal assessment. Building upon the lack of evidence, the author argues against the identification of the selected locations in the region as places where the events connected with the invasion of Alexander the Great took place. We also show that the area of the Baysun District including Darband was for the first time in history settled in the Seleucid / Greco‑Bactrian period. The original function of the Darband Wall
itself was most probably related to an event preceding the campaign of Antiochos III to Bactria and the presumed threat of nomads.

Libro sobre el trabajo de la expedición arqueológica soviético-afgana a fines de 1978 - principios de 1979, cerca de la ciudad de Shibirgan, en el norte de Afganistán. El autor de este libro fue el arqueólogo soviético Viktor Sarianidi, que descubrió seis tumbas en Tillya Tepe (La colina dorada) datadas en el siglo I a. C., en cuyo interior se encontró un valioso ajuar funerario con gran cantidad de oro, el llamado Oro Bactriano.
Idioma original.

The Heliocles and Laodice coins, usually attributed to Eucratides I, are unusual, although not unique, among the issues of the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kings for their depiction of two figures in jugate busts. They have traditionally been accepted as a ‘pedigree’ series of coins produced by Eucratides, who appears on the other side, to commemorate his parents. However their obverse has usually been misidentified as the reverse and vice versa. When they are correctly identified, their role in historical reconstruction should be reconsidered and the coins attributed to Heliocles and Laodice rather than Eucratides.