Margiana

This volume collects a series of articles focusing on various aspects of the art of Persia and Central Asia in the pre-Islamic era that the author has published over the last fifteen years. The period examined goes from the reign of the Sasanian dynasty (224-651) to the arrival of the Arabs in the seventh century, and the consequent (but not immediate) process of Islamization of the entire territory between the eastern borders of the Roman Empire and China. This vast territory – during the period examined in those articles – was mainly inhabited by peoples who spoke Iranian languages such as Persian, Bactrian, Chorasmian, Sogdian and Khotanese. They followed the precepts of the so-called “Zoroastrian” religion, although the Turkish cultural element had already begun to appear throughout the region at least since the sixth century CE. Due to the slow progress of archaeology in contemporary Iran, the articles on Sasanian art mainly concern objects that have long since entered various collections and for which many obscure points are still noted. As for Central Asia, the subdivision concerns some historical regions that had been part of the territory subject to Sasanian authority, such as Margiana (the region around Merv, in Turkmenistan), and Bactria-Tokharistan (between southern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan). Proceeding east, we can find Sogdiana (between central Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan) and Chorasmia (northern Uzbekistan). The last historical region examined concerns Khotan, in the modern Chinese Autonomous Uighurs’ Province of Xinjiang.

Situated on north-eastern outskirts of the Iranian oecumene, Merv and its oasis (ancient Margiana) played an important role in the history of the ancient Iranian empires, not only for strategic reasons but also for their location at the crossroads of routes that once attracted traders, missionaries, and adherents of various religions and cults. Textual and archaeological evidence actually indicates that at least from the Parthian period onwards, ancient Merv and the Merv oasis were home to people of various nationalities and faiths ranging from Zoroastrianism to Christianity, Judaism, Manichaeism, and Buddhism. The paper is a review of the religious situation in the region based on a broad range of historical and archaeological evidence. Chronologically it covers the period from the mid-second century BC, when Margiana was incorporated into the expanding Parthian state, to the mid-seventh century AD, i.e. the death of the last Sasanian ruler, Yazdegerd III (633-51) and the arrival of Islam.

The author draws his information on Parthia from an array of disparate sources, including authors from the Mediterranean world and China, epigraphy and numismatics from Iran, as well as archaeologi­cal remains. The focus of the work concerns the reconstruction of the political associations be­tween Arsakid Iran and its nomadic neighbors on the Eurasian steppe. By seeking to as­certain the  impact  of political alliances, which enabled the Parthians to establish and maintain their kingdom, with various steppe peoples, the author demonstrates that the nature of Arsakid and
nomadic  relations  was  based  on  the  fundamental  principle  of mutual  reciprocity  in  which  the Arsakids were themselves a clan of steppe origin of whom most -  though not all -  became inhabi­tants of sedentary Iran. Thus the work is focused on three primary areas: Parthyaia and the Trans­caspian steppe on the Uzboi constituting the heartland of the Arsakids. The author has succeeded in taking the Parthians out of the conception by the Greeks in the Mediterranean and the Romans as constituting a world by themselves, alter orbis or alius orbis, and thus beyond the limited scope of “nomadism” and “periphery”. He places the Arsakid kingdom within the larger context of the history of Iran and Central Asia:  a steppe people not unlike others before and after them who underwent a transformation from a “nomadic” existence to one in which they adopted the Iranian and Hellenistic traditions of those whom they conquered. The Arsakids thereby blended their nomadic tradition with that of the “sedentary” world to which they now belonged, and in doing so created a successful political synthesis.

Recorrido crítico por la figura y la obra de Yambulo, autor griego (probablemente del s. III a.C.) de un relato utópico, del que conservamos un resumen al final del libro II de la Biblioteca histórica de Diodoro de Sicilia. En dicho relato Yambulo evocaba su estancia de siete años en un pueblo maravilloso, que se decía vivía bajo el Ecuador, en siete islas consagradas al Sol. Describe las características de una de esas islas y de sus habitantes. Esquema del estudio: Bibliografía. Biografía de Yambulo. Cronología. Análisis del relato. Yambulo en la tradición de las utopías griegas. Filiación filosófica. Influencia.

Die Beziehungen der Steppennomaden Mittelasiens zu den hellenistischen Staaten (bis zum Ende des 3. Jahrhunderts vor Chr.), in: B. Funck (ed.), Hellenismus. Beiträge zur Erforschung von Akkulturation und politischer Ordnung in den Staaten des hellenistischen Zeitalters. Akten des Internationalen Hellenismus-Kolloquiums 9. - 14. März in Berlin, Tübingen 1996, 147-169.

The problem of the relations between the nomads of Central Asia and the Hellenistic states has not yet been sufficiently researched.  However, this is an important
desideratum, as it was the steppe peoples of Central Asia who overran Graeco-Macedonian rule in Iran and Bactria and subsequently founded the Arsacid and Kushan states, which played a dominant role in the East for several centuries. Many aspects of this process still need to be analyzed, for example with regard to the reasons for and course of the nomadic expansion that put an end to the Hellenistic hegemony in the Near East. If the cultural-historical development of the regions is to be treated as a unified process, the history of the Hellenistic states must be seen in close connection with the so-called "barbarian periphery". Northeastern Iran (Hyrcania, Parthyene, Areia and Margiane) and the steppe stretches bordering it to the north (today's Turkmenistan) occupied a special position in the relations between the Central Asian nomads and the rural and urban world of Iran. The population of the region consisted of both sedentary farmers and livestock-raising tribes.  Khorasmia, Sogdia and, to a certain extent, Bactria also formed a contact zone with the steppe peoples.

This is the publication of eight terracotta figurines from chance finds at the
capital cities of Margiana, Erk-qala and Gyaur-qala. Most of them belong to the most common
types I and VIII. The rest include both well-known types and new ones, which find
no direct parallels in the region. The classification of anthropomorphic figurines of Bactria,
Sogd and Margiana developed previously has been applied to this new collection.
Even though the YuTAKE1 figurines come from chance finds, they add much to our
understanding of the development of several archaeological types of anthropomorphic
figurines. On the other hand, they confirm a high level of standardization and a small
variety of iconographic types used in the region in the 1st–3rd centuries A.D. The new
iconographic type of a female in a tower-shaped crown (figurine no. 8) only strengthens
the abovementioned conclusion.

The main purpose of the dissertation is to analyze the Iron Age (Yaz I-IV periods). settlement model in the oases of the Murghab and Tedjen rivers in Turkmenistan and distinguish changes that might have occurred therein. The dissertation is divided into six main chapters. In the introductory chapter, I put the research topic in a larger context of Central Asia archaeology (Chapter 1), present the geographical and chronological scope of the work and briefly characterize all phases of the Iron Age (Chapter 2). Next, I describe the history of research of the Yaz culture in the oases of the Murghab and Tedjen rivers and indicate what research problems were undertaken in previous studies (Chapter 3). Then, I describe the results of test trenches, and excavations carried out in the area. The research conducted here has been associated with the study of irrigation from the beginning, that is why I present the history and state of research on irrigation other adaptations in agriculture in Central Asia. In Chapter 4.1, I discuss how archeological theory has been influencing settlement patterns studies in archaeology. Also, I devote Chapter 4.2 to present selected aspects of landscape archeology and discuss the possibility of using them in my studies. Then, I describe methods that are used in the study of artificial irrigation in Middle Eastern archeology (Chapter 4.3) and discuss Central Place Theory and other methods used in the settlement analysis (Chapter 4.4). Afterward, I focus on the topic of accessibility of the area around human settlements in prehistoric communities (Chapter 4.5) and I discuss methods of studying the settlement structure and hierarchy in archeology (Chapter 4.6). Geographic Information Systems (GIS) methods play a key

The recent discovery of the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex brought up a great civilization in Central Asia that raised huge monumental buildings within a centralized power headed by a ruling lineage and where craftsmen impressive works took place. This civilization built a sophisticated network of irrigation channels, survived to harsh climate conditions in the oasis of Bactria and Margiana, with parallels that link it to the great urban cultures of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley. The discovery of this civilization and the subsequent archeological research shed light on the processes that are being developed in Bronze Age Central Asia by the end of the III and the first centuries of the II Millennia B.C. The interaction between the BMAC and the steppe nomadic herders, the Iranian Plateau, and the Indus Valley, had a key role in the growth of a Bronze Age interaction sphere that explains the spread of the domesticated horse and the chariot into Mesopotamia, the Indus Civilization or China. This paper tries to summarize the principal aspects of this Bronze culture from its origin to its decline.