A report on Achaemenid Empire, Bactria, Tajikistan and Alexander the Great

Alexander riding Bucephalus on a Roman mosaic

The Achaemenid Empire at its greatest territorial extent under the rule of Darius I (522 BC–486 BC)

Bactria between the Hindu Kush (south), Pamirs (east), south branch of Tianshan (north).
Ferghana Valley to the north; western Tarim Basin to the east.

Alexander III riding Bucephalus on a Roman mosaic

Xerxes I tomb, Bactrian soldier circa 470 BCE.

Map of The Kingdom of Macedon in 336 BC, birthplace of Alexander

Pre-Seleucid Athenian owl imitation from Bactria, possibly from the time of Sophytes.

Roman medallion depicting Olympias, Alexander's mother

Map of the expansion process of Achaemenid territories

Gold stater of the Greco-Bactrian king Eucratides

19th-century painting of lake Zorkul and a local Tajik inhabitant

Archaeological Site of Pella, Greece, Alexander's birthplace

Cyrus the Great is said, in the Bible, to have liberated the Hebrew captives in Babylon to resettle and rebuild Jerusalem, earning him an honored place in Judaism.

Map of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom at its maximum extent, circa 180 BCE.

Philip II of Macedon, Alexander's father

The tomb of Cyrus the Great, founder of the Achaemenid Empire. At Pasargadae, Iran.

The founder of the Indo-Greek Kingdom Demetrius I (205–171 BCE), wearing the scalp of an elephant, symbol of his conquest of the Indus valley.

Battle plan from the Battle of Chaeronea

The Achaemenid Empire at its greatest extent, c. 500 BC

The treasure of the royal burial Tillia tepe is attributed to 1st century BCE Sakas in Bactria.

Spetsnaz soldiers during the civil war, 1992

Pausanius assassinates Philip II, Alexander's father, during his procession into the theatre

The Persian queen Atossa, daughter of Cyrus the Great, sister-wife of Cambyses II, Darius the Great's wife, and mother of Xerxes the Great

Zhang Qian taking leave from emperor Han Wudi, for his expedition to Central Asia from 138 to 126 BCE, Mogao Caves mural, 618–712 CE.

The emblema of the Stag Hunt Mosaic, c. 300 BC, from Pella; the figure on the right is possibly Alexander the Great due to the date of the mosaic along with the depicted upsweep of his centrally-parted hair (anastole); the figure on the left wielding a double-edged axe (associated with Hephaistos) is perhaps Hephaestion, one of Alexander's loyal companions.

Map showing events of the first phases of the Greco-Persian Wars

Kushan worshipper with Zeus/Serapis/Ohrmazd, Bactria, 3rd century CE.

President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon has ruled the country since 1994.

The Macedonian phalanx at the "Battle of the Carts" against the Thracians in 335 BC

Greek hoplite and Persian warrior depicted fighting, on an ancient kylix, 5th century BC

Kushan worshipper with Pharro, Bactria, 3rd century CE.

Achaemenid king fighting hoplites, seal and seal holder, Cimmerian Bosporus.

Painted clay and alabaster head of a Zoroastrian priest wearing a distinctive Bactrian-style headdress, Takhti-Sangin, Tajikistan, Greco-Bactrian kingdom, 3rd-2nd century BC.

President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Gérard Audran after Charles LeBrun, 'Alexander Entering Babylon,' original print first published 1675, engraving, Department of Image Collections, National Gallery of Art Library, Washington, DC.

Achaemenid gold ornaments, Brooklyn Museum

Alexander Cuts the Gordian Knot (1767) by Jean-Simon Berthélemy

Persian Empire timeline including important events and territorial evolution – 550–323 BC

Tajikistan map of Köppen climate classification

Name of Alexander the Great in Egyptian hieroglyphs (written from right to left), c. 332 BC, Egypt. Louvre Museum.

Relief showing Darius I offering lettuces to the Egyptian deity Amun-Ra Kamutef, Temple of Hibis

Site of the Persian Gate in modern-day Iran; the road was built in the 1990s.

The 24 countries subject to the Achaemenid Empire at the time of Darius, on the Egyptian statue of Darius I.

Administrative document from Bactria dated to the seventh year of Alexander's reign (324 BC), bearing the first known use of the "Alexandros" form of his name, Khalili Collection of Aramaic Documents

The Battle of Issus, between Alexander the Great on horseback to the left, and Darius III in the chariot to the right, represented in a Pompeii mosaic dated 1st century BC – Naples National Archaeological Museum

A proportional representation of Tajikistan exports, 2019

The Killing of Cleitus, by André Castaigne (1898–1899)

Alexander's first victory over Darius, the Persian king depicted in medieval European style in the 15th century romance The History of Alexander's Battles

Silver tetradrachm of Alexander the Great found in Byblos (ca 330-300 bc.) (BnF 1998–859; 17,33g; Byblos, Price 3426b)

Frataraka dynasty ruler Vadfradad I (Autophradates I). 3rd century BC. Istakhr (Persepolis) mint.

The TadAZ aluminium smelting plant, in Tursunzoda, is the largest aluminium manufacturing plant in Central Asia, and Tajikistan's chief industrial asset.

The Phalanx Attacking the Centre in the Battle of the Hydaspes by André Castaigne (1898–1899)

Dārēv I (Darios I) used for the first time the title of mlk (King). 2nd century BC.

Real GPD per capita development of Tajikistan

Alexander's invasion of the Indian subcontinent

Winged sphinx from the Palace of Darius in Susa, Louvre

Tajikistan: trends in its Human Development Index indicator 1970–2010

Asia in 323 BC, the Nanda Empire and the Gangaridai of the Indian subcontinent, in relation to Alexander's Empire and neighbours

Volume of annual tribute per district, in the Achaemenid Empire, according to Herodotus.

Alexander (left) and Hephaestion (right): Both were connected by a tight friendship

Achaemenid tax collector, calculating on an Abax or Abacus, according to the Darius Vase (340–320 BC).

Alexander at the Tomb of Cyrus the Great, by Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (1796)

Letter from the Satrap of Bactria to the governor of Khulmi, concerning camel keepers, 353 BC

A Babylonian astronomical diary (c. 323–322 BC) recording the death of Alexander (British Museum, London)

Relief of throne-bearing soldiers in their native clothing at the tomb of Xerxes I, demonstrating the satrapies under his rule.

19th-century depiction of Alexander's funeral procession, based on the description by Diodorus Siculus

Achaemenid king killing a Greek hoplite. c. 500 BC–475 BC, at the time of Xerxes I. Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Detail of Alexander on the Alexander Sarcophagus

Persian soldiers (left) fighting against Scythians. Cylinder seal impression.

Tajikistan is a popular destination amongst mountaineers. 1982 expedition to Tartu Ülikool 350.

Kingdoms of the Diadochi in 301 BC: the Ptolemaic Kingdom (dark blue), the Seleucid Empire (yellow), Kingdom of Pergamon (orange), and Kingdom of Macedon (green). Also shown are the Roman Republic (light blue), the Carthaginian Republic (purple), and the Kingdom of Epirus (red).

Color reconstruction of Achaemenid infantry on the Alexander Sarcophagus (end of 4th century BC).

Ambassador to the Tang dynasty, coming from Kumedh (胡密丹), Tajikistan. Wanghuitu (王会图) circa 650 CE.

A coin of Alexander the Great struck by Balakros or his successor Menes, both former somatophylakes (bodyguards) of Alexander, when they held the position of satrap of Cilicia in the lifetime of Alexander, circa 333-327 BC. The obverse shows Heracles, ancestor of the Macedonian royal line and the reverse shows a seated Zeus Aëtophoros.

Seal of Darius the Great hunting in a chariot, reading "I am Darius, the Great King" in Old Persian (𐎠𐎭𐎶𐏐𐎭𐎠𐎼𐎹𐎺𐎢𐏁𐎴 𐏋, "adam Dārayavaʰuš xšāyaθiya"), as well as in Elamite and Babylonian. The word "great" only appears in Babylonian. British Museum.

Achaemenid calvalryman in the satrapy of Hellespontine Phrygia, Altıkulaç Sarcophagus, early 4th century BC.

Armoured cavalry: Achaemenid Dynast of Hellespontine Phrygia attacking a Greek psiloi, Altıkulaç Sarcophagus, early 4th century BC.

Reconstitution of Persian landing ships at the Battle of Marathon.

Greek ships against Achaemenid ships at the Battle of Salamis.

Alexander (left), wearing a kausia and fighting an Asiatic lion with his friend Craterus (detail); late 4th century BC mosaic, Pella Museum

Iconic relief of lion and bull fighting, Apadana of Persepolis

A Roman copy of an original 3rd century BC Greek bust depicting Alexander the Great, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen

Achaemenid golden bowl with lioness imagery of Mazandaran

A mural in Pompeii, depicting the marriage of Alexander to Barsine (Stateira) in 324 BC; the couple are apparently dressed as Ares and Aphrodite.

The Hellenistic world view: world map of Eratosthenes (276–194 BC), using information from the campaigns of Alexander and his successors

A section of the Old Persian part of the trilingual Behistun inscription. Other versions are in Babylonian and Elamite.

A copy of the Behistun inscription in Aramaic on a papyrus. Aramaic was the lingua franca of the empire.

Dedication of Alexander the Great to Athena Polias at Priene, now housed in the British Museum

Alexander's empire was the largest state of its time, covering approximately 5.2 million square km.

The Buddha, in Greco-Buddhist style, 1st to 2nd century AD, Gandhara, northern Pakistan. Tokyo National Museum.

This medallion was produced in Imperial Rome, demonstrating the influence of Alexander's memory. Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, one of the Seven wonders of the ancient world, was built by Greek architects for the local Persian satrap of Caria, Mausolus (Scale model)

Alexander in a 14th-century Armenian manuscript

Alexander in a 14th-century Byzantine manuscript

Reconstruction of the Palace of Darius at Susa. The palace served as a model for Persepolis.

Alexander conquering the air. Jean Wauquelin, Les faits et conquêtes d'Alexandre le Grand, 1448–1449

Lion on a decorative panel from Darius I the Great's palace, Louvre

Folio from the Shahnameh showing Alexander praying at the Kaaba, mid-16th century

Detail of a 16th-century Islamic painting depicting Alexander being lowered in a glass submersible

Apadana Hall, Persian and Median soldiers at Persepolis

A Hellenistic bust of a young Alexander the Great, possibly from Ptolemaic Egypt, 2nd-1st century BC, now in the British Museum

Lateral view of tomb of Cambyses II, Pasargadae, Iran

A fresco depicting a hunt scene at the tomb of Philip II, Alexander's father, at the Archaeological Site of Aigai, the only known depiction of Alexander made during his lifetime, 330s BC

Plaque with horned lion-griffins. The Metropolitan Museum of Art

More broadly, Bactria was the area which was located north of the Hindu Kush, west of the Pamirs and south of the Tian Shan, covering modern-day Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as well, with the Amu Darya flowing west through the centre.

- Bactria

One of the early centres of Zoroastrianism and capital of the legendary Kayanian kings of Iran, Bactria is mentioned in the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great as one of the satrapies of the Achaemenid Empire; it was a special satrapy and was ruled by a crown prince or an intended heir.

- Bactria

Bactria was the centre of Iranian resistance against the Macedonian invaders after the fall of the Achaemenid Empire in the 4th century BCE, but eventually fell to Alexander the Great.

- Bactria

The Macedonian king Alexander the Great, himself an ardent admirer of Cyrus the Great, conquered most of the Achaemenid Empire by 330 BC. Upon Alexander's death, most of the former territory of the empire fell to the rule of the Hellenistic Ptolemaic Kingdom and Seleucid Empire after the partition of Alexander’s empire, until the Iranian elites of the central plateau finally reclaimed power under the Parthian Empire by the 2nd century BC.

- Achaemenid Empire

The area has been ruled by numerous empires and dynasties, including the Achaemenid Empire, Sasanian Empire, Hephthalite Empire, Samanid Empire and the Mongol Empire.

- Tajikistan

In 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Persian Empire and began a series of campaigns that lasted for 10 years.

- Alexander the Great

Even though the Library of Congress's 1997 Country Study of Tajikistan found it difficult to definitively state the origins of the word "Tajik" because the term is "embroiled in twentieth-century political disputes about whether Turkic or Iranian peoples were the original inhabitants of Central Asia," most scholars concluded that contemporary Tajiks are the descendants of ancient Eastern Iranian inhabitants of Central Asia, in particular, the Sogdians and the Bactrians, and possibly other groups, with an admixture of Western Iranian Persians and non-Iranian peoples.

- Tajikistan

This forced Cyrus to fight wars against Bactria and the nomadic Saka in Central Asia.

- Achaemenid Empire

After the region's conquest by Alexander the Great it became part of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, a successor state of Alexander's empire.

- Tajikistan

By the 5th century BC, the Kings of Persia were either ruling over or had subordinated territories encompassing not just all of the Persian Plateau and all of the territories formerly held by the Assyrian Empire (Mesopotamia, the Levant, Cyprus and Egypt), but beyond this all of Anatolia and Armenia, as well as the Southern Caucasus and parts of the North Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Bulgaria, Paeonia, Thrace and Macedonia to the north and west, most of the Black Sea coastal regions, parts of Central Asia as far as the Aral Sea, the Oxus and Jaxartes to the north and north-east, the Hindu Kush and the western Indus basin (corresponding to modern Afghanistan and Pakistan) to the far east, parts of northern Arabia to the south, and parts of eastern Libya (Cyrenaica) to the south-west, and parts of Oman, China, and the UAE.

- Achaemenid Empire

The Persian king no longer controlled his own destiny, and was taken prisoner by Bessus, his Bactrian satrap and kinsman.

- Alexander the Great

Alexander founded a series of new cities, all called Alexandria, including modern Kandahar in Afghanistan, and Alexandria Eschate ("The Furthest") in modern Tajikistan.

- Alexander the Great

4 related topics with Alpha

Sogdia

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Sogdian soldier circa 338 BCE, tomb of Artaxerxes III.

Sogdians on an Achaemenid Persian relief from the Apadana of Persepolis, offering tributary gifts to the Persian king Darius I, 5th century BC

Head of a Saka warrior, as a defeated enemy of the Yuezhi, from Khalchayan, northern Bactria, 1st century BCE.

A Yuezhi (left) fighting a Sogdian behind a shield (right), Noin-Ula carpet, 1st century BC/AD.

Local coinage of Samarkand, Sogdia, with the Hepthalite tamgha Hephthalite_tamgha.jpg on the reverse.

Relief of a hunter, Varahsha, Sogdia, 5th-7th century CE.

The Sogdian merchant An Jia with a Turkic Chieftain in his yurt. 579 AD.

Ambassadors from various countries (China, Korea, Iranian and Hephthalite principalities...), paying hommage to king Varkhuman and possibly Western Turk Khagan Shekui, under the massive presence of Turkic officers and courtiers. Afrasiab murals, Samarkand, 648-651 AD.

Coin of Turgar, the last Ikhshid of Sogdia. Excavated in Penjikent, 8th century CE, National Museum of Antiquities of Tajikistan.

Chinese silk in Sogdia: Tang Dynasty emissaries at the court of the Ikhshid of Sogdia Varkhuman in Samarkand, carrying silk and a string of silkworm cocoons, circa 655 CE, Afrasiab murals, Samarkand.

A lion motif on Sogdian polychrome silk, 8th century AD, most likely from Bukhara.

Sogdian Huteng dancer, Xiuding temple pagoda, Anyang, Hunan, China, Tang dynasty, 7th century.

Two Buddhist monks on a mural of the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves near Turpan, Xinjiang, China, 9th century AD. Albert von Le Coq (1913) assumed the blue-eyed, red-haired monk was a Tocharian, modern scholarship however identified similar Caucasian figures of [[:File:BezeklikSogdianMerchants.jpg|the same cave temple]] (No. 9) as ethnic Sogdians, who were a minority in Turpan during the Tang Dynasty in 7th–8th century and Uyghur rule (9th–13th century).

Sogdians having a toast, with females wearing Chinese headdresses. Anyang funerary bed, 550–577 AD.

A Tang Dynasty Chinese ceramic statuette of a Sogdian merchant riding on a Bactrian camel

Details of a replication of the Ambassadors' Painting from Afrasiyab, Samarkand, showing men on a camel, 7th century AD

Sogdians in a religious procession, a 5th–6th-century tomb mural discovered at Tung-wan City.

A Sogdian gilded silver dish with the image of a tiger, with clear influence from Persian Sasanian art and silverwares, 7th to 8th centuries AD

Silk road figure head, probably Sogdian, Chinese Sui Dynasty (581–618), Musée Cernuschi, Paris

A minted coin of Khunak, king of Bukhara, early 8th century, showing the crowned king on the obverse, and a Zoroastrian fire altar on the reverse

Pranidhi scene, temple 9 (Cave 20) of the Bezeklik Thousand Buddha Caves, Turfan, Xinjiang, China, 9th century AD, with kneeling figures praying in front of the Buddha who Albert von Le Coq assumed were Persian people (German: "Perser"), noting their Caucasian features and green eyes, and comparing the hat of the man on the left (in the green coat) to headgear worn by Sasanian Persian princes. However, modern scholarship has identified [[:File:BezeklikSogdianMerchants.jpg|praṇidhi scenes of the same temple]] (No. 9) as depicting Sogdians, who inhabited Turfan as an ethnic minority during the phases of Tang Chinese (7th–8th century) and Uyghur rule (9th–13th century).

Central Asian foreigner worshipping Maitreya, Cave 188

The tomb of Wirkak, a Sogdian official in China. Built in Xi'an in 580 AD, during the Northern Zhou dynasty. Xi'an City Museum.

A Tang Dynasty sancai statuette of Sogdian merchants riding on a Bactrian camel, 723 AD, Xi'an.

Epitaph in Sogdian by the sons of Wirkak, a Sogdian merchant and official who died in China in 580 CE.

Sogdians, depicted on the Anyang funerary bed, a Sogdian sarcophagus in China during the Northern Qi Dynasty (550–577 AD). Guimet Museum.

Shiva (with trisula), attended by Sogdian devotees. Penjikent, 7th–8th century AD. Hermitage Museum.

Contract written in Sogdian for the purchase of a slave in 639 CE, Astana Tomb No. 135.

Sogdian musicians and attendants on the tomb of Wirkak, 580 AD.

Dragon-King Mabi saving traders, Cave 14, Kizil Caves

Two-headed dragon capturing traders, Cave 17

Sab leading the way for the 500 traders, Kizil Cave 17.

Sogdia (Sogdian: soɣd) or Sogdiana was an ancient Iranian civilization between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, and in present-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Sogdiana was also a province of the Achaemenid Empire, and listed on the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great.

Sogdiana was first conquered by Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, and then was annexed by the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great in 328 BC. It would continue to change hands under the Seleucid Empire, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, the Kushan Empire, the Sasanian Empire, the Hephthalite Empire, the Western Turkic Khaganate and the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana.

Sogdiana lay north of Bactria, east of Khwarezm, and southeast of Kangju between the Oxus (Amu Darya) and the Jaxartes (Syr Darya), including the fertile valley of the Zeravshan (called the Polytimetus by the ancient Greeks).

Uzbekistan

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Doubly landlocked country located in Central Asia.

Female statuette wearing the kaunakes. Chlorite and limestone, Bactria, beginning of the second millennium BC

Alexander the Great at the Battle of Issus. Mosaic in the National Archaeological Museum, Naples.

Triumphant crowd at Registan, Sher-Dor Madrasah. The Emir of Bukhara viewing the severed heads of Russian soldiers on poles. Painting by Vasily Vereshchagin (1872).

Russian troops taking Samarkand in 1868, by Nikolay Karazin.

Two Sart men and two Sart boys in Samarkand, c. 1910

Map of Uzbekistan, including the former Aral Sea.

Uzbekistan map of Köppen climate classification

Cotton picking near Kyzyl-Kala, Karakalpakstan.

Map of flooded areas as a result of the collapse of the Sardoba Reservoir

Comparison of the Aral Sea between 1989 and 2014

The Legislative Chamber of Uzbekistan (Lower House).

Islam Karimov, the first President of Uzbekistan, during a visit to the Pentagon in 2002

President Islam Karimov with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Samarkand in November 2015

Leaders present at the SCO summit in Ufa, Russia in 2015

A proportional representation of Uzbekistan exports, 2019

Newlywed couples visit Tamerlane's statues to receive wedding blessings.

A page in Uzbek language written in Nastaʿlīq script printed in Tashkent 1911

Uzbek troops during a cooperative operation exercise

It is surrounded by five landlocked countries: Kazakhstan to the north; Kyrgyzstan to the northeast; Tajikistan to the southeast; Afghanistan to the south; and Turkmenistan to the south-west.

The first recorded settlers in what is now Uzbekistan were Eastern Iranian nomads, known as Scythians, who founded kingdoms in Khwarazm (8th–6th centuries BC), Bactria (8th–6th centuries BC), Sogdia (8th–6th centuries BC), Fergana (3rd century BC – sixth century AD), and Margiana (3rd century BC – sixth century AD).

The area was incorporated into the Iranian Achaemenid Empire and, after a period of Macedonian rule, was ruled by the Iranian Parthian Empire and later by the Sasanian Empire, until the Muslim conquest of Persia in the seventh century.

In 327 BC Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire provinces of Sogdiana and Bactria, which contained the territories of modern Uzbekistan.

Woven silk textile from Tomb No. 1 at Mawangdui, Changsha, Hunan province, China, dated to the Western Han Era, 2nd century BCE

Silk Road

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Network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century.

Chinese jade and steatite plaques, in the Scythian-style animal art of the steppes. 4th–3rd century BCE. British Museum.

Achaemenid Persian Empire at its greatest extent, showing the Royal Road.

Soldier with a centaur in the Sampul tapestry, wool wall hanging, 3rd–2nd century BCE, Xinjiang Museum, Urumqi, Xinjiang, China.

A ceramic horse head and neck (broken from the body), from the Chinese Eastern Han dynasty (1st–2nd century CE)

Bronze coin of Constantius II (337–361), found in Karghalik, Xinjiang, China

The Silk Road transmission of Buddhism: Mahayana Buddhism first entered the Chinese Empire (Han dynasty) during the Kushan Era. The overland and maritime "Silk Roads" were interlinked and complementary, forming what scholars have called the "great circle of Buddhism".

Central Asia during Roman times, with the first Silk Road

A Westerner on a camel, Northern Wei dynasty (386–534)

Map showing Byzantium along with the other major silk road powers during China's Southern dynasties period of fragmentation.

Coin of Constans II (r. 641–648), who is named in Chinese sources as the first of several Byzantine emperors to send embassies to the Chinese Tang dynasty

A Chinese sancai statue of a Sogdian man with a wineskin, Tang dynasty (618–907)

The empires and city-states of the Horn of Africa, such as the Axumites were important trading partners in the ancient Silk Road.

After the Tang defeated the Gokturks, they reopened the Silk Road to the west.

Marco Polo's caravan on the Silk Road, 1380

Map of Eurasia and Africa showing trade networks, c. 870

The Round city of Baghdad between 767 and 912 was the most important urban node along the Silk Road.

A lion motif on Sogdian polychrome silk, 8th century, most likely from Bukhara

Yuan Dynasty era Celadon vase from Mogadishu.

Map of Marco Polo's travels in 1271–1295

Port cities on the maritime silk route featured on the voyages of Zheng He.

Plan of the Silk Road with its maritime branch

The Nestorian Stele, created in 781, describes the introduction of Nestorian Christianity to China

Fragment of a wall painting depicting Buddha from a stupa in Miran along the Silk Road (200AD - 400AD)

A blue-eyed Central Asian monk teaching an East-Asian monk, Bezeklik, Turfan, eastern Tarim Basin, China, 9th century; the monk on the right is possibly Tocharian, although more likely Sogdian.

Bilingual edict (Greek and Aramaic) by Indian Buddhist King Ashoka, 3rd century BCE; see Edicts of Ashoka, from Kandahar. This edict advocates the adoption of "godliness" using the Greek term Eusebeia for Dharma. Kabul Museum.

A statue depicting Buddha giving a sermon, from Sarnath, 3000 km southwest of Urumqi, Xinjiang, 8th century

Iconographical evolution of the Wind God. Left: Greek Wind God from Hadda, 2nd century. Middle: Wind God from Kizil, Tarim Basin, 7th century. Right: Japanese Wind God Fujin, 17th century.

Two-Storeyed Caravanserai, Baku, Azerbaijan

Bridge in Ani, capital of medieval Armenia

Medieval fortress of Amul, Turkmenabat, Turkmenistan

Sogdian man on a Bactrian camel, sancai ceramic glaze, Chinese Tang dynasty (618–907)

The ruins of a Han dynasty (206 BCE – 220 CE) Chinese watchtower made of rammed earth at Dunhuang, Gansu province

A late Zhou or early Han Chinese bronze mirror inlaid with glass, perhaps incorporated Greco-Roman artistic patterns

A Chinese Western Han dynasty (202 BCE – 9 CE) bronze rhinoceros with gold and silver inlay

Han dynasty Granary west of Dunhuang on the Silk Road.

Green Roman glass cup unearthed from an Eastern Han dynasty (25–220 CE) tomb, Guangxi, southern China

475 BCE), the Royal Road of the Persian Empire ran some 2857 km from the city of Susa on the Karun (250 km east of the Tigris) to the port of Smyrna (modern İzmir in Turkey) on the Aegean Sea.

The next major step toward the development of the Silk Road was the expansion of the Macedonian empire of Alexander the Great into Central Asia.

The Greeks remained in Central Asia for the next three centuries, first through the administration of the Seleucid Empire, and then with the establishment of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (250–125 BCE) in Bactria (modern Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Pakistan) and the later Indo-Greek Kingdom (180 BCE – 10 CE) in modern Northern Pakistan and Afghanistan.

An 8th century Tang dynasty Chinese clay figurine of a Sogdian man wearing a distinctive cap and face veil, possibly a camel rider or even a Zoroastrian priest engaging in a ritual at a fire temple, since face veils were used to avoid contaminating the holy fire with breath or saliva; Museum of Oriental Art (Turin), Italy.

Zoroastrianism

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Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster .

The Tomb of Cyrus the Great at Pasargadae, Iran.

A scene from the Hamzanama where Hamza ibn ‘Abd al-Muttalib Burns Zarthust's Chest and Shatters the Urn with his Ashes

A Special Container Carrying The Holy Fire from Aden to the Lonavala Agiary, India

A modern Zoroastrian fire temple in Western India

Map of the Achaemenid Empire in the 5th century BCE

Reconstruction of the Sassanid model of Fire Temple of Kashmar is located near the historical complex of Atashgah Castle

Faravahar (or Ferohar), one of the primary symbols of Zoroastrianism, believed to be the depiction of a Fravashi or the Khvarenah.

The sacred Zoroastrian pilgrimage shrine of Chak Chak in Yazd, Iran.

Parsi Navjote ceremony (rites of admission into the Zoroastrian faith)

The Histories is a primary source of information on the early period of the Achaemenid era (648–330 BCE), in particular with respect to the role of the Magi.

According to later Zoroastrian legend (Denkard and the Book of Arda Viraf), many sacred texts were lost when Alexander the Great's troops invaded Persepolis and subsequently destroyed the royal library there.

At the request of the government of Tajikistan, UNESCO declared 2003 a year to celebrate the "3000th anniversary of Zoroastrian culture", with special events throughout the world.

Some 10,000 adherents remain in the Central Asian regions that were once considered the traditional stronghold of Zoroastrianism, i.e., Bactria (see also Balkh), which is in Northern Afghanistan; Sogdiana; Margiana; and other areas close to Zoroaster's homeland.