A report on Tajikistan, Fergana Valley, Silk Road and Achaemenid Empire

Fergana Valley on map showing Sakastan about 100BC

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

Probable Greek soldier in the Sampul tapestry, woollen wall hanging, 3rd-2nd century BC, Sampul, Urumqi Xinjiang Museum.

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

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

Ancient cities of Bactria. Fergana, to the top right, formed a periphery to these less powerful cities and states.

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.

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

Babur, the Turco-Mongol founder of the Mughal dynasty, was a native of Andijan in the Fergana Valley.

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

Map of the expansion process of Achaemenid territories

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

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.

Soviet negotiations with basmachi, Fergana, 1921

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".

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

Spetsnaz soldiers during the civil war, 1992

Confluence of Naryn and Kara Darya seen from space (false color). Many irrigated agricultural fields can be seen.

Central Asia during Roman times, with the first Silk Road

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

The Syr Darya river bridge at Khujand, Tajikistan, in the far west of the Fergana Valley.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon with Russian president Vladimir Putin.

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

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

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

Achaemenid gold ornaments, Brooklyn Museum

Tajikistan map of Köppen climate classification

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

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

Marco Polo's caravan on the Silk Road, 1380

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

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

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

A proportional representation of Tajikistan exports, 2019

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

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

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

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

Yuan Dynasty era Celadon vase from Mogadishu.

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

Real GPD per capita development of Tajikistan

Map of Marco Polo's travels in 1271–1295

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

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

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

Winged sphinx from the Palace of Darius in Susa, Louvre

Plan of the Silk Road with its maritime branch

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Iconic relief of lion and bull fighting, Apadana of Persepolis

Two-Storeyed Caravanserai, Baku, Azerbaijan

Achaemenid golden bowl with lioness imagery of Mazandaran

Bridge in Ani, capital of medieval Armenia

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

Medieval fortress of Amul, Turkmenabat, Turkmenistan

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

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

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)

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.

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

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

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

Apadana Hall, Persian and Median soldiers at Persepolis

Lateral view of tomb of Cambyses II, Pasargadae, Iran

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

The Fergana Valley (Фергана өрөөнү; Фарғона водийси/Farg'ona vodiysi; водии Фарғона, Vodii Farg'ona) in Central Asia lies mainly in eastern Uzbekistan, but also extends into southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan.

- Fergana Valley

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

As early as 500 BC, the western sections of the Fergana Valley formed part of the Sogdiana region, which was ruled from further west and owed fealty to the Achaemenid Empire at the time of Darius the Great.

- Fergana Valley

Northern Tajikistan (the cities of Khujand and Panjakent) was part of Sogdia, a collection of city-states which was overrun by Scythians and Yuezhi nomadic tribes around 150 BC. The Silk Road passed through the region and following the expedition of Chinese explorer Zhang Qian during the reign of Wudi (141BC–87 BC) commercial relations between Han Empire and Sogdiana flourished.

- Tajikistan

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.

- Silk Road

The area of Fergana was thus the theater of the first major interaction between an urbanized culture speaking Indo-European languages and the Chinese civilization, which led to the opening up the Silk Road from the 1st century BC onwards.

- Fergana Valley

In August 329 BCE, at the mouth of the Fergana Valley, he founded the city of Alexandria Eschate or "Alexandria The Furthest".

- Silk Road

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.

- Silk Road

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 only major areas of lower land are in the north (part of the Fergana Valley), and in the southern Kofarnihon and Vakhsh river valleys, which form the Amu Darya.

- Tajikistan

Another highway of commerce was the Great Khorasan Road, an informal mercantile route that originated in the fertile lowlands of Mesopotamia and snaked through the Zagros highlands, through the Iranian plateau and Afghanistan into the Central Asian regions of Samarkand, Merv and Ferghana, allowing for the construction of frontier cities like Cyropolis.

- Achaemenid Empire

This route was greatly rehabilitated and formalized during the Abbasid Caliphate, during which it developed into a major component of the famed Silk Road.

- Achaemenid Empire

2 related topics with Alpha

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.

During this period, cities such as Samarkand, Khiva, and Bukhara began to grow rich from the Silk Road, and became a center of the Islamic Golden Age, with figures such as Muhammad al-Bukhari, Al-Tirmidhi, al Khwarizmi, al-Biruni, Avicenna and Omar Khayyam.

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.

They played an important part as middlemen in the trade route of the Silk Road.

The Sogdians had learnt to become expert traders from the Kushans, together with whom they initially controlled trade in the Ferghana Valley and Kangju during the 'birth' of the Silk Road.