1.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
2.
Uzbekistan
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Uzbekistan, officially the Republic of Uzbekistan, is one of only two doubly landlocked countries in the world. Located in Central Asia, it is a unitary, constitutional, presidential republic, comprising twelve provinces, one autonomous republic and a capital city. Uzbekistan is bordered by five landlocked countries, Kazakhstan to the north, Tajikistan to the southeast, Kyrgyzstan to the northeast, Afghanistan to the south, and Turkmenistan to the southwest. Once part of the Turkic Khaganate and later Timurid Empires, the region that includes the Republic of Uzbekistan was conquered in the early 16th century by Eastern Turkic-speaking nomads. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, it declared independence as the Republic of Uzbekistan on 31 August 1991, Uzbekistan is officially a democratic, secular, unitary, constitutional republic with a diverse cultural heritage. The countrys official language is Uzbek, a Turkic language written in the Latin alphabet and spoken natively by approximately 85% of the population, however, Uzbeks constitute 81% of the population, followed by Russians, Tajiks, Kazakhs, and others. A majority of Uzbeks are non-denominational Muslims, Uzbekistan is a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States, Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, UN, and the SCO. While officially a republic, non-governmental human rights organizations define Uzbekistan as an authoritarian state with limited civil rights. Uzbekistans economy relies mainly on commodity production, including cotton, gold, uranium, despite the declared objective of transition to a market economy, its government continues to maintain economic controls which imports in favour of domestic import substitution. Uzbekistan has an area of 447,400 square kilometres and it is the 56th largest country in the world by area and the 42nd by population. Among the CIS countries, it is the 4th largest by area, Uzbekistan lies between latitudes 37° and 46° N, and longitudes 56° and 74° E. It stretches 1,425 kilometres from west to east and 930 kilometres from north to south, Uzbekistan also shares a short border with Afghanistan to the south. Uzbekistan is a dry, landlocked country and it is one of two doubly landlocked countries in the world, the other being Liechtenstein. In addition, due to its location within a series of endorheic basins, less than 10% of its territory is intensively cultivated irrigated land in river valleys and oases. The rest is vast desert and mountains, the climate in the Republic of Uzbekistan is continental, with little precipitation expected annually. The average summer high temperature tends to be 40 °C, while the winter low temperature is around −23 °C. Uzbekistan has a rich and diverse natural environment, the Aral Sea used to be the fourth-largest inland sea on Earth, acting as an influencing factor in the air moisture and arid land use. Since the 1960s, the decade when the misuse of the Aral Sea water began, it has shrunk to less than 50% of its former area, reliable, or even approximate data, have not been collected, stored or provided by any organization or official agency
3.
Fergana Region
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Fergana Region is one of the regions of Uzbekistan, located in the southern part of the Fergana Valley in the far east of the country. It borders the Namangan and Andijan Regions of Uzbekistan, as well as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and it covers an area of 6,800 km2. The population is estimated to be around 2,597,000, Fergana Region is divided into 15 administrative districts. The capital is the city of Fergana, Fergana Region has a typically continental climate with extreme differences between winter and summer temperatures. Agriculture is the economy activity of Fergana Region, primarily irrigated cotton, sericulture, horticulture. Animal husbandry concentrates on meat and milk production, natural resources include deposits of petroleum, ceramic clays, and construction materials. Industry is primarily based on oil refining, fertilizer and chemical production, textile and silk weaving, light industry, clothing, the area is also a center for the production of traditional Uzbek handicrafts, especially pottery
4.
Uzbek language
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Uzbek is a Turkic language and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has 27 million native speakers and is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan, Uzbek belongs to the Eastern Turkic, or Karluk, branch of the Turkic language family. External influences include Persian, Arabic and Russian, one of the most noticeable distinctions of Uzbek from other Turkic languages is the rounding of the vowel /a/ to /ɒ/ or /ɔ/, a feature that was influenced by Persian. In the language itself, Uzbek is oʻzbek tili or oʻzbekcha, in Cyrillic, the same names are written ўзбек тили and ўзбекча, in Arabic script, ازبېک تیلی and ازبېجه. The first Turkic dynasty in the region was that of the Kara-Khanid Khanate in the 9th–12th centuries, the language was championed by Ali-Shir Navai in the 15th and 16th centuries. Navai was the greatest representative of Chagatai language literature and he significantly contributed to the development of the Chagatay language and its direct descendant Uzbek and is widely considered to be the founder of Uzbek literature. Ultimately based on the Karluk variant of the Turkic languages, Chagatay contained large numbers of Persian, by the 19th century it was rarely used for literary composition, but disappeared only in the early 20th century. The term Uzbek as applied to language has meant different things at different times, all three dialects continue to exist within modern spoken Uzbek. Edward A. Allworth argued that this badly distorted the history of the region and was used to give authors such as the 15th century author Ali-Shir Navai an Uzbek identity. Estimates of the number of speakers of Uzbek vary widely, the Swedish encyclopedia Nationalencyklopedin estimates the number of native speakers to be 26 million, and the CIA World Factbook estimates 25 million. The influence of Islam, and by extension, Arabic, is evident in Uzbek loanwords, there is also a residual influence of Russian, from the time when Uzbeks were under the rule of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. Uzbek vocabulary has also heavily influenced by Persian through its historic roots. The Uzbek language has many dialects, varying widely from region to region, however, there is a commonly understood dialect which is used in mass media and in most printed materials. Among the most-widespread dialects are the Tashkent dialect, Afghan dialect, the Ferghana dialect, the Khorezm dialect, the Chimkent-Turkestan dialect, 1928–1940, the Latin-based Yañalif used officially. 1940–1992, the Cyrillic script used officially, since 1992, Yañalif is official in Uzbekistan, although the Cyrillic script is still widely used. Despite the official status of the Latin script in Uzbekistan, the use of Cyrillic is still widespread, especially in advertisements, in newspapers, scripts may be mixed, with headlines in Latin and articles in Cyrillic. The Arabic script is no longer used in Uzbekistan except symbolically in limited texts or for the studies of Chagatai. In the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, where there is an Uzbek minority, however, the Uyghur Arabic alphabet is sometimes used
5.
Persian language
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Persian, also known by its endonym Farsi, is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan and it is mostly written in the Persian alphabet, a modified variant of the Arabic script. Its grammar is similar to that of many contemporary European languages, Persian gets its name from its origin at the capital of the Achaemenid Empire, Persis, hence the name Persian. A Persian-speaking person may be referred to as Persophone, there are approximately 110 million Persian speakers worldwide, with the language holding official status in Iran, Afghanistan, and Tajikistan. For centuries, Persian has also been a cultural language in other regions of Western Asia, Central Asia. It also exerted influence on Arabic, particularly Bahrani Arabic. Persian is one of the Western Iranian languages within the Indo-European family, other Western Iranian languages are the Kurdish languages, Gilaki, Mazanderani, Talysh, and Balochi. Persian is classified as a member of the Southwestern subgroup within Western Iranian along with Lari, Kumzari, in Persian, the language is known by several names, Western Persian, Parsi or Farsi has been the name used by all native speakers until the 20th century. Since the latter decades of the 20th century, for reasons, in English. Tajiki is the variety of Persian spoken in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan by the Tajiks, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term Persian as a language name is first attested in English in the mid-16th century. Native Iranian Persian speakers call it Fārsi, Farsi is the Arabicized form of Pārsi, subsequent to Muslim conquest of Persia, due to a lack of the phoneme /p/ in Standard Arabic. The origin of the name Farsi and the place of origin of the language which is Fars Province is the Arabicized form of Pārs, in English, this language has historically been known as Persian, though Farsi has also gained some currency. Farsi is encountered in some literature as a name for the language. In modern English the word Farsi refers to the language while Parsi describes Zoroastrians, some Persian language scholars such as Ehsan Yarshater, editor of Encyclopædia Iranica, and University of Arizona professor Kamran Talattof, have also rejected the usage of Farsi in their articles. The international language-encoding standard ISO 639-1 uses the code fa, as its system is mostly based on the local names. The more detailed standard ISO 639-3 uses the name Persian for the dialect continuum spoken across Iran and Afghanistan and this consists of the individual languages Dari and Iranian Persian. Currently, Voice of America, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty also includes a Tajik service and an Afghan service. This is also the case for the American Association of Teachers of Persian, The Centre for Promotion of Persian Language and Literature, Persian is an Iranian language belonging to the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European family of languages
6.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
7.
Tashkent
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Tashkent is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. The officially registered population of the city in 2012 was about 2,309,300, due to its position in Central Asia, Tashkent came under Sogdian and Turkic influence early in its history, before Islam in the 8th century AD. After its destruction by Genghis Khan in 1219, the city was rebuilt, in 1865 it was conquered by the Russian Empire, and in Soviet times witnessed major growth and demographic changes due to forced deportations from throughout the Soviet Union. Today, as the capital of an independent Uzbekistan, Tashkent retains a multi-ethnic population with ethnic Uzbeks as the majority, during its long history, Tashkent has had various changes in names and political and religious affiliations. Tashkent was settled by ancient people as an oasis on the Chirchik River, in ancient times, this area contained Beitian, probably the summer capital of the Kangju confederacy. In pre-Islamic and early Islamic times, the town and the province were known as Chach, the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi also refers to the city as Chach. Later the town came to be known as Chachkand/Chashkand, meaning Chach City, the principality of Chach had a square citadel built around the 5th to 3rd centuries BC, some 8 kilometres south of the Syr Darya River. By the 7th century AD, Chach had more than 30 towns, the Buddhist monk Xuánzàng 玄奘, who travelled from China to India through Central Asia, mentioned the name of the city as Zhěshí 赭時. The Chinese chronicles Suí shū 隋書, Běi shǐ 北史 and Táng shū 唐書, in the early 8th century, the region was conquered by Muslim Arabs. The modern Turkic name of Tashkent comes from Kara-Khanid rule in the 10th century, after the 16th century, the name evolved from Chachkand/Chashkand to Tashkand. The modern spelling of Tashkent reflects Russian orthography and 20th-century Soviet influence, the city was destroyed by Genghis Khan in 1219 and lost much of its population as a result of the Mongols destruction of the Khwarezmid Empire in 1220. Under the Timurid and subsequent Shaybanid dynasties the citys population and culture gradually revived as a prominent strategic center of scholarship, commerce, in 1809, Tashkent was annexed to the Khanate of Kokand. At the time, Tashkent had a population of around 100,000 and was considered the richest city in Central Asia and it prospered greatly through trade with Russia, but chafed under Kokand’s high taxes. The Tashkent clergy also favored the clergy of Bukhara over that of Kokand, however, before the Emir of Bukhara could capitalize on this discontent, the Russian army arrived. While a small contingent staged an attack, the main force penetrated the walls. Although defense was stiff, the Russians captured the city two days of heavy fighting and the loss of only 25 dead as opposed to several thousand of the defenders. Chernyayev, dubbed the Lion of Tashkent by city elders, staged a campaign to win the population over. The Tsar liberally rewarded Chernyayev and his men with medals and bonuses, but regarded the general as a loose cannon
8.
Andijan
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Andijan is a city in Uzbekistan. It is the administrative, economic, and cultural center of Andijan Region, Andijan is located in the south-eastern edge of the Fergana Valley near Uzbekistans border with Kyrgyzstan. Andijan is one of the oldest cities in the Fergana Valley, in some parts of the city, archeologists have found items dating back to the 7th and 8th centuries. Historically, Andijan was an important city on the Silk Road, Andijan is an important industrial city in the country. The origin of the name of the city is still being debated, arab geographers of the 10th century referred to Andijan as Andukan, Andugan, or Andigan. The name is of similar Persian language construct as found in the city names like Hindijan and it stands for City of the Hindus. Such names were given to towns what had Buddhist temples and/or large followers of that religion. Andijan is one of the oldest cities in the Fergana Valley, in some parts of the city, archeologists have found items dating back to the 7th and 8th centuries. Historically, Andijan was an important city on the Silk Road, during the reign of the Timurids, especially Babur, Andijan was a large and important city in the region. During that period, art and culture flourished in the city, after the formation of the Khanate of Kokand in the 18th century, the capital was moved from Andijan to Kokand. In the mid-19th century, the Russian Empire began occupying the area of present-day Central Asia, in 1876, the Russians conquered the Khanate of Kokand and the city of Andijan along with it. Andijan was the center and flashpoint of the Andijan Uprising of 1898 in which the followers of Sufi leader Madali Ishan attacked the Russian barracks in the city, killing 22, in retaliation,18 of the participants were hanged and 360 exiled. On 16 December 1902, much of the city was leveled by an earthquake which destroyed up to 30,000 homes in the region. After Soviet rule was established in Andijan in 1917, the city became an important industrial city in the Uzbek SSR. During the Soviet demarcation of Central Asia, Andijan was separated from its historical hinterland as the Ferghana Valley was divided among three separate Soviet republics, Andijan itself became part of the Uzbek SSR. During World War II, many Soviet citizens were evacuated to Andijan, of the Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi-occupied Poland and banished by the Soviets to Siberia and Central Asia, some relocated to Andijan starting in 1941. In the 1990s, Andijan and the region became politically unstable. Poverty and an upsurge in Islamic fundamentalism produced tensions in the region, the town, and the region as a whole, suffered a severe economic decline following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991
9.
Kyrgyzstan
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Kyrgyzstan, officially the Kyrgyz Republic, is a country in Central Asia. Landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west and southwest, Tajikistan to the southwest and its capital and largest city is Bishkek. Kyrgyzstans recorded history spans over 2,000 years, encompassing a variety of cultures and empires, ethnic Kyrgyz make up the majority of the countrys 5.7 million people, followed by significant minorities of Uzbeks and Russians. Kyrgyz is closely related to other Turkic languages, although Russian remains widely spoken and is the official language, the majority of the population are non-denominational Muslims. In addition to its Turkic origins, Kyrgyz culture bears elements of Persian, Mongolian and Russian influence. Kyrgyz is believed to have derived from the Turkic word for forty, in reference to the forty clans of Manas. Literally, Kyrgyz means We are forty, at the time, in the early 9th century AD, the Uyghurs dominated much of Central Asia, Mongolia, and parts of Russia and China. King, Scythians were early settlers in present-day Kyrgyzstan, the Kyrgyz state reached its greatest expansion after defeating the Uyghur Khaganate in 840 A. D. From the 10th century the Kyrgyz migrated as far as the Tian Shan range, in the twelfth century the Kyrgyz dominion had shrunk to the Altay Range and Sayan Mountains as a result of the Mongol expansion. With the rise of the Mongol Empire in the thirteenth century, the Kyrgyz peacefully became a part of the Mongol Empire in 1207. The descent of the Kyrgyz from the autochthonous Siberian population is confirmed on the hand by the recent genetic studies. Issyk Kul Lake was a stopover on the Silk Road, a route for traders, merchants. Kyrgyz tribes were overrun in the 17th century by the Mongols, in the century by the Manchurian Qing Dynasty. In the late century, the majority part of what is today Kyrgyzstan was ceded to Russia through two treaties between China and Russia. The territory, then known in Russian as Kirghizia, was incorporated into the Russian Empire in 1876. The Russian takeover was met with numerous revolts against Tsarist authority, in addition, the suppression of the 1916 rebellion against Russian rule in Central Asia caused many Kyrgyz later to migrate to China. Soviet power was established in the region in 1919. On 5 December 1936, the Kirghiz Soviet Socialist Republic was established as a republic of the Soviet Union
10.
Fergana Valley
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The Fergana Valley is a valley in Central Asia spread across eastern Uzbekistan, southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan. Divided into three republics of the former Soviet Union, the valley is ethnically diverse and in the early 21st century was the scene of ethnic conflict, the valleys history stretches back over 2300 years, when its population was conquered by Greco-Bactrian invaders from the west. Chinese chroniclers date its towns to more than 2,100 years ago and it was home to Babur, founder of the Mughal Dynasty, tying the region to modern Afghanistan and South Asia. The Russian Empire conquered the valley at the end of the 19th century and its three Soviet republics gained independence in 1991. The area largely remains Muslim, populated by ethnic Uzbek, Tajik, historically there have also been substantial numbers of Russian, Kashgarians, Kipchaks, Bukharan Jews and Romani minorities. Mass cotton cultivation, introduced by the Soviets, remains central to the economy, along with a range of grains, fruits. There is a history of stock breeding, leatherwork, and a growing mining sector, including deposits of coal, iron, sulfur, gypsum, rock-salt, naphtha. The Fergana Valley is a depression in Central Asia, between the mountain systems of the Tien-Shan in the north and the Gissar-Alai in the south. The valley is approximately 300 kilometres long and up to 70 kilometres wide and its position makes it a separate geographic zone. The valley owes its fertility to two rivers, the Naryn and the Kara Darya, which unite in the valley, near Namangan, numerous other tributaries of these rivers exist in the valley including the Sokh River. This expanse of quicksand, covering an area of 1,900 km2, under the influence of south-west winds, some of the sediments are marine carbonates and clays. The faults are upthrusts and overthrusts, anticlines associated with these faults form traps for petroleum and natural gas, which has been discovered in 52 small fields. The climate of this valley is dry and warm, in March the temperature reaches 20 °C, and then rapidly rises to 35 °C in June, July and August. During the five months following April precipitation is rare, but increases in frequency starting in October, snow and frost, down to -20 °C occurs in December and January. The independent and warlike Sogdiana formed a border region insulating the Achaemenid Persians from the nomadic Scythians to the north and it was later ruled by Seleucids before secession of Bactria. After 250 BC, the city remained in contact with the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom centered on Bactria. Several statuettes and representations of Greek soldiers have been north of the Tien Shan, on the doorstep to China. Of the Greco-Bactrians, the Greek historian Strabo too writes that, they extended their empire even as far as the Seres, after 155 BC, the Yuezhi were pushed into Fergana by neighbors from the north and east
11.
Silk Road
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While the term is of modern coinage, the Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative trade in silk carried out along its length, beginning during the Han dynasty. The Han dynasty expanded Central Asian sections of the routes around 114 BCE, largely through missions and explorations of the Chinese imperial envoy. The Chinese took great interest in the safety of their trade products, though silk was certainly the major trade item exported from China, many other goods were traded, as well as religions, syncretic philosophies, and various technologies. Diseases, most notably plague, also spread along the Silk Routes, in addition to economic trade, the Silk Road was a route for cultural trade among the civilizations along its network. The main traders during antiquity included the Chinese, Arabs, Turkmens, Indians, Persians, Somalis, Greeks, Syrians, Romans, Georgians, Armenians, Bactrians, in June 2014, UNESCO designated the Changan-Tianshan corridor of the Silk Road as a World Heritage Site. The Silk Road derives its name from the lucrative Eurasian silk and horse trade, the German terms Seidenstraße and Seidenstraßen were coined by Ferdinand von Richthofen, who made seven expeditions to China from 1868 to 1872. The term Silk Route is also used, although the term was coined in the 19th century, it did not gain widespread acceptance in academia or popularity among the public until the 20th century. The first book entitled The Silk Road was by Swedish geographer Sven Hedin in 1938, the fall of the Soviet Union and Iron Curtain in 1989 led to a surge of public and academic interest in Silk Road sites and studies in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Use of the term Silk Road is not without its detractors and he notes that traditional authors discussing East-West trade such as Marco Polo and Edward Gibbon never labelled any route as a silk one in particular. From the 2nd millennium BCE, nephrite jade was being traded from mines in the region of Yarkand, some remnants of what was probably Chinese silk dating from 1070 BCE have been found in Ancient Egypt. The Great Oasis cities of Central Asia played a role in the effective functioning of the Silk Road trade. This style is reflected in the rectangular belt plaques made of gold and bronze, with other versions in jade. The tomb of a Scythian prince near Stuttgart, Germany, dated to the 6th century BCE, was excavated and found to have not only Greek bronzes but also Chinese silks. Scythians accompanied the Assyrian Esarhaddon on his invasion of Egypt, soghdian Scythian merchants played a vital role in later periods in the development of the Silk Road. By the time of Herodotus, the Royal Road of the Persian Empire ran some 2,857 km from the city of Susa on the Karun to the port of Smyrna on the Aegean Sea. It was maintained and protected by the Achaemenid Empire and had postal stations, by having fresh horses and riders ready at each relay, royal couriers could carry messages the entire distance in nine days, while normal travellers took about three months. The next major step in the development of the Silk Road was the expansion of the Greek empire of Alexander the Great into Central Asia and this later became a major staging point on the northern Silk Route. They continued to expand eastward, especially during the reign of Euthydemus, there are indications that he may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar in Chinese Turkestan, leading to the first known contacts between [China and the West around 200 BCE
12.
Northern Silk Road
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It is the northern-most branch of several Silk Roads providing trade, military movements and cultural exchange between China and the west. The route started at Changan, the capital of the Han Dynasty, the route was defined about the 1st Century BCE as Han Wudi put an end to harassment by nomadic tribes. One of the branch routes turned northwest to the north of the Aral and Caspian seas, hexi Corridor Kashgar Dunhuang Pictures from the Northern Silk Road
13.
Xi'an
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Xian, formerly romanized as Sian, and also known as Changan before the Ming dynasty, is the capital of Shaanxi Province, Peoples Republic of China. It is a city located in the center of the Guanzhong Plain in Northwest China. Xian is the point of the Silk Road and home to the Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang. Xian currently holds sub-provincial status, administering 9 districts and 4 counties, as of 2015 Xian has a population of 8,705,600 and the Xian-Xianyang metropolitan area has a population of 13,569,700. It is the most populous city in Northwest China, as well as one of the three most populous cities in Western China. According to a July 2012 report by the Economist Intelligence Unit, it was named as one of the 13 emerging megacities, or megalopolises. The report pinpoints and highlights the demographic and income trends that are shaping these cities development, the two Chinese characters 西安 in the name Xian mean Western Peace. It was renamed Changan during the Han dynasty, although it was referred to as Xijing during the Eastern Han dynasty after the capital was relocated to Luoyang in the east. It changed to Daxing in 581 AD during the Sui dynasty, during the Yuan dynasty, the city was first given the name Fengyuan, followed by Anxi then Jingzhao. It finally became Xian in 1369 at the time of the Ming dynasty and this name remained until 1928, then in 1930 it was renamed Xijing, or western capital. The citys name once again reverted to its Ming-era designation of Xian in 1943, Xian currently does not have a widely accepted one-character abbreviation as many other Chinese cities do, possibly due to fact that it was historically called Jing or Du, both meaning the capital. Several suggested abbreviations include Feng, Hao, or Tang, Xian has rich and culturally significant history. The Lantian Man was discovered in 1963 in Lantian County,50 km southeast of Xian, the site is now home to the Xian Banpo Museum, built in 1957 to preserve the archaeological collection. Xian became a cultural and political centre of China in the 11th century BC with the founding of the Zhou dynasty, the capital of Zhou was established in the twin settlements of Fengjing and Haojing, together known as Fenghao, located southwest of contemporary Xian. The settlement was known as Zhōngzhōu to indicate its role as the capital of the vassal states. In 770 BC, the capital was moved to Luoyang due to political unrest, following the Warring States period, China was unified under the Qin dynasty for the first time, with the capital located at Xianyang, just northwest of modern Xian. The first emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang ordered the construction of the Terracotta Army and his mausoleum just to the east of Xian almost immediately after his ascension to the throne. In 202 BC, the founding emperor Liu Bang of the Han dynasty established his capital in Changan County, his first palace and this is traditionally regarded as the founding date of Changan, or Xian
14.
Wuwei, Gansu
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Wuwei is a prefecture-level city in northwest central Gansu province. In the north it borders Inner Mongolia, in the southwest and its central location between three western capitals, Lanzhou, Xining, and Yinchuan makes it an important business and transportation hub for the area. In ancient times, Wuwei was called Liangzhou and is the terminus of the Hexi Corridor. People began settling here 5,000 years ago and it was a key link for the Northern Silk Road, and a number of important archaeological finds were uncovered from Wuwei, including ancient copper carts with stone animals. Other graves found along the Hexi Corridor show Xiongnu and other minority influence and they attacked the town of Zhenzhong but, having stayed for more than forty days without being able to subdue it, they withdrew. Following this, the kings of Shule killed one another repeatedly and, for its part, in 121 BC Han emperor Wudi brought his cavalry here to defend the Hexi Corridor against the Xiongnu Huns. His military success allowed him to expand the corridor westward and its importance as a stop along the Silk Road made it a crossroads of cultures and ethnic groups from all over central Asia. Numerous Buddhist grottoes and temples in the area attest to its role as a path for bringing Buddhism from India, during the Three Kingdoms period, Liangzhou was governed by Qiang leader Ma Teng. After the death of Ma Teng, Ma Chao assumed the post and governed the province for a time before it fell into the hands of Cao Cao. Famous cultural relics from Wuwei include the Galloping Bronze Horse, Western Xia stele, White Tower Temple, Tianti Mountain Grotto, Luoshi Temple Tower, wuweis geography is dominated by three plateaus, the Loess, Tibetan, and Mongolian. Elevation can be generalized as, the south is high and the north is low, average annual temperature is 7.8 °C. The climate is arid with rainfall between 60 to 610 mm. Evaporation is from 1,400 to 3,000 mm, there are 2200–3000 sunlight hours each year and from 85–165 frost free days. Temperatures during summer in excess of 45.0 °C in the shade are by no means unheard of, southwest of Wuwei, there is a 230 metres thick Tianzhu Formation made of clastics intercalated with sandy shale and shale. Minerals deposits occurring in the vicinity of Wuwei include graphite, iron, titanium, a species of stone loach, Triplophysa wuweiensis, is named after Wuwei where it was first discovered. 1 urban district,2 counties,1 autonomous county,116 towns, urban,509,600 with 38 ethnic groups represented including Han, Hui, Mongol, Tu, Tibetan, etc. Consistent sunlight and fertile soil make agriculture one of Wuwei’s biggest industries, other important industries are textiles, metallurgy, and construction materials. Melons, vegetables, wine and livestock are all major agricultural products, organic farming is a trend with more land being set aside for “green farming” each year
15.
Kashgar
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Kashgar is an oasis city in Xinjiang and is the westernmost Chinese city, located near the border with Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Located historically at the point of widely varying cultures and empires, Kashgar has been under the rule of the Chinese, Turkic, Mongol. The city has also been the site of a number of battles between various groups of people on the steppes. The city itself has a population of 506,640, and its area covers 15 km2. The city was made into a Special Economic Zone in 2010, Kashgar also forms a terminus of the Karakoram Highway, whose reconstruction is considered a major part of the multi-billion dollar China–Pakistan Economic Corridor. The modern Chinese name is 喀什, a form of the longer. Ptolemy, in his Geography, Chapter 15. 3A, refers to Kashgar as “Kasi” and its western and probably indigenous name is the Kāš, to which the East Iranian -γar, cf. Pashto and Middle Persian gar/ġar, from Old Persian/Pahlavi girīwa was attached. Alternative historical Romanizations for Kashgar include Cascar and Cashgar, non-native names for the city, such as the old Chinese name Shule 疏勒 and Tibetan Śu-lig may have originated as an attempts to transcribe the Sanskrit name for Kashgar, Śrīkrīrāti. - The postal romanization was 疏附 Shufu 1900s/50s, bilingual postmarks readingSHUFU /date/疏附 were used in this period, 疏附 Shufu was also used on contemporary bilingual maps. The earliest mention of Kashgar occurs when a Chinese Han dynasty envoy traveled the Northern Silk Road to explore lands to the west, ptolemy speaks of Scythia beyond the Imaus, which is in a “Kasia Regio”, probably exhibiting the name from which Kashgar and Kashgaria are formed. The country’s people practised Zoroastrianism and Buddhism before the coming of Islam. In the Book of Han, which covers the period between 125 BC and 23 AD, it is recorded there were 1,510 households,18,647 people and 2,000 persons able to bear arms. By the time covered by the Book of the Later Han, the Book of the Later Han provides a wealth of detail on developments in the region, In the period of Emperor Wu, the Western Regions1 were under the control of the Interior. The Imperial Government established a Colonel Envoys there to direct and protect these countries, Emperor Xuan changed this title to Protector-General. Emperor Yuan installed two Wuji Colonels to take charge of the garrisons on the frontiers of the king of Nearer Jushi. During the time of Emperor Ai and Emperor Ping, the principalities of the Western Regions split up, wang Mang, after he usurped the Throne, demoted and changed their kings and marquises. Following this, the Western Regions became resentful, and rebelled and they, therefore, broke off all relations with the Interior and, all together, submitted to the Xiongnu again. The Xiongnu collected oppressively heavy taxes and the kingdoms were not able to support their demands, in the middle of the Jianwu period, they each, sent envoys to ask if they could submit to the Interior, and to express their desire for a Protector-General
16.
Parthia
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Parthia is a historical region located in north-eastern Iran. It was the political and cultural base of the Arsacid dynasty, the name Parthia is a continuation from Latin Parthia, from Old Persian Parthava, which was the Parthian language self-designator signifying of the Parthians who were an Iranian people. In context to its Hellenistic period, Parthia also appears as Parthyaea, Parthia roughly corresponds to a region in northeastern Iran. It was bordered by the Karakum desert in the north, included Kopet Dag mountain range and it bordered Media on the west, Hyrcania on the north west, Margiana on the north east, and Aria on the south east. During Arsacid times, Parthia was united with Hyrcania as one unit. As the region inhabited by Parthians, Parthia first appears as an entity in Achaemenid lists of governorates under their dominion. Prior to this, the people of the region seem to have been subjects of the Medes, according to Greek sources, following the seizure of the Achaemenid throne by Darius I, the Parthians united with the Median king Phraortes to revolt against him. Hystaspes, the Achaemenid governor of the province, managed to suppress the revolt, the first indigenous Iranian mention of Parthia is in the Behistun inscription of Darius I, where Parthia is listed among the governorates in the vicinity of Drangiana. The inscription dates to c.520 BC, the center of the administration may have been at Hecatompylus. This has rightly caused disquiet to modern scholars, following the defeat of Darius III, Phrataphernes surrendered his governorate to Alexander when the Macedonian arrived there in the summer of 330 BC. Phrataphernes was reappointed governor by Alexander, following the death of Alexander, in the Partition of Babylon in 323 BC, Parthia became a Seleucid governorate under Nicanor. Phrataphernes, the governor, became governor of Hyrcania. In 320 BC, at the Partition of Triparadisus, Parthia was reassigned to Philip, a few years later, the province was invaded by Peithon, governor of Media Magna, who then attempted to make his brother Eudamus governor. Peithon and Eudamus were driven back, and Parthia remained a governorate in its own right, in 316 BC, Stasander, a vassal of Seleucus I Nicator and governor of Bactria was appointed governor of Parthia. For the next 60 years, various Seleucids would be appointed governors of the province. In 247 BC, following the death of Antiochus II, Ptolemy III seized control of the Seleucid capital at Antioch, taking advantage of the uncertain political situation, Andragoras, the Seleucid governor of Parthia, proclaimed his independence and began minting his own coins. Meanwhile, a man called Arsaces, of Scythian or Bactrian origin, elected leader of the Parni, a short while later the Parni seized the rest of Parthia from Andragoras, killing him in the process. Arsaces II sued for peace and accepted vassal status, and it was not until Arsaces IIs grandson Phraates I, from their base in Parthia, the Arsacid dynasts eventually extended their dominion to include most of Greater Iran
17.
Aral Sea
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The Aral Sea was an endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan in the north and Uzbekistan in the south. The name roughly translates as Sea of Islands, referring to over 1,100 islands that once dotted its waters, in the Turkic languages aral means island, the Aral Sea drainage basin encompasses Uzbekistan and parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Satellite images taken by NASA in August 2014 revealed that for the first time in history the eastern basin of the Aral Sea had completely dried up. The eastern basin is now called the Aralkum Desert, in an ongoing effort in Kazakhstan to save and replenish the North Aral Sea, a dam project was completed in 2005, in 2008, the water level in this lake had risen by 12 m compared to 2003. Salinity has dropped, and fish are found in sufficient numbers for some fishing to be viable. The maximum depth of the North Aral Sea is 42 m, the shrinking of the Aral Sea has been called one of the planets worst environmental disasters. The regions once-prosperous fishing industry has been destroyed, bringing unemployment. The Aral Sea region is heavily polluted, with consequential serious public health problems. The historical documents of the development of the Aral Sea have added by UNESCO to its Memory of the World Register as a source to study this environmental tragedy. The Aral Sea formed about 5.5 million years ago due to a fall in sea level, the Syr Darya formed a large lake in the Kyzyl Kum during the Pliocene known as the Mynbulak depression. Most of the area around the Aral Sea was inhabited by nomads who left few written records. However, the Oxus delta to the south has a history under the name of Khwarezm. It used to be the westernmost border of Tang dynasty China, Russian naval presence on the Aral Sea started in 1847, with the founding of Raimsk, which was soon renamed Fort Aralsk, near the mouth of the Syr Darya. Soon, the Imperial Russian Navy started deploying its vessels on the sea, owing to the Aral Sea basin not being connected to other bodies of water, the vessels had to be disassembled in Orenburg on the Ural River, shipped overland to Aralsk, and then reassembled. The first two ships, assembled in 1847, were the two-masted schooners named Nikolai and Mikhail, the former was a warship, the latter was a merchant vessel meant to serve the establishment of the fisheries on the great lake. In 1848, these two surveyed the northern part of the sea. In the same year, a warship, the Constantine, was assembled. Commanded by Lt. Alexey Butakov, the Constantine completed the survey of the entire Aral Sea over the two years
18.
Caspian Sea
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The Caspian Sea is the largest enclosed inland body of water on Earth by area, variously classed as the worlds largest lake or a full-fledged sea. It is in a basin located between Europe and Asia. It is bounded by Kazakhstan to the northeast, Russia to the northwest, Azerbaijan to the west, Iran to the south, the Caspian Sea lies to the east of the Caucasus Mountains and to the west of the vast steppe of Central Asia. In its northern part, the Caspian Depression lies 28 to 130 m below sea level, the sea bed in the southern part reaches as low as 1023 m below sea level, which is the second lowest natural depression on earth after Lake Baikal. The ancient inhabitants of its coast perceived the Caspian Sea as an ocean, probably because of its saltiness, the sea has a surface area of 371,000 km2 and a volume of 78,200 km3. It has a salinity of approximately 1. 2%, about a third of the salinity of most seawater, the word Caspian is derived from the name of the Caspi, an ancient people who lived to the southwest of the sea in Transcaucasia. Strabo wrote that to the country of the Albanians belongs also the territory called Caspiane, which was named after the Caspian tribe, as was also the sea, but the tribe has now disappeared. Moreover, the Caspian Gates, which is the name of a region in Irans Tehran province, the Iranian city of Qazvin shares the root of its name with that of the sea. In fact, the traditional Arabic name for the sea itself is Bahr al-Qazwin, in classical antiquity among Greeks and Persians it was called the Hyrcanian Ocean. In Persian antiquity, as well as in modern Iran, it is known as the دریای خزر, Daryā-e Khazar, ancient Arabic sources refer to it as Baḥr Gīlān meaning the Gilan Sea. Turkic languages refer to the lake as Khazar Sea, in Turkmen, the name is Hazar deňizi, in Azeri, it is Xəzər dənizi, and in modern Turkish, it is Hazar denizi. An exception is Kazakh, where it is called Каспий теңізі, old Russian sources call it the Khvalyn or Khvalis Sea after the name of Khwarezmia. In modern Russian, it is called Каспи́йское мо́ре, Kaspiyskoye more, the Caspian Sea, like the Black Sea, Namak Lake, and Lake Urmia, is a remnant of the ancient Paratethys Sea. It became landlocked about 5.5 million years ago due to tectonic uplift and a fall in sea level. Due to the current inflow of water, the Caspian Sea is a freshwater lake in its northern portions, and is most saline on the Iranian shore. Currently, the salinity of the Caspian is one third that of Earths oceans. The Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water in the world, the coastlines of the Caspian are shared by Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Turkmenistan. The Caspian is divided into three distinct regions, the Northern, Middle, and Southern Caspian
19.
Black Sea
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The Black Sea is a body of water between Eastern Europe and Western Asia, bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. It is supplied by a number of rivers, such as the Danube, Dnieper, Rioni, Southern Bug. The Black Sea has an area of 436,400 km2, a depth of 2,212 m. It is constrained by the Pontic Mountains to the south and by the Caucasus Mountains to the east, the longest east-west extent is about 1,175 km. The Black Sea has a water balance, that is, a net outflow of water 300 km3 per year through the Bosphorus. Mediterranean water flows into the Black Sea as part of a two-way hydrological exchange, the Black Sea drains into the Mediterranean Sea and then the Atlantic Ocean, via the Aegean Sea and various straits. The Bosphorus Strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and these waters separate Eastern Europe and Western Asia. The Black Sea is also connected to the Sea of Azov by the Strait of Kerch, the water level has varied significantly. Due to these variations in the level in the basin. At certain critical water levels it is possible for connections with surrounding water bodies to become established and it is through the most active of these connective routes, the Turkish Straits, that the Black Sea joins the world ocean. When this hydrological link is not present, the Black Sea is a basin, operating independently of the global ocean system. Currently the Black Sea water level is high, thus water is being exchanged with the Mediterranean. The Turkish Straits connect the Black Sea with the Aegean Sea, and comprise the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmara, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the Black Sea as follows, On the Southwest. The Northeastern limit of the Sea of Marmara, a line joining Cape Takil and Cape Panaghia. Strabos Geographica reports that in antiquity, the Black Sea was often just called the Sea, for the most part, Graeco-Roman tradition refers to the Black Sea as the Hospitable sea, Εὔξεινος Πόντος Eúxeinos Póntos. This is a euphemism replacing an earlier Inhospitable Sea, Πόντος Ἄξεινος Póntos Áxeinos, strabo thinks that the Black Sea was called inhospitable before Greek colonization because it was difficult to navigate, and because its shores were inhabited by savage tribes. The name was changed to hospitable after the Milesians had colonized the southern shoreline and it is also possible that the epithet Áxeinos arose by popular etymology from a Scythian word axšaina- unlit, dark, the designation Black Sea may thus date from antiquity. A map of Asia dating to 1570, entitled Asiae Nova Descriptio, from Abraham Orteliuss Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, english-language writers of the 18th century often used the name Euxine Sea to refer to the Black Sea
20.
Kushan Empire
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The Kushan Empire was a syncretic empire, formed by Yuezhi, in the Bactrian territories in the early 1st century. Emperor Kanishka was a patron of Buddhism, however, as Kushans expanded southward. The Kushans were one of five branches of the Yuezhi confederation, the Kushans possibly used the Greek language initially for administrative purposes, but soon began to use Bactrian language. Kanishka sent his armies north of the Karakoram mountains, capturing territories as far as Kashgar, Khotan and Yarkant, in the Tarim Basin of modern-day Xinjiang, China. A direct road from Gandhara to China remained under Kushan control for more than a century, encouraging travel across the Karakoram, the Kushan dynasty had diplomatic contacts with the Roman Empire, Sasanian Persia, Aksumite Empire and Han China. The Kushan empire fragmented into semi-independent kingdoms in the 3rd century AD, in the 4th century, the Guptas, an Indian dynasty also pressed from the east. The last of the Kushan and Sasanian kingdoms were overwhelmed by invaders from the north. Historian H. G. Rawlinson states that the Kushana Period is a prelude to the age of Guptas. Chinese sources describe the Guishuang, i. e, as the historian John E. Hill has put it, For well over a century. There have been arguments about the ethnic and linguistic origins of the Da Yuezhi, Kushans, and the Tochari. The five tribes constituting the Yuezhi are known in Chinese history as Xiūmì, Guìshuāng, Shuāngmǐ, Xìdùn, the Yuezhi reached the Hellenic kingdom of Greco-Bactria around 135 BC. The displaced Greek dynasties resettled to the southeast in areas of the Hindu Kush, some traces remain of the presence of the Kushans in the area of Bactria and Sogdiana. Archaeological structures are known in Takht-I-Sangin, Surkh Kotal, and in the palace of Khalchayan, various sculptures and friezes are known, representing horse-riding archers, and significantly men with artificially deformed skulls, such as the Kushan prince of Khalchayan. The Chinese first referred to people as the Yuezhi and said they established the Kushan Empire. On the ruins of ancient Hellenistic cities such as Ai-Khanoum, the Kushans are known to have built fortresses, the earliest documented ruler, and the first one to proclaim himself as a Kushan ruler, was Heraios. He calls himself a tyrant on his coins, and also exhibits skull deformation and he may have been an ally of the Greeks, and he shared the same style of coinage. Heraios may have been the father of the first Kushan emperor Kujula Kadphises, Ban Gus Book of Han tells us the Kushans divided up Bactria in 128 BC. He invaded Anxi, and took the Gaofu region and he also defeated the whole of the kingdoms of Puda and Jibin
21.
Dayuan
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Dayuan was a country in Ferghana valley in Central Asia, described in the Chinese historical works of Records of the Grand Historian and the Book of Han. It is mentioned in the accounts of the famous Chinese explorer Zhang Qian in 130 BCE, the country of Dayuan is generally accepted as relating to the Ferghana Valley, and its Greek city Alexandria Eschate. The Dayuan are also described as manufacturers and great lovers of wine and it appears that the name Yuan was simply a transliteration of Pali Yona or Sanskrit Yavana, used throughout antiquity in Asia to designate Greeks, so that Dayuan would mean Great Ionians. The region of Ferghana was conquered by Alexander the Great in 329 BCE, Alexander built a 6 kilometer long brick wall around the city and, as similarly in the cases of the other cities he founded, had a garrison of his retired veterans and wounded settle there. The whole of Bactria, Transoxiana and the area of Ferghana remained under the control of the Hellenistic Seleucid Empire until 250 BCE, the region then wrested independence under the leadership of its Greek governors Diodotus of Bactria, to become the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. The Greco-Bactrians held their territory, and according to the Greek historian Strabo even went beyond Alexandria Eschate and extended their empire as far as the Seres and the Phryni. There are indications that they may have led expeditions as far as Kashgar in Xinjiang, leading to the first known contacts between China and the West around 200 BC. Various statuettes and representations of Greek soldiers have been north of the Tien Shan. Around 160 BC, the area of Ferghana seems to have been invaded by Saka tribes, according to W. W. Dayuan had probably by then become a kingdom of nomadic people exacting tribute from the local urbanized Hellenistic population. Also in 106–101 BCE, during their conflict with China, the country of Dayuan is said to have been an ally with the tribes of Kangju. The Chinese also record the name of the king of Dayuan as Mu-Kua, the Yuezhi would further expand southward into Bactria around 125 BCE, and then going on to form the Kushan Empire in the 1st century CE. The Dayuan remained a healthy and powerful civilization which had numerous contacts, around 130 BCE, at the time of Zhang Qian’s embassy to Central Asia, the Dayuan were described as inhabitants of a region corresponding to the Ferghana, far to the west of the Chinese empire. “The capital of the kingdom of Dayuan is the city of Guishan, the kingdom contains 60,000 families, comprising a population of 300,000, with 60,000 trained troops, a Viceroy, and a National Assistant Prince. The seat of the Governor General lies to the east at a distance of 4,031 li. ”To their south-west were the territories of the Yuezhi, with the Greco-Bactrians further south still, beyond the Oxus. “The great Yueh-chih is situated about 2000 or 3000 li west of Dayuan, to the south of them there is Daxia, to the west, Anxis, to the north Kangju. Urbanized city-dwellers The customs of the Dayuan are said by Zhang Qian to be identical to those of the Bactrians in the south, “Their customs are the same as those of Dayuan. The people have fixed abodes and live in walled cities and regular houses like the people of Dayuan. They have no great kings or heads, but everywhere in their cities and settlements they have installed small kings. ”They are described as town-dwellers, as opposed to other populations such as the Yuezhi
22.
Alexander the Great
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Alexander III of Macedon, commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon and a member of the Argead dynasty. He was born in Pella in 356 BC and succeeded his father Philip II to the throne at the age of twenty and he was undefeated in battle and is widely considered one of historys most successful military commanders. During his youth, Alexander was tutored by Aristotle until the age of 16, after Philips assassination in 336 BC, he succeeded his father to the throne and inherited a strong kingdom and an experienced army. Alexander was awarded the generalship of Greece and used this authority to launch his fathers Panhellenic project to lead the Greeks in the conquest of Persia, in 334 BC, he invaded the Achaemenid Empire and began a series of campaigns that lasted ten years. Following the conquest of Anatolia, Alexander broke the power of Persia in a series of battles, most notably the battles of Issus. He subsequently overthrew Persian King Darius III and conquered the Achaemenid Empire in its entirety, at that point, his empire stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Indus River. He sought to reach the ends of the world and the Great Outer Sea and invaded India in 326 BC and he eventually turned back at the demand of his homesick troops. Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BC, the city that he planned to establish as his capital, without executing a series of planned campaigns that would have begun with an invasion of Arabia. In the years following his death, a series of civil wars tore his empire apart, resulting in the establishment of several states ruled by the Diadochi, Alexanders surviving generals, Alexanders legacy includes the cultural diffusion which his conquests engendered, such as Greco-Buddhism. He founded some twenty cities that bore his name, most notably Alexandria in Egypt, Alexander became legendary as a classical hero in the mold of Achilles, and he features prominently in the history and mythic traditions of both Greek and non-Greek cultures. He became the measure against which military leaders compared themselves, and he is often ranked among the most influential people in human history. He was the son of the king of Macedon, Philip II, and his wife, Olympias. Although Philip had seven or eight wives, Olympias was his wife for some time. Several legends surround Alexanders birth and childhood, sometime after the wedding, Philip is said to have seen himself, in a dream, securing his wifes womb with a seal engraved with a lions image. Plutarch offered a variety of interpretations of dreams, that Olympias was pregnant before her marriage, indicated by the sealing of her womb. On the day Alexander was born, Philip was preparing a siege on the city of Potidea on the peninsula of Chalcidice. That same day, Philip received news that his general Parmenion had defeated the combined Illyrian and Paeonian armies, and it was also said that on this day, the Temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, burnt down. This led Hegesias of Magnesia to say that it had burnt down because Artemis was away, such legends may have emerged when Alexander was king, and possibly at his own instigation, to show that he was superhuman and destined for greatness from conception
23.
Seleucid Empire
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Seleucus received Babylonia and, from there, expanded his dominions to include much of Alexanders near eastern territories. At the height of its power, it included central Anatolia, Persia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, and what is now Kuwait, Afghanistan, and parts of Pakistan and Turkmenistan. The Seleucid Empire was a center of Hellenistic culture that maintained the preeminence of Greek customs where a Greek political elite dominated. The Greek population of the cities who formed the dominant elite were reinforced by immigration from Greece, Seleucid expansion into Anatolia and Greece was abruptly halted after decisive defeats at the hands of the Roman army. Their attempts to defeat their old enemy Ptolemaic Egypt were frustrated by Roman demands, contemporary sources, such as a loyalist degree from Ilium, in Greek language define the Seleucid state both as an empire and as a kingdom. Similarly, Seleucid rulers were described as kings in Babylonia and he refers to either Alexander Balas or Alexander II Zabinas as a ruler. Alexander, who conquered the Persian Empire under its last Achaemenid dynast, Darius III, died young in 323 BC. Alexanders generals jostled for supremacy over parts of his empire, Ptolemy, a former general and the satrap of Egypt, was the first to challenge the new system, this led to the demise of Perdiccas. Ptolemys revolt led to a new subdivision of the empire with the Partition of Triparadisus in 320 BC, Seleucus, who had been Commander-in-Chief of the Companion cavalry and appointed first or court chiliarch received Babylonia and, from that point, continued to expand his dominions ruthlessly. Seleucus established himself in Babylon in 312 BC, the used as the foundation date of the Seleucid Empire. The whole region from Phrygia to the Indus was subject to Seleucus, but Seleucus Nicator gave them to Sandrocottus in consequence of a marriage contract, and received in return five hundred elephants. Following his and Lysimachus victory over Antigonus Monophthalmus at the decisive Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, Seleucus took control over eastern Anatolia, in the latter area, he founded a new capital at Antioch on the Orontes, a city he named after his father. An alternative capital was established at Seleucia on the Tigris, north of Babylon, Seleucuss empire reached its greatest extent following his defeat of his erstwhile ally, Lysimachus, at Corupedion in 281 BC, after which Seleucus expanded his control to encompass western Anatolia. He hoped further to take control of Lysimachuss lands in Europe – primarily Thrace and even Macedonia itself, nevertheless, even before Seleucus death, it was difficult to assert control over the vast eastern domains of the Seleucids. Seleucus invaded the Punjab region of India in 305 BC, confronting Chandragupta Maurya and it is said that Chandragupta fielded an army of 600,000 men and 9,000 war elephants. Archaeologically, concrete indications of Mauryan rule, such as the inscriptions of the Edicts of Ashoka, are known as far as Kandahar in southern Afghanistan and it is generally thought that Chandragupta married Seleucuss daughter, or a Macedonian princess, a gift from Seleucus to formalize an alliance. In a return gesture, Chandragupta sent 500 war elephants, an asset which would play a decisive role at the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC. In addition to this treaty, Seleucus dispatched an ambassador, Megasthenes, to Chandragupta, Megasthenes wrote detailed descriptions of India and Chandraguptas reign, which have been partly preserved to us through Diodorus Siculus
24.
Greco-Bactrian Kingdom
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The Greco-Bactrian Kingdom was – along with the Indo-Greek Kingdom – the easternmost part of the Hellenistic world, covering Bactria and Sogdiana in Central Asia from 250 to 125 BC. It was centered on the north of present-day Afghanistan, the expansion of the Greco-Bactrians into present-day eastern Afghanistan and Pakistan from 180 BC established the Indo-Greek Kingdom, which was to last until around 10 AD. Diodotus, the satrap of Bactria founded the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom when he seceded from the Seleucid Empire around 250 BC, the preserved ancient sources are somewhat contradictory, and the exact date of Bactrian independence has not been settled. Somewhat simplified, there is a chronology and a low chronology for Diodotos’ secession. The high chronology has the advantage of explaining why the Seleucid king Antiochus II issued very few coins in Bactria, as Diodotos would have become independent there early in Antiochus reign. On the other hand, the low chronology, from the mid-240s BC, has the advantage of connecting the secession of Diodotus I with the Third Syrian War, a catastrophic conflict for the Seleucid Empire. Diodotus, the governor of the cities of Bactria, defected and proclaimed himself king, all the other people of the Orient followed his example. Their cities were Bactra, and Darapsa, and several others, among these was Eucratidia, which was named after its ruler. In 247 BC, the Ptolemaic empire captured the Seleucid capital, in the resulting power vacuum, the satrap of Parthia proclaimed independence from the Seleucids, declaring himself king. A decade later, he was defeated and killed by Arsaces of Parthia and this cut Bactria off from contact with the Greek world. Overland trade continued at a rate, while sea trade between Greek Egypt and Bactria developed. Euthydemus, a Magnesian Greek according to Polybius and possibly satrap of Sogdiana, overthrew the dynasty of Diodotus I around 230-220 BC, and the Iaxartes forms also the boundary between the Sogdians and the nomads. Euthydemus was attacked by the Seleucid ruler Antiochus III around 210 BC, although he commanded 10,000 horsemen, Euthydemus initially lost a battle on the Arius and had to retreat. Following the departure of the Seleucid army, the Bactrian kingdom seems to have expanded, in the west, areas in north-eastern Iran may have been absorbed, possibly as far as into Parthia, whose ruler had been defeated by Antiochus the Great. These territories possibly are identical with the Bactrian satrapies of Tapuria, the Greek historian Strabo too writes that, they extended their empire even as far as the Seres and the Phryni. Several statuettes and representations of Greek soldiers have been north of the Tien Shan, on the doorstep to China. Greek influences on Chinese art have also been suggested, designs with rosette flowers, geometric lines, and glass inlays, suggestive of Hellenistic influences, can be found on some early Han dynasty bronze mirrors. The practice of exporting Chinese metals, in iron, for trade is attested around that period
25.
Yuezhi
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After a major defeat by the Xiongnu, during the 2nd century BCE, the Yuezhi split into two groups, the Greater Yuezhi and Lesser Yuezhi. Following their defeat, the Greater Yuezhi initially migrated northwest into the Ili Valley and they were driven from the Ili Valley by the Wusun and migrated southward to Sogdia and later settled in Bactria, where they the defeated the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. The Greater Yuezhi have consequently often been identified with Bactrian peoples mentioned in classical European sources, like the Tókharioi, during the 1st century BCE, one of the five major Greater Yuezhi tribes in Bactria, the Kushanas, began to subsume the other tribes and neighbouring peoples. The subsequent Kushan Empire, at its peak in the 3rd century CE, the Kushanas played an important role in the development of trade on the Silk Road and the introduction of Buddhism to China. Most of the Lesser Yuezhi appear to have migrated southward into Tibet, however, some are reported to have settled among the Qiang people in Qinghai, and to have been involved in the Liangzhou Rebellion. Others are said to have founded the city state of Cumuḍa in the eastern Tarim, a fourth group of Lesser Yuezhi may have become part of the Jie people of Shanxi, who established the 4th Century CE Later Zhao state. The philosophical tract Guanzi is now believed to have been compiled around 26 BCE, based on older texts. In the Guanzi, nomadic pastoralists known as the Yúzhī 禺氏 or Niúzhī 牛氏 and they are described as supplying jade to the Chinese. The export of jade from the Tarim Basin, since at least the late 2nd Millennium BCE, is well-documented archaeologically, for example, hundreds of jade pieces found in the Tomb of Fu Hao originated from the Khotan area, on the southern rim of the Tarim Basin. According to the Guanzi, the Yúzhī/Niúzhī, unlike the neighbouring Xiongnu, in the early 4th Century BCE, the Tale of King Mu, Son of Heaven also mentions the Yúzhī 禺知. The Yi Zhou Shu makes separate references to the Yúzhī 禺氏 and Yuèdī 月氐, trading the jade and horses for Chinese silk, the Wūzhī were then selling these goods to other neighbours. The earliest detailed account of the Yuezhi is found in chapter 123 of the Records of the Great Historian by Sima Qian, essentially the same text appears in chapter 61 of the Book of Han, though Sima Qian has added occasional words and phrases to clarify the meaning. Both texts use the Chinese name Yuezhi, written with the characters yuè moon and shì clan, some scholars have argued that Dunhuang should be Dunhong, a mountain in the Tian Shan, and have placed the original homeland of the Yuezhi 1,000 km further west. The Yuezhi were so powerful that the Xiongnu monarch Touman even sent his eldest son Modu as a hostage to the Yuezhi, the Yuezhi often attacked their neighbour the Wusun to acquire slaves and pasture lands. Wusun originally lived together with the Yuezhi in the region between Dunhuang and Qilian Mountain, the Yuezhi attacked the Wusuns, killed their monarch Nandoumi and took his territory. The son of Nandoumi, Kunmo fled to the Xiongnu and was brought up by the Xiongnu monarch, gradually the Xiongnu grew stronger and war broke out between them and the Yuezhi. There were at least four wars between the Yuezhi and Xiongnu according to the Chinese accounts, the first war broke out during the reign of the Xiongnu monarch Touman who suddenly attacked the Yuezhi. The Yuezhi wanted to kill Modu, the son of the Xiongnu king Touman kept as a hostage to them and he subsequently killed his father and became ruler of the Xiongnu
26.
Yavana
–
The word Yona in Pali and the Prakrits, and the analogue Yavana in Sanskrit, are words used in Ancient India to designate Greek speakers. Yona and Yavana are transliterations of the Greek word for Ionians, * Both terms appear in ancient Sanskrit literature. Yavana appears for instance, in the Mahabharata, while Yona appears in such as the Mahavamsa. The Yona are mentioned in the Ashoka inscriptions, along with the Kambojas, as two societies where there are only nobles and slaves, the description of Greek astrology and Greek terminology in the Yavanajātaka Nativity of the Yavanas. The mention of Alexandria on the Caucasus, the city of the Yonas in the Mahavamsa and this usage was shared by many of the countries east of Greece, from the Mediterranean to Sindh, Egyptians used the word j-w-n-’. Babylonians used the word Yaman and Yamanaya, the Yavanas are mentioned in detail in Sangam literature epics such as Paṭṭiṉappālai, describing their brisk trade with the Early Cholas in the Sangam period. After Alexander the Greats invasion, the Greek settlements had existed in parts of Achaemenid Empire, northwest of India. The references to the Yonas in the early Buddhist texts may be related to the same, some of the better-known examples are those of the Edicts of Ashoka, in which the Buddhist emperor Ashoka refers to the Greek populations under his rule. Ashokas Rock Edict XIII also pairs the Yonas with the Kambojas and conveys that brahmans and śramaṇas are found everywhere in his empire except in the lands of the Yonas and the Kambojas. The Mahavamsa or Great Chronicle of Sri Lanka refers to the thera Mahārakkhita being sent to preach to the Yona country, and also to the Yona thera Dhammarakkhita and it also mentions that Pandukabhaya of Anuradhapura set aside a part of his capital city of Anuradhapura for the Yonas. Another Yona thera, Mahādhammarakkhita, is mentioned as having come from Alexandria on the Caucasus in the country of the Yonas, to be present at the building of the Ruwanwelisaya. Another example is that of the Milinda Panha, where Yonaka is used to refer to the great Indo-Greek king Menander, the Vanaparava of Mahabharata contains prophecies that Mleccha kings of the Shakas, Yavanas, Kambojas, Bahlikas etc. shall rule the earth un-righteously in Kaliyuga. There are important references to the warring Mleccha hordes of the Shakas, Yavanas, Kambojas, the time frame for these struggles is 2nd century BCE downwards. The thick mud-fortifications at Pataliputra being reached, all the provinces will be in disorder, ultimately, a great battle will follow, with tree-like engines. The Yavanas will command, the Kings will disappear, the Yavanas, intoxicated with fighting, will not stay in Madhadesa, there will be undoubtedly a civil war among them, arising in their own country, there will be a terrible and ferocious war. The Anushasanaparava of the Mahabharata affirms that the country of Majjhimadesa was invaded the Yavanas, the Yona invasion of Majjhimadesa was jointly carried out by the Yonas and the Kambojas. Majjhimadesa here means the middle of Greater India which then included Afghanistan, Pakistan, on the 110 BCE Heliodorus pillar in Vidisha in Central India, the Indo-Greek king Antialcidas, who had sent an ambassador to the court of the Shunga emperor Bhagabhadra, was also qualified as Yona. The Mahavamsa also attests Yona settlement in Anuradhapura in ancient Sri Lanka, Buddhist texts like Sumangala Vilasini class the language of the Yavanas with the Milakkhabhasa i. e. impure language
27.
Ionians
–
The Ionians were one of the four major tribes that the Greeks considered themselves to be divided into during the ancient period, the other three being the Dorians, Aeolians, and Achaeans. The Ionian dialect was one of the three major divisions of the Hellenic world, together with the Dorian and Aeolian dialects. When referring to populations, “Ionian” defines several groups in Classical Greece, in the narrowest sense it referred to the region of Ionia in Asia Minor. Finally, in the broadest sense it could be used to all those who spoke languages of the East Greek group. The foundation myth which was current in the Classical period suggested that the Ionians were named after Ion, son of Xuthus, when the Dorians invaded the Peloponnese they expelled the Achaeans from the Argolid and Lacedaemonia. The displaced Achaeans moved into Aegilaus, in expelling the Ionians from the Aegilaus. The Ionians moved to Attica and mingled with the population of Attica. Unlike the austere and militaristic Dorians, the Ionians are renowned for their love of philosophy, art, democracy, unlike Aeolians and Dorians, Ionians appears in the languages of different civilizations around the eastern Mediterranean and as far east as the Indian subcontinent. They are not the earliest Greeks to appear in the records, that belongs to the Danaans. The trail of the Ionians begins in the Mycenaean Greek records of Crete, a fragmentary Linear B tablet from Knossos bears the name i-ja-wo-ne, interpreted by Ventris and Chadwick as possibly the dative or nominative plural case of *Iāwones, an ethnic name. The Knossos tablets are dated to 1400 or 1200 B. C. and thus pre-date the Dorian dominance in Crete and this name also appears in a fragment of the other early poet, Hesiod, in the singular Ἰάων, iāōn. In the Book of Genesis of the English Bible, Javan is a son of Japheth, Javan is believed nearly universally by Bible scholars to represent the Ionians, that is, Javan is Ion. The Hebrew is Yāwān, plural Yəwānīm, additionally, but less surely, Japheth may be related linguistically to the Greek mythological figure Iapetus. The locations of Biblical tribal countries have been the subjects of centuries of scholarship, the Book of Isaiah gives what may be a hint by listing the nations. That have not heard my fame including Javan and immediately after the isles afar off, are the isles in apposition to Javan or the last item in the series. If the former, the expression is used of the population of the islands in the Aegean Sea. The date of the Book of Isaiah cannot precede the date of the man Isaiah, the Assyrian word, which is preceded by the country determinative, has been reconstructed as *Iaunaia. More common is ia-a-ma-nu, ia-ma-nu and ia-am-na-a-a with the country determinative, sargon II related that he took the latter from the sea like fish and that they were from the sea of the setting sun. of Yadnana
28.
Alexandria Eschate
–
Alexandria Eschate or Alexandria Eskhata, literally Alexandria the Farthest, was a city founded by Alexander the Great, at the south-western end of the Fergana Valley in August 329 BCE. It was the most northerly outpost of the Greek Empire in Central Asia, Alexandria Eschate was established on the south bank of the river Jaxartes, at or close to the site of modern Khujand. According to the Roman writer Curtius, Alexandria Ultima retained its Hellenistic culture as late as 30 BCE, a country known as Dayuan or Ta-yuan in ancient Chinese sources is generally believed to be Alexandria Eschate, or a successor state. As with most other cities founded by Alexander, a group of retired and/or wounded veterans from his army was settled there and it experienced numerous conflicts with the local population. From 250 BCE, the city likely had had contact with Bactria. Alexandria Eschate was also located around 400 km west of the Tarim Basin, there are indications that Greek expeditions travelled as far as Kashgar. The historian Strabo claims that the Greeks extended their empire even as far as the Seres and the Phryni. Seres meant either China proper – in which case the Greeks achieved the first direct contact between China and a European society, some time around 200 BCE – or the peoples of the Tarim. In any case, a city known to the Chinese as Dayuan, the prefix da meant Great, while the suffix Yuan was the Chinese rendition of Ionians. Chinese embassies were established in Dayuan, beginning with Zhang Qian opened around 130 BCE and this contributed to the opening up the Silk Road from the 1st century BCE. The remains of Alexanders town lie in the tell of the old citadel in Khojand and these layers have revealed fortifications dating to around the 4th century BC. Other remains include household utensils, armaments and building materials which are exhibited in the Museum of Regional Studies in Khojand, the site has also revealed numerous Hellenistic coins and pottery. In the Tabula Peutingeriana, below the city there is a question in Latin, Hic Alexander responsum accepit. Alexandria Eschate is the destination of Euxenus, son of Eutychides of the deme of Pallene. Horses of Heaven, by Gillian Bradshaw, is set in Alexandria Eschate, cyropolis See the notes on Northern Wuyi = Alexandria Eschate in the draft annotated translation of the 3rd-century Chinese history, the Weilüe, by John Hill at, and Livius. org, Alexandria Eschatê
29.
Zhang Qian
–
Zhang Qian was a Chinese official and diplomat who served as an imperial envoy to the world outside of China in the 2nd century BC, during the time of the Han dynasty. Today Zhang Qians travels are associated with the route of transcontinental trade. In essence, his missions opened up to China the many kingdoms, Zhang Qians accounts of his explorations of Central Asia are detailed in the Early Han historical chronicles, Records of the Grand Historian, compiled by Sima Qian in the 1st century BC. The Central Asian sections of the Silk Road routes were expanded around 114 BC largely through the missions and explorations of Zhang Qian, today Zhang Qian is considered a national hero and revered for the key role he played in opening China to the world of commercial trade. Zhang Qian was born in Chenggu district just east of Hanzhong in the central province of Shaanxi. He entered the capital, Changan, todays Xian, between 140 BC and 134 BC as a Gentleman, serving Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. At the time the nomadic Xiongnu tribes controlled what is now Inner Mongolia and dominated the Western Regions, Xiyu, the Han emperor was interested in establishing commercial ties with distant lands but outside contact was prevented by the hostile Xiongnu. He was accompanied by a guide named Ganfu, a Xiongnu who had captured in war. The objective of Zhang Qians first mission was to seek an alliance with the Yuezhi. However to get to the territory of the Yuezhi he was forced to pass through land controlled by the Xiongnu who captured him, during this time he married a Xiongnu wife, who bore him a son, and gained the trust of the Xiongnu leader. The Yuezhi were agricultural people who produced strong horses and many unknown crops including alfalfa for animal fodder, however, the Yuezhi were too settled to desire war against the Xiongnu. On his return trip he was captured by the Xiongnu who again spared his life because they valued his sense of duty. Two years later the Xiongnu leader died and in the midst of chaos, of the original mission of just over a hundred men, only Zhang Qian and Ganfu managed to return to China. Zhang Qian returned in 125 BC with detailed news for the Emperor, showing that sophisticated civilizations existed to the West, all these states, he was told, were militarily weak and prized Han goods and wealth. Upon Zhang Qians return to China he was honoured with a position of palace counselor, on his mission Zhang Qian had noticed products from an area now known as northern India. However, the task remained to find a route not obstructed by the Xiongnu to India. Zhang Qian set out on a mission to forge a route from China to India via Sichuan. In 119–115 BC Zhang Qian was sent on a mission by the emperor
30.
Da Yuezhi
–
After a major defeat by the Xiongnu, during the 2nd century BCE, the Yuezhi split into two groups, the Greater Yuezhi and Lesser Yuezhi. Following their defeat, the Greater Yuezhi initially migrated northwest into the Ili Valley and they were driven from the Ili Valley by the Wusun and migrated southward to Sogdia and later settled in Bactria, where they the defeated the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom. The Greater Yuezhi have consequently often been identified with Bactrian peoples mentioned in classical European sources, like the Tókharioi, during the 1st century BCE, one of the five major Greater Yuezhi tribes in Bactria, the Kushanas, began to subsume the other tribes and neighbouring peoples. The subsequent Kushan Empire, at its peak in the 3rd century CE, the Kushanas played an important role in the development of trade on the Silk Road and the introduction of Buddhism to China. Most of the Lesser Yuezhi appear to have migrated southward into Tibet, however, some are reported to have settled among the Qiang people in Qinghai, and to have been involved in the Liangzhou Rebellion. Others are said to have founded the city state of Cumuḍa in the eastern Tarim, a fourth group of Lesser Yuezhi may have become part of the Jie people of Shanxi, who established the 4th Century CE Later Zhao state. The philosophical tract Guanzi is now believed to have been compiled around 26 BCE, based on older texts. In the Guanzi, nomadic pastoralists known as the Yúzhī 禺氏 or Niúzhī 牛氏 and they are described as supplying jade to the Chinese. The export of jade from the Tarim Basin, since at least the late 2nd Millennium BCE, is well-documented archaeologically, for example, hundreds of jade pieces found in the Tomb of Fu Hao originated from the Khotan area, on the southern rim of the Tarim Basin. According to the Guanzi, the Yúzhī/Niúzhī, unlike the neighbouring Xiongnu, in the early 4th Century BCE, the Tale of King Mu, Son of Heaven also mentions the Yúzhī 禺知. The Yi Zhou Shu makes separate references to the Yúzhī 禺氏 and Yuèdī 月氐, trading the jade and horses for Chinese silk, the Wūzhī were then selling these goods to other neighbours. The earliest detailed account of the Yuezhi is found in chapter 123 of the Records of the Great Historian by Sima Qian, essentially the same text appears in chapter 61 of the Book of Han, though Sima Qian has added occasional words and phrases to clarify the meaning. Both texts use the Chinese name Yuezhi, written with the characters yuè moon and shì clan, some scholars have argued that Dunhuang should be Dunhong, a mountain in the Tian Shan, and have placed the original homeland of the Yuezhi 1,000 km further west. The Yuezhi were so powerful that the Xiongnu monarch Touman even sent his eldest son Modu as a hostage to the Yuezhi, the Yuezhi often attacked their neighbour the Wusun to acquire slaves and pasture lands. Wusun originally lived together with the Yuezhi in the region between Dunhuang and Qilian Mountain, the Yuezhi attacked the Wusuns, killed their monarch Nandoumi and took his territory. The son of Nandoumi, Kunmo fled to the Xiongnu and was brought up by the Xiongnu monarch, gradually the Xiongnu grew stronger and war broke out between them and the Yuezhi. There were at least four wars between the Yuezhi and Xiongnu according to the Chinese accounts, the first war broke out during the reign of the Xiongnu monarch Touman who suddenly attacked the Yuezhi. The Yuezhi wanted to kill Modu, the son of the Xiongnu king Touman kept as a hostage to them and he subsequently killed his father and became ruler of the Xiongnu
31.
Shiji
–
The work covers the world as it was then known to the Chinese and a 2500-year period from the age of the legendary Yellow Emperor to the reign of Emperor Wu of Han in the authors own time. The Records has been called a text in Chinese civilization. After Confucius and the First Emperor of Qin, Sima Qian was one of the creators of Imperial China, not least because by providing definitive biographies, the Records set the model for the 24 subsequent dynastic histories of China. The work that became Records of the Grand Historian was begun by Sima Tan, after his death in 110 BC, it was continued and completed by his son and successor Sima Qian, who is generally credited as the works author. Sima Qian is known to have completed the Records before his death in c.86 BC, with one copy residing in the capital of Changan. Details regarding the Records early reception and circulation are not well known, beginning in the Northern and Southern dynasties and the Tang dynasty, a number of scholars wrote and edited commentaries to the Records. Most 1st millennium editions of the Records include the commentaries of Pei Yin, Sima Zhen, the primary modern edition of the Records is the Zhonghua Book Company edition of 1959, and is based on an edition prepared by the Chinese historian Gu Jiegang in the early 1930s. There are two known surviving fragments of Records manuscripts from before the Tang dynasty, both of which are preserved in the Ishiyama-dera temple in Ōtsu, Japan, a number of woodblock printed editions of the Records survive, the earliest of which date to the Song dynasty. In all, the Records is about 526,000 Chinese characters long, making it four times longer than Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War, Sima Qian conceived and composed his work in self-contained units, with a good deal of repetition between them. His manuscript was written on bamboo slips with about 24 to 36 characters each, even after the manuscript was allowed to circulate or be copied, the work would have circulated as bundles of bamboo slips or small groups. Endymion Wilkinson calculates that there were probably between 466 and 700 bundles, whose total weight would have been 88–132 pounds, which would have been difficult to access, later copies on silk would have been much lighter, but also expensive and rare. Until the work was transferred to many centuries later, circulation would have been difficult and piecemeal. Sima Qian organized the chapters of Records of the Grand Historian into five categories, the first five cover either periods, such as the Five Emperors, or individual dynasties, such as the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. The last seven cover individual rulers, starting with the First Emperor of Qin, Tables Chapters 13 to 22 are the Tables, which are one genealogical table and nine other chronological tables. Each table except the last one begins with an introduction to the period it covers, Hereditary Houses The Hereditary Houses is the second largest of the five Records sections, and comprises chapters 31 to 60. Within this section, the chapters are very different in nature than the later chapters. Many of the chapters are chronicle-like accounts of the leading states of the Zhou dynasty, such as the states of Qin and Lu. The later chapters, which cover the Han dynasty, contain biographies, Ranked Biographies The Ranked Biographies is the largest of the five Records sections, covering chapters 61 to 130, and accounts for 42% of the entire work
32.
Kangju
–
Kangju was the Chinese name of an ancient kingdom in Central Asia which became for a couple of centuries the second greatest power in Transoxiana after the Yuezhi. Its people, the Kang were an Indo-European semi-nomadic people probably identical to the Iranian Sogdians, Kangju 康居 = the Talas basin, Tashkent and Sogdiana. It is not clear whether the Chinese name 康居 Kangju was intended to transcribe an ethnic name, or to be descriptive, 居 ju can mean, seat, central place of activity or authority, to settle down, residence, or to occupy. The term, therefore, could mean the abode of the Kang. As kang 康 means well-being, peaceful, happy, settle, stability, Kangju can be translated as the Peaceful Land, Kangju was referred to as the State of Kang during the Sui and Tang dynasties, though by that time the area was ruled by the Göktürk Khaganate. According to 2nd century BC Chinese sources, Kangju lay north of the Dayuan and west of the Wusun and their territory covered the region of the Ferghana Valley and the area between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, with the core territory along the middle Syr Darya. Since historians of Alexander the Great do not mention the existence of any power in the area except the Khwarezmians. Chinese sources state that the Kangju were tributiaries of the Yuezhi in the south and its people are nomads and resemble the Yuezhi in their customs. They have 80,000 or 90,000 skilled archers, the country is small, and borders Dayuan. It acknowledges sovereignty to the Yuezhi people in the South and the Xiongnu in the East, qian also visited a land known to the Chinese as Yancai 奄蔡, which lay north-west of the Kangju. The people of Yancai and were said to resemble the Kangju in their customs, the people are nomads and their customs are generally similar to those of the people of Kangju. Kangju was clearly now a power in its own right. By this time it had gained control of Dayuan and Sogdiana in which it controlled “five lesser kings”, in 101 BCE, the Kangju allied themselves with the Dayuan, helping them preserve their independence against the Han. Yancai is identified with the Aorsi of Roman records, scholars have connected name Alanliao to Alans. The Yan people of the Urals, paid tribute to the Kangju in furs, the Kangju established close connections with the Sarmatians, their western neighbors. Through this expansion the Kangju gained control over key parts of the Silk Route, the Kangju state came to unite a number of regions which had sedentary, agricultural and nomadic populations. Although their territory was small, the fertility of the land and their sophisticated civilization enabled the Kangju to maintain a large population, the Kangju were in frequent struggles with the Wusun, during which they in the mid 1st century BCE allied themselved with the northern Xiongnu. The Kangju ruler gave his daughter in marriage to the northern Xiongnu ruler Chih-Chih while Chih-Chih married the daughter of the Kangju ruler, the Xiongnu and Kangju were initially successful, besieging the Wusun in 42 BCE
33.
Daxia
–
It is possible that Daxia, in part, conflated or confused Tokhara with the country of the Dahae, who were usually known in classical Chinese sources as the Dayi. Daxia is mentioned by, for instance, Chapter VIII of the Guanzi, having passed through the valleys of the Taihang and Bier, took captive the chief of the Da Xia. Further to the west, he subjugated the Xi Yu of Liusha, the reports of Zhang Qian are preserved in Shiji by Sima Qian in the 1st century BCE. They describe an important urban civilization of about one million people, Daxia was an affluent country with rich markets, trading in an incredible variety of objects, coming as far as Southern China. By the time Zhang Qian visited Daxia, there were no longer a king, and the Bactrian were suzerains to the nomadic Yuezhi. Overall, Zhang Qian depicted a rather sophisticated but demoralized people who were afraid of war, all these states, he was told, were militarily weak and prized Han goods and wealth. These contacts immediately led to the dispatch of multiple embassies from the Chinese, initiating the development of the Silk Road
34.
Bactria
–
Bactria or Bactriana was the name of a historical region in Central Asia. Bactria was located between the Hindu Kush mountain range and the Amu Darya river, covering the region that straddles modern-day Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The English name Bactria is derived from the Ancient Greek, Βακτριανή, analogous names include the Pashto and Persian, باختر, translit. Bākhtar, Uzbek, Балх, Tajik, Бохтар, Chinese, 大夏, pinyin, Dàxià and this region played a major role in Central Asian history. At certain times the political limits of Bactria stretched far beyond the frame of the Bactrian plain. The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex is the modern designation for a Bronze Age culture of Central Asia. 2200–1700 BC, located in present-day eastern Turkmenistan, northern Afghanistan, southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan, centred on the upper Amu Darya and its sites were discovered and named by the Soviet archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi. The early Greek historian Ctesias, c.400 BC, alleged that the legendary Assyrian king Ninus had defeated a Bactrian king named Oxyartes in ca.2140 BC, or some 1000 years before the Trojan War. Since the decipherment of cuneiform in the 19th century, however, according to some writers, Bactria was the homeland of Indo-Iranian tribes who moved south-west into Iran and into north-western India around 2500–2000 BC. Later, it became the province of the Persian Empire in Central Asia. It was in these regions, where the soil of the mountainous country is surrounded by the Turanian desert. After Darius III had been defeated by Alexander the Great, the satrap of Bactria, Bessus attempted to organise a resistance but was captured by other warlords. He was then tortured and killed, however, in the south, beyond the Oxus, he met strong resistance. After two years of war and an insurgency campaign, Alexander managed to establish little control over Bactria. After Alexanders death, Diodorus Siculus tells us that Philip received dominion over Bactria, at the Treaty of Triparadisus, both Diodorus Siculus and Arrian agree that the satrap Stasanor gained control over Bactria. Eventually, Alexanders empire was divided up among the generals in Alexanders army, Bactria became a part of the Seleucid Empire, named after its founder, Seleucus I. The Macedonians, especially Seleucus I and his son Antiochus I, established the Seleucid Empire, the Greek language became dominant for some time there. The paradox that Greek presence was more prominent in Bactria than in areas far closer to Greece can possibly be explained by past deportations of Greeks to Bactria
35.
Wusun
–
The Wusun were an Indo-European semi-nomadic steppe people mentioned in Chinese records from the 2nd century BC to the 5th century AD. The Wusun originally lived between the Qilian Mountains and Dunhuang near the Yuezhi, around 176 BC the Yuezhi were raided by the Xiongnu, subsequently attacking the Wusun, killing their king and seizing their land. The Wusun prince was subsequently adopted by the Xiongnu ruler and made a Xiongnu general, after the Yuezhi around 162 BC were driven into the Ili Valley of Zhetysu, Dzungaria and Tian Shan formerly inhabited by the Sai, the Wusun resettled Gansu as vassals of the Xiongnu. In 133-132 BC, the Wusun drove the Yuezhi from the Ili Valley and they subsequently became close allies of the Han dynasty and a powerful force in the region for several centuries. Pressured by the Rouran, the Wusun are last mentioned by the Chinese as having settled the Pamir Mountains in the 5th century AD and they possibly became subsumed into the later Hephthalites. Wusun is a pronunciation of the Chinese Characters 烏孫. The Chinese name 烏孫 literally means wū ‘crow, raven’ + sūn ‘grandson, there are several theories about the origin of the name. Sinologist Victor H. Mair compared Wusun with Sanskrit áśva ‘horse’, aśvin ‘mare’, the name would thus mean ‘the horse people’. Hence he put forward the hypothesis that the Wusun used a language within the Indo-European languages. However, the hypothesis is not supported by Edwin G. Pulleyblank. Beckwith suggests that the Wusun were a remnant of the Indo-Aryans. Around 176 BC Mody Chanyu launched a raid against the Yuezhi. Around 173 BC, the Yuezhi subsequently attacked the Wusun, at time a small nation. According to legend Nandoumis infant son Liejiaomi was left in the wild and he was miraculously saved from hunger being suckled by a she-wolf, and fed meat by ravens. The Wusun ancestor myth shares striking similarities with those of the Hittites, the Zhou Chinese, the Scythians, the Romans, in 162 BC, the Yuezhi were finally defeated by the Xiongnu, after which they fled Gansu. According to Zhang Qian, the Yuezhi were defeated by the rising Xiongnu empire and fled westward, driving away the Sai from the Ili Valley in the Zhetysu, the Sai would subsequently migrate into South Asia, where they founded various Indo-Scythian kingdoms. After the Yuezhi retreat the Wusun subsequently settled the province of Gansu, in the valley of the Ushui-he. It is not clear whether the river was named after the tribe or vice versa, the Xiongnu ruler was impressed with Liejiaomi, considering him a supernatural being, and adopted the child
36.
Yutian County, Xinjiang
–
Yutian County or Keriya County is a county within the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region and is under the administration of the Hotan Prefecture. It contains an area of 39,023 km², according to the 2002 census, it has a population of 220,000. Its government is located at Keriya Town, the county derives its name from the Kingdom of Khotan, although the official name was written as 于阗 at the time. This was latter changed to 玉田 following the adoption of Simplified Chinese, Yutian County is dubbed the Home of Jade Yutian County was formed in 1882, its administrative center was Karakash, and Keriya was only a post station. In 1885, the center of the county was moved to Keriya. The ancient name of Keriya was Ganmi, the names Yutian and Ganmi were used by the Chinese envoy Zhang Qian in his 125 BCE report on his embassys travels. Yutian County consists of 2 villages and 13 parishes
37.
Hotan
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Hotan, also transliterated from Chinese as Hetian, is a major oasis town in southwestern Xinjiang, an autonomous region in western China. The city proper of Hotan broke off from the larger Hotan County to become an area in its own right in August 1984. It is the seat of Hotan Prefecture, with a population of 322,300, Hotan is situated in the Tarim Basin some 1,500 kilometres southwest of the regional capital, Ürümqi. It lies just north of the Kunlun Mountains, which are crossed by the Sanju, Hindutash, the town, located southeast of Yarkant County and populated almost exclusively by Uyghurs, is a minor agricultural center. The White Jade River still provides water and irrigation for the town and it provided a convenient meeting place where not only goods, but technologies, philosophies, and religions were transmitted from one culture to another. Tocharians lived in this region over 2000 years ago, several of the Tarim mummies were found in the region. At Sampul, east of the city of Hotan, there is a series of cemeteries scattered over an area about 1 kilometre wide and 23 km long. The excavated sites range from about 300 BCE to 100 CE, the tapestry had been cut up and fashioned into trousers worn by one of the deceased. An Anthropological study of 56 individuals showed a primarily Caucasoid population, DNA testing on the mummies found in the Tarim basin showed that they were an admixture of Western Europeans and East Asian. There is an abundance of information on Hotan readily available for study. The ancient Kingdom of Khotan was one of the earliest Buddhist states in the world and its capital was located to the west of the modern city of Hotan. The inhabitants of the Kingdom of Khotan, like those of early Kashgar and Yarkant, spoke Saka, khotans indigenous dynasty governed a fervently Buddhist city-state boasting some 400 temples in the late 9th/early 10th century—four times the number recorded by Xuanzang around 630. The kingdom was independent but was intermittently under Chinese control during the Han, after the Tang dynasty, Khotan formed an alliance with the rulers of Dunhuang. Through the 10th century, Khotanese royal portraits were painted in association with an number of deities in the caves. In the 10th century, Khotan began a struggle with the Kara-Khanid Khanate, some Khotanese Buddhist works were unearthed. The rulers of Khotan were aware of the menace they faced since they arranged for the Mogao grottoes to paint a number of divine figures along with themselves. Yūsuf Qadr Khān was a brother or cousin of the Muslim ruler of Kashgar and Balasagun, Khotan lost its independence, later it fell to the Kara-Khitan Khanate, after which it was ruled by the Mongols. When Marco Polo visited Khotan in the 13th century, he noted that the people were all Muslim and he wrote that, Khotan was a province eight days’ journey in extent, which is subject to the Great Khan
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Basmachi movement
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The Basmachi movement or Basmachi Revolt was an uprising against Russian Imperial and Soviet rule by the Muslim peoples of Central Asia. The movements roots lay in the violence of 1916 that erupted when the Russian Empire began to draft Muslims for army service during World War I. In the months following the October 1917 Revolution the Bolsheviks seized power in parts of the Russian Empire. Turkestani Muslim political movements attempted to form a government in the city of Kokand. The Bolsheviks launched an assault on Kokand in February 1918 and carried out a massacre of up to 25,000 people. The massacre rallied support to the Basmachi movements who waged a guerrilla and conventional war that seized control of parts of the Fergana Valley. The fortunes of the decentralized movement fluctuated throughout the early 1920s, after major Red Army campaigns and concessions regarding economic and Islamic practices in the mid-1920s, the military fortunes and popular support of the Basmachi declined. Resistance to Russian rule and Soviet leadership did flare up again, to a lesser extent, prior to World War I, Russian Turkestan was ruled from Tashkent as a Krai or Governor-Generalship. To the east of Tashkent, the Ferghana Valley was an ethnically diverse, under Russian rule, it was converted into a major cotton-growing region. On the whole, living standards did not improve, and many farmers became indebted, many criminals organized into bands, forming the basis for the early Basmachi movement when it began in the Ferghana Valley. Cotton price-fixing during the First World War made matters worse, Muslim clergy decried the gambling and alcoholism that became commonplace, and crime rose considerably. Major violence in Russian Turkestan broke out in 1916, when the Tsarist government ended its exemption of Muslims from military service, the result was a general revolt, centered in modern-day Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which was only put down by martial law. Tensions between Central Asians and Russian settlers led to large-scale massacres on both sides, thousands died, and hundreds of thousands more fled, often into neighboring Republic of China. The 1916 rebellion was the first anti-Russian incident on a scale in Central Asia. The suppression of the rebellion was a campaign of annihilation against the Kazakh. Hundreds of thousands of Kazakh and Kyrgyz people were killed or expelled, the ethnic clensing had its roots in the Tsarist government policy of ethnic homogenization. In the aftermath of the February Revolution of 1917, Muslim political forces began to organize, members of the All-Russian Muslim council formed the Shura-i Islam, a Jadidist body that sought a federated, democratic state with autonomy for Muslims. More conservative religious scholars formed the Ulema Jemyeti, more concerned with safeguarding Islamic institutions, together, these Muslim nationalists formed a coalition, but it fell apart after the October Revolution, when the Jadids lent their support to the Bolsheviks who had seized power
39.
Book of Han
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The Book of Han or History of the Former Han is a history of China finished in 111, covering the Western, or Former Han dynasty from the first emperor in 206 BCE to the fall of Wang Mang in 23 CE. It is also called the Book of Former Han, the work was composed by Ban Gu, a court official, with the help of his sister Ban Zhao, continuing the work of their father, Ban Biao. They modeled their work on the Records of the Grand Historian, a universal history and it is the best source, sometimes the only one, for many topics in this period. A second work, the Book of the Later Han covers the Eastern Han period from 25 to 220, and was composed in the fifth century by Fan Ye. This history developed from a continuation of Sima Qians Records of the Grand Historian, initiated by Ban Gus father, Ban Biao and this work is usually referred to as Later Traditions, which clearly indicates that the elder Bans work was meant to be a continuation. After Ban Biaos death, his eldest son Ban Gu was dissatisfied with what his father had completed and this distinguished it from Sima Qians history, which had begun with Chinas earliest legendary rulers. In this way, Ban Gu initiated the Jizhuanti format for dynastic histories that was to remain the model for the official histories until modern times. For the periods where they overlapped, Ban Gu adopted nearly verbatim much of Sima Qians material and he also incorporated at least some of what his father had written, though it is difficult to know how much. The completed work ran to a total of 100 fascicles 卷, and included essays on law, science, geography, Ban Gus younger sister Ban Zhao finished writing the book in 111,19 years after Ban Gu had died in prison. An outstanding scholar in her own right, she is thought to have written volumes 13–20 and 26, the Annals section and the three chapters covering the reign of Wang Mang were translated into English by Homer H. Dubs. Other chapters have been rendered into English by A. F. P, sargent, Nancy Lee Swann, and Burton Watson. Ban Gus history set the standard for the writings of later Chinese dynasties and it is regarded as one of the Four Histories 四史 of the Twenty-Four Histories canon, together with the Records of the Grand Historian, Records of the Three Kingdoms and History of the Later Han. Emperors biographies in strict annal form, which offer an overview of the most important occurrences. Each treatise describes an area of effort of the state, the biographies confine themselves to the description of events that clearly show the exemplary character of the person. Two or more people are treated in one article, as they belong to the same class of people. The last articles describe the relations between China and the various peoples beyond the frontiers and it is later recorded that in 57, the southern Wa kingdom of Na sent an emissary named Taifu to pay tribute to Emperor Guangwu and received a golden seal. The seal itself was discovered in northern Kyūshū in the 18th century, according to the Book of Wei, the most powerful kingdom on the archipelago in the third century was called Yamatai and was ruled by the legendary Queen Himiko. Dorneich, Chris M. Chinese sources on the History of the Niusi-Wusi-Asi-Rishi-Arsi-Arshi-Ruzhi, shiji 110/Hanshu 94A, The Xiongnu, Synopsis of Chinese original Text and several Western Translations with Extant Annotations
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Yarkant County
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Shache County or Yarkand County is a county in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China, located on the southern rim of the Taklamakan desert in the Tarim Basin. It is one of 11 counties administered under Kashgar Prefecture, Yarkant, usually written Yarkand in English, was the seat of an ancient Buddhist kingdom on the southern branch of the Silk Road. The county sits at an altitude of 1,189 metres, the fertile oasis is fed by the Yarkand River which flows north down from the Karakorum mountains and passes through Kunlun Mountains known historically as Congling mountains. The oasis now covers 3,210 square kilometres, but was far more extensive before a period of desiccation affected the region from the 3rd century CE onwards. Today, Yarkant is a predominantly Uyghur settlement, the irrigated oasis farmland produces cotton, wheat, corn, fruits, and walnuts. Yak and sheep graze in the highlands, mineral deposits include petroleum, natural gas, gold, copper, lead, bauxite, granite and coal. The territory of Yārkand is first mentioned in the Book of Han as Shaju, descriptions in the Hou Hanshu contain insights into the complex political situation China faced in attempting to open up the Silk Routes to the West in the 1st century CE. According to the Chapter on the Western Regions in the Hou Hanshu, Going west from the kingdom of Suoju, to the east, it is 10,950 li from Luoyang. The Chanyu of the Xiongnu took advantage of the caused by Wang Mang. Only Yan, the king of Suoju, who was powerful than the others. Previously, during the time of Emperor Yuan, he was a hostage prince and he admired and loved the Middle Kingdom and extended the rules of Chinese administration to his own country. He ordered all his sons to serve the Han dynasty generation by generation. Yan died in the fifth Tianfeng year and he was awarded the posthumous title of Faithful and Martial King. His son, Kang, succeeded him on the throne, at the beginning of Emperor Guangwus reign, Kang led the neighbouring kingdoms to resist the Xiongnu. He escorted, and protected, more than a people including the officers, the soldiers. He sent a letter to Hexi to inquire about the activities of the Middle Kingdom, and personally expressed his attachment to, and admiration for, in the ninth year Kang died. He was awarded the title of “Greatly Accomplished King. ”His younger brother, Xian. Xian attacked and conquered the kingdoms of Jumi and Xiye and he killed both their kings, and installed two sons of his elder brother, Kang, as the kings of Jumi and Xiye
41.
Book of the Later Han
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The Hou Hanshu, or Book of the Later Han, also known as History of the Later Han, is a Chinese court document covering the history of the Han dynasty from 6 to 189 CE. It was compiled by Fan Ye and others in the 5th century during the Liu Song dynasty, using a number of earlier histories and documents as sources. The book is part of four early historiographies of the Twenty-Four Histories canon, together with the Records of the Grand Historian, Book of Han and Records of the Three Kingdoms. Fan Ye used earlier histories, including accounts by Sima Qian and Ban Gu, along many others. The section on the Treatise on the Western Regions was based on a report composed by Ban Yong and it presumably includes notes from his father Ban Chao. It contains a few references to events occurring after the death of Emperor An, including a brief account of the arrival of the first official envoys from Rome in 166. Now, the reports of the Jianwu period onwards recorded in this Chapter on the Western Regions differ from the earlier, they are from Ban Yongs report at the end of Emperor An, trois Généraux Chinois de la dynastie des Han Orientaux. Pan Tch’ao, – son fils Pan Yong, – Leang K’in, chapitre LXXVII du Heou Han chou. Les pay doccident daprès le Heou Han chou, through the Jade Gate - China to Rome, A Study of the Silk Routes 1st to 2nd Centuries CE. A History of the Relationships between the Western and Eastern Han, Wei, Jin, Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Western Regions, sino-Platonic Papers No.131 March,2004. Dept. of East Asian Languages and Civilizations, University of Pennsylvania, encyclopedia of China, 1st ed. Silk Road Seattle - University of Washington Hou Han Shu
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Khujand
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Khujand, formerly Khodjend or Khodzhent until 1936 and Leninabad until 1991, is the second-largest city of Tajikistan and the capital of the northernmost province of Tajikistan, now called Sughd. Khujand is one of the oldest cities in Central Asia, dating back about 2,500 years and it is situated on the Syr Darya at the mouth of the Fergana Valley and was a major city along the ancient Silk Road. Khujand is the site of Cyropolis which was established when king Cyrus the Great founded the city during his last expedition against the Saka tribe of Massagetae shortly before his death. Alexander the Great later built his furthest Greek settlement near Cyropolis in 329 BC, the city would form a bastion for the Greek settlers against the nomadic Scythian tribes who lived north of the Syr Darya River. According to the Roman writer Curtius, Alexandria Ultima retained its Hellenistic culture as late as 30 BCE, the city became a major staging point on the northern Silk Road. It also became a hub and several famous Persian poets and scientists came from this city. Khujand was captured by the Muslim armies in the early 8th century under Qutayba ibn Muslim, in the late 9th century, however, it reverted to local rule and eventually incorporated into the Samanid Empire. It came under the rule of the Kara-Khanid Khanate in 999 but after the division of Kara Khanids in 1042, it was part of Eastern Kara Khanids. Karakhitans conquered it in 1137, but it passed to Khwarazmshahs in 1211, in the 14th century, the city was part of the Chagatai Khanate until it was incorporated into the Timurid Dynasty in the late 14th century. The Shaybanid dynasty of Bukhara next annexed Khojand, until it was taken over by the Kokand Khanate in 1802, in 1866, as most of Central Asia was occupied by Russian Empire, the city became part of the Russian Governorate of Turkestan. The threat of forced conscription during World War I led to protests in the city in July 1916, in 1929, it was incorporated into the Soviet Republic of Tajikistan after being part of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic between 1924 and 1929. The city was renamed Leninabad on 10 January 1936 and it remained part of the Soviet Union until 1991, with the independence of Tajikistan, Khujand became the second largest city in the nation. It reverted to its original name in 1992 after the breakup of the Soviet Union. In 1996 the city experienced the Ashurov protests during which citizens called for the President, the popular protests were followed by a protest from the citys prisoners, many of whom had been sentenced to long jail terms for minor crimes and who were living in poor conditions. The protest led to the Khujand prison riot in which between 24 and 150 prisoners were killed, in the early 2000s many residents of Khujand had little to no access to water, and what water they did have was unsafe to drink and had to be boiled. Residents pay for their supply, which in turn helps Khujands municipal water company to continue to renovate. The project is in its stage of development, and should be completed by 2017. Khujand Airport has regularly scheduled flights to Dushanbe as well as international destinations. There is also a connection between Khujand and Samarkand in Uzbekistan on the way to Dushanbe
Uzbekistan
