1.
Aral Sea
–
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 The historical documents of the development of the Aral Sea have added by UNESCO to its Memory of the World Register as a source to study this environmental tragedy.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
2.
Bronze Age
–
The Bronze Age is a historical period characterized by the use of bronze, proto-writing, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the principal period of the three-age Stone-Bronze-Iron system, as proposed in modern times by Christian Jürgensen Thomsen. An ancient civilization is defined to be in the Bronze Age either by smelting its own copper and alloying with tin, arsenic, or other metals, or by trading for bronze from production areas elsewhere. Copper-tin ores are rare, as reflected in the fact there were no tin bronzes in Western Asia before trading in bronze began in the third millennium BC. Worldwide, the Bronze Age generally followed the Neolithic period, with the Chalcolithic serving as a transition, although the Iron Age generally followed the Bronze Age, in some areas, the Iron Age intruded directly on the Neolithic. Bronze Age cultures differed in their development of the first writing, according to archaeological evidence, cultures in Mesopotamia and Egypt developed the earliest viable writing systems. The overall period is characterized by use of bronze, though the place and time of the introduction. Human-made tin bronze technology requires set production techniques, tin must be mined and smelted separately, then added to molten copper to make bronze alloy. The Bronze Age was a time of use of metals. The dating of the foil has been disputed, the Bronze Age in the ancient Near East began with the rise of Sumer in the 4th millennium BC. Societies in the region laid the foundations for astronomy and mathematics, the usual tripartite division into an Early, Middle and Late Bronze Age is not used. Instead, a division based on art-historical and historical characteristics is more common. The cities of the Ancient Near East housed several tens of thousands of people, ur in the Middle Bronze Age and Babylon in the Late Bronze Age similarly had large populations. The earliest mention of Babylonia appears on a tablet from the reign of Sargon of Akkad in the 23rd century BC, the Amorite dynasty established the city-state of Babylon in the 19th century BC. Over 100 years later, it took over the other city-states. Babylonia adopted the written Semitic Akkadian language for official use, by that time, the Sumerian language was no longer spoken, but was still in religious use. Elam was an ancient civilization located to the east of Mesopotamia, in the Old Elamite period, Elam consisted of kingdoms on the Iranian plateau, centered in Anshan, and from the mid-2nd millennium BC, it was centered in Susa in the Khuzestan lowlands. Its culture played a role in the Gutian Empire and especially during the Achaemenid dynasty that succeeded it
3.
Amu Darya
–
The Amu Darya, also called the Amu River and historically known by its Latin name, Oxus, is a major river in Central Asia. It is formed by the junction of the Vakhsh and Panj rivers, at Qaleh-ye Panjeh in Afghanistan, in ancient times, the river was regarded as the boundary between Greater Iran and Turan. In classical antiquity, the river was known as the Ōxus in Latin and Ὦξος Ôxos in Greek—a clear derivative of Vakhsh, in Vedic Sanskrit, the river is also referred to as Vakṣu. The Avestan texts too refer to the River as Yakhsha/Vakhsha, in Middle Persian sources of the Sassanid period the river is known as Wehrōd. The name Amu is said to have come from the city of Āmul, in modern Turkmenistan. Medieval Arabic and Muslim sources call the river Jayhoun which is derived from Gihon, however, this name is no longer used. Hara and to the river of Gozan (that is to say, the Amu. the Gozan River is the River Balkh, i. e. the Oxus or the Amu Darya. and were brought into Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river Gozan. The rivers total length is 2,400 kilometres and its drainage basin totals 534,739 square kilometres in area, the river is navigable for over 1,450 kilometres. All of the water comes from the mountains in the south where annual precipitation can be over 1,000 mm. An ice cave at the end of the Wakhjir valley, in the Wakhan Corridor, in the Pamir Mountains, a glacier turns into the Wakhan River and joins the Pamir River about 50 kilometres downstream. Therefore, the Chelab stream may be considered the true source or parent stream of the Oxus. The Panj River forms the border of Afghanistan and Tajikistan and it flows west to Ishkashim where it turns north and then north-west through the Pamirs passing the Tajikistan–Afghanistan Friendship Bridge. It subsequently forms the border of Afghanistan and Uzbekistan for about 200 kilometres, passing Termez and it delineates the border of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan for another 100 kilometres before it flows into Turkmenistan at Atamurat. As the Amudarya, it flows across Turkmenistan south to north, passing Türkmenabat, use of water from the Amu Darya for irrigation has been a major contributing factor to the shrinking of the Aral Sea since the late 1950s. Historical records state that in different periods, the river flowed into the Aral Sea, into the Caspian Sea, about 1,385,045 square kilometres of land is drained by the Amu Darya into the Aral Sea endorheic basin. This includes most of Tajikistan, the southwest corner of Kyrgyzstan, the northeast corner of Afghanistan, part of the Amu Daryas drainage divide in Tajikistan forms that countrys border with China and Pakistan. About 61% of the lies within Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Of the area drained by the Amu Darya, only about 200,000 square kilometres actively contribute water to the river and this is because many of the rivers major tributaries have been diverted, and much of the rivers drainage is dominated by outlying desert and steppe
4.
Khwarezm
–
It was the center of the Iranian Khwarezmian civilization and a series of kingdoms such as the Persian Empire, whose capitals were Kath, Gurganj and – from the 16th century on – Khiva. Today Khwarezm belongs partly to Uzbekistan, partly to Kazakhstan and partly to Turkmenistan, Khwarezm has been known also as Chorasmia, Khwarezmia, Khwarizm, Khwarazm, Khorezm, Khoresm, Khorasam, Kharazm, Harezm, Horezm, and Chorezm. C. E. Bosworth, however, believes the Persian name to be made up of xor and zam, designating the land from which the sun rises, another view is that the Iranian compound stands for lowland from khar low and zam land. Khwarezm is indeed the lowest region in Central Asia, located on the delta of the Amu Darya on the shores of the Aral Sea. Some of the early scholars believed Khwarezm to be what ancient Avestic texts refer to as Airyanem Vaejah. These sources claim that Old Urgench, which was the capital of ancient Khwarezm for many years, was actually Ourva, the eighth land of Ahura Mazda mentioned in the Pahlavi text of Vendidad. Al-Biruni starts giving names only with the Afrighid line of Khwarazmshahs, having placed the ascension of Afrighids in 616 of the Seleucid era, like Soghdiana, Khwarezm was an expansion of the BMAC culture during the Bronze Age which later fused with Indo-Iranians during their migrations around 1000 BC. Early Iron Age states arose from this cultural exchange, ruled by the native Afrighid Dynasty. It was at point that Khwarezm entered the historical record with the Achamenid expansion. An East Iranian language, known as Khwarezmian language, was spoken in Khwarezm proper until soon after the Mongol invasion and it was closely related to Sogdian. In the very part of its history, the inhabitants of the area were from Iranian stock. Sometime before the Achaemenid king Cyrus the Greats death in 530 BC, while he was dying, he appointed his son Smerdis/Bardiya as the governor of the region, along with Bactriana, Carmania, and the other eastern provinces of the empire. And the Persian poet Ferdowsi mentions Persian cities like Afrasiab and Chach in abundance in his epic Shahnama, the kings emissary offered to lead Alexanders armies against his own enemies, west over the Caspian towards the Black Sea. Although largely independent during the Seleucid, Bactrian and Arsacid dynasties, it is known that Khwarezm, yaqut al-Hamawi verifies that Khwarezm was a regional capital of the Sassanid empire. It was also vassal kingdom during periods of Kushans, Hephthalites, the Afrighids were a native Chorasmian dynasty which ruled over the kingdom of Khwarezm from 305 until 995 A. D. Sometimes it was under Sassanid control, in 712 Khwarezm was conquered by the Arab Umayyads. In 995, they overthrew the Afrighids of Kath and themselves assumed the traditional title of Khwarazm-Shah. Briefly, the area was under Samanid suzerainty, before it passed to Mahmud of Ghazna in 1017, in the 12th century, the Khwarezmid Empire was founded and, in the early 13th century, ruled over all of Persia under the Shah ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Muhammad II
5.
Tazabagyab culture
–
The Tazabagyab culture - archaeological culture of the Bronze Age, Located on the territory of Aral Sea. Formed from a result of migration tribes of Andronovo culture and it is assumed that the carriers of this culture were the Indo-European herdsmen, who gradually change it on irrigated farming, initiating the agricultural culture of Khwarezm. The population of Tazabagyab culture have an traces of the cult of fire, took part in the formation of latest Kaunda stage of Suyaurganovo archaeological culture
6.
Hunting
–
Hunting is the practice of killing or trapping animals, or pursuing or tracking them with the intent of doing so. Hunting wildlife or feral animals is most commonly done by humans for food, recreation, to predators that are dangerous to humans or domestic animals. Lawful hunting is distinguished from poaching, which is the killing, trapping or capture of the hunted species. The species that are hunted are referred to as game or prey and are usually mammals, Hunting can also be a means of pest control. However, hunting has also contributed to the endangerment, extirpation and extinction of many animals. The pursuit, capture and release, or capture for food of fish is called fishing, the practice of foraging or gathering materials from plants and mushrooms is also considered separate from hunting. The word hunt serves as both a noun and a verb, the noun has been dated to the early 12th century, act of chasing game, from the verb hunt. The meaning of a body of persons associated for the purpose of hunting with a pack of hounds is first recorded in the 1570s, meaning the act of searching for someone or something is from about 1600. The verb, Old English huntian to chase game, perhaps developed from hunta hunter, is related to hentan to seize, from Proto-Germanic huntojan, the general sense of search diligently is first recorded c. Hunting has a history and may well pre-date the rise of the species Homo sapiens. Evidence from western Kenya suggests that hunting has been occurring for more two million years. Furthermore, evidence exists that hunting may have one of the multiple environmental factors leading to the Holocene extinction of megafauna. North American megafauna extinction was coincidental with the Younger Dryas impact event, however, in other locations such as Australia, humans are thought to have played a very significant role in the extinction of the Australian megafauna that was widespread prior to human occupation. The closest surviving relatives of the species are the two species of Pan, the common chimpanzee and bonobos. Common chimpanzees have a diet that includes troop hunting behaviour based on beta males being led by an alpha male. Bonobos have also observed to occasionally engage in group hunting. With the establishment of language, culture, and religion, hunting became a theme of stories and myths, as well as such as dance. Hunting was a component of hunter-gatherer societies before the domestication of livestock
7.
Fishing
–
Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild, techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping. Fishing may include catching aquatic animals other than fish, such as molluscs, cephalopods, crustaceans, the term is not normally applied to catching farmed fish, or to aquatic mammals, such as whales where the term whaling is more appropriate. According to United Nations FAO statistics, the number of commercial fishermen. Fisheries and aquaculture provide direct and indirect employment to over 500 million people in developing countries, in 2005, the worldwide per capita consumption of fish captured from wild fisheries was 14.4 kilograms, with an additional 7.4 kilograms harvested from fish farms. In addition to providing food, modern fishing is also a recreational pastime, Fishing is an ancient practice that dates back to at least the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic period about 40,000 years ago. Isotopic analysis of the remains of Tianyuan man, a 40. Archaeology features such as middens, discarded fish bones, and cave paintings show that sea foods were important for survival. During this period, most people lived a lifestyle and were, of necessity. However, where there are examples of permanent settlements such as those at Lepenski Vir. The British dogger was a type of sailing trawler from the 17th century. The Brixham trawler that evolved there was of a build and had a tall gaff rig. They were also sufficiently robust to be able to tow large trawls in deep water, the great trawling fleet that built up at Brixham, earned the village the title of Mother of Deep-Sea Fisheries. The small village of Grimsby grew to become the largest fishing port in the world by the mid 19th century, an Act of Parliament was first obtained in 1796, which authorised the construction of new quays and dredging of the Haven to make it deeper. It was only in the 1846, with the expansion in the fishing industry. The foundation stone for the Royal Dock was laid by Albert the Prince consort in 1849, the dock covered 25 acres and was formally opened by Queen Victoria in 1854 as the first modern fishing port. The elegant Brixham trawler spread across the world, influencing fishing fleets everywhere, by the end of the 19th century, there were over 3,000 fishing trawlers in commission in Britain, with almost 1,000 at Grimsby. These trawlers were sold to fishermen around Europe, including from the Netherlands, twelve trawlers went on to form the nucleus of the German fishing fleet
8.
Turkmenistan
–
Turkmenistan has been at the crossroads of civilizations for centuries. In medieval times, Merv was one of the cities of the Islamic world and an important stop on the Silk Road. Annexed by the Russian Empire in 1881, Turkmenistan later figured prominently in the movement in Central Asia. In 1924, Turkmenistan became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, Turkmenistan possesses the worlds fourth largest reserves of natural gas resources. Most of the country is covered by the Karakum Desert, since 1993, citizens have received government-provided electricity, water and natural gas free of charge. Turkmenistan was ruled by President for Life Saparmurat Niyazov until his death in 2006, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow was elected president in 2007. According to Human Rights Watch, Turkmenistan remains one of the world’s most repressive countries, after suspending the death penalty, the use of capital punishment was formally abolished in the 2008 constitution. Historically inhabited by the Indo-Iranians, the history of Turkmenistan begins with its annexation by the Achaemenid Empire of Ancient Iran. In the 8th century AD, Turkic-speaking Oghuz tribes moved from Mongolia into present-day Central Asia, part of a powerful confederation of tribes, these Oghuz formed the ethnic basis of the modern Turkmen population. In the 10th century, the name Turkmen was first applied to Oghuz groups that accepted Islam, There they were under the dominion of the Seljuk Empire, which was composed of Oghuz groups living in present-day Iran and Turkmenistan. Turkmen soldiers in the service of the played a important role in the spreading of Turkic culture when they migrated westward into present-day Azerbaijan. In the 12th century, Turkmen and other tribes overthrew the Seljuk Empire, in the next century, the Mongols took over the more northern lands where the Turkmens had settled, scattering the Turkmens southward and contributing to the formation of new tribal groups. The sixteenth and eighteenth centuries saw a series of splits and confederations among the nomadic Turkmen tribes, by the 16th century, most of those tribes were under the nominal control of two sedentary Uzbek khanates, Khiva and Bukhoro. Turkmen soldiers were an important element of the Uzbek militaries of this period, in the 19th century, raids and rebellions by the Yomud Turkmen group resulted in that groups dispersal by the Uzbek rulers. According to Paul R. Spickard, Prior to the Russian conquest, Russian forces began occupying Turkmen territory late in the 19th century. From their Caspian Sea base at Krasnovodsk, the Russians eventually overcame the Uzbek khanates, in 1916 the Russian Empires participation in World War I resonated in Turkmenistan, as an anticonscription revolt swept most of Russian Central Asia. In 1924 the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic was formed from the tsarist province of Transcaspia, by the late 1930s, Soviet reorganization of agriculture had destroyed what remained of the nomadic lifestyle in Turkmenistan, and Moscow controlled political life. The Ashgabat earthquake of 1948 killed over 110,000 people, during the next half-century, Turkmenistan played its designated economic role within the Soviet Union and remained outside the course of major world events
9.
Iranian Plateau
–
The Persian Plateau, or Iranian Plateau, is a geological formation in Western Asia and Central Asia. As a historical region, it includes Parthia, Media, Persis, the Zagros Mountains form the plateaus western boundary, and its eastern slopes may be included in the term. The Encyclopædia Britannica excludes lowland Khuzestan explicitly and characterizes Elam as spanning the region from the Mesopotamian plain to the Iranian Plateau, from the Caspian in the northwest to Baluchistan in the south-east, the Iranian Plateau extends for close to 2,000 km. It is a geologically well-studied area because of general interest in continental collision zones, the Iranian plateau in geology refers to a geographical area north of the great folded mountain belts resulting from the collision of the Arabian plate with the Eurasian plate. In this definition, the Iranian plateau does not cover southwestern Iran and it extends from East Azerbaijan Province in northwest of Iran all the way to Pakistan west of the Indus River. It also includes parts of the Republic of Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Its mountain ranges can be divided into five major sub-regions, the region is known as the Anti-Taurus, and the average elevation of its peaks exceeds 3,000 m. Mount Ararat, at 5,137 meters the highest point in Turkey, is located in the Anti-Taurus, Lake Van is situated in the mountains at an elevation of 1,546 meters. Several small streams empty into the Black Sea or landlocked Lake Van also originate in these mountains. The Indus River begins in the highlands of Tibet and flows the length of Pakistan almost tracing the eastern edge of the Iranian plateau, the Indus River forms the Iranian plateaus eastern boundary. Southeast Anatolia lies south of the Anti-Taurus Mountains and it is a region of rolling hills and a broad plateau surface that extends into Syria. Elevations decrease gradually, from about 800 meters in the north to about 500 meters in the south, traditionally, wheat and barley are the main crops of the region. The kingdoms of Aratta known from cuneiform sources may have located in the Central Iranian Plateau. In classical antquity the region was known as Persia, due to the Persian Achaemenid dynasty, originating in Persia proper, the Middle Persian Erān began to be used in reference to the state from the Sassanid period. Oak forests are found around Shiraz, aspen, elm, ash, willow, walnut, pine, and cypress are also found, though the latter two are rare. As of 1920, poplar was harvested for making doors, other trees like acacia, cypress, and Turkestan elm were used for decorative purposes. Flower wise, the plateau can grow lilac, jasmine, hawthorn and Cercis siliquastrum are common, which are both used for basket weaving. The Iranian plateau harvests trees for making doors, ploughs, pears, apples, apricots, quince, plums, nectarines, cherries, mulberries, and peaches were commonly seen in the 20th century
![[icon]](/wiki/File:Wiki_letter_w_cropped.svg){kind=small}