Zeravshan
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The Zeravshan or Zarafshan river (from the Persian word زر افشان, meaning "the sprayer of Gold"), whilst smaller and less well-known than the two great rivers of Central Asia, the Amu Darya (or Oxus) and the Syr Darya (or Jaxartes), is if anything more valuable as a source of irrigation in the region. Its name signifies 'Spreader of Gold' in Persian, and refers to the presence of gold-bearing sands in the upper reaches of the river. To the ancient Greeks it was known as the Polytimetus.
The Zeravshan range or Zeravshan mountains rise to the south of the river. They reach up to 5,630 metres high.
It rises at on the fringes of the Pamirs in Tajikistan, flowing due west for soe 300 km, passing Penjikent before entering Uzbekistan at , where it turns west-to-north-west, flowing past the legendary city of Samarkand, which is entirely dependent on the oasis thus created, until it bends left again to the west north of Navoi and further to the south-west, passing Bukhara before it loses itself in the desert past Karakul, not quite reaching the Oxus, of which it was formerly a tributary.
Zeravshan is also a city in Uzbekistan.
[edit] Further reading
- В.В. Бартольд "К Истории Орошения в Туркестане" (Collected Works, Vol.3) (Москва) 1965
- V.V. Barthold "Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion" (London) 1968
- Robert Lewis "Early Irrigation in West Turkestan" Annals of the Association of American Geographers Vol.56 №.3 (Sept. 1966) pp467-491
- Edgar Knobloch "Beyond the Oxus" (London) 1972
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