Sogdiana
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sogdiana (Tajik: Суғд - Old Persian: Sughuda; Persian: سغد ; Chinese: 粟特 - Sute) was the ancient civilization of an Iranian people and a province of the Persian Achaemenian Empire, the eighteenth in the list in the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great (i. 16). Sogdiana, at different periods of time, included territories around Samarkand, Bukhara, Khujand and Kesh (Shahrisabz) in modern Uzbekistan.
The Sogdian states, although never politically united, were centred around their main city of Samarkand. It lay north of Bactria, east of Khwarezm, and southeast of Kangju between the Oxus (Amu Darya) and the Jaxartes (Syr Darya), embracing the fertile valley of the Zarafshan (anc. Polytimetus). Sogdian territory corresponded to the modern districts of Samarkand and Bokhara in modern Uzbekistan as well as modern Tajikistan. During the High Middle Ages it was extended to the north by a policy of colonial settlements up to the Lake Issyk Kul.
Sogdian Rock or Rock of Ariamazes, a fortress in Sogdiana, was captured in 327 BC by the forces of Alexander the Great, who united Sogdiana with Bactria in to one satrapy. Subsequently it formed part of the Hellenistic Greco-Bactrian kingdom, founded by Diodotus, for about a century until the Scythians and Yuezhis occupied it around 150 BC.
The Sogdians occupied a key position along the ancient Silk Road, and played a major role in facilitating trade between China and Central Asia. They started to have contacts with China following the embassy of the Chinese explorer Zhang Qian during the reign of Wudi in the former Han Dynasty, 141-87 BC. He wrote a report of his visit in Central Asia.
Following Zhang Qian's embassy and report, commercial Chinese relations with Central Asia and Sogdiana flourished, as many Chinese missions were sent throughout the 1st century BC: "The largest of these embassies to foreign states numbered several hundred persons, while even the smaller parties included over 100 members... In the course of one year anywhere from five to six to over ten parties would be sent out." (Shiji, trans. Burton Watson). However the Sogdian traders were then still less important in the Silk Road trade than their Southern neighbours, Indian and Bactrian. They dominated the East-West trade after the 4th century AD up to the 8th century AD.
The Sogdians were noted for their tolerance of different religious beliefs. Buddhism, Manichaeism, Nestorian Christianity, and Zoroastrianism all had significant followings. Sogdians were actors in the Silk Road transmission of Buddhism, until the period of Muslim invasion in the 8th century. Much of our knowledge of the Sogdians and their language comes from the numerous religious texts that they have left behind.
The Sogdians spoke an East Iranian language called Sogdian, closely related to Bactrian, another major language of the region in ancient times. Sogdian was written in a variety of scripts, all of them derived from the Aramaic alphabet.
The valley of the Zarafshan about Samarkand retained even in the Middle Ages the name of the Soghd O Samarkand. Arabic geographers reckon it as one of the four fairest districts in the world.
The great majority of the Sogdian people gradually mixed with other local groups such as the Bactrians, Chorasmians, Turks and Persians, and came to speak Persian (modern Tajiks) or (after the Turkic conquest of Central Asia) Turkic Uzbek. They are among the origins of the modern Tajik and Uzbek people.
Historians Calum MacLeod and Bradley Mayhew in their "Uzbekistan - Golden Road to Samarkand"[1] say:
| “ | Visitors come for a Sogdian culture that predates political boundaries and lies at the ethnic of both the Tajik and Uzbek peoples. | ” |
Numerous Sogdian words can be found in modern Persian and Uzbek as a result of this admixture.
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[edit] See also
[edit] Literature
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
- Calum MacLeod, Bradley Mayhew “Uzbekistan. Golden Road to Samarkand”
- Archaeological Researches in Uzbekistan. 2001. Tashkent The edition is based on results of German-French-Uzbek co-expeditions in 2001 in Uzbekistan*
- Etienne de la Vaissière, Sogdian Traders. A History, Leiden : Brill, 2005. ISBN 90-04-14252-5
- Etienne de la Vaissière, Histoire des marchands sogdiens, Paris : de Boccard, 2004.
- Babadjan Ghafurov, "Tajiks", published in USSR, Russia, Tajikistan
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ p. 182
