Alexander's letter to his mother regarding Afghanistan and it's tibes and people
Malachi Smith's List: CENTRAL ASIA
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Sep 12, 08
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Friday, September 12, 2008
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Army ordered to hit back
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RAWALPINDI: The Pakistan Army has been ordered to retaliate against any action by foreign troops inside the country, Geo News quoted ISPR spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas as saying on Thursday night.
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Shakil Shaikh adds from Islamabad: Pakistan's military commanders resolved to defend the country's borders without allowing any external forces to conduct operations inside Pakistan.
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The military commanders expressed this resolve on the first day of the two-day Corps Commanders conference, which began here on Thursday at the General Headquarters.
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Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani chaired the all-important conference against the backdrop of the new strategic developments taking place in the region.
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General Kayani has already rebuffed the American policy of including Pakistani territory in their operations against terrorists and those hiding in the areas bordering Afghanistan.
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Reports say that the US President Bush has allowed air raids from drones and ground operations in Pakistani areas including FATA.
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Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has termed General Kayani's response to the Americans as a true reflection of the government's policy. The military commanders are understood to have discussed the implications of the American attacks inside Pakistan and took stock of the public feeling.
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"In his statement, Genral Kayani has represented the feeling of the entire nation, as random attacks inside Pakistan have angered each and every Pakistani," said a senior official.
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As the corps commanders continue their discussion on Friday, the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has supported the Bush administration's policy of conducting attacks inside Pakistan.
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President Zardari is expected to talk to Mr. Brown on this issue during his first visit to Britain next week.
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Pakistan's Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, is also learnt to have already talked to senior security officials in Washington.
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The latest spate of attacks from drones in Fata has killed many innocent people recently, which has only added to the gravity and complexity of the situation.
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Oct 05, 09
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Pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan
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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2007) -
Archaeological exploration of the Pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan began in Afghanistan in earnest after World War II and proceeded until the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan disrupted it in December 1979.
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Louis Dupree, the University of Pennsylvania, the Smithsonian Institution and others suggests that humans were living in ancient Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the country were among the earliest in the world.[1
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Prehistory
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The area that is now Afghanistan seems in prehistory, as well as ancient and modern times, to have been closely connected by culture and trade with the neighbouring regions to the east, west, and north.
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It is not yet clear, however, to what extent these periods were contemporaneous with similar stages of development in other geographic regions.
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Urban civilization, which includes most of Iran, Afghanistan, North Western Province of Pakistan which are Pashtoons, may have begun as early as 3000 to 2000 BCE (see also Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex and Indus Valley Civilization).
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The ancient city of Mudigak may have been a provincial colony of the Indus Valley Civilization or closely affiliated, but this remains largely circumstantial and speculative.
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Archaeological finds also indicate the possible beginnings of the Bronze Age which would ultimately spread throughout the ancient world from Afghanistan.
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It is also believed that the region had early trade contacts with Mesopotamia.
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Ancient Afghanistan: From the Aryans to the Medes. 1500 BCE–551 BCE
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They appear to have split into old Persian peoples, Nuristani, and Indian groups at an early stage, possibly between 1500 and 1000 BCE in what is today Afghanistan or much earlier as eastern remnants of the Indo-Aryans drifted much further west as with the Mitanni.
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Between 2000–1200 BCE, a branch of Indo-European-speaking tribes known as the Aryans began migrating into the region.
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The Aryans (thought to be ancestors of Pashtoons), Nuristanis, and western Indo-Aryans dominated the modern day plateau, while the Indo-Aryans ultimately headed towards the Indian subcontinent.
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The western Indo-Aryans stayed in Afghanistan and North Western Province of Pakistan, which is the Pashtoons.
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The Avesta is believed to have been composed possibly as early as 1800 BCE and written in ancient Ariana (Aryana), the earliest name of Afghanistan which indicates an early link with today's Iranian tribes to the west, or adjacent regions in Central Asia or northeastern Iran in the 6th century BCE.[3]
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Due to the similarity between early Avestan and Sanskrit (and other related early Indo-European languages such as Latin and Ancient Greek), it is believed that the split between the old Persians and Indo-Aryan tribes had taken place at least by 1000 BCE.
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This suggests an early time-frame for the Avesta that has yet to be exactly determined as most academics believe it was written over the course of centuries if not millennia.
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Also, the Avesta itself divides into Old and New sections and neither mention the Medes who are known to have ruled Afghanistan starting around 700 BCE.
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Much of the archaeological data comes from the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC and indus Valley Civilization) that probably played a key role in early Aryanic civilization in Afghanistan.
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Zoroastrianism spread throughout the region alongside early pagan beliefs and centuries later Buddhism.
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During this early period, the Pashtuns or some of their early Aryan ancestors are believed to have originated near the vicinity of Kandahar and/or the Sulaiman Mountains and possibly begun to expand into other parts of Afghanistan.
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Herodotus mentions a tribe called the Pactyan as inhabiting much of what is today Afghanistan and northwestern Pakistan, and it is speculated by some that these people were the ancient ancestors of the Pashtuns, although, aside from phonetic name similarities, this remains unproven.
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Arrian's Indica also makes reference to various tribes west of the Indus who may have been ancestors of the Pashtuns.
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The Rig Veda makes mention of a group called the Pakhat and it is possible that either this is a reference to the ancestors of the Pashtuns or a reference to an Indo-Aryan-speaking group or some other tribe altogether.
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Though predominantly pagan, some Pashtuns may have adopted Buddhist and Zoroastrian traditions, whereas other eastern Afghans remained pagans not unlike their neighbors the Kafirs of Nuristan as well as the Kalash.
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They were an early tribe that forged the first empire on the present Iranian plateau and were rivals of the Persians whom they initially dominated in the province of Fars to the south.
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Early Indo-Aryans prior to their move to India
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In the region around what is today Kabul and eastern Afghanistan, an early Indo-Iranian or specifically some early Indo-Aryan culture may have emerged as eastern Afghanistan could possibly have been either the site of the Vedic civilization, that later came to influence and dominate the culture of northern India, or had links to it somewhere to the east either along the Indus or Ganges river valleys.[4]
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At some point that has yet to be determined, but possibly between 12th to 8th century BCE, Gandhara - which spans from Kandahar to some of the other Pashtoon provinces in Afghanistan and Pakistan and Kamboja, two of the sixteen Mahajanapadas (in Sanskrit 'Great Kingdoms') frequently referred to in Buddhist and Hindu religious texts are believed to have evolved as important political entities in what is today south-eastern Afghanistan.
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Many scholars believe that while the Gandharans were early Indo-Aryan-speakers, the Kambojas were either Iranian or Indo-Iranian-speaking.
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Both groups find frequent mention in numerous ancient Sanskrit and Pali texts, in particular the Mahabharata and numerous Puranic literature.
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Alexander’s historians refer to the tribal population of Paropamisade as consisting of such clans as the Parsyetae (Parshu/Parshava), Aspasii (Aspasians), Asteknois (Hastiyanas), and Assakenois (Ashvakanas) and others.
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This nomenclature possibly demonstrates that while most of this tribal population was, there were also some population segments which may have spoken early Indo-Aryan tongues prior to their movements to India.
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This is because while the tribal name Parsyete implies Old Afghan affinities and the Aspasii (derived from Farsi-Dari also Pashtu word Aspa) also indicates an Aryanic horse culture,
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The Aspasian peoples are believed to be the western branch of the Ashvakas or Assakenians (Political history of Ancient India, 1996, p 216; Cambridge History of India, 352, n 3).
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The Assakenois and Aspasios of the classical writings or the Ashvakas of the Sanskrit texts are believed by numerous scholars to have been sub-sections of the ancient Kambojas in reference to their equestrian nature.
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while rock edict XIII refers to the Greeks and Kambojas (Yonakambojesu) as people of the western frontiers.
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It is noteworthy that Ashoka’s rock edicts/inscriptions written exclusively in Aramaic have been discovered only in the Paropamisade (region between river Kabol and Hindukush Mt), whereas those in Greek and Aramaic were discovered in Arachosia (south-east Afghanistan) and in Prakrit and Aramaic in Gandhara region (Peshawer to Rawalpindi).
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Scholars believe that the Greek version of Ashokan inscriptions was intended for the Yonas (the Greeks or Aryans), the Prakrit version for the Indo-Aryan Gandharas, while the Aramaic version was directed at the Kambojas
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This shows that Paropamisade region (an Aramaic territory) was inhabited by early Persian Kambojas as the Aramaic was an official language for the Persian tribes under Achaemenid rulers.
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Moreover, as a Greco-Aramaic inscription (known as Shar-i-Kuna inscription) was discovered in 1957 in Kandhahar also, this, according to some scholars, may attest that a section of the Aramaic-knowing Kambojas (or other Iranian tribes) were also possibly located north of Kandhahar as neighbors to the Greeks.
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The compound expression Yonakambojesu of Ashoka’s Rock Edict XIII as well as of Buddhist Majjhima Nikaya (43.1.3), powerfully supports this view.
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It is now generally accepted by many Indic scholars that the Kambojas were an early Pashtoon people who migrated to today's Iran who may have been partially absorbed into larger tribes in Afghanistan and/or else partially forced to move east where they were further absorbed into the populations of what is today northern Pakistan and India[5].
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The chronology of major events and corresponding archaeology remains highly sporadic as does the religious connotation which remains unverifiable.
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Achaemenid Rule, and rise of Zoroastrianism ca. 550 BCE–331 BCE
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The Avesta refers to eastern Bactria as being the home of the Zoroastrian faith, but this can be a reference to either a region in modern Afghanistan or Border line of Afghan-Pakistan.
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The city of Bactria (which later became Balkh), is believed to have been the home of Zarathustra, who founded the Zoroastrian religion.
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Regardless of the debate as to where Zoroaster was from, Zoroastrianism spread to become one of the world's most influential religions and became the main faith of the old Aryan people for centuries.
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It also remained the official religion of Persia until the defeat of the Sassanian ruler Yazdegerd III—over a thousand years after its founding—by Muslim Arab.
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In what is today southern Iran, the Persians emerged to challenge Median supremacy on the Iranian plateau.
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By 550 BCE, the Persians had replaced Median rule with their own dominion and even began to expand past previous Median imperial borders. Both Gandhara and Kamboja Mahajanapadas of the Buddhist texts soon fell a prey to the Achaemenian Dynasty during the reign of Achaemenid, Cyrus the Great (558–530 BCE), or in the first year of Darius I.
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According to Pliny's evidence, Cyrus II had destroyed Kapisa in Capiscene (Naturalis Historia, VI, 25, 92) which was a Kamboja city.
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The former region of Gandhara and Kamboja (upper Indus) had constituted seventh satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire and annually contributed 170 talents of gold dust as a tribute to the Achaemenids.
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By the fourth century BCE, Persian control of outlying areas and the internal cohesion of the empire had become somewhat tenuous.
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Bactria had a special position in old Afghanistan, being the capital of a vice-kingdom.
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Although distant provinces like Bactriana had often been restless under Achaemenid rule, Bactrian troops nevertheless fought in the decisive Battle of Gaugamela in 330 BCE against the advancing armies of Alexander the Great.
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The Achaemenids were decisively defeated by Alexander and retreated from his advancing army of Greco-Macedonians and their Iranian allies.
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Darius III, the last Achaemenid ruler, tried to flee to Bactria, but was assassinated by a subordinate lord, the Bactrian-born Bessus, who proclaimed himself the new ruler of Persia as Artaxerxes, but was unable to mount a successful resistance to the growing military might of Alexander's army.
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Fleeing to his native Bactria, Bessus attempted to rally local Aryan tribes to his side, but was instead turned over to Alexander who proceeded to have him tortured and executed for having committed regicide.
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Alexander the Great, Seleucid-Mauryan rivalry, and Greco-Bactrian Rule, 330 BCE–ca. 150 BCE
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This article is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (March 2009)
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It had taken Alexander only six months to conquer Iran, but it took him nearly three years (from about 330 BCE–327 BCE) to subdue the area that is now Afghanistan.
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Moving eastward from the area of Herat, the Macedonian leader encountered fierce resistance from the local tribes of Aria (West Afghanistan), Drangiana (now part of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Eastern Iran), Arachosia (South and Central Afghanistan) and Bactria (North and Central Afghanistan).
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Add Sticky NoteIn a letter to his mother, Alexander described his encounters with the western and northern tribes (Afghans) thus: "I am involved in the land of a 'Leonine' (lion-like) and brave people, where every foot of the ground is like a wall of steel, confronting my soldier. You have brought only one son into the world, but everyone in this land can be called an Alexander.”
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Local resistance and the difficult terrain made it difficult for Alexander's forces to subdue the region as many invaders have found the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan similar to a maze that often trapped outside invaders.
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Their union reportedly produced one sole heir, Alexander IV, who was later killed in Greece by Cassander.
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Although Alexander's expedition through ancient Afghanistan was brief, he left behind a Hellenic cultural influence that lasted several centuries.
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Under the Seleucids, as under Alexander, Greek colonists and soldiers colonized Bactria, roughly corresponding to modern Afghanistan's borders.
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However, the majority of Macedonian soldiers of Alexander the Great wanted to leave the east and return home to Greece.
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Mauryan Period (305-180BCE)
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While the Diadochi were warring amongst themselves, the Mauryan Empire was developing in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent.
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The founder of the empire, Chandragupta Maurya, confronted a Macedonian invasion force led by Seleucus I in 305 BCE and following a brief conflict, an agreement was reached as Seleucus ceded Gandhara and Arachosia (centered around ancient Kandahar) and areas south of Bagram (corresponding to the extreme south-east of modern Afghanistan) to the Mauryans.
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During the 120 years of the Mauryans in southern Afghanistan, Buddhism was introduced and eventually become a major religion alongside Zoroastrianism and local pagan beliefs.
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The ancient Grand Trunk Road was built linking what is now Kabul to various cities in the Punjab and the Gangetic Plain.
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Commerce, art, and architecture (seen especially in the construction of stupas) developed during this period. It reach its high point under Emperor Ashoka whose edicts, roads, and rest stops were found throughout the subcontinent.
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Although the vast majority of them throughout the subcontinent were written in Prakrit, Afghanistan is notable for the inclusion of 2 Greek and Aramaic ones alongside the court language of the Mauryans.
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"Ten years (of reign) having been completed, King Piodasses (Ashoka) made known (the doctrine of) Piety (εὐσέβεια, Eusebeia) to men; and from this moment he has made men more pious, and everything thrives throughout the whole world. And the king abstains from (killing) living beings, and other men and those who (are) huntsmen and fishermen of the king have desisted from hunting. And if some (were) intemperate, they have ceased from their intemperance as was in their power; and obedient to their father and mother and to the elders, in opposition to the past also in the future, by so acting on every occasion, they will live better and more happily." (Trans. by G.P. Carratelli[6])
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The last ruler in the region was probably Subhagasena (Sophagasenus of Polybius), who, in a ll probability, belonged to the Ashvaka (q.v.) background.
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Greco-Bactrian rule
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In the middle of the 3rd century BCE, an independent, Hellenistic state was declared in Bactria and eventually the control of the Seleucids and Mauryans was overthrown in western and southern Afghanistan.
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Graeco-Bactrian rule spread until it included a large territory which stretched from northeastern Iran in the west to the Punjab in India in the east by about 170 BCE.
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Graeco-Bactrian rule was eventually defeated by a combination of internecine disputes that plagued Greek and Hellenized rulers to the west, continual conflict with Indian kingdoms, as well as the pressure of two groups of nomadic invaders from Central Asia—the Parthians and Sakas.
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The Kushan Empire, ca. 150 BCE–300 CE
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In the third and second centuries BC, the Parthians, a nomadic Iranian people, arrived in ancient Afghanistan.
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The Parthians established control in most of what is Iran as early as the middle of the 3rd century BC;
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about 100 years later another Indo-European group from the north—the Tocharian Kushans (a subgroup of the tribe called the Yuezhi by the Chinese)—entered the region that is now Afghanistan and established an empire lasting almost four centuries.
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The Kushan Empire spread from the Kabul River valley to defeat other Central Asian tribes that had previously conquered parts of the northern central Iranian Plateau once ruled by the Parthians.
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By the middle of the 1st century BCE, the Kushans' base of control became Afghanistan and their empire spanned from the north of the Pamir mountains to the Ganges river valley in India.
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Early in the 2nd century under Kanishka, the most powerful of the Kushan rulers, the empire reached its greatest geographic and cultural breadth to become a center of literature and art.
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Kanishka extended Kushan control to the mouth of the Indus River on the Arabian Sea, into Kashmir, and into what is today the Chinese-controlled area north of Tibet.
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Kanishka was a patron of religion and the arts. It was during his reign that Mahayana Buddhism[citation needed] , imported to northern India earlier by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka (ca. 260 BCE–232 BCE), reached its zenith in Central Asia.
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Though the Kushanas were predominantly Zoroastrian themselves[citation needed], they also supported local Buddhists and Hindus as well as the worship of various local
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Sassanian Rule, ca. 300–650
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In the 3rd century, Kushan control fragmented into semi-independent kingdoms that became easy targets for conquest by the rising Iranian dynasty, the Sassanians (ca. 224–561) which annexed Afghanistan by 300 CE.
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Sassanian control was tenuous at times as numerous challenges from Central Asian tribes led to instability and constant warfare in the region.
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The disunited Kushan and Sassanian kingdoms were in a poor position to meet the threat of a new wave of nomadic, Indo-European invaders from the north.
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The Hephthalites (or White Huns) swept out of Central Asia around the fourth century into Bactria and to the south, overwhelming the last of the Kushan and Sassanian kingdoms.
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Some have speculated that the name Afghanistan land of the Afghans derives from which could be an adjective such as brave, chivlarious, valour, which was to use for the people in today's Afghanistan. Historians believe that Hepthalite control continued for a century and was marked by constant warfare with the Sassanians to the west who exerted nominal control over the region.
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It was the ruler of western Göktürks, Sijin (aka Sinjibu, Silzibul and Yandu Muchu Khan) who led the forces against the Hepthalites who were defeated at the Battle of Chach (Tashkent) and at the Battle of Bukhara.
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The Shahi Kings
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The Shahi dynasties ruled portions of the Kabul Valley (in eastern Afghanistan) and the old province of Gandhara (northern Pakistan and Kashmir) from the decline of the Kushan Empire in third century to the early ninth century.[7]
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They are split into two eras the Buddhist Turk-Shahis (also known as the Kushano-Hephthalites and the later Hindu-Shahis with the change-over occurring around 870, and ruled up until the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan.
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These Hindu Shahi kings of Kabul and Gandhara may have had links to some ruling families in neighboring Kashmir and other areas to the east.
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The Shahis, though Hindu, were rulers of a predominantly Buddhist, Zoroastrian, Hindu and Muslim populations and were thus patrons of numerous faiths, and various artifacts and coins from their rule have been found that display their multicultural domain.
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In 964AD, the last Mohyal Hindu Shahi was succeeded by the Janjua overlord, Jayapala, of the Panduvanshi dynasty.
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The last Shahi emperors Jayapala, Anandapala and Tirlochanpala fought invading Muslim Turks from Central Asia and were gradually defeated and eventually exiled from their domains into northern India.
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Archaeological remnants from Afghanistan's pre-Islamic period
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Along ancient trade routes, however, stone monuments of the once flourishing Buddhist culture did exist as reminders of the past. The two massive sandstone Buddhas of Bamyan, thirty-five and fifty-three meters high overlooked the ancient route through Bamyan to Balkh and dated from the third and fifth centuries.
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Most of these early Zoroastrian, Greek, Hellenistic, Buddhist, and Hindu cultures were replaced by the coming of Islam and little influence remains in Afghanistan today.
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They survived until 2001, when they were destroyed by the Taliban.
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In this and other key places in Afghanistan, archaeologists have located frescoes, stucco decorations, statuary, and rare objects from as far away as China, Phoenicia, and Rome, which were crafted as early as the 2nd century and bear witness to the influence of these ancient civilizations upon Afghanistan.
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Oct 05, 09
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Bactrian Documents from Ancient Afghanistan
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Professor Nicholas Sims-Williams of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, who is the leading expert of the Sogdian and Bactrian languages, gave a lecture on the discovery and decipherment of Bactrian documents, written in the little-known Iranian language of Ancient Afghanistan in modified Greek script, at the Ancient Orient Museum in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, on September 23.<!--NOEDIT--><!--/NOEDIT-->
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The text of the lecture follows:<!--NOEDIT--><!--/NOEDIT--><!--NOEDIT--><!--/NOEDIT-->
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New Findings in Ancient Afghanistan
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--- the Bactrian documents discovered from the Northern Hindu-Kush
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Prof. Nicholas Sims-Williams (University of London)
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Bactrian, the ancient language of Bactria in northern Afghanistan, is unique among the Iranian languages in being written by means of the Greek alphabet --- a legacy of the conquest of Bactria by Alexander the Great in the 4th cent. B.C.
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From this period onwards the Greek language, written in the Greek script, was for a long time the exclusive language of culture and administration in Bactria.
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When Bactria was overrun by nomadic peoples from the north, its new rulers, the Kushans, at first continued the use of the Greek language for administrative purposes, but soon they came to use the Greek script to write the local language, Bactrian.
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A crucial moment in the history of this language was the decision of the Kushan ruler Kanishka to adopt Bactrian as the language of his coinage.
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After the first issues of Kanishka, Greek disappears from the coinage once and for all, to be replaced by Bactrian.
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During the first centuries of the Christian era, Bactrian could legitimately have been ranked amongst the world's most important languages.
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As the language of the Kushan kings, Bactrian must have been widely known throughout a great empire, in Afghanistan, Northern India and part of Central Asia.
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Even after the collapse of the Kushan empire, Bactrian continued in use for at
least six centuries, as is shown by the ninth-century inscriptions from the Tochi valley in Pakistan [Slide 1 9KB] and the remnants of Buddhist and Manichean manuscripts found as far away as the Turfan oasis in western China. -
The career of Bactrian as a language of culture thus lasted for close to a thousand years.
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The Kushan coins are inscribed in Greek letters of an angular type, apparently imitating a style of writing used for monumental inscriptions. In principle these legends are not particularly difficult to read, but their content is limited to the names and titles of kings and deities.
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Until forty years ago virtually nothing was known of the Bactrian language except for the legends on the coins of the Kushans and their successors.
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The coins of the later rulers of Bactria --- Kushano-Sasanians, Kidarites, Hephthalites, Turks, and so on --- are written in a cursive script, imitating manuscript styles, which has proved much more difficult to decipher. Some tiny scraps of manuscripts in a similar cursive script were also known, but they were too few and too incomplete to offer any realistic prospect of interpretation.
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The text, written in the monumental script already known from the Kushan coins, could be read without much difficulty; its interpretation was much more problematic, since the names and titles known from the coins provided only a minimal vocabulary and hardly a hint of the grammatical structure of the language. -
These prospects were transformed in 1957 by the discovery at Surkh Kotal near Baghlan of the first substantial Bactrian inscription
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Nevertheless, the essential points were immediately recognized by W. B. Henning: the text refers to the foundation of a sanctuary by the emperor Kanishka, its abandonment as a result of problems with the water-supply, and its re-establishment by a high official named Nukunzuk in the year 31 of the era of Kanishka, that is, early in the reign of his successor Huvishka.
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Several further Bactrian inscriptions have been discovered since that of Surkh Kotal, but most of them are too poorly preserved to add significantly to our knowledge of the language. However, in 1993 a new inscription of fundamental importance was discovered by chance at a site named Rabatak, not far from Surkh Kotal [Slide 4 18KB].
The inscription of Rabatak describes events of the first year of Kanishka in words strikingly reminiscent of those of Darius the Great in the inscription of Bisitun. -
The opening lines refer to Kanishka as "the great salvation, the righteous, just autocrat, worthy of divine worship, who has obtained the kingship from Nana and from all the gods, who has inaugurated the year one as the gods pleased".
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Then comes the significant statement: "He issued(?) an edict(?) in Greek and then he put it into the Aryan language".
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In principle, any of the Indo-European languages of Iran or India could be called "Aryan"; but when Kanishka refers to "the Aryan language" he surely means Bactrian, the language of this inscription, just as Darius meant Old Persian, the language of his inscription, when he wrote: "By the grace of Auramazda, I made another text in Aryan, which previously did not exist".
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It is difficult not to associate Kanishka's emphasis here on the use of the "Aryan language" with the replacement of Greek by Bactrian on his coinage. The numismatic evidence shows that this must have taken place very early in Kanishka's reign, quite possibly in his very first year.
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Lines 4-7 of the Rabatak inscription give a list of the chief cities of north India which were controlled by Kanishka. Four of the five names can be identified: Saketa, Kausambi, Pataliputra, and Champa.
[Slide 5 12KB] The wording of the inscription does not make it clear whether Champa is mentioned as belonging to the area ruled by Kanishka or as the first city beyond his eastern border. Even in the latter case, the statement that he ruled northern India as far as Pataliputra is sufficiently striking. -
The major part of the inscription concerns the foundation of a temple, perhaps at Rabatak itself, which seems to have been an extensive site. Lines 9 and 10 name the divinities who are to be worshipped in the temple.
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This list is very intriguing. On the one hand it includes two Zoroastrian deities who are never portrayed on the Kushan coinage. On the other hand, it omits many names which are well attested on these same coins, such as Ma, the moon, and Ardukhsh,
the goddess of plenty. Above the list of Iranian divinities some words have been added in smaller letters [Slide 6 22KB], which seem to identify some or all of them with Indian equivalents such as Mahasena and Visakha. -
Apparently the temple was intended to contain statues of kings as well as gods. Kanishka lists four kings: Kujula Kadphises his great- grandfather, Vima Taktu his grandfather, Vima Kadphises his father, and himself, Kanishka. This list is extremely informative. In the first place,
it bears witness to the existence of two kings named Vima, rather than one. Several inscriptions previously attributed to Vima Kadphises, notably the Bactrian inscription of Dasht-e Nawur [Slide 7 9KB], can now be ascribed to his father Vima Taktu. -
In all probability the coins of the anonymous king Soter Megas "the great saviour", which come between Kujula and Vima Kadphises in the numismatic sequence, should also be attributed to this newly-discovered Vima the First.
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Moreover, the indication that Kujula Kadphises was the great-grandfather of Kanishka evidently has a bearing on the oft-debated issue of the date of Kanishka. The fact that Kanishka belongs to the third generation after Kujula clearly imposes certain limits on the manner in which the early chronology of the Kushans may be reconstructed. Although I would not go so far as to say that the new facts are only compatible with a single chronological system, it is clear that the solutions previously proposed will now have to be reconsidered.
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Lines 14-17 mention the officials charged with executing the orders of Kanishka. Amongst them is a certain Nukunzuk who is probably the same person who was later responsible for the works described in the Surkh Kotal inscription. At Rabatak, 30 years earlier, he does not yet bear the title karalrang "margrave" and seems to occupy a subordinate position.
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The last part of the inscription in which a continuous text can be read contains a wish for Kanishka's health and happiness and perhaps also --- if my reading is correct --- expresses the hope that his reign may last for a thousand years.
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It goes without saying that neither the reign of Kanishka nor that of the Kushan dynasty approached 1000 years. In about 2Z4 A.D. the Sasanians came to power in Iran [Slide 8 9KB].
Within a few years the Sasanians had also conquered Bactria, which they ruled during part of the following period through a viceroy known as the Kushan-shah 'king of the Kushans", who was often a prince of the Sasanian royal family. -
Add Sticky NoteSubsequently Bactria was invaded several times by nomads from the north. At different times the invaders are referred to under various names --- Chionites, Kidarite Huns, Hephthalites --- though it is not entirely clear whether all these names refer to the same or to different peoples.
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The invading "Hephthalites" are known elsewhere as the "White Huns."
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The next arrivals were the Turks, who in the middle of the sixth century allied themselves with the Sasanians to defeat the Hephthalites; and then finally all the local dynasties were swept aside by the coming of Islam and the Arabs.
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The history of the period from the Sasanian Kushan-shahs to the arrival of the Arabs is illustrated by a second discovery. In December 1991, I was shown photographs of a newly discovered Bactrian document on leather. The document was inscribed on both sides with 28 lines in cursive Bactrian script, making it by far the most substantial example of cursive Bactrian so far known [Slide 9 12KB].
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The document was clearly a letter, beginning with conventional phrases of address and greeting almost identical to those used in Sogdian letters: "To your lordship 1,000 and 10,000 times greeting and homage from so-and-so your servant. Having heard that your lordship is healthy I am happy; but I should be still happier if I myself might see your lordship in good health and pay homage ...". To judge by personal names such as Ohrmuzd and Khwasraw, the document belonged to the Sasanian period. -
Another striking name was Purlang-zin, evidently meaning "the man with the panther's skin" --- a clear reference to the zin-e palang of Rustam, one of the heroes of the Persian epic.
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Within five years the corpus of Bactrian documents had grown to a hundred, most of which are now in London, in the collection of Dr David Khalili. These documents have passed through the hands of many different dealers and collectors. In most cases there is no record of their original provenance, though a couple of them are said, quite plausibly, to have been found in Samingan. From internal evidence, especially the recurrence of the same names in several documents, it seems clear that most if not all of them ultimately derive from a single source.
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One such document was a revelation in itself. But it was as nothing compared to what was to come.
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a letter sealed with a clay bulla, with a few words of address written on the outside;
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Many of the documents are letters, some of them still sealed and therefore perfectly preserved.
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the same letter after opening, from which you can see the standard layout of the text, with a wide left-hand margin, and the way the seal is attached to a strip of leather cut along the bottom edge of the letter without being completely detached from it.
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This letter can hardly be later than the latter half of the fourth century, when the rule of the Kushan-shahs came to an end. The Kushan-shah here seems to be named as Warahran, though the reading of the name is not quite clear
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One of the less well-preserved letters is particularly interesting because it mentions a Kushan-shah
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Since Warahran (or Bahram) was the name of the last Kushan-shah
--- or the last two Kushan-shahs --- known from the coins, the letter probably belongs to the very end of the Kushano-Sasanian period. The sender of the letter was the daughter of a princess named Dukht-anosh, a Middle Persian name which is attested on a seal in Paris. -
The contents are not yet clear, but concern a eunuch with the remarkable name Dathsh-mareg "servant of the Creator" --- a compound of the Bactrian mareg "servant" and the Avestan genitive dathusho "of the Creator", which was probably used in the Zoroastrian calendar of Bactria to refer to a day dedicated to the Creator.
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a representative of the Shahan-shah or "king of kings", the ruler of Iran,
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It seems very likely that the era used here is the same as that of the Bactrian inscriptions of the Tochi valley in Pakistan
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These inscriptions, written in Arabic, Sanskrit, and Bactrian, contain dates expressed in three different eras. The vital evidence for determining the starting-point of the Bactrian era is provided by two bilingual inscriptions, the first being in Arabic and Sanskrit
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The Arabic text is naturally dated by means of the Hijri calendar, which is blessedly unambiguous and enables one to complete the date of the Sanskrit version, which is expressed in an abbreviated form omitting the thousands and hundreds. The second bilingual is in Sanskrit and Bactrian. Again the Sanskrit date is abbreviated; but, if one assumes that this inscription belongs to the same century as the Arabic-Sanskrit bilingual, the missing figures can be reconstructed, giving a date which can be computed as 863 A.D.
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The Bactrian version is dated with Greek numerals. Helmut Humbach, the first editor of the Bactrian texts, read these numerals as 632. On the basis of newly-discovered materials I would interpret the last digit as 1 rather than 2, but a difference of one year is of minor significance. In either case, the Bactrian date indicates the existence of an era beginning early in the Sasanian period, in 232 (according to Humbach) or 233 A.D. (accord to me). I am inclined to follow Humbach in regarding this as a "Kushano-Sasanian" era, whose starting-point was probably the Sasanian conquest of the Kushan empire.
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Let us return to the Bactrian letter, whose date can be read as 239. If this era began in 233 A.D., the year 239 will correspond to 471 A.D., during the rule of Peroz, who spent much of his reign fighting the Hephthalites and who eventually perished in battle against them.
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Is it a coincidence that the word preceding the title Shahan-shah in the letter is in fact Piroz? Unfortunately the Middle Persian word peroz is not only a personal name but also a common adjective meaning "victorious", so that it is difficult to decide whether one should translate "Peroz, the king of kings" or merely "the victorious king of kings".
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Only two of the newly-discovered Bactrian documents seem to be religious in inspiration. Both of them are Buddhist texts containing invocations to Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and so on.
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Unusually, it is written on cloth rather than leather. As you see, it is illustrated with two drawings, perhaps representing a Buddha and an ascetic. The text begins with homage to "all the Buddhas" and to five or six named Buddhas ending with the historical Buddha Shakyamuni. Then homage is paid to a series of six Bodhisattvas, followed by the kings of the yakshas, rakshasas, kinnaras, nagas, pishacas, etc. and finally Shakra, the king of the gods, and the "great Brahma".
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I have not succeeded in deciphering all the names, but the outline of the text is quite clear up to this point. The last three lines are more obscure, but contain a reference to a Buddhist monastery (vihara} and a temple.
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I suppose it to be a kind of votive offering, which would have been tied to a pole like a banner and fixed in a holy place, or perhaps an amulet.
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One particularly interesting document ---
in fact the earliest of the dated documents --- is a marriage contract, in which one woman engages herself to marry two brothers at the same time -
After the letters, the largest group of texts consists of legal contracts and similar documents: deeds of sale, leases, guarantees, receipts, and deeds of gift.
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The practice of polyandry, discussed by Prof. Enoki Kazuo in his well-known article "On the nationality of the
Hephthalites" and here confirmed by first-hand evidence, was apparently typical of the region. -
Another unusual document [Slide 19 20KB], which now belongs to the Institute of Silk-Road Studies here in Kamakura, is a deed of manumission, recording the freeing of a slave in return for the purchase of a substitute.
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So far I know of more than twenty documents with dates ranging from 110 to 549, that is (if we assume that the Bactrian era began in 233 A.D.), from 342 to 781 A.D. This span of more than four centuries covers the Chionite, Kidarite, Hephthalite, and Turkish periods, and extends well into Islamic times.
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For example, the next slide [Slide 20 12KB]
shows a contract for the sale of land dated in the year 295, which I interpret as 527 A.D., during the period of Hephthalite domination. This agrees well with the statement of the text that the "Hephthalite tax" due on the property has been paid. The format of the document is typical, though this example is exceptionally well preserved. -
There are two complete copies of the text. One copy is left open to be read. The other is
tightly rolled, tied with string, and sealed with five bullae. The first two bear impressions of the fingernails of the vendors; the others are impressed with the seals of three witnesses. -
Presumably it was intended that the sealed copy should be opened in the presence of a judge in case of a dispute. On the reverse of the document [Slide 21 5KB], the names of the vendors and witnesses are written beside the holes for the seal-strings.
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In addition to dates, many of these legal documents contain place-names, including the names of the places where they were written
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Several documents state that they were written in Samingan, Rob (modern Ruy), Malr or Madr, or Kah (modern Kah-mard). All four places are apparently within the jurisdiction of a ruler who is referred to in many documents as "the khar of Rob". -
On the other hand, Tarmid (or Termez), to the north of the Oxus, and Bamiyan, which is separated from Kah and Madr by a considerable ridge of mountains, may well have been outside his kingdom.
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The khar of Rob is no doubt to be identified with the Ru'b-khan, the ruler of Ru'b and Siminjan, who helped Qutayba b. Muslim to defeat the Hephthalite rebel Nezak Tarkhan in the year 91 of the Hijra (710 A.D.), as mentioned by the historian Tabari.
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I suspect that the title khar is an Iranian --- but not necessarily Bactrian --- dialect form derived from Old Iranian *xshathriya- "ruler"
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The true Bactrian form may be sher, which is mentioned by Muslim writers as the title of the rulers of Bamiyan, Gharchistan, and other places in the area around ancient Bactria.
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The ruler of Rob may at times have controlled a wider area than is indicated by the place-names mentioned so far. For instance, in a letter which probably dates from about 480, the khar of Rob is addressed, somewhat bombastically, as the "Hephthalite yabghu, ... scribe of the Hephthalite lords, and judge of Tukharistan and Gharchistan".
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Tukharistan is the land to the north of the Hindu-kush, including Rob and Samingan, but covering a considerably wider area; Gharchistan usually refers to the mountainous area to the west of Bamiyan, but since the Bactrian form of the name indicates that it means merely "the land of the mountaineers" it is possible that it refers more generally to the mountain areas to the south of Tukharistan.
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This is surely to be identified with the Aornos; mentioned by Arrian as one of the two chief cities of Bactria.
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Yet another document is written in a place named Warnu.
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According to Paul Bernard and others, Aornos is to be located near Khulm or Tashkurgan, where the valley of the Khulm river, in which Rob and Samingan are situated, opens out into the plain. Since the whole collection of Bactrian documents almost certainly represents the royal archive of the kings of Rob, the mere presence of this document in the archive would suggest that Warnu too formed part of their dominions.
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The next document which I would like to describe [Slide 24 11KB]
is a contract for the sale of a slave, which begins: "It was the year 446, the month Ab, the day Wahman, when this sealed document, this purchase contract, was written here in the district of Samingan, at Marogan, the court of the khar of Rob". -
The year 446 should correspond to 678 A.D. By this time Turkish names and titles are common, as can be seen from the witness-list which follows: "Under the protection of the god Ram-set, the granter of favours, the granter of wishes, the wonderful, who is worshipped here at Marogan, at the court, under the protection of Zhun-lad son of Shabur, the successful, prosperous qaghan, the tapaghligh iltabir, the khar of Rob, and in the presence of Khusaru the tarkhan, and in the presence of Dev-raz, the brave chief justice of the khars of Rob, and also in the presence of the other noblemen who were present there amongst them and who bear witness concerning this matter".
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This document too was originally sealed with five seals, whose owners are named on the back: remarkably, the seals of the witnesses include that of the god Ram-set, who was presumably represented by his priest. In the same way, other documents include the god Wakhsh, the deified River Oxus, amongst the witnesses.
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The text continues: "Now, I, Yaskul, and I, Yezdgird, the sons of Kaw, inhabitants of Khwastu, who are now present here in the district of Samingan, and our brothers and sons, have sold to you, Fanz, and to you, Winamarg, and to you, Pusk, the sons of Bag-mareg, you whose estate is called Gabaliyan, and to your brothers, sons and descendants, a certain boy belonging to us as brothers, this same boy who is called Khalas, for three Persian drachmas, since we are unable to keep him in plenty and famine. So now, may the boy mentioned above belong properly and well to you, Fanz, and to you, Winamarg, with your brothers, sons and descendants hereafter, from now to eternity".
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I hope that these quotations may give you a flavour of the legal terminology of these documents --- for which, incidentally, one can find many parallels both in documents written in other Central Asian languages such as Sogdian and Turkish, and in the 5th cent. B.C. Aramaic documents from Elephantine in Egypt.
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The next document [Slide 25 11KB] is dated in the Bactrian year 478, that is, 710 A.D.,
in the month "Second New Year". The document is a deed recording a gift of land and of a slave girl to the god Kamird and his ked or priest, apparently in return for the healing of a member of the donor's family -
Kamird means literally "head" or "chief"; it is perhaps the god's title rather than his name.
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The word ked is almost certainly the source of the Chinese term, ji-duo, older kej-ta, mentioned by Xuanzang as the name of the worshippers of Zhun, the god of Zabulistan, to the south of the Hindu-kush. This god was also known in the kingdom of Rob, as we can see from the name of its ruler in the previous document: Zhun-lad, literally "given by Zhun".
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In that case it is quite likely that Zhun is the god referred to by the
title Kamird "the chief (god)". Perhaps he is the mysterious dedicatee of the cave-sanctuary of Nigar (Dukhtar-e Nushirvan) in the mountains south of Rob? -
The donor in the present document, the queen of a ruler with the Turkish name Qutlugh Tapaghligh Bilga Savug "fortunate, possessing service, wise, beloved", is also referred to as "the princess of the Khalas". Khalas, which was also the name of the slave-boy in the previous document, probably represents the Turkish tribal name Khalach, of which this would be one of the earliest occurrences.
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One of the very latest Bactrian documents is a deed of sale dated in the year 525, that is 757 A.D. [Slide 28 13KB]
I just want to draw attention to a couple of passages in this contract. The first is the series of clauses which describe the rights of the new owners of the property: "to have and to hold it, to sell it, to give it away, to pawn it, to offer it for rent, to exchange it for another piece of land, to give it for a son's wedding or a daughter's dowry, to make a monastery or temple, to make a *cemetery or *crematorium ...". -
A similar contrast can be seen between the following pair of nouns, both of which may refer to places for disposal of the dead: laxmig would correspond to the Avestan daxma-, Middle Persian daxmag, terms which usually refer to a structure used for the Zoroastrian rite of exposure, but sometimes also to a grave, while laxshatanig, if it derives from the root daxsh- "to burn", would necessarily refer to a non-Zoroastrian, perhaps Indian, rite of cremation.
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Here the Indian term for a Buddhist monastery, vihara, is contrasted with the Bactrian word for a "temple", presumably referring to a non-Buddhist shrine.
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These terms, together with the numerous theophoric personal names found in the documents, give us a glimpse of the variety of religious belief and practice in this area before the coming of Islam.
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The independence of the kingdom of Rob was nearly at an end, however. While earlier contracts had expressed prices in gold diners or in Persian silver, the latest texts refer to "Arab silver dirhams", which seem to be specified as 'locally *current".
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In addition, the present text refers, for the first and last time,
to the payment of taxes to the Arabs. Soon afterwards, Arabic must have replaced Bactrian as the written language of the area; and indeed, a small number of Arabic documents have come to light, which appear to form a continuation of the same archive -
Although I have only been able to describe a small part of an immense new body of material, I hope that I have said enough to show that it will throw new light on many aspects of the history and culture of ancient Afghanistan. But as yet I have hardly mentioned its importance for Iranian historical linguistics, though for me personally this is its chief fascination .
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This slide
[Slide 30 17KB] shows a small selection of forms which illustrate the position of Bactrian amongst the Iranian languages. In particular I have chosen forms which show the connection between Bactrian and the languages of the surrounding area: medieval Sogdian and Choresmian; modern Pashto, Yidgha-Munji, and Ishkashmi. -
Such forms support the conclusion which Henning reached on first acquaintance with the new language that it is "in its natural and rightful place in Bactria" and justify his decision to name it Bactrian.
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In many cases the new material confirms or contradicts views originally reached on the basis of limited evidence.
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For instance, Gershevitch's controversial interpretation of lruh-minan in the Surkh Kotal
inscription as the plural of a putative *lruh-min "enemy" receives strong support from the contexts in which the later form druh-min occurs. It is particularly impressive that the new texts provide examples of many previously unattested Bactrian words whose existence had already been postulated by Martin Schwartz on the basis of their occurrence as loanwords in other languages of Central Asia. [Slide 31 17KB] -
Of course the new texts also attest many forms for which there was previously no evidence at all.
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For instance, the only verbs in the Surkh Kotal inscription are a few forms of the simple past tense and the present optative. Now one can quote almost complete paradigms not only of these tenses, but also of the present indicative, subjunctive and imperative, and even a few forms of the perfect subjunctive and optative.
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Some features of Bactrian are quite unexpected, such as the existence of two types of infinitive as in Sogdian and Khotanese, or the tendency to fuse sequences of conjunctions, adverbs, prepositions, and pronouns into complex words such as o-ta-kald-men "and then when to us".
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The fact that many texts are dated makes it possible to trace historical developments in the language. For instance, in texts of the 7th century and later, where an "l" and an "r" come into direct contact, the "l" changes to "d", as in the example quoted before: lruh-min "enemy", later druh-min.
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Up to now, Bactrian has been the poor relation amongst the Iranian languages --- the one with nothing to give and everything to receive. Now that Bactrian is no longer so obscure, it can start to provide solutions as well as problems
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For example, the traditional translation of Avestan axvareta- by Pahlavi agrift "not taken", which many scholars have regarded as a mistake, is justified by its Bactrian cognate. Similarly, the meaning of the much-debated Middle Persian term bun-xanag, literally "foundation-house", is clarified by the corresponding expression in Bactrian, which clearly implies "estate", that is, "house and lands".
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A place-name mentioned by the great Muslim scholar al-Beruni, which modern scholars have emended out of existence, is shown to be correct as it stands. In the infinitive migd "to exchange", Bactrian even attests an Indo-European root which is apparently not found in any language more closely related than Greek.
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The complete elucidation of the Bactrian documents and inscriptions will require many kinds of expertise: in palaeography and epigraphy, in history, historical geography, history of religions, numismatics, sphragistics, Arabic, Turkish, Chinese ... Since no one individual could possibly be competent in so many fields, such a task demands collaboration between scholars in several disciplines.
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The starting-point for this collaboration must be the decipherment of the text and the drafting of a first, tentative translation. This is the business of the philologist, who employs his linguistic instinct and his knowledge of cognate languages to formulate hypotheses about the meanings of words and the grammatical structure of the language.
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Without his preliminary work there is in fact nothing for anyone else to study. Philology is a branch of scholarship which some regard as old-fashioned; but I am proud to call myself a philologist and glad to have had this opportunity to describe to you a body of material which so well demonstrates both the necessity and the rewards of philological research.
© N. Sims-Williams 1997
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Oct 05, 09
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Wednesday, 15 October 2008
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The Ancient Greeks in Afghanistan and Their Probable Descendants Today in Nuristan, Afghanistan and in the Kalash People, Pakistan
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By Michael Issigonis
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Today, the region called Nuristan is one in a chain of ethnic refuge areas along the Hindu Kush, or the Indian Caucasus, named as such by Alexander the Great, located in northeast Afghanistan.
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This is the home of a unique group of mixed European-Indian tribal peoples now called Nuristanis, people of the only Afghanistan province to have resisted Islam for centuries.
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The British established the "Durand Line" in 1893, a boundary creating the new countries of the British Protectorate (India) and Afghanistan. Nuristan was originally meant to be included in India.
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When the Islamic rulers declared war on the Nuristanis, the British provided all necessary weapons to the Afghan army, thus contributing to the annihilation of Nuristanis and their subsequent forced conversion to Islam.
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The male survivors were taken as prisoners to Kabul, a city whose ancient Greek name was Kofin, meaning the place were bees accumulate, or the place of honey, or a place rich in food supplies. Here, the men were forced to join the army. The women that survived were taken into the harems.1
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After the occupying armies left, the more isolated Nuristanis reverted to their old religions and customs because they did not find in their invaders' qualities worth imitating.
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The other Nuristanis who submitted to Islam are such devout Moslems that they were the first citizens of the country to successfully revolt against the Soviet occupation. It is unknown how many of them have joined the Taliban.
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Alexander the Great
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The expedition of Alexander the Great (327-325 B.C.) into what is now Afghanistan has been well documented. He laid the foundations of many cities, some bearing his own name.
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With the passage of time, some names were changed by newcomers to the area who could not pronounce Greek names.
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In this way, Kandahar is Alexander's name, Herat is Alexandria Areion, and Ganzhni is Alexandria Gazhaka, among others.
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However, Alexander was not the first Greek coming to India. Legends hold that Dionysos, the god of wine, led an expedition into India several thousand years earlier.
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He and his companions were so amazed at the size of the then unnamed Indus river that he named it the Son of God (In-Dios).
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He established a settlement at Nyssa (Jalalabad) where he found Mediterranean plants growing such as ivy and grapes, possibly the only place in Asia where these plants grow.
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According to legends, Dionysus and his companions continued the journey eastwards and it is possible they reached the Yunnan province in China.
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In Yunnan today the numerous minorities who are unlike the Chinese in appearance have preserved religion and customs, including wine-making, similar to the customs of the ancient Greeks.2
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Indo-Greek Kingdoms
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After Alexander, several Greek Kingdoms were created covering most of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of India that lasted for 3 centuries.
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The inhabitants were called Indo-Greeks. Only one ancient city has been excavated so far and it lies on the shores of the Amu Darya River.
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The city exhibits temples, a gymnasium, a palace, numerous buildings, and a huge theatre sculpted on the side of a hill with a superb view of the river valley and the tall mountains of what is now Tajikistan across.
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These kingdoms ventured into India and expanded as far as the eastern parts of the Indian peninsula. Place names are still preserved today.
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However, the legacy of these kingdoms outlasted the kings in culture and art that are still admired.
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Greek techniques of stone and metalworking began to be used in India, Greek coins began to appear in the bazaars, and settlements of Greek type were found as urban islands in the sea of Indian native villages.
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The most important example of Greek influence in India is the upsurge of Buddhist art in Gandhara during the early Christian era, since called the Gandhara Art.
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This Greco-Indian school of art played a catalytic role in the development of Asian art. By creating the image of Buddha with the features of Apollo and wearing an ancient Greek tunic, the artists established an art religious in its meaning, but naturalistic and humanistic in its forms.
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Examples can be admired today in the museums of Taxila, Peshawar, Swat, and Lahore, in the giant Buddha statues that were recently blown apart by the Taliban without a vigorous opposition from the civilized world.
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One important piece of ancient art that is still "alive" today is the amazing over-abundance of coins of the Indo-Greek kings which are continually being unearthed by Afghan farmers and provide sometimes their only source of income after they are sold in the bazaars of Pakistan.
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These coins represent some of the finest coin-making of all time. They depict the kings on one side with some ancient Greek god or goddess on the other.
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The abundance of gold supplies from Central Asia for several centuries before the arrival of the Greeks resulted in the minting of numerous coins as well as some enormous coins.
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In Afghanistan, one can find the largest gold and the largest silver coins ever minted. The silver coins had a diameter of 65 mm.! In some of the coins they incorporated nickel with a technique only known to the Chinese at that time.
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Precious Stones
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Northeastern Afghanistan has been a supplier of precious stones since at least 5,000 B.C., and its ancient name was simply " the vault" or Valaskia.
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The precious cargo was making its way through the so-called "Silk Route" to ancient Persia, Greece, and Rome, and later to the Byzantines, Europeans and now mostly to the Americans.
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In fact, the name Kalash is the ancient Greek name for lapis lazuli, possibly the only place on earth where it exists in abundance.
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The area is also rich in emeralds, rubies, spinel and others that provide a substantial share of the world production even during years of war, when the income from these stones becomes essential for the survival of the Afghan people.
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The Kalash People
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The Kalash people of northwestern Pakistan are unique in their customs and religion.
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Although surrounded by Moslems in all directions (Pakistan is essentially a Moslem state), they believe in ancient Greek gods and goddessess such as Zeus, Aphrodite, Hestia, and Apollo.
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Their language is principally a mixture of Sanskrit and Greek.
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They grow grapes and make wine (an illegal action in an Islamic country) and their diet is rich in fruits, vegetables and nuts.
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Unlike their neighbors who sit on the ground, they use stools and chairs and their carpentry is decorated with Macedonian stars and "suns".
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The Kalash people are virtually the only tourist attraction in Pakistan.
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However, the Kalash do not depend on tourism for survival; it is quite the opposite. The building of infrastructure to accommodate all those tourist "invaders" has brought an unprecedented pollution that the Kalash did not have to face during the 2000 years of isolation.
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Recently, a group of Greek teachers have been raising money and spending their summer vacations among the Kalash for the last 7 years in an attempt to improve their standard of living.
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Some of the projects that the teacher volunteers have accomplished include the following: a primary school at an elevation of some 3 km, which is regarded the largest primary school building in Pakistan; water pipes for the supply of running water; a house for new mothers; landscaping and providing resource materials and pharmaceutical supplies. In this way the volunteers have contributed immensely to the preservation of the Kalash.
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In the 19th century the British officers and scholars in India kept a romantic belief that, like the lost tribes of Israel, also a lost tribe of Europe of Alexander's Greeks may have survived somewhere in Afghanistan. The popular movie entitled "The Man Who Would Be King" starring Sean Connery was based upon that legend.
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Other Greek Influences
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Other remnants of the ancient Greek influence in the area are the characteristic "double-hat" or kausia, the ancient Macedonian hat, the Macedonian cloak or sari as worn by most women today and the polo on horseback, Pakistan's national sport.
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It was practiced by the Macedonian troops in the days of Alexander due to an unusual "present" given to Alexander by the great Persian king Darius.
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When Alexander invaded the outlining areas of the Persian Empire and demanded taxes from Darius, the king refused, so Alexander threatened to invade. The king then sent him a bat with a ball so that the young Alexander can play !
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"Those would be more appropriate to a novice than the arms of battle," thought the King. Alexander replied : "The ball is the Earth and I am the bat". A year later, Darius lost the battle and he was dead the following year.
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Oct 05, 09
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Afghanistan History
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Prehistory
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Countless stone tools scattered about the countryside attest to this and each year archaeological excavations add substance to the picture of life in the Afghan area during the distant past.
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Early man in Afghanistan lived on river terraces and inhabited caves and rock shelters.
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Lower Palaeolithic tools made more than 100,000 years ago were collected from terraces to the east of the perennial brackish lake called Dasht-i-Nawur west of Ghazni (L. Dupree, 1974).
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They consist mainly of quartzite tools of the following types: large flake cores, cleavers, side scrapers, choppers, adzes, hand axes and "proto-hand axes". These are the first Lower Palaeolithic tools to be identified in Afghanistan.
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Earlier, in 1966, a team of American archaeologists searching for evidence to support the theory that "Neanderthaloids possibly developed out of the East Asian strains of Java and Peking Man, and, during the lush Third Interglacial Period, spread along the foothills of the Eurasian mountains into Europe," excavated hundreds of stone tools of classic Middle Palaeolithic types from a rock shelter called Darra-i-Kur near the village of Baba Darwesh not far from Kishm, in Badakhshan. (L. Dupree, director)
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These represent the first tools of this early period to be scientifically excavated in Afghanistan. They date ca. 50,000 years ago.
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Continuing their search, the team moved west during the sum-mer of 1969 and found additional evidence in the foothills near Gurziwan, southeast of Maimana.
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The tools from Ghar-i-Gusfand Mordeh (Cave of the Dead Sheep) may be even older than those from Darra-i-Kur.
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During the 1974 season Middle Palaeolithic tool types closely resembling those found at Darra-i-Kur were also recovered from terraces north of Dasht-i-Nawur. They in-clude Levallois flakes, side and round scrapers, points and possible burins.
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What manner of man made these tools?
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Indeed, less than 150 miles to the north, at Teshik Tash in Uzbakistan, Soviet archaeologists found the skeleton of a Neanderthal child with such tools.
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Ordinarily, skeletons of Neanderthal Man are found in association with the type of tools found at Darra-i-Kur.
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At Darra-i-Kur, however, a massive temporal bone has been pronounced by experts to be essentially modern with certain Neanderthaloid char-acteristics.
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Additional evidence is needed and continued excavations are planned, but it may be that Darra-i-Kur will necessitate a reappraisal of the development of contemporary man. "North Afghanistan may well be the zone where modern Homo sapiens, or at least a variety of modern man, developed physically and began to revolutionize Stone Age technology," says Dupree.
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As man ceased to be an animal chasing other animals, he began to manufacture a greater variety of more sophisticated stone tools. Upper Palaeolithic sites in Afghanistan dating from about 34,000 to 12,000 years ago illustrate this.
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Kara Kamar, a rock shelter 23 kin; 14 mi. north of Samangan, the first Stone Age site to be scientifically excavated in Afghanistan, produced tools dating ca. 30,000 B.c. (C. Coon, 1954).
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Evidence of Upper Palaeolithic man was subsequently expanded when other American archaeologists excavated over 20,000 stone tools from several rock shelters beside the Balkh River at Aq Kupruk in the hills some 120 kin; 75 mi. south of Balkh (Dupree, 1962, 1965).
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The tools in this assemblage are so beautifully worked that one eminent specialist in palaeolithic technology has dubbed the tool makers of Aq Kupruk "the Michelangelos of the Upper Palaeolithic."
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They represent a cultural phase which endured for about 5000 years at Aq Kupruk, from ca. 20,000 to 15,000 years ago, during which someone, a man or a woman, carved the face of a man, or is it a woman?, on a small limestone pebble.
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Other representations made from bone and pottery found in Czechoslovakia are of comparable age or even older; a carved stone piece found in France is possibly comparable in age.
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This work of art is one of the earliest representations of man by man.
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The face from Aq Kupruk smugly retains the secret of why it was carved. Does it perhaps represent an early ritual object? It was found in a hearth. (On display, National Museum, Kabul).
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North of Balkh, Russian archaeologists found an extremely rich concentration of high quality Mesolithic implements on the sand dunes south of the Amu Darya (classical Oxus River) dating Ca. 10,000 B.C. (A. Vinegradov, 1969-present).
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From dunes north of Khulm, a French archaeologist collected flints including microburins char-acteristic of the Epipalaeolithic, Ca. 7-6500 B.C. (Ph. Gouin, 1968).
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Here the basic in-dustry is microlithic with geometrics.
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The great revolution which launched man onto the path of civilization-and eventually into the Atomic Age-took place dur-ing the Neolithic period when he learned to plant crops and domesticate animals and thus began to control his food supply.
Sculptured Head from
Aq Kupruk, circa 20,000 B.C.
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Interestingly, the Book of Genesis in the Bible records first and early on after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, both domestication of sheep/animals (Abel); as well as agriculture (Cain)
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This revolution took place at Aq Kupruk about 9000 years ago which indicates that northern Afghanistan may indeed have been one of the early centers for the domestication of plants and animals.
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The evidence also supports another Dupree theory that the revolutionary ideas of agriculture and herding germinated within a zone bordered by the 34th and 40th parallels of north latitude, at an altitude of about 750 m; 2461 ft. extending from Central Afghani-stan through Anatolia to mainland Greece.
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Most Middle East Neolithic sites are found within this zone and Aq Kupruk is now added to the list.
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A much later Neolithic at Darra-i-Kur, dating about 4000 years ago, ties in with sites in South Siberia and Kashmir, rather than with the much earlier Middle East sites to which Aq Kupruk relates.
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The Dupree Line, following the 76th longitude through Afghanistan, divides the mixed farming-herding Neolithic of the Middle East from the highland semi-nomadic Neolithic of South Siberia and Northeast Afghanistan, and emphasizes again the pre-historic significance of northern Afghanistan.
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Three intentional burials of domesticated goats, one in association with fragments from two or three children's skulls, were uncovered. Here must be evidence of ritual; of a concern for the mysteries of death and what follows.
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Another extremely interesting phenomenon was encountered in the Darra-i-Kur Neolithic.
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It was not a unique find for Darra-i-Kur. The Neanderthal child of Teshik Tash in the Soviet Union only 150 miles to the north was encircled by seven pairs of goat horns.
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Nor is it a phenomenon related solely to the prehistoric. Countless shrines and graves in Afghanistan today are adorned with goat horns, symbols of strength, virility and grace.
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As man gained proficiency in agriculture, he moved down from mountain caves onto the plains where planting was easier and water more plentiful. Villages emerged; cities followed.
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Early peasant farming villages came into existence in Afghanistan ca. 5000 B.c., or 7000 years ago.
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Deh Morasi Ghundai, the first prehistoric site to be excavated in Afghanistan, lies 27km; 17 mi. southwest of Kandahar (Dupree, 1951).
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Another Bronze Age vil-lage mound site with multiroomed mud-brick buildings dating from the same period sits nearby at Said Qala (I. Shaffer, 1970).
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Second millennium B.C. Bronze Age pottery, copper and bronze horse trappings and stone seals were found in the lowermost levels in the nearby cave called Shamshir Ghar (Dupree, 1950).
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In the Seistan, southwest of these Kandahar sites, two teams of American archaeologists discovered sites relating to the 2nd millennium B.C. (G. Dales, University Museum, University of Pennsylvania, 1969, 1971; W. Trousdale, Smithsonian Institution, 1971-76).
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Stylistically the finds from Deh Morasi and Said Qala tie in with those of pre-Indus Valley sites and with those of com-parable age on the Iranian Plateau and in Central Asia, indicating cultural contacts during this very early age.
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Striking correlations also indicate the parallel development of Deh Morasi with Mun-digak, 51 kin; 32 mi. to the north of Deh Morasi, which was excavated by French archaeologists under the direction of Jean-Marie Casal, from 1951-1958.
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Mundigak is a huge mound 9 m; 30 ft. high; an urban center compared to the seminomadic villages of Deh Morasi and Said Qala.
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As the great cities of the Indus Valley, such as Mohenjo-daro and Harrapa, grew, specialization necessitated the develop-ment of a complex economic base to supply them. The villages supplied the towns and the towns supplied the cities.
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The ex-cavations at Deh Morasi, Said Qala and Mundigak provide much needed information regarding early economic supply networks and the beginnings of an urban civilization in the Afghan area.
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Evidence that trade was not limited regionally, but extended as far afield as Ur (in modern Iraq), was recovered accidently in 1966 from the valley of Sai Hazara in northern Afghanistan.
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The Khosh Tapa (Happy Mound) Hoard consists of several gold and silver goblets, now broken into 19 fragments weighing a total of almost eight pounds, stunningly ornamented with raised geomet-rical designs and vigorous figures of bulls, boars and snakes.
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These animal motifs bear tantalizing similarities stylistically with domin-ant Mesopotamian, Iranian, Indus Valley and Central Asian styles.
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Khosh Tapa lies in Baghlan Province, north of the Khawak Pass, on a once popular route linking the Middle East with Central Asia and Central Asia with the southern provinces in India.
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One of the more popular luxury items carried along this route was lapis lazuli from the mines of Badakhshan which are still being worked today.
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The two main periods of intensive lapis trade date from ca. 2300 B.c. and 1350 B.c.; the probable date of the hoard is ca. 2300 B.c. (on display, National Museum, Kabul).
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Three small mounds near Daulatabad in Faryab Province ex-cavated by Soviet archaeologists produced fine, well-fired Bronze Age clay vases and footed vessels dating ca. 2000 B.c. (V. Sarianidi, 1969).
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A series of Bronze Age mounds given the general designa-tion of (D)ashli greatly expanded the picture of Bronze Age life ca. 1500 B.c. north-west of Balkh. Dl is a large plastered mud-brick fort-qala surrounded by farming settlements.
Mother goddess figurines, right, from Mundigak, left, from Deh Morasi Ghundai, 3rd Millennium B.C. (h. 5cm) 
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Here utilitaiian pottery, fine ceramics and imported wares from Iran were found together with jewelry and stone and bronze compartmented seals.
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Weaponry included sling balls as well as bronze and copper weapons. In an intrusive burial during the end of this period goat skeletons were found surrounded by many delicate ceramic vessels of high quality.
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D3 was a much larger complex in two sections. A circular temple building 150 m; 492 ft. in diameter had an inner wall and an outer wall with nine projecting towers.
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Across from this temple there was a monumental palace with stepped pilasters on its outer façade surrounded by massive walls and a moat 10 m; 33 ft. wide and 3 m; 10 ft. deep.
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Not far away several extensive Bronze Age graveyards are being systematically looted by illegal diggers.
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Bronze seals, pins, mirrors, weaponry, unguent jars and various styles of jewelry grace the sidewalks of Kabul; graceful paper-thin pottery of elegant shapes bespeaking great sophistication lie abandoned by the ravished pits.
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Another three-period farming settlement (ca. 1300-500 n.c.) was excavated at Till Tepe near Shibarghan (V. Sarianidi, 1969, 1971). Fortifications are conspicuous and numerous clay missiles and bronze projectile points were found.
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Casal suggests a religious use for a large white-washed, pillared building, its doorway out-lined with red, dating from the 3rd Millennium B.C. at Mundigak.
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Deh Morasi and Mundigak also provide tantalizing evidence regarding early religious developments.
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At Deh Morasi there is evidence of a possible altar. Built of fire-burned bricks, the shrine complex contained several objects sug-gesting religious ritual: goat horns, goat scapula, a goblet, a copper seal, hollow copper tubing, a small alabaster cup, and a pottery figurine of classic Zhob Valley style.
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These pottery figurines are generally considered to represent the mother-goddess, being at once voluptous in form, to symbolize her power over life and fertility, and, terrifyingly ugly, to symbolize equal power over death and the horrors of the dark, mysterious unknown. (On display, National Museum, Kabul)
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Mundigak continued to survive and to suffer two invasions before it was abandoned about 500 years later after an existence of 2000 years.
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Deh Morasi was abandoned about 1500 B.C., perhaps because of the westward shift of the river.
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The caves of Aq Kupruk and Darra-i-Kur, however, contain evidence of continuous occupation. Indeed, retaining walls and hearths belonging to modern nomadic groups occupy the attention of the excavators as each prehistoric cave site is opened. Some men never took to a sedentary life, and still don't. Nomads have always been a part of the Afghan scene.
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Oct 05, 09
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Aryans & Achaemenids
(c. 1500 B.C. - 330 B.C.) -
Afghanistan History
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A pastoral, cityless, people led by heroic warriors riding two-horsed chariots came out of the north to shatter the great Cities of the Indus Valley.
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In the sacerdotal writings of the Vedic Aryans, the Rigveda, we read of the Kubha (Kabul) River and know of their passage through Afghanistan sometime around 1500 B.C.
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In the related Persian hymns of the Avesta, we read of Bakhdi (Balkh) "the beautiful, crowned with banners" and of Zarathustra Spitama (Zoroaster), the great politico-religious leader who lived in Balkh sometime between 1000 and 600 B.C.
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Many settled here and prospered. As the years passed, however, the various Aryan tribes frequently fought among themselves, encouraging the subjugated indigenous tribes to rise in revolt.
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The Aryans found the northern plains ideal for their flocks of sheep and goats.
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Predatory raids by bands of horse-riding nomads from across the Oxus added to the turmoil. Keeping the Aryan herdsmen from their grazing lands, the nomads demanded, and began to receive, tribute for grazing rights.
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Aryan independence seemed doomed. It was then that Zoroaster came forth to exhort the people to unite, in the name of the god Ahuramazda.
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Victorious, Zoroaster then advised his followers to develop agriculture in addition to herding if they wished to remain inde-pendent and grow strong. The fertile plains of Bactria blossomed and the land prospered.
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Successive waves of Aryan migrations from Trans-Oxiana, find-ing the Afghan area occupied by the Vedic Aryans, moved west, onto the Iranian Plateau, where they evolved from a semi-nomadic state into an extensive empire which eventually stretched from the borders of Greece to the Indus River.
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The Achaemenid Kings conquered in the name of Ahuramazda and Zoroastrianism was their religion.
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Achaemenid campaigns into the Afghan area were undertaken by Darius I (522-486 B.C.), builder of the famous palaces of Susa and Persepolis, and are recorded on his tombstone.
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To facilitate trade, an imperial highway passed through Afghanistan, along virtually the same route modern highway builders have but re-cently paved.
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The excavations at Shahr-i-Kona, the old city of Kandahar, undertaken by the British Institute of Afghan Studies in 1974 (D. Whitehouse) and 1975 (A. McNicoll) indicate that by 500 B.C. Kandahar had replaced Mundigak as the major city of the south.
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In the north, Soviet excavations at a series of mounds given the general designation of (A)ltyn, not far from the Dashli group above Balkh, revealed a large principal administrative town and a monumental private residence in the Achaemenid style with a central court dominated by a pool or fountain.
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Outside the re- sidence there was a large columned courtyard divided into two equal sections by a line of rooms possibly used for public audiences by some grandee or noble.
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There is evidence of a great conflagra-tion which burned the wooden superstructure of the portico sur-rounding these courtyards. Curiously, it seems to have been set just about the time of Alexander of Macedon's sojourn in northern Afghanistan. (V. Sariandi, 1972)
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Oct 05, 09
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Afghanistan History
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Islamic Conquest
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In 637 A.D., only five years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, the Arab Muslims shattered the might of the Iranian Sassanians at the battle of Qadisiya, and the invaders began to reach into the lands east of Iran.
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Following the first Arab raid into Qandahar in about 700, local rulers, probably either Kushans or Western Turks, began to come under the control of Ummayid caliphs, who sent Arab military governors and tax collectors into the region.
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The Muslim conquest was a prolonged struggle in the area that is now Afghanistan.
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There was a period of peace under the rule of the caliph, Harun al Rashid (7&S-809), and his son, in which learning fluorished in such Central Asian cities as Samarkand, located in what is now the Soviet Union.
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By the middle of the eighth century the rising Abbasid Dynasty was able to subdue the area.
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Over the period of the seventh through the ninth centuries, most inhabitants of what is now Afghanistan, Pakistan, the southern parts of the Soviet Union, and some of northern India were converted to Sunni Islam, which replaced the Zorastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and indigenous religions of previous empires.
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During the eighth and ninth centuries, partly to obtain better grazing land, ancestors of many of the Turkic-speaking
groups now identifiable in Afghanistan settled in the Hindu Kush area. -
Some of these tribes settled in what are now Ghor,
Ghazni, and Kabul provinces and began to assimilate much of the culture and language of the already present Pashtun tribes. -
By the middle of the ninth century, Abbasid rule had faltered, and semi-independent states began to emerge throughout the empire.
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In the Hindu Kush area three shortlived, local dynasties emerged. The best known of the three, the Sammanid, ruling out of Bukhara (in what is now the Soviet Union), extended its rule briefly as far east as India and west into Iran.
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Although Arab Muslim intellectual life still centered on Baghdad, Iranian Muslim scholarship, i.e., Shia Islam, at this time predominated in the Sammanid areas.
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Bukhara and neighboring Samarkand were centers of science, the arts, and Islamic studies.
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By the mid-tenth century the Sammanid Dynasty crumbled in the face of attack from the Turkish tribes to the north and from a rising dynasty to the south, the Ghaznavids.
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Nov 24, 09
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Wednesday, November 18. 2009
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Shangri-La found
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Shangri-La, the mystical mountain fastness and magnet for some unusual beliefs (including being the target of a Nazi expedition), but has it been found?
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Climber Renan Ozturk watches a local Tibetan look at an illuminated manuscript found during an August 2008 expedition to remote Himalayan caves in the ancient kingdom of Mustang, today part of Nepal.
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The folio is part of a treasure trove of 15th-century Tibetan art and manuscripts that could be linked to the real-world inspiration for Shangri-La, a fictional paradise described by British writer James Hilton in his popular 1930s novel Lost Horizon.
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Until recently few have been able to explore the mysterious caves--carved high into sheer cliff faces--because Upper Mustang is a restricted area of Nepal that was long closed to outsiders. Today only a thousand foreigners a year are allowed into the region.
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In 2007 a team co-led by U.S. researcher and Himalaya expert Broughton Coburn and veteran mountaineer Pete Athans scaled the crumbling cliffs on a mission to explore the human-made caves.
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The treasures they found during that trip and the second expedition in 2008 are featured in two new documentaries, Lost Cave Temples of the Himalayas and Secrets of Shangri-La
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Here are some more details on the shows (hopefully Channel 4 or 5 will pick these up at some point):
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On Wednesday, Nov. 18, the night before Coburn's talk, Idaho Public Television will air three programs, "Secrets of Shangri La," "Lost Cave Temples of the Himalaya" and "Mustang: Journey of Transformation," about the scientific discoveries within the difficult-to-reach and vast cave system. The programs will begin at 8 p.m.
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They will present a history of the remote region of the Himalaya, which has previously been off-limits to outsiders.
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climbing, for the first time, into human-carved caves thousands of years old.
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Inside the caves, the team discovered priceless 14th-century wall paintings, ancient human remains and a centuries-old hidden library of sacred texts that may reveal some secrets about Shangri-la.
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"The project was conceived when I was working for the American Himalayan Foundation," Coburn said.
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"I was curious about a near countless cave system that perforated the valley of the Annapurna region."
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Joining Coburn on the expedition was Pete Athans, a veteran climber who seven times reached the summit of Mount Everest.
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"It was an international expedition to explore the caves and begin to understand who excavated them and what for," Coburn said.
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"They appear to be used but they have been uninhabited for centuries and even a millenium. I wanted to know more."
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Coburn said the caves include marvels such as a mural painting with 55 panels depicting a lineage of great yogis with mystical powers dating back to the 13th or 14th century.
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He said the murals were executed in exquisite detail.
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Surely the Tibetan gateway to the Hollow Earth must be nearby? I sense an Imperial Expedition coming on!!
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