Abstract
Starting from the fall of the Seleucid Empire, scholars have noted changes to the practice of kingship manifest in the emergence of what has been described as a ruler cult based on a ...blending of Iranian and Greek or Hellenistic practices. The mix of indigenous Iranian ideas of kingship and ("Zoroastrian") religion with Greek and Hellenistic ideas is key to understanding the practice of Central Asian rulership after the arrival of Alexander the Great. Chorasmia has not traditionally been part of this conversation: here the issue of a post-Seleucid transformation of Iranian kingship is nuanced by the fact that Alexander never visited the region, and the remains of Hellenism are rather scant. Nevertheless, the most recent findings at the mid 1st century BC - mid 1st century AD Ceremonial Complex at Akchakhan-kala suggest new practices of rule also in this region. This paper examines these new ideas against the background of changing practices in kingship across eastern Iran, the Caucasus and Central Asia.
The origins and dispersal of the chicken across the ancient world remains one of the most enigmatic questions regarding Eurasian domesticated animals. The lack of agreement concerning timing and ...centers of origin is due to issues with morphological identifications, a lack of direct dating, and poor preservation of thin, brittle bird bones. Here we show that chickens were widely raised across southern Central Asia from the fourth century BC through medieval periods, likely dispersing along the ancient Silk Road. We present archaeological and molecular evidence for the raising of chickens for egg production, based on material from 12 different archaeological sites spanning a millennium and a half. These eggshells were recovered in high abundance at all of these sites, suggesting that chickens may have been an important part of the overall diet and that chickens may have lost seasonal egg-laying.
Kidd Fiona. Complex Connections : Figurative Art from Akchakhan-Kala and the Problematic Question of Relations between Khorezm and Parthia. In: Topoi, volume 17/1, 2011. pp. 229-276.
Betts Alison V. G.,Bonnat Mélodie,Kidd Fiona,Grenet Frantz,Khashimov Stanislas,Khodzhanijazov Ghajratdin,Minardi Michele. Des divinités avestiques sur les peintures murales d’Akchakhan-Kala, ...Ouzbékistan . In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 159e année, N. 3, 2015. pp. 1369-1396.
Kidd Fiona, Betts Alison V. G. Entre le fleuve et la steppe : nouvelles perspectives sur le Khorezm ancien. In: Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 154e ...année, N. 2, 2010. pp. 637-686.
The Registan Desert in southern Afghanistan has, like most deserts, traditionally been regarded as a barren, hostile space, devoid of human occupation other than occasional nomad campsites and an ...isolated 11th-century a.d. fortress. Detailed analysis of a strip of high resolution satellite imagery available through Google Earth and stretching into the Registan has revealed the presence of over 800 hitherto unrecorded archaeological sites. Many of these sites relate to water management, and predate the modern era. The water installations form networks of sites which facilitated the opportunistic exploitation of grazing following periodic rains, desert farming, travel, trade and exchange over hundreds of years, if not longer. Extrapolating from this detailed analysis, we argue that thousands of other sites have yet to be discovered in the Registan. These water management networks warrant further study in the field and protection from neglect, construction, recreational four-wheel driving, and looting.
In a recent special issue of The Holocene, Miller et al. review the evidence for the spread of millet (Panicum miliaceum and Setaria italica) across Eurasia. Among their arguments, they contend that ...millet cultivation came to Eurasian regions with hot, dry summers when irrigation was introduced, as part of a region-wide shift toward agricultural intensification in the first millennium BC. This hypothesis seems to align with the pattern of agricultural change observed in the Khorezm oasis, a Central Asian polity of the first millennium BC and first millennium AD. While we wholeheartedly accept this hypothesis for its explanatory value regarding trends across Eurasia, in this paper we nevertheless suggest that the introduction of millet to Central Asia needs further explication. Specifically, we seek to address the underlying assumption that this introduction was predicated upon centrally organized, state-level land development, increased sedentism, and the rise of Mesopotamian-style social complexity. We describe how millet cultivation in Khorezm was preceded by multi-resource strategies that included the cultivation of summer crops, and emphasize that this earlier history mattered significantly to the evolution of Khorezmian society and agriculture in the first millennium BC. In contrast to the imperial systems of West Asia, in Khorezm the introduction of complex irrigation works supported the expansion and greater stratification of pre-existing agropastoral lifeways, and helped to buttress the rise of nomadic elites within an agrarian zone. We believe the example of Khorezm is important because it helps to explain the emergence of integrated mobile-sedentist societies in the first millennium AD in Central Asia as a result of agricultural change. It also provides cultural and historical context to the spread of millet cultivation in the first millennium BC, suggesting that this phenomenon had significantly different implications for societies across Eurasia.
Excavations at the site of Bashtepa, at the western interface of the Bukhara oasis and the Kyzyl-kum desert, and at the kurgan sites at Kuyu-Mazar and Lyavandak on the eastern and north eastern ...fringes of the oasis, are detailed here, enriching our understanding of agro-pastoralism in Antiquity. At Bashtepa, results indicate a shifting site function, from a border fortress, over a phase during which a monumental though still poorly understood platform dominated the northern part of the site, to a final phase when the site evolved into a small rural settlement characterized by pit houses. Preliminary archaeo-botanical and paleo-zoological studies demonstrate an engagement with grain farming, but also with animal husbandry, as well as hunting and fishing. Ceramics indicate contacts with the surrounding oases. Excavations at the kurgan provide new data on burial architecture and funerary customs, including a collective burial with khums being used as containers for human bones. Results challenge the chronology of previously excavated comparable kurgans in the area, suggesting an earlier date. The analysis of ceramics from the kurgan burials underlines the need to rework the dating of the ceramic typology for the Bukhara oasis, especially for the period between the 3rd century BCE and the 3rd century CE.
This paper reports on the results of archaeological field excavations at the site of Kara-tepe, in the semi-autonomous region of Karakalpakstan in northwestern Uzbekistan. Investigations at the site ...in 2008-2009 turned up an unusually rich assemblage of remains from a household context. Combined analysis of the household botanical and faunal remains has allowed us to reconstruct the agropastoral practices of local inhabitants in this oasis region during a critical period of social and environmental change in the Early Medieval transition (4th-5th centuries a.d.). The results of the study raise important new questions about agropastoralism in the oases of Central Eurasia, highlighting continuities of practice between oasis and steppe populations, and revealing dynamic changes in these systems over time.
