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Arsacid Cities in the Hanshu and Houhanshu

Zanous, Hamidreza Pasha & Juping Yang. 2018. Arsacid Cities in the Hanshu and HouhanshuIran and the Caucasus 22 (2), 123–138.

In the reports of Chinese travellers submitted to the Emperors, they mentioned the places they had visited or heard of. Although some scholars have tried to identify these Chinese names as specific places in the Iranian Plateau and its bordering plains, their locations are still somewhat vague and debatable. This article discusses the place-names mentioned in Chinese sources and attempts to verify that they could have denoted the localities along the ancient Great Khorasan Road and other routes, which were once the main sections of the Silk Road. Among them, the route that Chinese traveller Gan Ying might have passed before he reached the western frontier of the Arsacid Empire will also be discussed in this study.