Categories
Books

The Iron Age in southern Central Asia

Lhuillier, Johanna & Nikolaus Boroffka (eds.). 2018. A millennium of history. The Iron Age in southern Central Asia (2nd and 1st millennia BC). Proceedings of the conference held in Berlin (June 23–25, 2014). Dedicated to the memory of Viktor Ivanovich Sarianidi (Archeology in Iran and Turan 17). Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag.

The volume gives a comprehensive insight into the Iron Age in southern Central Asia, whose beginning and end are marked by two major cultural changes: the end of Bronze Age urban societies with their large burial grounds and the conquest of Central Asia by Alexander the Great. Central to this is the incorporation of this region into the Achaemenid-Persian empire. Profound social changes in settlement, technology, and spiritual life can be linked to the emergence of the Avesta and the Zoroastrian religion, which became the official religion of the Persian Empire. A new look at texts and archaeological research demonstrates the complete incorporation of Bactria and Sogdia into the Achaemenid Empire during the 6th century BC.

Table of contents:

  • Nikolaus Boroffka, Johanna Lhuillier: Introduction
  • Aydogdy Kurbanov: History of research of Early Iron Age sites in southern Turkmenistan during the Soviet period
  • Barbara Cerasetti, Lynne M. Rouse, Ilaria de Nigris: The Influence of Bronze Age Sedentary-Mobile Interactions on the Iron Age: Mobile Pastoral Occupation Sites in the Murghab Alluvial Fan, Turkmenistan
  • Johanna Lhuillier et al. : The Early Iron Age occupation in southern Central Asia. Excavation at Dzharkutan in Uzbekistan
  • Ali A. Vahdati: The Early Iron Age in northern Khorasan
  • Viktor N. Pilipko: Dashly-30, a settlement of the Early Iron Age in the south of Turkmenistan (piedmont of the Kopet Dag, Etek)
  • Johanna Lhuillier: A short note on the Iron Age at Tillya-tepe and Naibabad (Afghanistan). Some unpublished image documents from the excavations of Viktor Ivanovich Sarianidi
  • Kazim Abdullaev: Layers of Early Iron Age in Dzhandavlattepa (Sherabad District, Surkhandarya Region of Uzbekistan)
  • Nazarij Buławka: Settlement patterns of the Yaz culture in the deltas of the Tedzhen River in Turkmenistan
  • Philippe Marquis: The Balkh Oasis. A huge potential
  • Ladislav Stanco: New data on the Iron Age in the Sherabad district, South Uzbekistan
  • Wu Xin: Exploiting the Virgin Land: Kyzyltepa and the e¡ects of the Achaemenid Persian Empire on its Central Asian frontier
  • Jaloliddin Annaev: New data on the historical geography of Old Termez and its vicinities
  • Wouter F.M. HenkelmanBactrians in Persepolis – Persians in Bactria
  • Claude Rapin: On the way to Roxane ‰. Satraps and hyparchs between Bactra and Zariaspa-Maracanda
  • Kazim Abdullaev: Burials with fractioned bones in the funerary practice of Bactria in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages
  •  Julio Bendezu Sarmiento, Philippe Marquis, Johanna Lhuillier, Hervé Monchot: A sepulchral pit from the Late Iron Age in Bactra. The site of Tepe Zargaran (Afghanistan)
  • Marcin Wagner: The Fire temple at Topaz Gala depe in southern Turkmenistan
  • Viktor V. Mokroborodov: Kindyktepa: a temple of the mid-first millennium BC in Southern Uzbekistan