The mausoleum of Muhammad Ibn Zayid is a twelfth-century structure standing next to the main entrance to the site. The complex consists of the mausoleum itself, a mosque and an anteroom, all domed. The dome over the mausoleum is the tallest. Four arched squinches provide the transition from the square chamber to the dome with an intermediate zone of small corbelled niches completing the transition from octagon to dome. In the centre of the room is a black marble cenotaph and a band of floral Kufic runs around the walls giving the date as 1112. Nearby is a restored sardoba and a cemetery where remains of Seljuk potters’ kilns can be seen.
There is not much to be seen in the Abdullah Khan Kala. It is a rectangular site with circular corner towers and a citadel mound in the northern corner, within which was the ruler’s palace. Also in the northern part were a large mosque and a madrasa. The palace was still in existence in the nineteenth century. The site was first explored and described by VA. Zhukovsky in 1890.
Fig. 23 Top: Rhyton from Nisa (second century BC). Below: Seals and gems (first to second century AD)
Excavations on the Merv site are still going on. The International Merv Project, a joint venture of the Archaeological Institute of University College London and YUTAKE, the Academy of Sciences of Turkmenistan has been working there every year since 1992. According to recent explorations, the site of Merv is facing a serious threat from the humidity emanating from the giant Karakum canal built under the Soviets.
The second most important site in Turkmenistan is Anau, 7 miles south-east of the modern capital, Ashkhabad. A settlement already existed here in the Neolithic Age, and some excavations were carried out in 1904–5 by R. Pumpelly. Pumpelly’s views that Anau may perhaps have been the oldest farming culture in the world, and southern Turkmenistan the oldest cultivated area, were later corrected, when in the 1930s and after the Second World War, a systematic study of this culture was undertaken, here as well as on other sites in Turkmenistan. The next period of Anau is in evidence at the Hellenistic site of Nisa. There are two separate sites of that name not far from one anotherOld and New Nisa. New Nisa was a town that continued to exist until the Middle Ages. Old Nisa was a royal residence, containing within its walls palaces, temples and tombs of the Parthian kings. It was abandoned by the end of the Parthian period at the beginning of the third century AD. The original name of the town was Mihrdatkart. Its layout differed from that of a normal Hellenistic town, being pentagonal in shape. The ramparts were built of pakhsa (beaten clay), and were enormously thick (25–30ft), and reinforced by towers. The palaces and temples whose architectural structure was revealed by the excavations were of remarkably large size. In one of the buildings, the ‘square room’ measured 65ft each way, and the ‘round room’ had a diameter of 55ft. Dwelling houses had large storerooms, some of them even wine cellars. The wine was kept in big pottery jars, buried in the ground.3 The sculptures found at Nisa consisted mainly of monumental clay statues of human figures larger than life. Also, the first marble sculptures found in Central Asia were excavated here. An extremely important discovery was a group of rhytons carved from ivory. (See Fig. 23, 72 and colour plate 13.) They were very badly damaged, but most of them, some forty in number, have now been restored. Their pointed ends are decorated with sculptured figures of centaurs, winged horses, lions, griffins and other fantastic creatures. Round the broad upper ends are bands of ornaments in relief, representing scenes connected with the cult of Dionysus and other favourite themes of Hellenistic art.4 Finally, 2,500 sherds (ostraca) with inscriptions were found here. All inscriptions are in the Parthian language, the script is Aramaic, and the contents are mainly records of deliveries of wine etc. The dating is exact, from the second century to the first century BC.
Rempel has the following to say about the art of Old Nisa:
The architectural forms of Parthian Nisa, compared with their Hellenistic decoration, seem heavy and ponderous. The décor of the Round and Square Rooms was arranged in two rows, one above the other. Clay polychromed statues were placed in niches in the upper row. The upper part of the Square Room was painted bright red, and some painted wall ornaments could be reconstructed.5
Philostratos, writing in the second to third century AD, gives the following description of the royal palace:
Its roof was covered with copper and shone brightly. Inside were rooms for men and rooms for women and porticos shining with silver and gold ornaments. Plates of pure gold were inserted in the walls like pictures. There were embroideries using motifs from Greek mythology and Graeco-Persian wars. One men’s room had a domed ceiling imitating the sky. It was completely covered with blue tiles the colour and brilliance of which resembled the skies.6
In Anau, a domed mosque dating from the Timurid period and now heavily damaged was built, according to Cohn-Wiener, in 1446 by a local ruler, Abdul Kasim Babur. The mosque was built inside a fortress and both were destroyed at an unknown date that may be as late as 1795. The pishtak (portico) of the mosque shows two dragons above the entrance, stylised in the Chinese way, white on blue background with black contours. Ornaments in the corners are white, yellow and black. The characters of the Koranic inscription are in Naskhi script, also white on a blue background. Inside the mihrab is glazed in several colours. The pishtak is about 63ft high; on either side was a wing with octagonal rooms on three storeys. The rear side of the building was fortified with round towers and connected with the fortifications of the citadel. Other sources, however,7 identify this building as a mausoleum, and give the date of its construction as 1455.
Among other places of interest in Turkmenistan some prehistoric sites should be mentioned. The Dzhebel Cave near Krasnovodsk is a late Mesolithic–early Neolithic site where the age of the latest phase was fixed, with the help of radiocarbon dating, within the fifth and sixth millennia BC. The material found here has therefore provided a standard for the dating of other sites belonging to the same periods. The excavations at the Dzhebel Cave provided the opportunity to establish the relationship between the Mesolithic and early Neolithic cultures of Turkmenistan, and similar cultures in the Caspian area of Persia and as far afield as Palestine.
At Dzheytun, 20 miles north-west of Ashkhabad in the Kara Kum desert, the remains of thirty-five separate dwelling houses were excavated, built of round blocks of sun-dried clay, the forerunners of the adobe bricks that became the principal building material in Central Asia for many centuries to come. The houses were small in size, each consisting of a single room of up to 215 square feet. Neolithic flint industry still prevailed here. Blades were found consisting of flakes sharpened on one side and inserted into bone sickles. Stone querns were also found that were used for grinding corn into meal or flour. The pottery was made by hand, without the use of a wheel, but it already showed some primitive decoration, usually several parallel lines painted in ochre. The animal bones found here were of great interest, showing that the process of domesticating certain animals, such as sheep, had already begun. Dzheytun is now recognised as the oldest evidence of an agricultural civilisation in Central Asia, comparable with Jarmo in north-western Persia and Al-Ubaid in Mesopotamia, for example.
South-east of Ashkhabad is a large hill, Namazga-Tepe, with layers of six periods (Namazga I–VI), ranging from the third to the late second millennium BC, which yielded, among other material, interesting pottery and a layout of a large house. Two further sites, dating from the fourth to the middle of the third millennium B.C, are Kara-Tepe, near Ashkhabad, and Geoksyur, 60 miles east, near the River Tedzhend.
At Geoksyur, nine sites were uncovered in the years 1956–59, dating approximately from the late fourth to the early third millennium BC, corresponding roughly to the layers of Namazaga I–III, with the site of Dashlidzhin, with one-room houses, corresponding to Namazga II and Geoksyur, where houses already had several rooms, being of the period of Namazga Ill. Pottery with polychrome geometrical decoration was found here, as were traces of some earliest irrigated agriculture.
At Ak-Tepe, so
me 2 miles from Artyk, remains of a Sasanian palace were excavated in 1964–65. Two citadels, eastern and western, a walled shahristan and rabads were discovered at Shahr-Islam in 1947 and excavated in 1961–64.
Gonur Tepe, on the edge of the Karakum Desert not far from Merv, was an agricultural oasis and, perhaps at the end of the third millennium BC, one of the capitals of the ancient Margiana. Excavations carried out up to 2004 have shown that the centre of the settlement was a palace surrounded by sanctuaries and flanked, on the north side, by an open space used for banquets, and on the south side, by a large natural basin with a temple on either side. From a still earlier period date a number of royal tombs probably built in the form of small houses, which, according to some authorities, was typical for Indo-European and especially for Indo-Iranian populations. The interiors were richly decorated with mosaics showing various figurative motives such as snake dragons, leopards, boars and wolves with human heads etc., as well as geometrical ornaments and figures. Although the tombs were looted in antiquity, some objects were found in secret caskets, mainly ivories decorated with motives pointing to Indian origins and a possible link with the Indus civilisations of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro. Also found were jars and cups in gold, silver and alloys of copper. Of special interest was a small statue of a saddled horse indicating that horse riding was already practised. In three tombs funerary chariots were found, one with four wheels and two with two wheels, with traces of harness.8
The same Italian and Russian teams that explored Gonur Tepe, also explored a nearby side of a fortified city that was surrounded by walls of dried bricks 2m thick. Cylindrical seals were found here with a motive of a snake and an eagle showing affinity with the civilisations of Elam and Sumer in Mesopotamia, which proves that commercial contracts existed at around 3000 BC between the Mesopotamian and the Indus civilisations via a desert road and a chain of oases. Eight more cities were located on this road and may be excavated in the future.
In 1990, a Bronze Age settlement was discovered at Altyn-Tepe. A proto-Zoroastrian temple was found at Togoluk, capital of the oasis of Margush in 1250–1000 BC. A twelfth-century mosque decorated with incised terracotta can be seen at Dendanakan, a fortified medieval town some 41 miles from Merv.
In the south-western corner of the country, between the Kopet Dagh mountains and the Caspian, which was the ancient province of Hyrcania, a number of sites should be mentioned, situated along an 81-mile canal probably dating from the Iron Age period. Lecomte lists more than 100 sites, some excavated, others merely identified and catalogued. Most recent work has been carried out on the site of Geoktchik-Tepe (Sasanian and early Islamic period).
Ashkhabad itself is a relatively modern town. The oldest part of it is a ruined fortress, built by the Russians in 1881. Lord Curzon, who visited Ashkhabad in 1888, referred to it as a flourishing town with a considerable population. The population was made up of many diverse nationalities: Russians, Persians, Polish exiles, Armenians, Tartars and many others. They came from all four corners of the Russian Empire – artisans, former soldiers, craftsmen, workers from the Trans-Caspian Railway – all seeking to make their fortune in this thriving spot. Unlike Bukhara, or even Tashkent, Ashkhabad never comprised an old and a new town. The main reason for this was that the native nomad population had no wish to change their way of life for an alien one in a town. Thus, in 1901 43.1 per cent of the town’s population were Russians and even today the town remains predominantly Russian. In 1948 a severe earthquake shook the town and caused great damage. Most of it was demolished and the areas around the railway station and the city centre suffered more than others.
Some 30 miles to the north-west lies the old Turkmen fortress Gök-Tepe; it was here in 1881 that the last stronghold of Central Asian independence fell before the advancing Russians. The Turkmen defenders, after more than three weeks of heroic resistance, were defeated by the Tsarist army under General Skobelev.
The sites at Kunya-Urgench in the Tashauz Region of northern Turkmenistan are described in Chapter 6.
* * *
NOTES TO CHAPTER VIII
Full details of abbreviations and publications are in the Bibliography
1 Barthold, Turkestan, p.117.
2 Pope, Architecture, p.131.
3 Belenitsky, Civilisation, p.78.
4 There is a disagreement among archaeologists whether the main temple belonged to a Zoroastrian or a dynastic cult. The rhytons can be seen in the the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg.
5 Rempel, Ornament, p.41.
6 Philostratos, one of a family of Greek writers. Philostratos the Lemnian (end of the second century AD) is the author of two books called Imagines, an important source for the knowledge of Hellenistic art. His grandson, Philostratos the Younger (late third century) wrote a second series of seventeen Imagines. All Imagines were translated by A. Fairbanks and published in 1931.
7 Cities of Central Asia, p.16.
8 Sarianidi, V., ‘Les tombes royals de Gonur Tepe’, Archéologia 420/05.
IX
THE AMU DARYA VALLEY AND
SOUTHERN TAJIKISTAN
In Uzbekistan on the Amu Darya, not far from the mouth of the Surkhan Darya, lie the ruins of the important medieval city and fortress Termez, sometimes transcribed from Persian as Tirmidh. There are three different sites of the city. Old Termez, situated immediately on the riverbank, was destroyed by Chingiz-Khan. A settlement was already on this site in ancient times, mainly because an island in the river and a shallow bed offered an easy crossing.
We reached Termez, a large town with fine buildings and bazaars and traversed by canals. It abounds in grapes and quinces of an exquisite flavour as well as in flesh-meats and milk… The old Termez was built on the bank of the Oxus, and when it was laid in ruins by Chingiz, this new town was built two miles from the river.1
This town still existed under the Uzbeks. In Timur’s time the ford was so important that a permanent floating bridge was kept here and tolls were levied from caravans and travellers who crossed it. The third site is that of the present city, which lies on the intersection of the Bukhara (Kagan)–Dushanbe railway line and the highway from Samarkand to Afghanistan. A modern bridge, a few miles upstream, paradoxically called the ‘Bridge of Friendship’ served the Russian army in its invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.
Clavijo, the Spanish envoy to Timur, has this to say about Termez:
We crossed the Oxus and in the evening of the same day we entered the big city of Termez. Previously it was part of Lesser India [i.e. Afghanistan], bur Timur made it part of Samarkand. The country of Samarkand is called Mongolia and the language here is Mongolian. Some of the Oxus people speak Persian and cannot understand it. These two languages have hardly anything in common. Even the script used by the Samarkandians is different from Persian and those on the south bank cannot read it currently.
By this Clavijo means the Uighur script, which the Mongols took on after their victory over the Uighurs. It was of Syriac origin and was brought to the Uighur country, east of the Tien-Shan and south-west of Lake Baikal, by the Nestorian monks. The Persians at that time used Arabic script, as they still do.
Clavijo also noticed one extremely interesting detail when crossing the river:
Fig. 24 Amu Darya and Zarafshan
Nobody may cross the Oxus from north to south without a special permit or laissez-passer. In this must be stated who he is, where he comes from and where he goes. Even a free man who was born in Samarkand must have such a permit. On the contrary everyone who wants to enter Samarkand, may cross the river freely and does not need anything.
The reason for this ingeniuous arrangement was obviously to keep people in the country and prevent them from escaping abroad.
The city of Tirmiz is vast and very populous; it has no walls and is not fortified. And it is enough to say, that the inn where they accommodated us was so far from the entrance of the city, that we were quite tired before we arrived there.2
Belenitsky3 regards
the name Termez as a distortion of the name of a Graeco-Bactrian king, Demetrius. The existence of the city in the Graeco-Bactrian period seems to be confirmed by many coins and other objects from that time that were found in the ruins. A thorough excavation of levels belonging to the period has so far not been possible, because they lie at a considerable depth under later levels.
However, an important discovery must be mentioned here, although it was made 8 miles upstream from the town, near the village of Ayrtam. In 1932 a carved slab of limestone was found in the water, and in 1936 seven other fragments were unearthed during excavations of a Buddhist shrine. All fragments, now in the Hermitage, belong to a frieze that dates from the Kushan period (first or second century AD) and shows, in high relief, figures of male and female musicians and bearers of offerings. Each figure is framed in acanthus leaves. The site was excavated in 1964–66. It seems that in the second century BC there was a fortified Greek outpost, while in the first and second centuries AD a Buddhist cult complex was built with a sanctuary, a stupa, and some auxiliary buildings. A burial site nearby dates from the second to the first century BC.
Much valuable material belonging to the Kushan period was discovered in Termez itself, in particular a Buddhist cave monastery on the hill of Kara-Tepe, in the north-western corner of the ancient city. The distinctive feature of this short-lived building complex of the early Kushan era is that it was mostly hewn out of rock, an Indian characteristic quite exceptional in these areas. It is, in fact, the only site of this kind so far discovered in Transoxania. In addition to badly preserved wall paintings there were plaster reliefs and statues and also fine thin pottery with numerous inscriptions in ancient Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts. Similar inscriptions were found in Balkh and Surkh Kotal in Afghanistan.4
Treasures of the Great Silk Road Page 19