The early Middle Ages
Bukhara, situated on the lower reaches
of the Zarafshan River, was one of the most significant
cities in Central Asia in ancient and medieval times.
It served as a capital for the Bukhar-khudat kingdom
(fifth through eighth centuries), the Samanids (ninth
and tenth centuries), the Sheybanids (sixteenth century),
the Ashtarkhanids (seventeenth and eighteenth centuries),
and the Mangits (eighteenth through twentieth centuries).
The first reference to Bukhara in a written document
seems to be the term Buho (or Poe-ho), mentioned by
the Chinese writer Suan-Tsiang around 630 A.D. The
name also occurs on drachma coins of the Persian ruler
Varahran V (42 1-439 A.D.) minted in the Bukhara region
and apparently dating from the late fifth century,
as well as on the so-called Kopchikov dish, which
dates from the late sixth or early seventh century,
according to paleographic evidence.
In the opinion of a number of scholars who have studied
the twelfth-century writings of Djuveyni, the name
Bukhara is derived from the Sanskrit word vihara,
meaning "Buddhist temple." However, another
theory is that the name comes from the Soghdian word
buxarak, meaning "a happy place." And this
theory is most likely to be the truth Numi, Maumi,
or Numidjikat, another name for the city found in
Chinese and Arabic historical records, comes (in V.A.
Livshits's opinion) from the Soghdian word Namich,
which means "glorious, famous."
Written sources on the political history of pre-Islamic
Bukhara relate primarily to the seventh and eighth
centuries A.D. An historic outline of earlier periods
can be done on the basis of numismatic data. According
to Firdaw-si's Shahname, Siyavush (Avestan "Siyavar-shan"),
a famous hero and son of the king Key-Kawus (Kawius),
was the founder of the Bukhara citadel known as the
Ark. Siyavush came to Afrasiab, the king of Turan,
to escape prosecution by his father. After arriving,
Siyavush married one of Afrasiab's daughters and built
the Kangdiz castle and the Siyavush-gird fortress
according to Shahname in the Bukhara region, according
to Pahlavi sources.
Abu-al-Hasan An-Hishapuri, a medieval author, makes
direct mention of both the building of the fortress
by Siyavush and the place where Siyavush was buried
beyond the eastern gates of the city. In K. A. Trever's
opinion, the Bakhar region possibly corresponds to
Bukhara.
According to Narshahi's version, the city of Bukhara
was founded by Shiri-Kishvar, a Turkic ruler who was
sent by Kara-Churin, a Kagan of the Turks, in answer
to the request of Bukhara peasants that they be delivered
from the tyranny of Abruy, a local ruler. Present-day
researchers date this event to the mid-sixth century
A.D. However, such a late date is not supported by
archaeological data. The earliest cultural layers,
unearthed from stratigraphic exploratory trenches
in the area of the Bukhara's Ark and Shakhristan,
date from the middle of the first millennium B.C.,
or possibly the fourth or third century B.C. In the
opinion of some, Bukhara was mentioned by Arian in
connection with events which happened in 328 B.C.
According to Arian, while in search of allies, Spitamen
arrived at Bagi (or Gaby in another interpretation),
an inaccessible place on the border between Soghdian-an
land and the Scytho-Massaget country (Arian. IV, I
7, 4). This place is very likely Bukhara, since it
was located on the outer rim of the Soghdian lands,
beyond which lay only the desert, populated by the
nomadic Scythians.
Some researchers, in particular V.V. Bar-told, have
thought that a royal city named Basileiya was situated
on the lower reaches of the Zarafshan, downstream
from Samarkand. This city can probably be identified
with Er-Kurgan.
Amongst the nineteenth-century scholars, there was
a widespread notion that Tribaktra, believed to be
between the Oxus and Jaxartes according to Ptolemy
(Ptolemai, IV, 12), was to be identified with Bukhara.
The name of Bukhara can be derived from Tribaktra
via the Old Persian word bahtairi and the Bactrian
word bakhti. W. Tomaschek, a famous Austrian researcher
of Central Asian historical geography, disagreed,
thinking that Tribaktra was situated on the site of
Paikend. However, V.A. Shishkin noticed that the way
this hypothesis was framed in a quite unnatural way,
and there were not any serious obstacles to identifying
Tribaktra with Bukhara. Judging from archaeological
data, Bukhara was an important city even at this early
time and was most likely known to ancient historians
and geographers.
There is no information available on what the oasis
of Bukhara was like under the Seleucids, but later
on, it was included in the Greco-Bactrian state. This
happened, most probably, under Euthydemus (230-200
B.C.). This king's treasury has been found in Bukhara
(at Takhmach-tepe), where archaeologists have discovered
tetradrachmas with Euthydemus' name on them, along
with a number of Bactrian-Bactrian coins, found by
accident, all of which serve as evidence that Bukhara
was part of Euthydemus' kingdom.
Apparently, sometime during the second half of the
second century B.C., the Bukhara oasis became independent.
After that time, silver imitations of Euthydemus'
tetradrachmas were minted. These imitations consist
of a distorted Greek and Soghdian legend and an image
of Hercules sitting on an omphalos. During this period,
the rulers of Bukhara used an Aramaic title meaning
"prince", but the names on the legends of
the coins cannot be read clearly, even after W. Hennig's
attempt to decipher them.''
The final phase of this coinage (second through fourth
centuries A.D.) were coins of an independent type
in which the image of Euthydemus was replaced with
an image of a Bukhara ruler wearing a tiara, accompanied
by a Soghdian legend. Imitations of this type, including
a treasure consisting of eighty-six coins, have been
found around Bukhara.
The Girkod's (or Urkod's) silver obols, found mostly
in the Kum-Savtan Old City, south of Bukhara, comprise
a second group of coins which definitely originate
from the Bukhara oasis. These coins probably date
from the first century B.C. - third or fourth century
A.D., and are split into two types.
The first and earliest type depicts the bust of a
ruler to the right wearing a band on his body and
the legend written in Greek letters on the obverse
side. On the reverse side is a standing deity with
a flame behind its shoulders and the legend, also
written in Greek letters. The latter legend has not
been interpreted properly until recently. R. Girshman
attempted to decipher Makkafoy as the name of a tribe
that conquered Greco-Bactria — the Sakarauks,
but this interpretation was not supported by other
scholars. Some have deciphered the word Opdioploy
as the name of a ruler and have read the first letter
as alpha, thus Artardaf, though actually the first
letter is omicron in all the legends.
As for the coins of the second type, both the image
of a ruler and the legend are the same as on the first
type. However, the Greek legend is replaced with a
Soghdian one, while the reverse side represents a
galloping horse and a Soghdian legend deciphered in
W. Hennig's version. This coinage dates from the late
first or the early second century A.D., when Greek
writing was replaced with local Bactrian and Soghdian
writing throughout Transoxiana. The last group of
the Urkod coins is an unepigraphic group (without
legends).
Thus, between the first century B.C. and the first
half of the fourth century A.D., the Bukhara oasis
was shared by two separate kingdoms. One of them was
probably an auto-chtonal kingdom that minted Euthydemus'
tetradrachma imitations and was situated in the area
of Bukhara, judging by the large number of such imitations
found there. The second was apparently established
by outside nomadic tribes that belonged to the Yueh-Chis
alliance and minted coins of the Urkod group. This
kingdom was located west and southwest of the Bukhara
kingdom.
It is possible that these kingdoms were part of the
confederate state of Kangyui. According to Tsiang
Hanshu, five kingdoms were subject to Kangyui. One
of them, the Gi kingdom, is identified with Bukhara.
According to the same source, to the east of Ansi
(Parthia) lay the Minor Ansi kingdom, with its main
city Mulu (Bukhara?). The same kingdom under the abridged
name An still existed in the early seventh century
A.D. The adduced data from Chinese written sources
attest to the conclusion drawn on a basis of numismatic
data. The conclusion is that in the Bukhara oasis
there were Gi and minor Ansi — the two large
domains — in the first century ?. ?. thorough
the beginning of the commoner. Minor Ansi was probably
vassalage of Major Ans: (Parthia), Possibly, Gi was
a kingdom of the Urkod dynasty, while Minor Ansi was
the Bukhara kingdom itself, numismatic data supports
this concept; one can see a certain Parthian influence
in the iconographic manner of imitating the
Euthydemus coinage regarding, for instance, the image
of a tiara.
In the second half of the fourth century A.D., the
political situation in the Bukhara oasis had changed
noticeably. First and foremost, the Samanid influence
resulted in a change in the official symbols depicted
on coins; the image of Hercules sitting on an omphalos
and other Hellenistic symbols vanished from coins
and were replaced with the image of a fire altar,
a typical symbol of the Samanid period. From the early
fourth century, in the Bukhara oasis, new types of
coins were minted. They were silver coins, drachmas
and obols, bearing the image of a ruler's head to
the right on the obverse and a fire altar on the reverse.
One can also read the ruler's name and title written
clearly in Soghdian: prince Movach. Copper coins from
that period were probably minted in the same kingdom.
These coins bear the image of a ruler's head to the
right wearing a tiara on the obverse and the image
of a fire altar accompanied by an inscription of Aram
ais origin, meaning "prince Akbar," on the
reverse. According to V.A. Livshits, the name of the
ruler is of Iranian origin and means "rider"(compare
Old Persian asabara, Persian asbar and Bactrian asbarobido.
The title is of Iranian origin as well. It derives
from the Avesta word hvara (he whose deeds are good)
or from the Old Persian word hwa-bawa (self-made one).
According to the History of the northern Courts (Beishi),
and the History of the Sui Dynasty (Suishu), both
written in the seventh century, which are probably
the most reliable historical sources available, the
largest kingdom within the Bukhara oasis was named
An. The rulers of this kingdom and the rulers of Soghd
had a common origin from the Chzaovu House; they were
Yueh-Chih who had first lived beyond the northern
side of the Tsiliashang Mountains, in the city of
Chzaovu situated in present-day Gansu province of
China. But having migrated to Soghd, all the Yueh-Chis
dynasties that established themselves here (including
those in Samarkand and Bukhara) "retained their
Chzaovu name."
Alinga, a ruler of Bukhara, stated in his letter to
the Tang Emperor, Thatsung (627) that "his dynasty
counts twenty-two generations of predecessors prior
to the present one."22 If we consider that the
average reign took 20 or 30 years that means that
Alinga's dynasty of Yueh-Chis origin ruled Bukhara
for 400-600 years. Regarding this, it is relevant
to say that at the beginning of the present era the
Urkod dynasty reigned over the Bukhara oasis. According
to numismatic data this took place 400-600 years prior
to Alinga's reign. The mentioned dynasty was of Yueh-Chis
origin, judging by the icono-graphic data. Thus, the
succession of dynasties was as follows: the Urkod
Dynasty, then the "Asbar", and "Movach",
then Alinga.
There is one more problem of no less importance. It
concerns the date and origin of the so-called Bukhar-khudat
silver coins minted according to the samples of the
Sassanid drachmas of Varahran V (421-439). There are
two opinions. The first opinion says that Bukhara
started to mint coins like these in the second quarter
of the fifth century, and then, after a two hundred
year interruption, renewed minting them in the second
quarter of the seventh century. According to the second
opinion, and in agreement with Narshahi's data, the
first coinage of the Bukhar-khudat drachmas dates
back to the reign of the caliph Abu-Bakr (623-634).
The legend, written in the Bukhara variant of the
Soghdian writing, is to be read, meaning "prince,
Bukhara's king". The legend makes no mention
of this king's name. Some of the coins bear countermarks
shaped like that, according to the opinion of a number
of scholars, are a dynasty mark of the Bukhara rulers.
However, it seems likely that it was not the mark
of the Bukhara rulers themselves, but a mark of the
rulers who reigned in some kingdom in the Bukhara
oasis. It seems highly improbable that the rulers
of Bukhara would put any countermarks on coins they
minted themselves. Provided that this countermark
was a Bukhara rulers' dynasty mark, it would be included
in the original stamp.
It is reported in Suishu that there were two kingdoms
in Bukhara: The Bi kingdom was located at a 100-li
distance (about forty km) west of An (Bukhara). In
those times, Bi had no ruler and came under the An
state. One can, perhaps, correlate this kingdom to
Paikend. Regardless of the brevity of this information,
it hints at some conflicts that occurred in the relationship
of these kingdoms. The conflict resulted in the defeat
of one of the kingdoms by the other one.
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