Kushan period
At the beginning of our era, the
powerful Kushan Empire appeared on the historical
stage. Although this empire ruled a significant part
of the southern Central Asia, Khorezm remained an
independent kingdom. The cities and towns of Khorezm
during the Kushan period were fortified settlements
made with squared blocks and featured a citadel for
the city ruler. Powerfully fortified walls, enhanced
with round or squared towers were made of adobe. The
second and third cultural layers in the excavation
of Khiva, when the development of the Ichan-kala probably
took place, date from this time. The town was already
surrounded with double walls. Above the walls was
an adobe corridor-like construction about two meters
wide, and there were square towers every 22-27 meters.
There are tamgas on some of ancient bricks. The discovery
of powerful fortifications and various other architectural
features indicate that Khiva was an important administrative
center during this period, with suburbs that utilized
the waters of the Kheikan (Palvan-yab) canal.
In the Kushan period, the peoples of Central Asia,
including the Khorezmians, adopted a number of the
achievements of Greek-Roman and Indo-Iran cultures
into their local way of life. Their economy was based
on farming, with the use of ploughing and irrigation,
and cattle breeding. During this period, their irrigation
system was significantly improved; they opened new
lands for farming, and developed handicrafts and trade.
During this period, the economic and cultural life
of Central Asia reached new levels of advancement.
The most outstanding remains from the Kushan time
are found at Topraq-Kala (first century B.C. —
fourth century A.D.), which was the first capital
of ancient Khorezm. This city was located on of the
Amu-Darya near the modern Ellik-kala district of Karakalpakstan.
The ancient settlement consists of a rectangle with
sides of 350 and 500 meters, and is surrounded by
powerfully fortified walls and numerous towers. Between
the towers there are narrow holes. Inside the site
there are rows of dwellings divided by straight crossing
streets. Fortified gates are in the middle of the
southern wall. The perpendicular streets divide the
houses into several blocks. Every block is a complex
of rooms under a common flat roof; sometimes a block
consists of hundreds of rooms. In the northwest part
of the town, separated by a ten meter-wide wall with
two gates and protected by towers, there is a citadel
with a two-story palace, which belonged to the Khorezmian
rulers. The palace complex occupies an area of 180x
180 meters and was constructed, according to C.P.
Tolstov, in the style of a temple. There are about
200 rooms of different sizes and purposes there. The
rooms and halls of both floors are covered by brick
arches and flat-beamed ceilings, which were lighted
by hatches.
The two buildings situated opposite of the palace
contain vast halls and sanctuaries were decorated
inside with bright-multicolored paintings, clay bas-reliefs,
and monumental sculpture. Paintings were made with
mineral paints on clay plaster. These paintings contained
original plant and ornamental patterns — including
pictures of different birds, fish, and animals —
or, sometimes, whole scenes. Pictures of a woman playing
the harp and dombra, and of a woman gathering grapes
and peaches are well preserved. Fragments of paintings
of horses, tigers, birds are also visible. The creations
of these masters of folk art — the plant and
geometric ornaments, with fascinating variations of
pattern — are preserved on printed textiles.
Thus, the roots of the decorative folk-art of the
Khorezm Uzbeks, and in particular of Khiva people,
reach back far into the past.
In the center of the palace were the main halls (The
Royal Hall, The Hall of Victories, The Hall of Warriors,
etc.), with walls decorated by carved alabaster. They
featured sculptures of the rulers, their relatives
and persons in attendance; and, sculptures of black
warriors in scaly iron coats-of- mail and head dresses.
These sculptures were made of clay and painted in
various tones. Some of them were life-size, some approximately
half or twice life-size. The Royal Hall contained
138 statues and an altar in honor of the ancestors
of the royal family — both real and legendary.
The statues stood in groups, each group consisting
of a ruler and his attendants.
One interesting bas-relief depicts a man, a woman,
and a baby, sitting on the throne before a fire. This
hall was obviously not only a dynastic sanctuary but
also held some cult significance. Another hall with
obvious religious meaning, the Hall of Dancing Masks,
featured walls decorated with sixteen bas-relief panels
of women and men dancing in pairs and wearing goat
ears.
In addition to the architectural design, numismatic
material, the seeds — of wheat, barley, millet,
apricots, peaches, grapes, watermelons, melons, gourds,
and industrial crops — and fragments of articles
such as paper, wool and silk fabrics, leather shoes,
iron lances, and arrows allow us to restore a picture
of the economic-cultural life of the Khorezmians in
this ancient time. The documents discovered in the
archives of this period are distinctly written in
Indian ink on skins and wood in ancient Khorezmian
script and are also informative.
The unique monumental sculpture, terracotta statuettes,
and whimsical bas-reliefs, the wonderful wall painting
and magnificent works of decorative art show the complexity,
independence, strength and maturity of the artistic
skill and imagination of ancient Khorezmian civilization.
The ancient Khivan cultural traditions reflected in
architecture and art, refined through the centuries,
have been very influential in both medieval and modern
times. Scholars have pointed out that pictures of
dancing warriors, looking like ancient Khivans, elegant
harpists revived in the art of Khorezmian khalfa,
and magnificent pictures of wall painting revived
by local artists are important links in the chain
that connects us ancient Khorezmian civilization.
Talented Khiva masters in their works of literature
and art thus preserve precious monuments of antiquity.
During the third and fourth centuries, Khorezm made
a transition into a feudal political system with the
accompanying changes in its social and political life.
The cultural development of Khorezm towns and cities
in the period of the early Middle Ages (the fifth
— eighth centuries) can be seen in the example
of Berkut-kala oasis. Research on the estates (khauli)
of this oasis has revealed the unique large-family
community structure of the agricultural population
surrounding Khiva. According to archaeological data,
the culture of Khivans in the early medieval period
was influenced by the Saks tribes, which came from
the around the Sir-Darya and the Aral Sea.
Thanks to research on country settlements and dwellings
of the first through the fourteenth centuries, it
has become possible to trace the history of land ownership,
farming, architecture, and construction techniques.
We know, for example, that two modern types of estate
house plans in Khiva actually date from the seventh
or eighth centuries. Such consistency of style over
a period of over a thousand years is quite remarkable.
It indicates stability in family and community forms,
and other aspects of the local population.
Centuries of invasion into Central Asia, beginning
with the Massagets, creating the powerful Kushan empire,
and later the Eftalit state — the boarders of
which stretched from the Caspian sea to Khotan and
from Khorezm to northern India — left traces
not only in wonderful works of art, but also in the
ethnic composition of the population. V.V. Bartold,
describing Khorezm in the eighth century A.D., wrote:
The Arabs found here a population made up of people
of the nearby regions, notable for their dress and
speaking their own special language, which was not
understood by others and was not used in written documents.»
At the eve of the Arab invasion Khorezm was suffering
a serious decline. At that time the towns of Khiva,
Topraq-Kala Shavatskey, and Kuniauaz, fell into decay,
and life in the fortresses of Kiparas, Kaladjik, and
Topraq-Kala, situated near Khiva, came to a standstill.
There was a dramatic decrease in the irrigated areas
and handicraft production fell. Weakened by these
crises Khorezm could not resist onslaught of nomadic
and semi-nomadic tribes that penetrated into its territory
and settled in the oasis. All of these factors changed
the appearance of Khorezm.
Some flourishing of town life of Khorezm, in particular
of Khiva, was evident by the eve of the Mongol invasion,
as indicated both in written sources and archaeological
remains. Mew architectural constructions were erected,
new mosques, madrasas, and caravanserais appeared,
and the ruined part of the fortress wall was restored
in Khiva. It must be noted that «in Khorezm
as well as in all Central Asia, the development of
towns in the seventh through the twelfth centuries
was not marked primarily by the appearance of new
towns but by work done on old towns. There was an
intensive construction of fortresses on the boarders
the oasis, including the appearance of some new towns
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but the towns
were small in size.» But, as the latest archaeological
research shows, the new fortresses were of a sturdy
construction, decorated with alabaster and tiles,
and stretched along at least 1-1.5 km. Construction
of the same type was being done in Khiva. Hew large
caravanserais and other buildings show the growth
of towns in the epoch of the Khorezm shakhs. The most
active period for building of new fortresses and caravanserais
was the era of the Golden Horde.
By the formation of the khanate, Khiva was an important
center of administration, handicraft, and trade, and,
for this reason, it became the capital of the Khiva
khanate. For thousands of years Khiva stood not only
before destructive forces of nature, but also before
the onslaught of external enemies. Russian writers
who visited Khiva wrote: The Arabs in the seventh
century, the Turkmen-seld-juks in the eleventh century
and Chinghiz-khan himself blew over the country as
a storm, and the earthquake in 1 299 changed even
the appearance of the Khiva khanate, nowadays Khiva,
called by locals «Shager» lies between
the Ingrik and Chardjeili canals, which run from canal
Palvan.
The Hungarian traveler-orientalist Arminiy Vambery
gave a detailed description of the Khiva of the mid-nineteenth
century: Imagine three or four thousand cottages of
daub and wattle with rough — not white-washed
— walls, straggling in great disorder; imagine
them surrounded by a wall ten feet in width and also
made of clay, and you have the idea of Khiva.
The accumulated knowledge about Khiva and its people
makes it possible not only to turn the pages of its
eventful history, but also to understand the material
and spiritual traditions and the ethnic development
of the Khivan people.
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