British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences

After Alexander: Central Asia Before Islam

The land of a thousand cities

Paul Bernard

This paper is focused on new data obtained during the last twenty-five years on the urbanisation of Bactria under Greek hegemony. The term ‘Bactrian’ is applied here in its cultural definition, in other words to the region on both banks of the middle Oxus, united by a community of language and civilisation. We also add to it Sogdiana to the north of the Iron Gates (‘Porte de fer’). In Afghanistan, the activities of the French Archaeological Mission came to an end in 1978, but clandestine digging during times of political anarchy yielded all types of important documents. In Uzbekistan archaeological excavations continued normally, but in Tadjikistan they have been practically non-existent.

Active research on historical geography is based on a reinterpretation of Ptolemy's Geography or on new documents such as the Aramaic parchments discovered in the region of Bactria, which contain toponomic information on Bactria towards the end of Darius III's reign and the first years of Alexander. The exhaustive publication (Gardin and others) resulted from a survey of the population of Oriental Bactria. In Bactra different types of architectural pieces from illicit diggings have brought to light the first material evidence about the beginning of Greek colonisation, thus weakening the recent theory which, based purely on numismatic data, designates Ai Khanum as the first Greek capital of Bactria. At Ai Khanum, clandestine diggers have exposed the vestiges of a monumental building with Corinthian capitals on the acropolis. At Termez a French-Uzbek excavation brought to the fore the existence of an important Greek city. At Kampyr-tepe an Uzbek team excavated a port site on the bank of the Oxus. B. Litvinskij published the sanctuary of the Oxus God at Takht-i-Sangin, which produced an exceptional number of commemorative plaques of all types belonging to the Achaemenid, Hellenistic and Kushan periods. Important epigraphic documents discovered accidentally in Afghanistan (a funerary epigram in verse and a dedication of King Euthydemos and his son Demetrios, now in print G. Rougemont & P. Bernard) bear witness with glamour to the vigour of Greek culture in Central Asia during the last three centuries before our era. In Samarkand, the French-Uzbek team excavated a section of the Greek rampart and an impressive corn loft, the first non-military Greek building discovered in the city. The study of Hellenistic and post-Hellenistic ceramics of Central Asia is an important contribution. Accidental finds and Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek coin hoards have been systematically followed and published.

In spite of political disruption, research on the history and civilisation of Greek colonies in central Asia has not failed: a renewal of field activities is expected in the near future. It has already started in Bamiyan, where a French-Afghan team carried-out the first archaeological campaign at the foot of the cliff of Big Buddhas.