The Central Asian dimension of the symbolic system in Bactri

[Iranyar]

Francfort, H.-P.
"The Central Asian dimension of the symbolic system in Bactria and Margiana", Antiquity, Antiquity 68 (1994):406-18
Abstract: The Bronze Age civilization of Bactria and Margiana emgerged after 2500 BC from the local cultures represneted at the sites of Sarazm, Mundigak, and Shar-i Sokhta, incorporating elements from Turkmenia (especiallyl in Margiana). from the Indus (pottery technques and some iconographic traits) and from Iran through the Proto-Elamite past and by an Elamite influx (techniques, parts of iconography and mythology), but also incorporating old Central Asia features connected with Inner Asia.
This civilization fourished in Central, in the Oxus basin 2300-1800 BC (Francfort 1984; Francfort et all. 1989; Hiebert 1993), in the deltas of the Murghab and Balkhab Rivers. It expanded to Uzbekistan, to eastern Iran and into Baluchistan (Santoni 1984; 1988; Jarrige & Hassan 1989; During-Caspers 1992; Hiebert & Lamberg-Karlovsky 1992), and Seistan (Besenval & Francfort in press), merging with the piedmont Namazga V at the Kelleli and ancient Gonur oasis of Margiana. At a later phase (Namazga VI or Mollali) 1800-1500 BC, it penetrated into Tadjikistan (works of P'yankova and Vinogradova) and northeast Afghanistan and reoccupied partially the abandoned cities of Turkmenia (Francfort 1981). Contemporary with the (late) Namazga V of Turkmenia, with the Indus Harappan and the Iranian Elamite civilizations, it is chronologically close to the supposed 'coming of the Aryans' from Central Aisa or Syria to India.

Usually, the iconographic mythological elements known from the Oxus Civilization are analysed and interpreted by a framework of Indo-Iranian (Sarianidi works in references), Aryan (Parpola 1993), Iranian (Pottier 1981; 1984; Azarpay 1992) or Elamite terminology (Amiet 1986).

But the present approach is structuralist and therefore refrains from bestowing Zoroastrian or Elamite names on deities or devils. Structuralism is out of fashion but certainly not outdated in a case like the Oxus Civilization iconography. Here the representations are taken as a whole set, in spite of their chronological dispersion, or the uncertainty of their origins from unstratified or approximately dated contexts. The relations between the iconographic elements are the primary focus, since no textual or oral tradition exists to deinfe the nature of the various elements. synchrony and sets of relations between discrete elements are basic to the structuralist approach in art history, as exemplified by the studies of Palaeolithic art by Laming-Emperaire and Leroi-Gourhan (for a fair account in English of the structural analysis in ancient art see Conkey 1989).

This approach permits a tentative reconstruction of a distinctive system of images. The Oxus Civilization scheme, representing the cycles of nature and life, is notably different from the usual and well-known interpretive schemes of the Mesopotamian, Indus or Avestan mythologies, but certainly related to the Iranian Elamite artistic language (forms and style) if not beliefs, and deeply rooted in Bactria-Margiana. In this respect, the symbolic system of the Oxus Civilization is an original expresssion of a more general Eurasian mythological universe of very ancient origin, which can be termed shamanistic.

[Ovod]

До сих пор узбакам снится Овод, парящий над их главами и визжающий. Им страшно от его неожиданного укуса. Они прикрываются кто как: один сильно натянул шторы, другой вбежал в юрту, а третий - у кого в конторе компик и кто открыл что-то вроде форума, тщетно пытается не впускать его. Но действительно тщетно. Озбаки, будьте осторожны. Он очень близок и вот-вот войдет опять в ваши юрты.

[SUN6500]

...skazal Ovod i prosnulsa. I kak ni kak opyat ego trusi bili mokrimi...

[Student]

:-D :-D :-D

[O'zbek]

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D
Ovod, dovolen?

[Iranyar]

What is all this Russians and Latinized Russians all about?

[realist]

Iranyar ask this question Ovod. He'll explain to you. Because he is the one trying to start his old cheap tadjak propaganda, here.
with respect.

[Alpacino]

smert tadjikam!
lol

[Anti....]

Alpacino,

ne tadjikam,

a tadjikistanskim tadjikam kak ovod (Vseh tadjikov Ne kasaetsya)

[Mdaa]

Rebyata cho razgovor poshel takoy "smert tadjikam", " smert tadjikam iz tadjikistana". Vy chto spyatili. Razve mojno tak. Esli odin tadjik plohoy eto ne govorit o tom chto vya natsiya takaya.

Kto skajet pro vas chto vy predstaviteli intelligentsii Uzbekistan. Podumayte horoshenko prejde chem slovami raskidivatsya.

Regards,
boyscout.

[MegaZ]

Kak budto bi sredi nashij je Uzbekov, net takih idiotov kak Ovod...

[SUN6500]

There are no bad nations. Every nation has its idiots that promote inter-ethnic hatred and intolerance, so lets not stereotype, guys.

Best of everything,

SUN6500

[Iranyar]

guys the thing i can't understand is , why you people in Central Asia don't take histry the way it is, for the sake of it? What is the need to nationalize all histiry and claim all which relates to your ethnicity good? I meanTheseancient Central asians were indeed white Iranian people, and Mongloid invaders have committed a big genicide to them, but this doesn't mean that any Mongloid Person is a bad person and should pay the crime of things that people have done hundreds of years before.

I too was before very national thinking, but believe me if you reconcile yourself with the historical truth the gains are more than the pains, for all people in our region.

[realist]

Dear Iranyar actually i admire you and your knowledge, when you gave the right translations of some uzbek quotes I was just impressed, thanx for such a respect and interest in our language. About our understanding of the history, you are a little bit confusing the things,imagine you lived more than a 70 years under a communist regime which always tried to erase our national identity by giving deliberately wrong interpretations about our history.Therefore at the moment there is a demand for national rediscovery of our roots.People in Central Asia used to live together with persians for many centuries but it does not mean they are white iranians, be carefull about that. Even on the wall of the Darius' garaveyard or palace I'm not sure about the place there are pictures of nations that lived under his rule. People of central asia are described not as iranians but as a different nation.When you say we don't accept the history as it is you are wrong and we don't think that everything related to our ethnicity is good either. Personally I hate the period of Shaybanids and the period of those three khanates. Although these were also connected to our ethnicity, I just hate the rulers of that particular period.You are only citing the one nation which brought us destruction. If we start from the beginning Persians were the first to conquer our region then Greeks came under Alexander the Great, after them Arabs, Arabs were followed by Mongols under Chengizkhan the last nation was the Russians to opress my nation. And please don't accuse me for being nationalist because there is no any nation in this world that managed to keep its blood pure. Look at Jews they claim to be a one nation but in Israel there are Jews from North Africa who are black,people from Asia from Europe, if you put them all together it's clear they are not similar at all. This happened with Turkish as well they got assimilated with greeks of the Byzantium Empire. Therefore any nationalistic claims,in my opinion,are unconvincing.And just for curiuosity Iranyar, you are calling us not to be a nationalistic, but what do you think about yourself? and what was your purpose by posting this message?Turon and Eron were togheter and they remain to be so.There is no one close to us than ourselves.
with respect!
any comments welcome!

[Freestyler's]

<Reallist>, may I just disagree with one of your statements. You wrote:

"...70 years under a communist regime which always tried to erase our national identity..."

I think it was the Soviets who gave us the idea of nation. Before them noone would call him(her)self uzbek, or tajik, or turkman, or whatever. It is them who told Bukhara and Samarkand people to be Uzbek and the people of Hojent to be Tajik. Before the Soviets (and I know this fact from history lessons) when asked their nationality people of CA used to call themselves by the name of their city (e.g., Bukhari, Urganji, Farghoni) or just said they were muslims.

My point is: eto pri Sovetskoy vlasti (v chastnosti pri Staline) bila zavarena vsya kasha s pyatyu titul'nimi naciyami v Central'noy Azii.

However I must admit that one of the aims of the Soviet Communism was to unite the numerous nations of USSR into a solid communist society with almost no features of individual national identity. The core and the "machine" for the transformation into this "new", "improved" nation would naturally be the russians, just by the virtue of the fact that they were the most numerous and that they were the first to bring the idea of social communism and revolution.

[sash]

hmmmm.....
Take a break

[Iranyar]

dear People realist and freestyler you both brought good points.

If I say that the Central Asians were white Iranians, it doesn't mean that they were Persian or Medians as in today stae of Iran. What is now called stae of Iran is not what in civilizational term is called Iran. Central Asians were in that sence Iranians, because they spoke diverse Iranian languages, like Bactrian, Soghdian, scythian etc... and they were white, the mongloid people came later, but they too soon assimilated into the central asian civilizational spheres.

freestyler brought also a good point: before the Soviet enforcement of national homelands, both tajiks and settled uzbek were calling themselves "Sart" i don't know if this term relates to the ancient soghdians or not. The nomads were called Jaghatay.

So you see this tajik-Uzbek trivalary is nonesence as both belong to the same nation and civilization; That of native ancient Central Asia (but later with some Asiatic and slavic influences). If you look the history this way, than to stress on my official language, my state, my identity, you see that there should be no tentions or hard feelings. Actually from Xot&auml;n in China up till western Kurdistan in Anatolia, we all belong to the same civilization and should cooperate instaead of chauvenism.

[IcyCool]

Iraniyar, with all my respect;

we know our history, we know our Iranian roots, we know what language our ancestors spoke, we know when Mangols came, and when Uzbeks came...

So what is your point?

What do you want to inform us about?
What do you want to persuade us for?

[Iranyar]

Good that you know these.
I said that for people who didn't know this, also to counterattact Turkey+I.srael propaganda about the multiple identity crisis of the Central Asians :OO

[alligator]

in order to avoid confusions it would be better to use terms - baktrian, sogdian, khorezmian or skythian instead of iranian. Under 'iranian' you have first association with country Iran(actually regional term) which is far from being "white" ;).
====================

Trere is no need to say that some dynasties were good, some not, I think Shaybanids were better orginised and skillful then late Timurids, who could not unite their efforts against conquerors and lost support from population, (so when Baburshah got Samarkand from the hand of Shaybani with the help of shia Safaviy, inhabitans of city opposed Baburshah for being heretic shia, and forces of Babur and some iranians despite their superiority in number were decisively defeated by shaybanids).

And one should not exagerate the myth about 'bad nomadic kipchaks uzbeks' coming from Volga bassein and Crimea; according to medividial historians(Ibn Battuta, Ibn Fadl allah al-Umari, and Ibn Arabshah) they were the most gentl folk of all Turks.

so according to Ibn Arabshah, "the Uzbek turks of the Kipchak steppe are regarded as possessing the most lucid language, their men and women are the most handsome, generally displaying aristocratic bearing, not deigning to trickery or lies, being the gentlefolk of all the Turks".

Sheybanids successfully fighted shia Iran, much of today Samarkand (Registan) was build under shaybanids. Very sophisticated irregation systems were applied (Abdallahan's perios). Unfortunately to our region, explorations of see traffic to india-china resulted in the lost of significance of great silk road and region stayed at the perepheria of world trade. Consequence can be seen in further centuries, when Sheybanids' strong centralised country dissolved to 3 khanats (muchly in times of Ashtarhanids). I think that's the reason why the last dynaty could not develope so well like Khorezmshah or Timirids.

[Iranyar]

Alligator the Term Iranian is not invented by me, is not like that that the sate of Iran will impose it's name on the whole region, but vice Versa in truth, the stae of Iran has got his name from the name of the region. All historic documents use the term Iran in this manner. However I can immagine that the immage of the government state of Iran is not a positive one, and no one wants to be associated with it. But this is a fact that we people of the state of Iran are also fed up with, that our country is still ruled by the peolpe who are anti-Iranian .

[realist]

Iranyar if you are online at the moment I need information about Iranian Revolution of 1979.To be more exact, what were the causes of the revolution. Would be grateful if you can give me any iranian web sites on this question.
Thanx in advance.

[Iranyar]

realist we can talk in messanger Yahoo or msn hotmail. my Yahoo ID is iranyar my msn id is iranyar@hotmail.com :)