in Kolchis. In R. Einicke, S. Lehmann, H. Löhr, et al. (eds.), Zurück zum Gegenstand: Festschrift für Andreas E. Furtwängler (ZAKS Schriften 16). Langenweißbach: Beier & Beran, pp. 291–305. A detailed analysis of Colchian toreutics in Achaemenid times.5 Lordkipanidze, O. (1991). Archäologie in Georgien: Von der Altsteinzeit bis zum frühen Mittelalter (Quellen und Forschungen zur Prähistorischen und Provinzialrömischen Archäologie 5). Weinheim: VCH‐Verlagsgesellschaft. Still gives the fullest account of the archeological evidence.
6 Ludwig, N. (2010). Ostgeorgische Fundplätze des 1. Jahrtausends v. Chr.: Die Keramik (ZAKS Schriften 20). Langenweißbach: Beier & Beran. The most exhaustive survey of Iron Age pottery of this region.
7 Smirnov, J.I. (1934). Akhalgorijskij klad. Tiflis: Izdanie Muzeja Gruzii. A meticulous study of the content of a rich Colchian burial.
CHAPTER 23 The Empire's Northeast
Claude Rapin
Extending to the east of the Caspian Sea and beyond the Hindukush range, the northeastern part of the Achaemenid Empire belongs, from a cultural point of view, to the Iranian world from the second millennium BCE. Its area covers the present northeastern Iran, northern Afghanistan, and part of the five Central Asian republics issued from the USSR. From its conquest by Cyrus and Darius I during the last third of the sixth century BCE until the expedition of Alexander the Great which concluded the reign of Darius III, the territory from an administrative point of view was distributed between Hyrcania, Parthia, Aria, Margiana and Bactria, Sogdiana, Chorasmia, and the northeastern peripheral Saka/Scythian territories (Vogelsang 1992).
Socioeconomic Context
The region is shared between sedentary populations dwelling along a net of irrigated oases and agro‐pastoral and nomadic populations aligned along the foothills or in the large steppic areas bounding the oases.
To the west, the Parthian and Margian territories stretched between the Kopet Dagh and the Kara‐kum desert encircling the Murghab delta, while to the northwest, on the delta of the Amu‐darya between the desert and the Aral sea, Chorasmia constituted a deeply sedentarized peripheral extension of the empire (Kidd and Betts 2010). To the east, along the Oxus frontier (Wakhsh river and Amu‐darya), Bactria and southern Sogdiana formed a densely inhabited area (the “Bactro‐Sogdian depression”) centered on Bactra. To the northeast, the natural resources of the Zeravshan enriched Samarkand, one of the largest cities of the empire. Beyond Sogdiana, between the Tamerlan's Gates and the Syr‐darya/Iaxartes frontier, the Scythian satrapies (Saka Tigraxauda and Haumavarga) acted from the Aral to the Pamirs as an intermediary over the trans‐Asiatic steppic belt (the Massagetes cannot be clearly located, however).
The deserts and the mountain ranges did not constitute any barrier for international contact. Several passes across the Hindukush connected the Oxus basin with the Indian world through the crossroads of Kapisa/Begram (future Alexandria on the Caucasus). Among the passes that crossed the Hissar and Alai ranges to the north, the Sogdian Iron Gates near Derbent (Rapin 2018) were the easiest way between Bactra and Maracanda/Samarkand.
The data relating to the occupation of the territory and its economic and administrative organization rely mainly on surveys and excavations (Koshelenko 1985; Francfort 2005; Lo Muzio 2017). Particular attention has been devoted to the irrigation development from the Bronze Age in Afghanistan (see the French researches in northeastern Afghanistan) and in the Central Asian republics (Francfort and Lecomte 2002). Besides the agricultural and pastoral economy, the region was inserted in the international system of exchanges thanks to its precious mineral deposits (see, for instance, the decoration of the palace of Darius at Susa or the luxurious tableware made of stones of eastern origin). In fact, the local excavations have provided rare testimonies of luxurious productions since the jewelry used mainly gold (see infra the treasures of the Oxus, of Mir‐Zakah 2, and of Takht‐i Sangin). The Achaemenid commercial exchanges seem to have been rather limited. To the north, along the lower Syr‐darya, in Kazakhstan and Russia, precious merchandises dating to the very end of the Achaemenid or the beginning of the Hellenistic period are concentrated in the aristocratic burials of the upper classes of the nomad population shattered from the Ural to Altai and Siberia (see Francfort 2005, 2013). Even at the end of the Achaemenid period, the scarcity of coin finds to the north of the Hindukush shows that, in contrast to the Indian world, these regions were less monetarized, a situation which lasted until the Hellenistic period.
Chronological Frame
The Central Asian components of the Achaemenid Empire appear as a heterogeneous synthesis of cultural, social, economic, and political trends. The unity of the region as a part of this empire is more difficult to identify since the real marks of the Persian civilization symbolized by Persepolitan features are scarcely distributed in the archeological material. However, the cohesion is real. Beyond its Iranian roots, the Central Asian area has mainly inherited its cultural frame from a long process which can be stressed in three cultural steps: the first, formed during the Bronze Age, is represented by the so‐called “Oxus Civilization” or “Bactriana‐Margiana Archaeological Complex” (BMAC), which interacted during the second millennium BCE with the “steppic” Andronovo culture. Into the same geographical frame, this period was succeeded during the second half of the second millennium BCE by a first step of the Iron Age characterized by a process of renewal of the architecture, the funeral customs, and the material culture. This new “entity” is known, among others, under the general name of “Yaz I” culture, according to the chronological scale established on the base of the excavation of the homonymous site of Yaz‐depe in Turkmenistan. This period is characterized by the distribution of a handmade pottery with a painted geometric decoration and some gray ware. Whilst the large palaces and sanctuaries proper to the Bronze Age are absent at the beginning of the Iron Age, several settlements are erected on platforms or natural terraces.
Before the arrival of the Achaemenids, the so‐called “Yaz II” period (c. ninth to sixth centuries BCE) is marked by an increase in wheel‐made pottery and the diffusion of real iron objects. This period is more than transitional, since it is documented with new fortified centers dominated by monumental architecture (Ulug‐depe I, Koktepe II, and Sangir‐tepe II, etc.; dating is not sure for El’ken‐depe III, Talashkan I). While irrigation generally developed from the Bronze Age onward, it is not clear to what extent some centers such as in Zeravshan then related to the ancient irrigation programs identified through the surveys.
As for the preceding periods, the few historical facts relating to the Achaemenid rule (“Yaz III” period) do not coincide with a visible transformation dated by direct Achaemenid cultural features. The strength of the regional traditions is represented, for instance, by the continuation of wheel‐made cylindro‐conical pottery, while the shapes linked to proper Persia are limited to very scarce vessels (Lyonnet 1997). The integration in the Achaemenid Empire was realized mainly through the local nobility.
Besides the fact that it must extend to other regions inside and outside of the empire, the study of this period cannot ignore the influences the Achaemenid presence exercised in the later historical phases among its Parthian, Graeco‐Bactrian, and Chorasmian successors, as well as during the still later Kushan and Sogdian periods.
Written Sources of the Achaemenid Period
The texts relating to the Central Asian provinces are rather scarce and fragmentary. The most ancient references in the Iranian context are given by the Avesta, according to which eastern Bactria was the cradle of the Zoroastrianism (infra). For the Achaemenid period, most of the sources belong mainly to the corpus of propagandistic and administrative documents from the heart of the empire. The local
