(the ancient Zariaspes/Polytimetus) and the Dargom canal (Dargomanes of Claudius Ptolemy).
The life of the main cities was partially interrupted during the first decades of the Macedonian power. Afrasiab and Koktepe are among the rare sites which present continuity as regards the location between the Achaemenid and Hellenistic periods, since several cities were rebuilt on adjacent sites during the Seleucid era.
Palaces
By its architecture, Koktepe represents one of the models of the proto‐urban development of the Central Asian cities. In contrast to the domestic architecture, the large monuments can be dated more easily since their construction can be linked to the historical transitions during which new authorities – like either the central Achaemenid power or the local satraps and hyparchs – intended to settle their power by launching new architectural programs.
Although it is difficult to seize links with the West, the Achaemenids do not seem to have imposed a strong cultural unity. Some architectural features of the independent quadrangular buildings formed around open courtyards evidenced at Altyn 10 and Dahan‐i Ghulaman seem to derive from traditions of the heart of empire (Persepolis, Pasargadae), but important monuments like the ones of Koktepe derive perhaps from a local or nomadic tradition. With the exception of some corridors, the satrapal palace on the citadel of Afrasiab (where Alexander murdered Clitus in 328 BCE) has not been explored enough for the identification of its main lines.
The origin of the schemes can be defined through the study of the much later Parthian royal complex of Old Nisa and Ai Khanum, two cities reflecting Greek, Bactrian, and Iranian (more than Mesopotamian) trends. While they are not systematically parallel to the general orientation of the sites, the buildings of both cities are structured by a network of corridors which allows us to distinguish private from public circulation areas, ensuring the movements around or between the units representing the various functions (residential, political, administrative, economic). Although they evoke a Mesopotamian tradition (see the Nebuchadnezzar palace of Babylon and the Darius palace at Susa), the corridors seem to have been already present in the local tradition from the beginning of the Achaemenid period. Other schemes like the quadrangular buildings organized around a courtyard (see above) originated in the common – western and eastern – Iranian world. The structures comprising a central unit encircled by corridors and rows of rooms with an axial pronaos or a porch constitute a rather widespread scheme at Old Nisa and in Hellenistic and Kushan Bactria. In the western Iranian world some residences like the Ayadana of Susa are often unduly identified as temples for the confusing analogies with the “ateshgah” scheme of the much later Parthian and Sasanian periods.
In the northern periphery of the empire (Chorasmia and lower Syr‐darya), the Achaemenid trends developed much later, from the fourth or third century BCE, under the form of large fortified settlements and cities (Koj‐Krylgan‐kala, Kalaly‐gyr 1 and 2, Kjuzeli‐gyr, Kazakl’i‐yatkan/Akchakhan‐kala, Babish‐Mullah) (Minardi 2015).
The Platforms
The platforms supporting open or covered constructions cannot be grouped into a clear typology, especially as it is difficult to assess a possible western influence. Several examples reflect a clearly local origin since their foundation often goes back to the early Iron Age. The largest platforms – more than 15 ha – had the status of regional cities (Altyn‐Dilyar‐Tepe, plateau of Koktepe in Sogdiana), while the smaller ones corresponded to regional fortresses like Tillya‐tepe in Bactria. The fortress of Kuchuk‐tepe assumed possibly a religious function during the Achaemenid period (Francfort 2005).
Religious Life
Contrasting with the Bronze Age, at the end of the second millennium a fundamental change occurred in religious life with the abandonment of the burial practices by the sedentary societies. While the inhumation survived in the steppic societies (to the point that the study of their cultures relies almost entirely on their necropoles) and is represented by various mausoleums in the peripheral Chorasmia, the sedentary populations of Central Asia were devoted to new funerary rituals materialized by the absence of human remains, the corpses being exposed to open sky for emaciation. These changes coincide with the emergence of the Mazdaean and Zoroastrian religion during the early Iron Age.
Among the most ancient parts of the Avesta, the first chapter of the Vendidad, composed not long before the Achaemenids, refers to a geography whose scheme radiates in Central Asia across a territory which coincides with the area covered by the “Oxus” cultures of Yaz I and II. The center into which this geography converges is not political but religious, since it corresponds to the place of the Illumination of Zoroaster, in northeastern Afghanistan (Grenet 2005). Therefore, at the arrival of the Achaemenids the Central Asian area is already inserted into the heart of a large common religious sphera.
The religious architecture is concentrated on a rather small corpus of sanctuaries and temples, whose identification and dating are often doubtful. One of the older performances of a fire cult has been evidenced at Koktepe/Gava in a pre‐Achaemenid courtyard monument (period II), possibly in connection with an only partially excavated platform (Figure 23.2 A and P).
The Achaemenids did not impose a centralized religion, as the presence of varied types of monuments illustrates. According to Herodotus I, 131–132, and Strabo XV, 3, the most ancient rituals were practiced in the open air. This statement could correspond to sacred platforms whose tradition goes back to the Bronze Age (Nad‐i Ali in Seistan) before a renewal at a more modest level during the Iron Age in the northeastern regions (Erk‐kala in Margiana, and Koktepe, Sangir‐tepe, Pachmak‐tepe, and Pshak‐tepe in Sogdiana). This architectural tradition lasted beyond the Achaemenids, as evidenced by the Hellenistic sacred platform and the stepped podiums on which stand the two main temples of Ai Khanum.
The existence of complex altars devoted to open‐air rituals in courtyard sanctuaries like at Dahan‐i Ghulaman is however not proved to the north of the Hindukush, although such a structure is not excluded for the unexcavated sanctuary of Cheshme‐Shafa to the south of Bactra. In Chorasmia, the worship in the open air seems to have occurred in two circular sanctuaries (Kalaly‐gyr 2 and Gjaur‐kala 3). More to the east, it is not clear in what measure the Saka Haumavarga (in Ustrushana?) associated Zoroastrianism to their nomadic kurgan funeral practices.
It is usually considered that the covered temples (intended to house cult statues) appeared rather late in the Achaemenid period, perhaps even during the Seleucid period. Recent discoveries reveal, however, that in Central Asia both open‐air and covered architectural types broadly coexisted already from the early decades of the Achaemenid rule. A covered temple at Sangir‐tepe (period III, earlier phase) seems indeed to coexist with the sacred platform in Koktepe (period III: Figure 23.2C. The temple of Sangir‐tepe was later replaced by a platform, whilst in the Surkhan‐darya other covered temples were erected during the fourth century BCE (Kuchuk‐tepe(?) and Kindyk‐tepe near Bandykhan). It is not excluded that the Oxus treasure (infra) belonged to a similar temple.
The Graeco‐Bactrian covered temples comprise a cella surrounded by sacristies and preceded by a porch or a pronaos. Since it appears rather late in Persia (see the Seleucid Frataraka temple at Persepolis), this scheme could derive from local early Achaemenid buildings (see Sangir‐tepe in Sogdiana). It is therefore not clear whether the ancient Mesopotamian area (see the sanctuary of Anu‐Antum of the Bit‐resh at Uruk) played a role in its development. A significant difference must be noted between the Mesopotamian and the Iranian worlds, since in the first case the lateral sacristies open on the pronaos (Bard‐e Neshandeh and Masjid‐e Solaiman), while in Central Asia they communicated directly with the cella. In this context, it means that the sacred treasure belonged somehow
