Lands of Asia layouts (Eng) 26.11.21

part iv | migrations of cultures
It is interesting to note that a bone plaque from Sparta dating from the beginning of the
1st millennium BC has a similar image of two (more realistic) figures holding up a sail on
either side of a mast. The carving from Besh-tobe appears to portray the same process.
According to S.P. Tolstov, the ship in the petroglyph from Besh-tobe dates
from the 3rd millennium BC to the beginning of the 1st millennium ad, i.e., the
Bronze Age. He notes that the vessel’s construction differs markedly from that of
contemporary barges on the Amu Darya known as kayuks and is in fact reminiscent
of one of the images of vessels found on ancient Egyptian monuments. This type of
rudimentary, single-sail vessel was widespread in Egypt, Mesopotamia and the eastern
Mediterranean. For example, the world’s oldest depiction of a sailing ship is the one
on a ceramic vessel from pre-dynastic Egypt, i.e., from the 5th–4th millennia BC. It
shows a similar, simple, sailing vessel with a high stern and prow and a quadrangular
sail, placed not in the centre, but closer to the bow of the ship.
In order to navigate the Aral Sea and the Amu Darya, the ancient Khorezmians
created single-masted sailing vessels, which they used for fishing, among other things.
The bone plaque from Sparta mentioned above, which shows fishermen fishing
directly from the vessel, is a vivid example of the use of the vessel for such purposes.
Fishing had always had a significant role in the lives of people from Khorezm. Its
Neolithic, Kelteminar culture, which flourished there between the 5th and mid-2nd
millennium BC, was a civilisation based on hunting and fishing.
It is possible that this type of sailing ship emerged in Khorezm under the influence
of the ancient civilisations of West Asia, with which Khorezm had close ethnocultural
links, as S.P. Tolstov and L.S. Tolstova have demonstrated.
There are even more striking analogies with Phoenician ships, such as the trading
vessel depicted on an 8th-century-BC bas-relief in the palace of Sargon II. Like the
ship in the petroglyph from Besh-tobe, it has a single sail and a single mast supported
by two ropes: one attached to the prow, and the other to the stern. Moreover, the bow
of the Phoenician ship is finished with a steep stem in the shape of a horse’s head,
while the stern, which is lower, looks like the tail of a horse.
The steep, rounded stem on the Besh-tobe vessel suggests that its bow may also
have been shaped like the head of an animal, and the stern shaped like a tail.
The earliest mention in textual sources of riverboats on the Amu Darya is in the
description of the campaign by the Achaemenid king, Cyrus the Great, against the
Massagetae queen, Tomyris, in 538 BC. In Herodotus’s account, Cyrus ordered
pontoon bridges to be built across the Amu Darya (Araxes) to enable his army to
cross, and had towers erected on the vessels to make the bridge.
The second account featuring the presence of ships on the Oxus River is by Arrian
in 330 BC. In this account, Bessus, having learned about the approach of Alexander
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