Lands of Asia layouts (Eng) 26.11.21

part i | civilisations
established near the present-day city of Bairam-Ali. The conquest of the region by the
Achaemenids prompted a widespread popular revolt, the Frada uprising, which was
brutally suppressed in the early years of Darius I’s reign (522–486 BC). At the end of
the 4th century BC Margiana was conquered by Alexander the Great, who founded
the city of Alexandria in Margiana on the site of Gyaur-Kala. From the end of the 4th
century BC to the middle of the 3rd century BC, Margiana was part of the Seleucid
state with its centre at Antioch in Margiana.
After the establishment of the Graeco-Bactrian Kingdom (mid-3rd century BC)
Margiana became part of the Parthian state. From the second half of the 1st century AD
until the beginning of the 3rd century AD, the local dynasty of the descendants of
King Sanabares ruled here. From the second quarter of the 3rd century AD until
the middle of the 7th century, Margiana was part of the Sassanid state until it was
conquered by the Arabs in AD 651.
Sogdia was an ancient historical and cultural area originally covering only the
Zarafshan valley but later also encompassing the territory of the present-day Kashka
Darya and Bukhara regions of Uzbekistan. Most early Arab and Persian geographers
and historians took Penjikent to be Sogdia’s eastern border, and Carminia (near
Navoi) to be its western border. However, some writers included Bukhara and
Kashka Darya as part of Sogdia, as do some Chinese accounts where Kesh is referred
to as part of Sogdia. After the 10th century, the name Sogdia as the designation of a
country and region gradually fell out of use, surviving only in the time of Amir Timur
as the name of two small tyumen (provinces) west of Samarkand.
The etymology of the word Sogdia remains unclear. Beginning with W. Tomaschek,
scholars believed that it derived from the Iranian *suxta-meaning ‘to burn, sparkle
or shine’. According to V.I. Abaev, the name of the land and people of Sugd/Sogdia
means ‘clean and light’, while O.I. Smirnova believes that Sogdia stands for ‘a land of
fertile valleys’. The earliest use of this toponym is found in the Behistun inscription
of Darius I (522–486 BC), in the Mihr-Yasht hymn in the Avesta (first half of the 1st
millennium BC). The Sogdians who populated this area were of East Iranian stock.
Human exploration of Sogdia dates back to the Upper Paleolithic Age (40,000–
12,000 BC) as indicated by Amankutan and the Samarkandskaya Palaeolithic site.
The upper reaches of the Zarafshan valley were farmed by the ancient Sarazm tribes
in the 4th millennium BC. From the end of the 6th to the 4th century BC Sogdia
was part of the sixteenth satrapy of the Achaemenid state. In 329–327 BC Sogdia
was conquered by Alexander the Great, who encountered fierce resistance from local
tribes led by Spitamenes. In the 3rd to mid-2nd century BC, Sogdia was alternately
part of the Seleucid and Graeco-Bactrian kingdoms. In the 2nd to the 1st century BC
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