Lands of Asia layouts (Eng) 26.11.21

2 .1
and Parthian kingdoms in the first half of the 3rd century AD. At about the same
time, the Kangju state also ceased to exist.
The first period covered the second half of the 2nd millennium BC. Initial forms of
statehood in Northern Bactria may have included a voluntary association of several
cultural oasis areas headed by an elected ruler and council of elders, which may have
been a part of a larger association formed on the territory of Bactria at that time.
The state-like nature of such associations is suggested by evidence of a relatively
developed economy, including irrigation-based farming, several types of crafts
(pottery, metalwork), trade between districts and regions, and especially by the
appearance of dominant settlements such as Jarkutan, which, judging by the presence
of several necropolises, consisted of a number of ‘settlements’ united under the
common authority of an elected ruler. The presence of a temple and a palace at this
site indicates a sufficiently developed administrative apparatus and the establishment
of temple officials. The recently discovered site of Tillya-Bulak in the Kugitang
foothills, situated near mines of various metals and iron ore, points to the deliberate
extraction of mineral wealth by the rulers.
However, the absence of a writing system, seen as the hallmark of statehood even
at the earliest stages of development of early states (such as Sumer, Akkad, Egypt
and China), means that we cannot assume that the ancient Central Asian agricultural
societies of the Bronze Age had evolved into states as such.
The second period spanned the early part of the 1st millennium BC through to
the year 539 BC. The historical and cultural areas of Bactria, Sogdia and Khorezm
emerged during this time, along with initial forms of states with extensive hierarchical
systems of political power. Evidence of this can be found in the Avesta, and its details
about social structure, for example, it lists the following: nmana (house-family), vis
(clan, clan settlement), zantu (tribe), dahyu (province, country) and the various
leaders in the state: including the ruler of the country, and of a province (dahyu-pati),
other rulers, lords (sastar), and so on.
It is also possible that it was during this time that larger territorial accumulations,
such as the kingdoms of Ancient Bactria and Ancient Sogdia, began to take shape, or
confederations of tribes, usually headed by a queen, as with the Sakas of the northern
part of Transoxiana and their queens Zarina and Tomyris.
In the third period, 539 BC–330 BC, the Achaemenid conquest and the
incorporation of Central Asian regions into the Achaemenid state interrupted the
development of local state entities. For two hundred years the whole or almost all of the
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