Lands of Asia layouts (Eng) 26.11.21

part ii | states
Somewhat earlier, Kangju, a state of a similar type, had been established in the
central and northern regions of Transoxiana. In addition to the territories on the
Jaxartes river, it also included five possessions located in Khorezm, Bukhara, Sogdia
and Chach. These possessions also had the right to mint their own coinage, initially
in imitation of the Graeco-Bactrian coins of Eucratides and Euthydemus, and later
using their own variants.
Tamgas or dynastic signs constituting a kind of state symbol appear to have
been used for the first time in Central Asia on Kangju coins and in the possessions
under its control. From this time on, they appeared on coins almost everywhere in
Transoxiana until the region became part of the Abbasid Caliphate in the middle of
the 8th century AD.
The emergence and widespread use of Sogdian and Khorezmian writing systems
based on the Aramaic alphabet is also a significant indication of the stability of the
state in that period.
In the second half of the 2nd century BC, the missions of Zhang Qian opened up
the Western Regions (i.e. the territories of Central Asia) for Han China for the first
time. From the end of the 2nd century BC onwards, regular diplomatic and trade
relations were established between China and the Western Regions. The notable
result of these relations was the formation of the Silk Road – the first transcontinental
road in the history of civilisation – to connect the countries of the West and the East.
The sixth period spanned the beginning of the 1st century AD to the mid-3rd
century AD, and was a period of the rise and growth of ancient statehood in the
territory of what is present-day Uzbekistan, but was also the time of the final stage of
its development.
The most notable phenomenon of this period is the emergence of the powerful
Kushan kingdom, established in the early 1st century AD by Kujula Kadphises, one
of the leaders of the Kushan clan of the Yuezhi tribes. His successor, Wima Takto,
incorporated the south of present-day Uzbekistan into the Kushan kingdom, a situation
that endured until the middle of the 3rd century AD. This territory, a border region
headed by the Bactrian karalrang/karalraggo (meaning ‘head of a border region or
margrave’), played a key role in the history of the Kushan kingdom. To the northwest
of this area, in the Hissar mountains, a powerful defensive wall was erected to protect
the area from raids by nomadic tribes from the north. This period in the south of
Uzbekistan was a time when cities, settlements and the economy flourished, along with
commodity-money relations and all the other attributes of a developed state.
To the north of the Kushan kingdom was the confederative Kangju state, parts of
which had become hereditary and acquired even greater independence. Thus during
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