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SAMARQAND
i. History and Archeology
Since the publication of the entry AFRĀSIĀB (EIr. I,
pp. 576-78), new information has been brought to light on this
archeological site and, consequently, on the history of pre-Mongol
Samarqand. This progress is mainly a result of the activities of the
MAFOUZ (Mission Archéologique Franco-Ouzbèke), which commenced in 1989
and continues to date.
Concerning the foundation of the city, which resulted from the
fortification of the plateau (already sporadically occupied in the
Bronze and Early Iron Ages), a pre-Achaemenid date, between ca. 650 and
ca. 550 B.C.E., seems now confirmed. The specific character of this
first urban foundation stands out more clearly. A wall follows the
whole circuit of the plateau (5.5 km), complemented by another one
which separates the town from the acropolis, situated in the northern
part and itself including a citadel raised on an artificial platform.
These topographical-functional features were to last as long as the
town was centered on this site. The existence inside Afrāsiāb of an
artificial water supply through the Dargom channel (extending 40 km
from the Zarafšān River), a branch of which entered through the
southern gate, is archeologically confirmed for the Achaemenid period
only; but it seems probable that it existed from the beginning. The
wall, 7 m thick, is massive, in contrast to those which were built upon
it in the city’s Achaemenid and Greek periods. It is made of coarse mud
bricks of plano-convex shape, all of which bear a mark, an indication
that labor was strictly organized in groups of workers at the
initiative of the local political power. Similar building techniques
have been noticed at other Sogdian and pre-Sogdian sites during that
pre-Achaemenid period: Kok Tepe (30 km north of Samarqand, with similar
brick marks, a fact which suggests a contemporary foundation),
Padaiatak Tepe and Sangyr Tepe near Šahr-e Sabz, Eilatan and Dal’verzin
Tepe (q.v.) in Farḡana (q.v.).
The Greek occupation appears to be divided into two
phases, the first lasting from Alexander to some date in the second
half of the 3rd century B.C.E. and the second, a shorter period of
reconquest under the Greco-Bactrian king Eucratides (r. ca.
171-145 B.C.E.). The pottery complex differs markedly between
these two phases, which seem to have been separated by a period of
nomadic invasion, at a time when the Greek line of defense was
temporarily shifted to the south (as witnessed also by the earliest
wall brought to light by excavations in the strategic pass at Derbent
[see DARBAND]). In addition to the fortifications, the
Greek garrison (in the first phase) left its mark with a large granary,
built in the center of the acropolis, at a place now buried deep below
the mosque.
The peak of the pre-Islamic Sogdian civilization is mostly
documented from the excavations at Panjikent (q.v.). At Samarqand, the
major source of evidence for this period is the aristocratic residence
which stood just inside Wall III, which constituted the southern limit
of the fortified town between the 6th and 8th centuries C.E. The famous
wall paintings which were commissioned for a reception hall ca. 660
C.E., probably by King Varkhuman himself, are the object of ongoing
study and interpretation. Contrary to what had been proposed in
afrāsīab, the whole composition is no longer believed to be related to
the arrival of embassies at Samarqand (which forms the specific theme
of the western wall), but to more varied themes of geopolitics and
royal propaganda: the dynastic cult (southern wall), the greatness of
the Chinese ally (northern wall), Indian legends (eastern wall).
A substantial amount of information (sometimes
complementary and sometimes conflicting with the picture hitherto drawn
from textual sources) has come to light concerning the 8th century.
Excavations carried out beneath the mosque have revealed evidence for a
rapid succession of monumental buildings. A massive enclosure, perhaps
the temenos of the pre-Islamic temple mentioned in the sources,
was razed some time after the Arab conquest of 712. Instead of a first
mosque, as was hitherto assumed, the site was occupied by a large
palace (ca 115 x 84 m), built in the 740s (according to numismatic
evidence), and it is therefore attributable to the last Omayyad
governor, NasÂr b. Sayyār. Architecturally, it appears as a
transitional building, combining features inherited from earlier
Sogdian palaces (a rectangular ‘throne hall’, corridors), and others
that are more innovative (such as beyts, i.e., rooms
grouped in a rectangle around a courtyard or hall). Some of the baked
bricks had been lavishly used for pavements – another innovation. They
carry Kufic inscriptions, most often consisting ʾxšyd, i.e., eḵšīd,
the Sogdian royal title. It is conjectured that the then representative
of the local dynasty, residing outside Samarqand and still in charge of
tax collection, had agreed to pay part of it in kind to contribute to
the building of the governor’s palace. Some time between 765 and 780
sections of the palace were leveled to make room for the Friday mosque,
which was first built on a square plan, and then (probably at the
beginning of the Samanid period, ca. 820-30) enlarged towards the
western direction, which led to the leveling of the remaining parts of
the palace. Finds made in the palace include exercises in Arabic, which
testify to the existence of a maktab, as well as the earliest
set of chess pieces ever discovered in an archeological context.
Important fragments of the stucco decoration of the qebla wall
of the first mosque, buried after the enlargement of the building,
belong to the pre-Samarra Abbasid style, hitherto known only from
examples in Syria, Iraq, and Fārs.
Before that, in the early 750s, a second Arab palace had
been erected to the east of the citadel, evidently by Abu Moslem
(although written sources credit him only with the construction of the
wall around the oasis). The regularity of its plan stands in marked
contrast to the previous palace and indicates the work of an architect
from Iran or the Near East. The same applies to the use of porticoes of
octagonal columns, built in mud brick in both the inner and the outer
courtyard. An eyvān opened to the latter (instead of into a
closed throne hall). This palace never received any decoration, which
is not consistent with the high representative functions it was
obviously destined to fulfill. After an interruption, no doubt caused
by Abu Moslem’s execution in 755, it was eventually completed with
radical alterations to the original plan, the porticoes being replaced
by corridors. Some parts of the palace subsisted until the 10th
century. (However, the dār al-emāra mentioned by Eṣṭaḵri and Ebn Ḥawqal at the citadel was probably a later construction).
Knowledge of the two last centuries of Afrāsiāb has also
progressed substantially. Above the leveled ruins of Abu Moslem’s
palace in the northern section overlooking the Sīab river, pavilions
were added in the Qaraḵānid period (11th-12th centuries), as an
extension of a new palace built on the citadel (where these levels have
been entirely destroyed by early archeologists). Since the year 2000,
the excavation of one of these pavilions has brought to light collapsed
remains of remarkable painted decoration, almost the only evidence for
mural painting so far reported in Transoxania for this period. It
comprises birds in a floral and calligraphic setting (apparently based
on Persian poetry), dancers, a frieze of hunting dogs, and fragments of
a large composition with Turkish guards presenting the ruler with
symbols of power (the figure of an archer has been restored). The very
last phase at Afrāsiāb was marked by a reconstruction of the palace at
the citadel (mentioned in 1221 by the Chinese traveler Changchun) and
by a complete rebuilding of the Friday mosque, commissioned (according
to the Persian chronicler Jovayni) by Moḥammad b. Tekeš after his
bloody capture of the town in 1212. Excavations have shown that the
latter project was suddenly abandoned even before the monumental
pillars had been built above floor level. They were replaced by wooden
columns, probably requisitioned ones. The reason for this change was
most probably the Mongol threat, which led to a massive reinforcement
of the fortifications at the citadel and at the gates.
The first datable fortification of the oasis is the
Divār-e Qīamat, initiated by Abu Moslem and completed under Hārun
al-Rašid, along a circuit of about 35 km. Its gates were dismantled
under the Samanids, and only a few sections survive today. A transverse
wall, the Divār-e Kundalyang, now entirely destroyed, cannot be dated.
Its attribution to the Achaemenid period rests only upon the “LXX
stades” given by Curtius Rufus 7.6.10 for the city wall of Maracanda.
However, this figure is suspected to be corrupted from XXX, i.e., 5.5
km, which is exactly the perimeter of Afrāsiāb. The transfer of city
life to the south of Afrāsiāb, completed shortly after the Mongol
invasion, was already on the way in the 11th-12th centuries. For this
period temporary disruptions of the water supply, due to the continuous
rise of the occupation level, can be observed in the northern part of
the plateau. Ceramists’ quarters were gradually moving upstream along
the channel branches. According to the descriptions by Arab
geographers, the main commercial center was around the Raʾs al-Tāq, the
embankment which led the water channel through the southern gate.
Archeology is of little help here, because of the presence of the
modern town. It has been supposed that the wall that was built later on
by Timur in order to encircle his town had taken the place of a suburb
wall already existing before the Mongols. However, there is no
archeological proof for this. The main sources of information for the
southern suburb in that period are two waqf documents from 1066. One concerns the endowment for a madrasa, situated in the southern part of Afrāsiāb (although this has been disputed), but perhaps the madrasa
does not in fact correspond to the remains excavated in front of the
mausoleum of Qoṯam b. ʿAbbās. The second document creates a hospital
for the poor, which is situated somewhere to the south of the main
bazaar. Both give precise locations and descriptions for the various
estates listed in the endowments, mostly ḵāns (caravansarais),
all of which appear to be in the bazaar zone or in its vicinity. Some
toponyms have survived until modern times, such as the Čahār Suq and
the ‘Sand (place) of the merchants’, probably predecessors of the
Registān square, at the crossroads of the oasis.
The capture of Samarqand by the Mongols left it with
one-quarter or even less of its former population (evaluated by
Changchun to “more than 100,000 households” in the oasis before the
conquest). Moreover, this remaining population did not include the
craftsmen who were transported to Mongolia and subsequently, in a
second wave (under Ögedey), to Simāh (Siun-ma-lin), north of Peking,
where they introduced vine growing and a particular kind of brocade.
Samarqand had by then become part of the ulus of Čāḡatāy. The
huge losses in working population were certainly the decisive factor
for the abandonment of Afrāsiāb, whose water supply required more
skills and labor than the southern suburb. According to the Moroccan
traveller Ebn Baṭṭuṭa, who stayed in Samarqand in 1333 (or 1335), it
did not have functioning walls or gates anymore, and many monuments
were in ruins. However, the bazaar was again prosperous, and the
complex around the grave of Qoṯam (the only part of Afrāsiāb still
occupied) was splendidly built.
In 1371, Timur chose Samarqand as his capital and
immediately had the new site fortified by a new wall and a citadel in
its western part, containing the Kok Sarāy, a palace used only for
ceremonies . The court and the army lived in the gardens built around
the town. The rebuilding of the city on its new site was resumed on a
grand scale after Timur’s return from his western campaigns in 1396, in
particular with the construction of the Friday mosque (Bibi Ḵānum) next
to the northern gates and the opening of the bazaar mainstreet between
the mosque and the Registān area. Craftsmen deported from all the
conquered countries contributed to the new buildings, and some villages
in the vicinity are still named after their places of origin (Širāz,
Demašq). From that period onwards, archeological information comes more
from the recording of monuments still standing (see samarqand.
monuments) than from excavations, with the exceptions of the citadel
(destroyed in the Tsarist and Soviet periods) and the observatory built
by Uluḡ-Beg in 1421 to the northeast of Afrāsiāb and rediscovered in
1908.
After the final conquest of Timurid Samarqand by Moḥammad
Šaybāni (in 1500), the function of capital of Transoxania was
transfered to Bukhara (q.v.). The Šaybānids and their successors, the
Astraḵānids, continued however to embellish Samarqand: the Registān
square received its final form with three madrasas in 1660. A
sharp decline occured in the 18th century, with Kazakh inroads,
dynastic strife, and eventually an occupation by Nāder Šāh’s army in
1740-47. Already in the 1720s, the city was almost deserted and the madrasas
on the Registān were turned into winter stables by nomads. Recovery was
slow and incomplete. At the time of the Russian conquest in 1868, the
city numbered only 55,128 inhabitants, in contrast to figures known for
the 13th century (see above) and today (about 500,000).
Bibliography (in addition to works cited in AFRĀSIĀB):
Studies based mainly on archeological material. Kh. G. Akhun-babev, Dvorets Ikhshidov Sogda na Afrasiabe (The palace of the Ikhshids of Sogd at Afrāsiāb), Samarkand, 1999. P. Bernard, “Maracanda-Afrasiab colonie grecque,” in La Persia e l’Asia centrale da Alessandro al X secolo
(Atti dei convegni Lincei 127), Rome, 1996, pp. 331-65. P. Bernard, F.
Grenet, M. Isamiddinov, “Fouilles de la mission franco-soviétique à
l’ancienne Samarkand (Afrasiab): première campagne, 1989” and “Fouilles
de la mission franco-ouzbèque à l’ancienne Samarkand (Afrasiab):
deuxième et troisième campagnes (1990-1991),” Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions & Belles-lettres, 1990, pp. 356-80 ; 1992, pp. 275-311. Iu. F. Buryakov, ed., K istoricheskoĭ topografii drevnego i srednevekovogo Samarkanda (About the historical topography of ancient and medieval Samarkand), Tashkent,
1981. E. Iu. Buryakova, “K planirovke i fortifikatsii Samarkandskoĭ
tsitadeli XIV-XIX vv. (About the plan of the fortifications of the
citadel of Samarkand, 14th-19th centuries), in G. A. Pugachenkova, ed.,
Kul’tura srednevo Vostoka. Gradostroitel’stvo i arkhitektura,
Tashkent, 1989, pp. 115-25. G. V. Chichkina [Shishkina], “Les remparts
de Samarcande à l’époque hellénistique,” in P. Leriche, H. Tréziny,
eds., La fortification dans l’histoire du monde grec, Paris,
1986, pp. 71-78, figs. 287-302. F. Grenet, “L’Inde des astrologues sur
une peinture sogdienne du VIIe siècle,” in C. Cereti, M. Maggi, E.
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Wiesbaden, 2002. F. Grene [Grenet], I. D. Ivanitskiĭ, “Dvorets
omeyadskogo namestnika pod mechet’yu Abbasidskogo perioda na Afrasiabe”
(The palace of the Umayyad governor under the mosque from the Abbasid
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fortification of the acropolis of ancient Samarkand in the middle of
the 1st millenium B.C.E.), Material’naya kul’tura Vostoka 3,
Moscow, 2002, pp. 24-46. E. D. Ivanitskiĭ, O. N. Inevatkina,
“Periodizatsiya i etapy razvitiya vodosnabzheniya Afrasiaba” (Periods
and stages of the development of the water-supply of Afrasiab), Istoriya Material’noĭ Kul’tury Uzbekistana
30, Samarkand, 1999, pp. 96-103. E. Kageyama, “A Chinese Way of
Depicting Foreign Delegates Discerned in the Painting of Afrasiab,” in
Ph. Huyse, ed., Iran: Questions et connaissances. Actes du IVe congrès européen des études iraniennes. Paris, 6-10 Septembre 1999, vol. I: Etudes sur l’Iran ancien, Paris, 2002, pp. 309-23. Yu. Karev, “Un palais islamique du VIIIe siècle à Samarkand,” Studia Iranica 29, 2000, pp. 273-96. E. de La Vaissière, Histoire des marchands sogdiens,
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la Sogdiane, d’après l’occupation comparée d’Aï Khanoum et de Marakanda
au cours des derniers siècles avant notre ère,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute
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peintures de la ‘Salle des ambassadeurs’ à Afrasiab (Samarkand),” Arts Asiatiques 49, 1994, pp. 5-20. N. B. Nemtseva (with notes by M. Rogers), “The origins and architectural development of the Shah-i zinde,” Iran 15, 1977, pp. 51-73. C. Rapin, “Fortifications hellénistiques de Samarcande (Samarkand-Afrasiab),” Topoi 4, 1994, pp. 547-65. G. V. Shishkina, Remeslennaya produktsiya srednevekovogo Sogda (The artisanal production of medieval Soghd), Tashkent, 1986. Idem, “Ancient Samarkand: Capital of Soghd,” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 8, 1994 [1996], pp. 81-99. G. V. Shishkina, L. V. Pavchinskaja, Terres secrètes de Samarcande. Céramiques du VIIIe au XIIIe siècle, Paris, 1992.
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(The medieval town in Central Asia), Leningrad, 1973 (esp. pp. 143-62,
219-32, 266). Dzh. Z. Buniyatov, T. B. Gasanov, “Dva samarkandskikh
vakfa serediny XI v.” (Two waqf documents from Samarkand, mid 11th century), Vostochnoe istoricheskoe istochnikovedenie i spetsial’nye istoricheskie distsipliny
II, Moscow, 1994, pp. 39-63. Yu. Karev, “La politique d’Abū Muslim dans
le Māwarā’annahr. Nouvelles données textuelles et archéologiques,” Der Islam 79, 2002, pp. 1-46. M. Khadr (with an introduction by Claude Cahen), “Deux actes de waqf d’un qarahanide d’Asie centrale,” JA 255, 1967, pp. 305-34. B. Manz, The Rise and Rule of Tamerlane, Cambridge, 1989. J. Paul, “The histories of Samarqand,” Studia Iranica 22, 1993, pp. 69-92. P. Pelliot, “Une ville musulmane dans la Chine du Nord sous les Mongols,” JA 211, 1927, pp. 261-79.
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