CHORASMIA (Gk. Chorasmiē < OPers. (H)uwārazmiš, Av. Xᵛāirizəm, later Ḵᵛārazm [Khwārazm], generally derived from *hwāra-zam/zmī-, either “nourishing land” [Burnouf, p. cviii; Sachau, p. 473; Geiger, p. 29; Pauly-Wissowa III/2, cols. 2406-08] or “lowland” [Lerch, p. 447; Veselovskiĭ, p. v; Kiepert, no. 60; MacKenzie, Camb. Hist. Iran III/2, p. 1244; Bogolyubov, p. 370, has suggested “land with good cattle enclosures,” but this interpretation has not found wide acceptance), region on the lower reaches of the Oxus (Amu Darya) in western Central Asia.

Bibliography : M. N. Bogolyubov, “Drevnepersidskie ètimologii” (Old Persian etymologies), in Drevniĭ mir. Sbornik stateĭ Akademiku Vasiliyu Vasil’evichu Struve, Moscow, 1962, pp. 367-70. E. Burnouf, Commentaire sur le Yaçna, Paris, 1833. E. Sachau, “Zur Geschichte und Chronologie von Khwârizm,” Sb. der philosophisch-historischen Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna) 73, 1873, pp. 471-506. W. Geiger, Ostiranische Kultur im Altertum, Erlangen, 1882. H. Kiepert, Lehrbuch der alten Geographie, Berlin, 1878. P. Lerch, “Khiva oder Khârezm. Seine historischen und geographischen Verhältnisse,” Russische revue 2, 1873, pp. 445-84, 565-79. D. N. MacKenzie, “Khwarazmian Language and Literature,” in Camb. Hist. Iran III/2, pp. 1244-49. N. I. Veselovskiĭ, Ocherk istoriko-­geograficheskikh svedeniĭ o Khivinskom khanstve ot drevneĭshikh vremen do nastoyashchego vremeni (An outline of historical-geographical data on the Khivan khanate from the earliest times to the present), St. Petersburg, 1877.

Prehistory. At the turn of the 3rd millennium b.c.e. the Neolithic Kel’teminar culture flourished in the Chorasmian oasis (Vinogradov, 1968; idem, 1981). Remains of the Bronze Age Suyargan (beginning of the 2nd millennium b.c.e.), Tazabag’yab (middle and late 2nd millennium b.c.e.), and Amirabad (10th-8th centuries b.c.e.) cul­tures have also been identified there (Itina, 1977), the latter two showing links with the Timber Frame and Andronovo cultures of the European steppes to the north­west. The settlement at Kuyusaĭ 2 in the Oxus delta has been dated to the 12th-11th centuries b.c.e. by the presence of so-called “Scythian” (Saka) arrowhead (for a different dating of this material, see Muscarella, pp. 107-­08); some scholars have argued that the Iranian Scythians were descended from these northern peoples and that Chorasmia was one early arena for their emergence as a distinct people. Beside local molded pottery a substantial number of wheel-made vessels were also found at the site, clearly brought from the area of southern Turkmenia and probably also from northeastern Iran (Vaĭnberg, 1979, pp. 15, 48). Discoveries in nearby kurgans suggest that the inhabitants’ contacts with their southern neighbors were not peaceful. The burials frequently contained, together with Kuyusaĭ and southern vessels, objects char­acteristic of Scythian mounted soldiers: sets of arrows, horse harness, and objects decorated in the “animal style” (Yablonskiĭ). It is probable that the range of southern imports defines the invasion zone of the Chorasmian Sakas; Ctesias’s later report on the struggle between the Sakas and the Medes for possession of Parthia seems, despite its legendary character, to confirm this observa­tion (Jacoby, Fragmente p. 5 no. 25; cf. Diodorus Siculus, 2.34.1-2). It is significant, too, that Strabo linked the Chorasmians with the Massagetae (11.8.8).

Median and Achaemenid periods. The name Chorasmia was first mentioned in the Avesta (Yt. 10.14) and the Bīsotūn inscription (q.v.) of Darius I (521-486 b.c.e.). It is also possible that the Orthocorybants, whom Herodotus (3.92) linked with Media in the tenth satrapy, were part of the Central Asian Scythians. In the legend that the Akes (q.v.; modern Harīrūd) river valley, bordering on the Hyrcanians, Parthians, Sarangians, Thamaneans, and Chorasmians, had been ruled by the last-named group before it came under the control of the Persians (Herodotus 3.117) some scholars have recognized the memory of a brief period of Chorasmian Scythian rule in the southeastern Caspian region. This story, together with mention by Hecateus of Miletus (apud Atheneus, II, p. 70A-B; Jacoby, Fragmente I, p. 38) of Chorasmians living “toward the sunrise” from the Parthians, has given rise to a hypothesis about the existence in pre-Achaemenid times of a power­ful kingdom conventionally called Greater Chorasmia. Its confines are supposed to have corresponded to the later sixteenth satrapy, which included Parthians, Sogdians, Chorasmians, and Arians (Herodotus 3.93), with its cen­ter in the district of present-day Mary (Merv) and Herat (Markwart, Ērānšahr, pp. 9ff.; Tolstov, 1948a, pp. 20, 341; Henning, 1951, p. 42). The same accounts may have engendered theories that Chorasmians from the south were resettled on the lower Oxus only in the Achaemenid period (P’yankov,1972, p. 20). The discovery of an early Scythian culture in the Chorasmian oasis and demonstra­tion of its southern connections seem, however, to obviate the necessity for complex hypotheses about a Greater Chorasmia.

Until recently there has been general agreement that the homeland of the Zoroastrian religion, Airyanəm Vaēǰah (see ērānvēj), was located in Chorasmia (see, e.g., Benveniste, p. 265-74; Gershevitch, p. 14; Hinz, p. 27; Abaev, p. 320). Airyanəm Vaēǰah appears first in a list of Zoroastrian lands ordered from the northwest to the southeast (Vd. 1); conversely, in a survey of the countries of the Arians ordered from the southeast to the northwest Chorasmia is mentioned last (Yt. 10.13-14). Both were said to be adjacent to Sogdia. Airyanəm Vaēǰah was considered the coldest of the countries listed, with only two summer months (Vd. 1); later Zoroastrian tradition, however, more closely reflected the realities of the Chorasmian climate, where there are seven summer and five winter months (SBE IV, p. 5 n. 5). According to the Bundahišn (17.5), the sacred fire of Yima (Ādur Xwarrah “sacred fire”: see ādur farnbāg; cf. “Selections of Zâd-­Spram” 11.9) was at first located in Chorasmia and later transferred to Fārs (or Kābolestān; cf. Masʿūdī, Morūj, ed. Pellat, XI, p. 399; Tirmidhi, p. 279). Gherardo Gnoli, on the other hand, has devoted an entire chapter (pp. 91-127) to a refutation of the identification of Airyanəm Vaēǰah with Chorasmia.

W. B. Henning called attention to a number of correspondences between the language of the Avesta and linguistic material recorded in medieval Chorasmia (1951, p. 44-45; cf. Humbach, p. 330; MacKenzie, 1988, pp. 81ff.). The kingdom of Chorasmia was founded at about the beginning of the 6th century b.c.e. The rapid social and economic development of the country was largely owing to a desire to emulate the comforts of the higher civilization observed in the nearby agricultural states. The salient features of the “archaic” culture of Chorasmia in the 6th and 5th centuries b.c.e. were the digging of the first large canals, which reached 10-15 km in length (Andrianov, pp. 116-24, 151-58); the introduction of mud-brick construction; and the use of the potter’s wheel. Despite the idiosyncrasies of Chorasmian “cylindro-conical” ware, there are clear links with the assemblages from southern Turkmenia and early Bactria, which had been evolving since the Bronze Age. Migration of some craftsmen and even farmers from those areas to Chorasmia cannot be ruled out, especially as a fairly intensive irrigated agriculture, combined with livestock breeding, became firmly rooted in the fertile loess plains of this “Central Asian Egypt.”

About 400 settlements of the archaic period have been recorded within the confines of ancient Chorasmia, but only at Kyuzeli-gyr, on the left bank of the Oxus, have ruins of a fortified town been excavated. It flourished throughout the 6th century and the first half of the 5th century b.c.e. The hill site encompasses more than 25 ha, and the circumference of the fortification walls was about 3 km (Tolstov, 1962, pp. 96-104). The lower part of the fortress was not built up and probably served as a refuge for inhabitants of the surrounding territory in times of danger and as an enclosure for cattle. Higher up in the town dwellings were arrayed along the walls. The palace, covering an area of 1 ha, was also located in the upper town; about twenty dwellings and courtyards were excavated there. One spacious hall with six piers and several large fireplaces had been carefully rebuilt several times; it was clearly used for ceremonials and banquets. Nearby were storage areas with dozens of jars and grain bins. In the southern part of the palace was an open parade courtyard (800 m²), its walls lined with broad benches, the most prominent of which was clearly the place of the throne. Opposite it, outside the courtyard, there was a brick platform (4 x 5 m), which must have been about 3 m high; its top was accessible by means of a flight of steps at right angles to the platform. Large accumulations of cinders and white ash around the base of the platform suggest that a fire altar was situated on top. In the final phase of the walled town a temple was erected and beside it three tower-like structures with small chambers inside. These chambers were too small to contain human burials, and in fact not a single archaic burial has so far been found in Chorasmia; clearly the practice of interment had al­ready ceased there by the 6th century b.c.e., probably in conformity with Zoroastrian prescriptions.

Chorasmia was conquered by Cyrus the Great (q.v.; 559-29 b.c.e.) with other countries of Central Asia, probably not long before his fatal march against the Massagetai in 530 b.c.e. Ctesias (Persica 29.8-14) reported that, as he lay dying, Cyrus appointed his younger son, Tanyoxares (see bardiya), ruler of the Bactrians, Choramnians (Chorasmians), Parthians, and Carmanians (ap. Photius, 8; Jacoby, Fragmente, III, fr. 9); at any rate relative order had been established on the northeastern frontiers of the empire before Cyrus’s successor, Cambyses (529-22 b.c.e.), marched on Egypt in 525. The original fortifications at Kyuzeli-gyr were destroyed by fire, possibly during the Persian conquest. The town and the palace were still inhabited in Achaemenid times, and it may be that Kyuzeli-gyr is to be identified with the city of Chorasmia, mentioned by Hecateus of Miletus (Pauly-Wissowa III/2, col. 2406). In the Bīsotūn inscription Chorasmia is mentioned as one of the twenty-three coun­tries that Darius I (q.v.; 521-486 b.c.e.) had inherited from his predecessors. It may have served as a Persian base in the campaign against the Sakā tigraxaudā (Scythians with pointed caps) in 519 (Harmatta, p. 23). In another of Darius’s inscriptions Chorasmia is mentioned as the source for the turquoise used to decorate his new palace at Susa (Kent, Old Persian, pp. 142-44 DSf). Although some scholars have assumed that it was actually the turquoise mines at Nīšāpūr that were meant and have thus claimed the support of this inscription for the theory of a Greater Chorasmia, many ancient sources of tur­quoise have been discovered in the fertile lowlands of Chorasmia, in the Sultanuizdag hills, and in the adjacent districts of the Kyzylkum desert (Vinogradov et al., p. 114; Manylov, p. 53). In medieval Armenian “the stone ḵolozmik” was said to come from Chorasmia (Markwart, Ērānšahr, pp. 141, 155). Herodotus (3.93), in his list of satrapies established by Darius, included the Chorasmians with the Parthians, Sogdians, and Arians in the sixteenth satrapy.

When Xerxes I (486-65 b.c.e.) marched on Greece the Persian Artabazus (q.v.) commanded an army of 40 thousand Parthians and Chorasmians (Herodotus, 9.41). “They wintered in Thessaly and Macedonia; after the battle of Platea, in which they did not participate, they retreated via Byzantium to the Hellespont. The name of a Chorasmian soldier who served in Upper Egypt is pre­served on a document of 464 b.c.e. (Dandamaev and Lukonin, pp. 139, 281, 302). Chorasmian workmen participated in the construction of Persepolis and labored on the docks of Memphis in Egypt. Chorasmians are also portrayed among the tribute bearers carved in relief on the eastern staircase of the Apadana at Persepolis (groups 11 and 17). In addition, inscriptions permit identification of Chorasmians in the reliefs on two tombs near Persepolis; their clothing is similar to that of the Saka (Walser, pl. I fig. 8).

At about the beginning of the 4th century b.c.e. Aramaic script was introduced in Chorasmia, probably through the mediation of Achaemenid scribes (Livshits and Mambetullaev, p. 42). Much information about the everyday life of the rural population of the province in the Achaemenid period can be gleaned from study of the finds at Dingil’dzhe (Vorob’eva, 1973). The last mention of Chorasmians in a Persian inscription is on a tomb attrib­uted to Artaxerxes II (q.v.; 405-359 b.c.e.; Kent, Old Persian, pp. 155-56 A?P). By that time the Chorasmians were no longer subjects but allies of the Persian ruler (Dandamaev, p. 248). It is now possible to reconstruct with some precision the circumstances under which they gained their independence. I. V. P’yankov concluded from a study of Ctesias that already by the end of the 5th century b.c.e. Chorasmia had become a separate satrapy (1965, p. 42). Archeological investigations in level I at the site of Kalaly-gyr have shown that Achaemenid rule there ended shortly after the beginning of the 4th century (Tolstov, 1958, p. 167; Rapoport and Lapirov-Skoblo, p. 151; Rapoport, 1987, p. 140). A rectangular area 1,000 x 600 m was surrounded by a defensive wall 15 m thick. In the middle of each side was a strongly fortified gate (100 x 50 m). All these constructions were left unfinished; the only building inside the enclosure wall was the palace, which was in the process of decoration when work stopped. Its basic plan was an 80 m square. In addition to two inner courts surrounded by rooms and halls, there was a sanc­tuary with an altar and steps, similar in form and size to the stone altar found in a fire temple near Persepolis. An alabaster mold in the shape of a griffin’s head was also found; it had been used for the manufacture of protomes to decorate wooden column capitals. The style of the carving is very similar to that of the griffin protomes from the audience hall at Persepolis. The relatively accom­plished architecture of the Kalaly-gur palace and its grand scale suggest that it was intended as the seat of the newly established Chorasmian satrapy, but the unfinished state of the stone column bases, abandoned molds, and layers of silt and deposits on the floors are evidence that the satrap never took up residence there. The Persians’ departure from Chorasmia is thus clear from the archeo­logical record; furthermore, it appears that no Chorasmian contingent fought in the army with which Darius III (336­-31 b.c.e.) confronted Alexander the Great in 334-31.

During Alexander’s campaigns in Central Asia Chorasmia was at first allied with those who resisted; at least the satrap of Bactria, Bessos (q.v.), who took the title Artaxerxes V, counted on help from the Chorasmians, Saka, and Dahai (Quintus Curtius, 8.4.6). After Bessos was forced to retreat his intransigent lieutenant Spitamenes went into hiding among the Chorasmians (Strabo, 11.8.8). Once the outcome of the struggle became clear, however, several Central Asian embassies waited on Alexander at Maracanda in the spring of 328. The accounts of Arrian (Anabasis 4.15.4) and Quintus Curtius Rufus (8.1.8) differ somewhat. Arrian mentioned the arrival of Pharasmanes, king of the Chorasmians, with a cavalry force of some fifteen hundred men. Pharasmanes offered to guide Alexander to the Black Sea should he wish to campaign there; though the conqueror declined the offer, he did conclude a “friendly pact” with Pharasmanes. Quintus Curtius gave the name of the Chorasmian king as Phrataphernes, who joined with the Massagetai and Dacians in sending people to assure the king of his submission. From this account it appears that he did not personally travel to Alexander’s headquarters and incidentally that he enjoyed a certain degree of hegemony over his nomadic neighbors. In fact Pharasmanes was Phrataphernes’s son (Pauly-Wissowa XX/1, col. 739, s.v. Phradasmanes), probably designated king by Arrian in order to glorify Alexander.

The post-Achaemenid interlude and the nomad invasions. In the 4th-3rd centuries b.c.e. Chorasmia experienced a great economic and cultural upsurge, possibly owing to liberation from the tax burden imposed by the Achaemenids. Already in the first half of the 4th century Chorasmia was home to what S. P. Tolstov (1948a; 1948b) labeled, rather inappropriately, the “Kang-qu” culture (see below), a fusion of local and borrowed components. The irrigation network was radically re­built: On the right bank of the Oxus the length of the trunk canals increased two or threefold, sometimes reaching 300 km. There was also intensive construction of settle­ments, towns, and fortifications. On virtually every elevation above the flood plain archeologists find con­structions from this period. The mausoleum temple at Koĭ-Krylgan-kala has been fully excavated and published (Tolstov and Vaĭnberg). The central element of the complex was a squat round two-story tower 10 m high, with a diameter of 45 m and an outer wall 7 m thick. There were eight vaulted rooms in the lower story and an archers’ gallery above. An external fortification wall encircled this tower at a distance of 15 m. In the zone between a series of smaller structures radiated from the tower. Those on the western side were burial chambers, which were included in the original plan. On the eastern side chambers on the second floor were used for storage of temple utensils and performance of funerary rites. There are grounds for believing that priests used the tower as an astronomical observatory.

Contemporary ceramics, often painted, were of particularly high quality; among painted motifs the spiral pre­dominates, and the shoulders of vessels are often ringed with red triangles. A type of jar with a lion head at the juncture of handle and rim was particularly common; there were also many rhytons comparable to Achaemenid examples. On the other hand, large flasks decorated in low relief, often with mythological themes, appear unique to Chorasmia (Vorob’eva, 1959, pp. 84-124; Rapoport, 1977, p. 58-71). Pot burials of clean bones began about the beginning of the 4th century b.c.e. This type of ossuary (astōdān, q.v.) predominated in the province for the next thirteen centuries (Rapoport, 1971). Particularly noteworthy are ceramic statue ossuaries, popular until the 2nd century c.e. Inscriptions on ossuary chests called (tpnkwk (as opposed to prwrtyk “vaults”), probably of the early 8th century c.e., leave no doubt that they belonged to Zoroastrians (Tolstov and Livshits; Gudkova; Henning, 1965; Gudkova and Livshits).

The entire complex was destroyed by fire in the 2nd century b.c.e., along with many other Chorasmian strongholds and settlements, probably during the mass migration of steppe tribes that is known to have caused the collapse of the Greco-Bactrian state and to have brought Parthia to the brink of destruction. It was probably the Apa-Sakas (“Water Sakas”; Pasians, Attasians; Debevoise, p. 13) from the Oxus and Jaxartes deltas who invaded Chorasmia. In the last third of the 2nd century b.c.e. the Chinese came to know of Kang-qu (see central asia iii. in pre-islamic times), a large nomadic state with its capital on the Jaxartes. Among the Central Asian coun­tries subject to Kang-qu in the 1st century b.c.e. was Yue-xian, which scholars generally identify with Urgench, the main Chorasmian city on the left bank of the Oxus. In the Tang-shu (Old Tang History, ch. 221) the state of Kholi-si-mi is identified with the territory belonging to Yue-­xian, which had formerly belonged to Kang-qu. The invasions of the 2nd century b.c.e. were followed by a certain “barbarization” of Chorasmian civilization, though some traditional administrative elements continued. A fortified settlement was constructed on the site of Koĭ-Krylgan-kala; it remained inhabited until the end of the 2nd century c.e. The first Chorasmian coins were struck about the turn of the 1st century b.c.e., in imitation of the tetradrachms of Eucratides, the last Graeco-Bactrian king (ca. 175-55 b.c.e.; Vaĭnberg, 1977, pp. 13, 50, 64).

It has quite recently been established that the “Chorasmian era” began in the 30s (Livshits, 1984, p. 253) or 40s (Vaĭnberg,1977, p. 79) of the 1st century c.e.; the Chorasmian calendar, derived from the Zoroastrian calendar (see calendars i. pre-islamic calendars), then remained in use for about eight centuries (Livshits, 1970, pp. 164-65). The latest known mention of a date in the Chorasmian calendae, year 753, is inscribed on one of the ossuaries from the necropolis of Tok-kala. Its introduction was clearly linked with liberation from Kang-qu and establishment of an independent dynasty. Theories that Chorasmia was incorporated into the Kushan empire are refuted by the numismatic evidence; there was no interruption in the local minting of silver coins, and many Kushan coins bear Chorasmian overstrikes, often obliter­ating the rulers’ portraits. In the middle of the 1st century substantial changes began to appear on Chorasmian coins, particularly the adoption of Aramaic script in place of the barely readable Greek characters previously in use. Un­fortunately, the name of the king who initiated this prac­tice has not been preserved on the coins.

The second king of the dynasty was Artav (’rt’w “the just”; Vaĭnberg, 1977, p. 52). He appears to have begun construction of a new capital, the ruins of which were discovered by Tolstov in 1938 at Toprak-kala in the Ellikkalin district of the Karakalpak Autonomous S.S.R. Like the adoption of the new era construction of this vast complex in a previously uninhabited locality must have marked the ascent of a new and independent royal house. An expedition from the Institute of Ethnography of the Soviet Academy of Sciences conducted excavations at the site for twenty-eight seasons (Tolstov, 1948b, pp. 164-90; Nerazik and Rapoport). Five main areas were identified: the town, the citadel, the upper palace, an extramural palace-temple complex, and a large walled enclosure connected with the latter. The city, covering an area of only 500 x 300 m, was well fortified. It was divided into ten rectangular quarters by a principal axial street and several lateral lanes. One quarter belonged to the main temple; the others were residential, each with between three and six housing complexes. E. E. Nerazik estimated the total number of inhabitants at about 2,500 and con­cluded that a large proportion of them were engaged in the defense and service of the palaces. The northwestern portion of the city was separated from the rest by an inner fortification wall. Inside this citadel the foundations of a fire temple could be traced. In the northwestern corner of the citadel the upper palace, covering an area 80 m², stood on a man-made platform 15 m high. More than 100 chambers have been excavated in the palace, including the throne hall and five sanctuaries intended for various aspects of the royal cult. The walls of most of the smaller chambers were decorated with polychrome paintings, those of the larger halls with molded reliefs. The south­eastern part of the palace consisted of a complex of undecorated rooms; remains of the archive and arsenal were found there. Next to this palace three additions had been built on plinths 25 m high. Outside the city wall north of the high palace there was an ensemble of twelve palace and temple structures on relatively low platforms spread over a total area of 9 ha. Two of the temples were connected by long walls to a walled rectangle (1,250 x 1,000 m) on the west. No trace of buildings or irrigation works was found in this enclosure, which appears to have served as a racecourse and a fairground or parade ground.

Among the documents found in the upper palace were tablets containing lists of soldiers supplied by the heads of Chorasmian households (the latter indicated by the Ara­maic ideogram BYT’); some names are marked “present for the first time.” The majority of the soldiers seem to have been slaves; the ratios of slaves to free men in four households were 17:4, 12:3, 15:2, and 3:1 respectively. The owner of each slave was carefully recorded, whether the master of the house, his wife, or one of the children. These lists confirm Pompeius Trogus’s report of slaves in the Parthian army (Justin, 41.2.5-6). In the documents the word “slave” is rendered by the ideogram ʿBDn; the full alphabetical rendering of Iranian bntk was already attested on a Chorasmian ostracon of the 4th-3rd centuries. Other administrative documents from the palace archive were written on leather. They include records of delivery of foodstuffs and other provisions. Some are dated by the Chorasmian calendar (between 188 and 252 c.e.), with the months and days of the Zoroastrian calendar. In two especially important documents the recipient of offerings is designated as ʾLHYʾ. Although in the singular the ideogram ʾLHʾ can mean “king,” V. A. Livshits (1984, p. 264) has noted that the plural ʾHYʾ would be very strange in such a context, unless it referred to sovereigns wor­shiped posthumously as gods (Livshits, 1984, p. 264; cf. Grenet, 1986, p. 134). Another explanation of the plural is also possible: Two kings could have reigned simulta­neously from two palace complexes. A. M. Hocart, in his classic study of the institution of double kingship, called such corulers the “law king” and the “war king” (pp. 158-­74). The high palace could have been the secluded residence of the sacred king, while the actual ruler inhab­ited the more open palaces outside the city.

The Afrighid period. All the palaces of Toprak-kala were abandoned at the same time, probably in connection with the founding in 305 c.e. of the Afrighid dynasty (see āl-e afrǰḡ; the first king, Afrīḡ, is said to have built a fortress at Fīr (Fīl) beside the Chorasmian capital, Kāṯ, about 40 km south of Toprak-kala (Bīrūnī, Āṯār al-bāqīa, p. 35). The Toprak-kala palaces remained vacant, though the city was inhabited until the 6th century c.e. Because not all the twenty-one Afrighid kings listed by Bīrūnī have been named on coins, B. I. Vaĭnberg (1977, p. 82) has suggested that the Afrighid dynasty was legendary. The later rulers (1st-4th/8th-10th centuries) are known from coins, however, and some other explanation is therefore required. Archeological materials from the 4th­-8th centuries provide evidence of considerable cultural change in this period, particularly the latter two centuries. The irrigation network shrank, construction techniques changed, and ceramics were cruder and usually molded, rather than wheel-made. The predominant settlement types were the rural homestead and slightly later also the fortified settlement with defensive tower (Nerazik, 1966; idem, 1976). The causes of these changes are to be sought, not only in internal social and economic processes, but also in the invasion of Chorasmia by tribes from the region of the Jaxartes. Nevertheless, initial investigations of the palace complex at Ayaz-kala have confirmed that tradi­tions of monumental architecture and wall painting re­mained vital in the 5th-7th centuries. Furthermore, Chorasmian silver vessels of the 6th-8th centuries attest to the continued high level of craftsmanship in the region (Azarpay, pp. 2-3; Darkevich, pp. 103ff.).

Little is known about the Arab conquest of Chorasmia (see ii, below), which was carried out by Qotayba b. Moslem, governor of Khorasan, in 73/712. The latest known date recorded according to the Cborasmian era, 753, is inscribed on an ossuary from the necropolis of Tok-kala; the entire inventory of inscriptions from the site can be reliably dated by coins of the Chorasmian kings found in the ossuaries. The regnal dates can in turn be established from Chinese chronicles and from the names of Arab governors of Khorasan mentioned on the coins themselves (Gudkova; idem and Livshits).

Bibliography : V. I. Abaev, “Mif i istoriya v Gatakh Zoroastra” (Myth and history in Zoroaster’s Gathas), in Istoriko-filologicheskie issledovaniya. Sbornik stateĭ pamyati Akademika N. I. Konrada, Moscow, 1974, pp. 310-21. B. V. Andrianov, Drevnie orositel’nye sistemy Priaral’ya (Ancient irrigation systems of the Aral region), Moscow, 1969. G. Azarpay, “Nine Inscribed Choresmian Bowls,” Artibus Asiae 31, 1969, pp. 185­-203. E. Benveniste, “L’Ērān-vḕ et l’origine légendaire des Iraniens,” BSOS 7, 1934, pp. 265-74. M. N. Bogolyubov, “Drevnepersidskie ètimologii” (Old Per­sian etymologies), in Drevniĭ mir. Sbornik stateĭ Akademiku Vasiliyu Vasil’evichu Struve, Moscow, 1962, pp. 367-70. E. Burnouf, Commentaire sur le Yaçna, Paris, 1833. M. A. Dandamaev, Politicheskaya istoriya Akhemenidskoĭ derzhavy (Political history of the Achaemenid state), Moscow, 1985. Idem and V. G. Lukonin, Kul’tyra i èkonomika drevnego Irana (The culture and economy of ancient Iran), Moscow, 1980. V. P. Darkevich, Khudozhestvennyĭ metall Vostoka (Artistic metalwork of the Orient), Moscow, 1976. N. C. Debevoise, A Political History of Parthia, Chicago, 1938; repr. New York, 1968. W. Geiger, Ostiranische Kultur im Altertum, Erlangen, 1882. I. Gershevitch, The Avestan Hymn to Mithra, Cambridge, 1959. G. Gnoli, Zoroaster’s Time and Homeland, Naples, 1980. F. Grenet, “Palais ou palais-temple? Remarques sur la publication du monument de Toprak-kala,” Studia Iranica 15/1, 1986, pp. 123-35. A. V. Gudkova, Tok­ala, Tashkent, 1964. Idem and V. A. Livshits, “Novye khorezmiĭskie nadpisi iz nekropolya Tok-kaly” (New Chorasmian inscriptions from the necropolis of Tok­ala), in Vestnik Karakalpakskogo filiala Akademii Nauk Uzbekskoĭ S.S.R. 1/27, 1967. J. Harmatta, “Darius’ Expedition against the Sakā tigraxaudā,“ in J. Harmatta, ed., Studies in the Sources on the History of Pre-Islamic Central Asia, Budapest, 1979, pp. 19-28. W. B. Henning, Zoroaster. Politician or Witch-Doctor?, London, 1951. Idem, “The Choresmian Documents,” Asia Major, N.S. 11, 1965, pp. 166-79; repr. in W. B. Henning. Selected Papers II, Acta Iranica 15, 1977, pp. 645-58. W. Hinz, Zarathustra, Stuttgart, 1961. A. M. Hocart, Kings and Councillors, Cairo, 1936. H. Humbach, “About Gōpatšāh, His Country, and the Khwarezmian Hypoth­esis,” Papers in Honour of Professor Mary Boyce, Acta Iranica 10, Leiden, 1985, pp. 327-34. M. A. Itina, Istoriya stepnykh plemen Yuzhnogo Priaral’ya (History of nomadic tribes of the southern Aral region), Trudy Khorezmskoĭ arkheologo-ètnograficheskoĭ ekspeditsii 10, Moscow, 1977. H. Kiepert, Lehrbuch der alten Geographie, Berlin, 1878. P. Lerch, “Khiva oder Khârezm. Seine historischen und geographischen Verhältnissen, Russische revue 2, 1873, pp. 445-84, 565-79. V. A. Livshits, “Khorezmiĭskiĭ kalendar’ i èry drevnego Khorezma” (The Chorasmian calendar and the eras of ancient Chorasmia), Palestinskiĭ sbornik 21 (84), 1970, pp. 161-69. Idem, “Dokumenty” (Docu­ments), in Yu. A. Rapoport and E. E. Nerazik, eds., Toprak-kala. Dvorets (Toprak-kala. The palace), Trudy Khorezmskoĭ arkheologo-ètnograficheskoĭ èkspeditsii 14, Moscow, 1984, pp. 251-86. Idem and M. M. Mambetullaev, “Ostrak iz Khumbuz-tepe” (An ostracon from Khumbuz Tepe), in Pamyatniki istorii i literatury Vostoka (Monuments of the history and literature of the Orient) Moscow, 1986. D. N. MacKenzie, “Khwarazmian Language and Literature,” in Camb. Hist. Iran III/2, pp. 1244-49. Idem, “Khwarezmian and Avestan” East and West 38/1-4,1988, pp. 81-92. Yu. P. Manylov, “Biryuzovye vyrabotki VI-V vv. do n.è. v Khorezme” (Turquoise production of the 6th-5th centu­ries b.c. in Chorasmia), Vestnik Karakalpakskogo filiala Akademii Nauk Uzbekskoĭ S.S.R. 1, 1979. J. Marquart, Wehrot und Arang. Untersuchungen zur mythischen und geschichtlichen Landeskunde von Ostiran, Leiden, 1938. O. W. Muscarella, Bronze and Iron. Ancient Near Eastern Artifacts in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988. E. E. Nerazik, Sel’skie poseleniya afrigidskogo Khorezma (Farming settlements of Afrighid Chorasmia), Moscow, 1966. Idem, Sel’skoe zhilishche v Khorezme (I-XIV vv.) (The farming homestead in Chorasmia, 1st-14th centuries), Trudy Khorezmskoĭ arkheologo-ètnograficheskoĭ ekspeditsii 9, Moscow, 1976. Idem and Yu. A. Rapoport, eds., Gorodishche Toprak-kala (The site of Toprak-kala), Trudy Khorezmskoĭ arkheologo-ètnograficheskoĭ èkspeditsii 12, Moscow, 1981. H. S. Nyberg, Die Religionen des alten Irans, Leipzig, 1938. I. V. P’yankov, “"Istoriya Persii" Ktesiya i sredneaziatskie satrapii Akhemenidov v kontse Vv. do n.è.” (“History of Persia” by Ctesias and the Central Asian satrapies of the Achaemenids at the end of the 5th century b.c.), Vestnik drevneĭ istorii 2 (92), 1965, pp. 35-50. Idem, “Khorasmii Gekateya Miletskogo” (The Chorasmians of Hecateus of Miletus), Vestnik drevneĭ istorii 2 (120), 1972, pp. 3-21. Yu. A. Rapoport, Iz istorii religii drevnego Khorezma (Con­cerning the history of the religion of ancient Chorasmia), Trudy Khorezmskoĭ arkheologo-ètnograficheskoĭ èkspeditsii 6, Moscow, 1971. Idem, “Kosmogonicheskiĭ syuzhet na khorezmiĭskikh sosudakh” (The cosmogony theme on Chorasmian vessels), in Srednyaya Aziya v drevnosti i srednevekov’e, Moscow, 1977. Idem, “Svyatilishche vo dvortse na gorodishche Kalaly-gyr I” (The sanctuary in the palace on the site of Kalaly-gyr I), in Proshloe Sredneĭ Azii, Dushanbe, 1987. Idem and M. S. Lapirov-Skoblo, “Raskopki dvortsovogo zdaniya na gorodishche Kalaly-gyr I v 1958 g.” (Excavations of the palace structure on the site of Kalaly-gyr I in 1958), Materialy Khorezmskoĭ arkheologo-ètnograficheskoĭ èkspeditsii 6, Moscow, 1963, pp. 141-56. Yu. A. Rapoport and E. E. Nerazik, eds., Toprak-kola. Dvorets (Toprak-kala. The palace), Trudy Khorezmskoĭ arkheologo-ètnograficheskoĭ èkspeditsii 14, Moscow, 1984. E. Sachau, “Zur Geschichte und Chronologie von Khwârizm,” Sb. der philosophisch-historischen Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna) 73, 1873, pp. 471-506. B. M. Tirmidhi, “Zoroastrians and Their Fire Temples in Iran and Adjoining Countries from the 9th to the 14th Centuries as Gleaned from the Arabic Geographical Works,” Islamic Culture 24/4, 1950, pp. 271-84. S. P. Tolstov, Drevniĭ Khorezm (Ancient Chorasmia), Moscow, 1948a. Idem, Po sledam drevnekhorezmiĭskoĭ tsivilizatsii (On the tracks of ancient Chorasmian civilization), Moscow, 1948b. Idem, Po drevnim del’tam Oksa i Yaksarta (In the ancient deltas of the Oxus and Jaxartes), Moscow, 1962. Idem and V. A. Livshits, “Datirovannye nadpisi na khorezmiĭskikh ossuariyakh s gorodishcha Tok-kala” (Dated inscriptions on Chorasmian ossuaries from the site of Tok-kala), Sovetskaya ètnografiya 1964/2, pp. 50-69. S. P. Tolstov and B. I. Vaĭnberg, eds., Koĭ-Krylgan-kala, Trudy Khorezmskoĭ arkheologo-ètnograficheskoĭ èkspeditsii 5, Moscow, 1967. B. I. Vaĭnberg, Monety drevnego Khorezma (Coins of ancient Chorasmia), Moscow, 1977. Idem, “Pamyatniki kuyusaĭskoĭ kul’tury” (Monuments of the Kuyusaĭ culture), in Kochevniki na granitsakh Khorezma (Nomads on the borders of Chorasmia), Trudy Khorezmskoĭ arkheologo-­ètnograficheskoĭ èkspeditsii 11, Moscow, 1979, pp. 7­-76. N. I. Veselovskiĭ, Ocherk istoriko-geograficheskikh svedeniĭ o Khivinskom khanstve ot drevneĭshikh vremen do nastoyashchego vremeni (An outline of historical­-geographical data on the Khivan khanate from the earliest times to the present), St. Petersburg, 1877. A. V. Vinogradov, Neoliticheskie pamyatniki Khorezma (Neolithic monuments of Chorasmia), Materialy Khorezmskoĭ èkspeditsii 9, Moscow, 1968. Idem, Drevnie okhotniki i rybolovy Sredneaziatskogo mezhdurech’ya (Ancient hunters and fishermen of Cen­tral Asian Mesopotamia), Trudy Khorezmskoĭ arkheologo-ètnograficheskoĭ èkspeditsii 13, Moscow 1981. Idem, S. V. Lopatin, and E. D. Mamedov, “Kyzylkumskaya biryuza” (Kyzylkum turquoise), Sovetskaya ètnografiya 1965/2, pp. 114-34. M. G. Vorob’eva, “Keramika Khorezma antichnogo perioda” (Ceramics of Chorazmia in the ancient period), in Keramika Khorezma, Trudy Khorezmskoĭ arkheologo-­ètnograficheskoĭ èkspeditsii 4, Moscow, 1959, pp. 45­-54. Idem, Dingil’dzhe. Usad’ba I tysiacheletiya do n.è. v drevnem Khorezme (Dingildzhe, a settlement of the 1st millennium b.c. in ancient Chorasmia), Materialy Khorezmskoĭ èkspeditisii 9, Moscow, 1973. G. Walser, Die Völkerschaften auf den Reliefs von Persepolis, Berlin, 1966. L. T. Yablonskiĭ, “K ètnogenezu naselen­iya severnoĭ Turkmenii (Mogil’nik rannesakskogo vremeni Sakar-chaga 3)” (On the ethnogenesis of the northern Turkman people [The early Saka burial site Sakar-chaga 3), Sovetskaya ètnografiya 1986/3, pp. 45-­54.

(Yuri Aleksandrovich Rapoport)

The Islamic history of Ḵᵛārazm, as the name of the region appears in the Arabic and Persian sources, begins with the two invasions of Arab troops under the governor of Khorasan Qotayba b. Moslem Bāhelī in 93/712, who intervened in the region on the pretext of internecine strife among members of the native Afrighid dynasty of ḵᵛārazmšāhs (see āl-e afrǰg). Nevertheless, Islamization cannot have begun there until the following century, when the shahs seem to have abandoned what was presumably Zoroastrianism for Islam; it was in the 3rd/9th century also that the shahs, with their capital at Kāṯ, must have become nominal vassals of the Samanids of Transoxania. The Afrighid line was extinguished in 385/995 by a rival family from the town of Gorgānj, the Maʾmunids (see āl-­e maʾmuᵛn), but the triumph of the latter was short-lived: In 408/1017 they were overthrown by the vigorously expansionist empire of the Turk Maḥmūd of Ghazna. This event marked the end of rule in Ḵᵛārazm by ethnically Iranian shahs; subsequent holders of the ancient title ḵǰᵛārazmšāh were all Turks, either servile or free. At the same time the inevitable process of Turkization that followed establishment of Turkish political and military dominion began in Ḵᵛārazm, as in Transoxania, leading to the eventual submergence of the indigenous Iranian element within the Turkish population and the disappearance of Chorasmian language in favor of Turkish (see iii, below).

Ghaznavid rule in this distant and peripheral province of their empire was also short; when the Ghaznavids lost Khorasan to the invading Saljuq Turks Ḵᵛārazm also became part of the Saljuq empire. At times the province functioned as a springboard for expeditions into the surrounding pagan Turkish steppes, from which merce­nary troops were recruited. The governors were often Turkish slave commanders of the Saljuqs; one of them was Anūštigin Ḡaṛčaʾī, whose son Qoṭb-al-Dīn Moḥammad began in 490/1097 what became in effect a hereditary and largely independent line of ḵǰᵛārazmšāhs. The last of these shahs, Jalāl-al-Dīn Mingburnu (Mengbornī), came up against the Mongol invaders in the early decades of the 7th/13th century, and his defeats and death brought about the complete collapse of what had been an extensive though transient Ḵᵛārazmian empire built up north of the Oxus and in Persia proper by such shahs as Il-Arslan, Tekiš, and ʿAlāʾ-al-Dīn Moḥammad (q.v.).

The end of this dynasty signaled the cessation of official use of the title ḵǰᵛārazmšāh by local rulers and governors there; it persisted only in more informal parlance and usage. Ḵᵛārazm itself came within the Mongol domin­ions. The northern part, including Gorgānj (Orgeṇč, modern Urgench) and the lower Jaxartes region were included in the lands of the Golden Horde, who controlled southern Russia and the Oghuz-Qipchaq steppes for 140 years; the southern part, including Kāṯ (which declined to the status of a mere village) and Khiva (which rose to prominence) fell within the Chaghatayid dominions of Transoxania and Moḡolestān (see chaghatayid dy­nasty). In the later 8th/14th century there arose in Ḵᵛārazm an independent minor dynasty of Qongrat Turks, the Ṣūfīs, but Solaymān Ṣūfī was crushed by Tīmūr in 790/1388 and his capital, Urgeṇč, razed; Ḵᵛārazm thence­forth lost much of its economic, commercial, and cultural vitality and never recovered fully from the Timurid devastations.

The 9th/15th century was a confused one in the history of Ḵᵛārazm. Control of the region was disputed by the Timurids and the Golden Horde, but in 917/1511 it passed to a new, local Uzbek Turkish dynasty, the ʿArabshahids (see ʿarabšāhī) ultimately descended, like their Shaybanid contemporaries in adjacent Transoxania (see central asia vi. in the 10th-12th/16th-18th centuries), from Čengīz Khan’s son Joči. The ʿArabshahids were to rule until the end of the 11th/17th or the early 12th/18th century, at first from Vazīr and Orgeṇč and then from Khiva, controlling territory as far west as the Caspian Sea and maintaining itself against the Shaybanids to the east and south.

After the end of the ʿArabshahids various khans were summoned from the steppes to Khiva, from which they ruled, usually as puppets, while the real power was in the hands of the inaq, or military leader, of the Qongrat tribe. At the beginning of the 12th/18th century relations be­tween the khanate and the expanding power Russia began to assume greater importance; Peter the Great sent an abortive expedition against Khiva in 1129/1717. The Persian military conqueror Nāder Shah occupied Khiva briefly in 1153/1740, and the khanate suffered badly in the later years of the century from depredations by the Yomut Turkman tribes of the Qara Qum desert south of Khiva. In the 13th/19th century Russian imperialism became the dominant threat to the khanate, culminating in a Russian military invasion in 1290/1873, after which a truncated khanate survived as a Russian protectorate for nearly half a century; the last khan, Sayyed ʿAbd-Allāh, lost his throne in Jomādā I/February 1920 in the Bolshevik inva­sion.

Bibliography : For detailed information, see articles on dynasties, rulers, and places referred to in the text. W. Barthold, “A Short History of Turkestan” in Four Studies on the History of Central Asia, tr. V. and T. Minorsky, I, Leiden, 1956, pp. 1-72. Idem “A History of the Turkman People,” in Four Studies on the History of Central Asia, tr. V. and T. Minorsky, III, Leiden, 1962, pp. 75-170. C. E. Bosworth, “Kh^wārazm” in EI² IV, pp. 1060-65. Idem, “Kh^wārazm-Shāhs,” in EI² IV, pp. 1065-68. G. Hambly, ed., Zentralasien, Frankfurt, 1966; tr. as Central Asia, London, 1969. E. Sachau, “Zur Geschichte und Chronologie von Khwarizm,” Sb. der philosophisch-historischen Classe der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna) 73, 1873, pp. 471-506. F. H. Skrine and E. D. Ross, The Heart of Asia. A History of Russian Turkestan and the Central Asian Khanates, London, 1899. Z. V. Togan, “Hârizm,” in İA V/1, pp. 240-57.

(C. Edmund Bosworth)

Chorasmian, the original Iranian language of Chorasmia, is attested at two stages of its development. Old Chorasmian was written in an indigenous script descended from the Aramaic, brought to the region by the administration of the Achaemenid empire and characterized by heter­ography, that is, the occasional writing of Aramaic words to represent the corresponding Chorasmian. It is known earliest from coin inscriptions and documents on wood and parchment from about the end of the 2nd century c.e. and latest from inscriptions on some silver vessels but mainly from ossuary inscriptions of the late 7th century. The paucity of this material, however, and its fragmentary nature do not allow an analysis of the language. Late Chorasmian, written in a modified Arabic script, is attested from the 5th/11th to the 8th/14th centuries, by which time the language was evidently well on the way to disuse, having been superseded by Turkish. The earliest examples have been left by the great Chorasmian scholar Abū Rayḥān Bīrūnī. In his works on chronology and astronomy (ca. 390-418/1000-28) he recorded such calendrical and astronomical terms as some of the tradi­tional names of days, months, feasts, and signs of the zodiac. By far the greater part of the Chorasmian vocabu­lary preserved for us is to be found in the form of interlinear glosses throughout a single manuscript (of ca. 596/1200) of the celebrated Arabic dictionary Moqaddemat al-adab by another native Chorasmian, Zamaḵšarī. Some other manuscripts of the same work contain but a few such glosses. In contrast to these monotonous dictionary entries, the only Chorasmian texts having any life are the 400 odd whole or partial sentences quoted, to illustrate case law, in a series of Arabic law books emanating from Chorasmia: the Yatīmat al-dahr by ʿAlāʾ-al-Dīn Tarjomānī (d. 655/1257), the Monyat al-foqahāʾ by Faḵr-al-Dīn Qobaznī, and an augmented résumé of the latter, the Qonyat al-monya, by Moḵtār Zāhedī Ḡazmīnī (d. 658/1260). The Chorasmian content of the two latter works was gathered into a compendium by Jamāl-al-Dīn ʿEmādī in ca. 755/1354. Whereas the dictionary material is unvoweled, and to some extent even unpointed, that in the different manuscripts of the law books, though often badly corrupted by scribes ignorant of Cborasmian, is frequently voweled, often unreliably. In general, there­fore, it is possible to represent the language only in unvocalized transliteration.

Orthography and phonology. Apart from the Arabic emphatics ṭ, ḍ, ż, ṣ, ẓ and the postvelars q, ḥ, ʿ, the pronunciation of which is unknown, it can be assumed that Chorasmian had the following consonant phonemes: p, t, c (= ts), k; f, θ (= ṯ), č, x; b, d, j (= dz), g; β (= ḇ), ’ (= ḏ), ǰ, γ (= ḡ); m, n; s, š, z, `; r, l; w, y. Beside the normal Persian additions to the Arabic alphabet, β was written as a three-­pointed f. The θ and ’ coincided with the Arabic letters ṯ and ḏ respectively. The j was not distinguished in writing from c, both being written with three dots above the letter ḥ (as formerly in Pashto). The g was only very excep­tionally distinguished from k. The letter n was especially labile, often being omitted in final position after a long vowel, e.g., δyn or ’y “woman,” and elsewhere alternating with y, suggesting its reduction to a nasalized i, e.g., βndk or βydk [*βidik] “servant.” The sign šadda (here, overlining), aside from its normal marking of geminate consonants, as in ḥaqˊ “right,” evidently had another function, possibly of marking a preceding stress, in such words as byzˊʾr (Pers. bīzār) “free,” ʾxsˊd = ʾxzd [*uxuzda] “600.” The letters w and y, beside representing the semi­vowels, the long vowels ū/ō, ī/ē, and possibly the diphthongs aw, ay, were occasionally also written for short *u, i, e.g., tymˊwm for Aram. tymˊm, ʾwzʾc [*uzāci] “he should go out” < *uzyāti. A special application was in the pecu­liarity, unique to Chorasmian among Iranian languages, of distinguishing pause spellings of words, generally when they occurred at the ends of sentences. Then a short vowel preceding the last consonant would be written y thus mkd [*makida] “he did” became mkyd, βndk became βndyk, kb [*kaba] “fish” became kyb. The short vowels a, i, mainly unwritten in final position, were represented by the matres lectionis ʾ, y when followed by suffixes, e.g., in pause γwnyc [*γōnici] “hair” but γwncyh [*γōnici-hi] “his hair”; kʾnbʾwydʾh [*kāmbāwīda-hi] “he lessened it,” but kʾnbʾwydʾhyc [-hi-ca] “he lessened (it) from him.”

The historical phonology exhibits some Eastern Iranian features. Old Iranian b, d, g became β, ’, γ in both initial and postvocalic positions, for example, βʾγk “garden” < *bāgaka-, δyn “religion” < dainā-, (ʾ)γδ “wound” < *gadā-. The ’ was sometimes replaced by θ, however, as

in θ- “with” < hada, nyθ- “to sit, become” < *nihida-, mθx “locust” < ma’axa-. Corresponding to Western Iranian ft, xt the voiced groups βd, γd occur, e.g., ʾβd “seven,” ’γd “daughter,” but also the voiceless, e.g., kftk “split,” rxtk “red.” Old Iranian č generally became c, e.g., cm “eye” < čašman-, c- “from” < hačā, probably voiced in pnc “five” < paṇča, whereas ǰ and ` became z, e.g., zyw- “to live” < ǰīwa-, wzn- “to kill” < awaǰana-, yyz “snake” < aži-. There are many examples of differing developments of certain sounds, suggesting either a mixture of dialects or the adoption of loanwords from several neighboring languages. For example, θr appears as š in šy “three” (as in Sogdian) and in ʾwš “shoe” < *auθrā-, as hr in hr’s “thirteen” (as in Parthian), but otherwise as r in ʾrcyʾdk “third” < *θritiya-yāta-, pr “son” < puθra-, etc.; fr became š in šmʾh- “to command” < *framāya-, etc., r in rxyz- “to arise, occur” < *frahaiza-, etc., f- in (ʾ)fy “dear” < friya-, etc., but was retained in frwf “flea” < *fruša-, wfrk “snow” < *wafraka-, etc. The notably different developments of š, however, are rather due to the replacement of a lost `, e.g., xnw- “to sneeze” < *x(š)nauša-, but mwf “mouse,” γwx “ear,” spʾh “louse” (Pers. mūš, gūš, šepeš-), etc. Palatal­ization, even at a distance, had a considerable effect on consonant development. Whereas -t- was normally voiced, as in ʾdr “fire,” etc. (or occasionally preserved, as in kʾt “game”), it was palatalized to c, e.g., cyγ “blade,” Pers. tīḡ, cy- “to enter” < *ati-iya-, ’βcy “second” < dwitiya-; d became z, instead of unpalatalized ’, e.g., zyw “mad” < daiwya-, zrzy “heart” < zṛdaya-; š was kept voiceless and sibilant, as -s-, in ṇγws- “to hear” < nigaušaya-, ʾws “sense, understanding” < uši-, etc. An r context had a palatalizing effect on sibilants, e.g., in ʾnbš- “to ask” < *ham-pṛsa-, βžk “long” < *bṛzaka-, ʾ`nd “worthy” < *arǰant-, and also on t, e.g., čfk “sour” < *tṛfšaka-, and *c < ti, e.g. čγr “sharp” < tigra-. The development of other consonant groups is far too varied to allow the estab­lishment of general patterns.

Morphology. In the Chorasmian nominal declension two numbers, singular and plural; two grammatical genders, masculine and feminine; and as many as six cases are distinguished. As the distinctions are mainly marked by final short vowels, however, they make an appearance only in the few voweled texts and otherwise when a suffix is attached to the word. Then the matres lectionis betray their presence. Chorasmian (like Digoron Ossetic) has a definite article inherited from the Old Iranian relative pronoun stem ya-; it has the forms singular masculine ʾy and feminine yʾ, plural -ʾy for both genders, which are reduced to -y and -ʾ when coalescing with prepositions. Masculine nouns and adjectives have the following inflections in the singular: nominative-accusative -Ø (no ending), vocative -a, possessive -ʾn, dative -(i), ablative and locative -a. In the feminine declension, with nomi­native and locative ending in -a, the other cases end in -iya in the singular or, with words ending in -ka, -ca. The plural morphemes are -ina or -i, possessive -nʾn. In masculine words ending in -k it changes to -ci in the plural and in feminine words to -cya. The dative, as well as a definite direct object, may be marked by the postposition δʾr (< rādi, Pers. rā). The ablative is used with the prepositions c- ­“from,” f- “with,” pc- “after,” pš- “after” and “near, be­fore,” and wsn “for, because of,” and the locative with f- “in,” p- “for, at” and pr “on.” Examples: masc. sing. nom. ʾy ‘wm-h [*’um-hi] “its tail,” nom. = acc. ʾy kʾm-h [*kām­-hi] “his mouth,” voc. ʾbʾb [a bāba] “O father,” poss. ʾy γwnc ʾy ‘wmʾn “the hair of the tail,” dat. ʾy nʾnʾmδʾr [nānāmi ‘āra] “for so-and-so,” ʾy bʾbd δʾr [*bāb(i)-di ‘āra], abl. cy kʾmʾ-­h “from his mouth,” loc. fy kʾmʾ-h “in his mouth,” fem. sing. nom. -yʾksncʾ`yk “the thick (ksnk) beard,” yʾcmʾ-­h “his eye (cm),” yʾrkʾ-h “his work (ʾrk),” poss. ʾy spydk yʾ cmyʾ-h “the white of his eye,” dat. yʾ cmyʾ-h δʾr “his eye,” yʾrc δʾr “for the work,” abl. cʾ cmyʾ-h “from his eye,” loc. fʾ bckʾ-h “in the palm (bck) of his hand”; plur. masc. nom. ʾyfsγdy-mhʾwǰrn “my true (fsγd) friends (hʾwǰr),” zncǰʾnwrn “small (znk) animals, insects,” abl. cy ʿyʾln “from his family-members,” fy βndcy-h “with His servants (βndk),” loc. f-ktnʾ-h “on his actions (ʾkt)”; fem. nom. ʾy cmnʾ-h “his eyes,” βžcy ʾsčn “long (βžk) spears (ʾšc),” poss. *ʾy bfnynk ʾy *βwmnʾn “the Creator of the earths (βwm)”, abl. cy ʾyx ­myncyʾ-h cwb “from her iced (-mynk) water” (collective plur.). All prepositions are repeated with both parts of a possessive phrase, e.g., cy bʾ’ys cy ʾllhʾn “from the com­mand of Allah,” fy pcwγcc fy kʾmʾn “in the corners of the mouth.” The personal pronouns ʾʾz, nʾz “I,” ʾ(w)tk “thou,” mβy “we,” ḥβy “you” are also highly inflected, e.g., twʾr δʾr “for thee,” b-twʾ-c “without thee,” and in enclitic form -fʾ “thee,” -fʾn-bš “with thee,” c-fyk “from, than thee (in pause),” -di “to thee, thy.” The demonstratives ny(n), nʾw, nyš “this,” nʾn, nʾwr “that, he, she” share the oblique enclitic forms -h(y) “him, her, it,” -(hy)n(ʾ) “them” only.

The verbal system distinguishes, by means of different stems and personal endings, the following moods and tenses: imperative; present indicative and subjunctive, in both simple and permansive forms; injunctive; imperfect indicative; optative; perfect and pluperfect. Futures and conditionals are formed by means of the suffixes -kʾm and -mnc- with the present and imperfect forms respectively. In the formation of the imperfect from the present stem Chorasmian, like the neighboring Sogdian, has general­ized special forms of the old augment. On the analogy of verbs formed with preverbs, like b- < apa-, api-, β- < abi-, pc- < pati-, š- < fra-, nearly all polysyllabic verbs with initial consonant substitute -ā- for the vowel of the first syllable, e.g., bγws “be silent!” : bʾγwsyd “he was silent,” pcmcʾ “I should put on” : pʾcmcd “he put on,” škšyx “if you should look” : šʾkšt “he looked,” but also kʾnbʾwydʾ-h “he diminished it,” denominative from knb “little.” Verbs with initial vowel, original or prothetic, generally prefix m- to this, e.g., ʾs-kʾm “you will come” : mʾsd “he came,” ʾkcʾ “he makes” : mkd “he made.” Compound tenses, formed with the auxiliary δʾry- “have,” are only very sparsely attested, e.g., ʾydk (past participle of ʾy- “go”) δʾryd “she had gone.” A potential is also similarly formed with ʾk- as auxiliary, e.g. n-yt-kyc “he would not be able to take” (ʾyt participle of ʾs- “take”). Notable among the personal endings are the third person plural forms in -r (pres. -āri, imperf. -āra, opt. -yr) and the permansives marked by suffixation to the simple forms, e.g., pres. indic. sing. 1 -ʾm, 2 -Ø, 3 -c, plur. 1 -mn, 2 -f, 3 -ʾr : perm. sing. 1 -ʾmyn, 2 -y(n), 3 -cʾ(nw), plur. 1 -ʾmny, 2 *-fy, 3 -ʾry(n).

The most noticeable syntactic feature to be observed in the comparatively simple sentences recorded is that of anticipation. Pronominal objects of verb or preposition are expressed by an enclitic pronoun attached either to a word preceding the verb or to the verb itself, whereby more enclitics than one appear in a fixed order of prece­dence, e.g., ʾ-mʾpʾsndyx “did you approve of me,” ʾʾzfʾ-ms pʾcrʾzn “I too (have) accepted thee,” pr xrk nʾwʾzyd “he led them to pasture,” tʾxt hynʾ-br mkyd “he made an attack on them,” γyrydʾ-hy-nʾ-br “he surrounded him with them” (lit. “caused to go round-him-them-on”). When the object is expressed by a noun following the verb, this anticipa­tory pronominal appearance must be maintained, e.g., mγwʾrydʾ-hy-nʾ-br ʾy ‘mn “he rejoiced (-it-them-on) the enemy (plur.) thereby.” Prepositional phrases may also be expressed by anticipatory enclitics, as in pʾrytʾ-nʾ-c ʾy cwb cʾ βwmy “he extracted (-them-there from) the water (plur.) from the earth,” mxwʾsdʾ-nʾ-w fy rzk ʾy cwb “he let (-them-therein) the water into the vineyard.” Other, verbal particles may further complicate the pattern of enclitics, e.g., -dʾ- in hy’dʾ-hy-nʾ-dʾ-br ʾy slʾm “he recited the greetings before him” (lit. “read-him-them-off-upon”).

Bibliography : J. Benzing, Das chwaresmische Sprachmaterial einer Handschrift der “Muqaddimat al-adab” von Zamaxšarī, Wiesbaden, 1968 (with full bibliography to date. Idem, Chwaresmischer Wortindex, ed. Z. Taraf, Wiesbaden, 1983 (with full additional bibliography to date). W. B. Henning, “The Khwarezmian Language,” in Zeki Velidi Togan’a armağan, Istanbul, 1951 (1955), pp. 421-36. Idem, “The Structure of the Khwarezmian Verb,” Asia Major, N.S. 5, 1955, pp. 43-49. Idem, “The Choresmian Documents,” Asia Major, N.S. 11, 1965, pp. 166-79. Idem, A Fragment of a Khwarezmian Dictionary, ed. D. N. MacKenzie, London, 1971. H. Humbach, “Choresmian,” in R. Schmitt, ed., Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, Wiesbaden, 1989, pp. **. V. A. Livshits, “Dokumenty” (Documents), in Yu. A. Rapoport and E. E. Nerazik, eds., Toprak-kala. Dvorets, (Toprak-kala. The palace), Trudy Khorezmskoĭ arkheologo-ètnograficheskoĭ èkspeditsii 14, Moscow 1984, chap. 6. D. N. MacKenzie, Review of Benzing, 1968, in BSOAS 33, 1970, pp. 540-59; 34, 1971, pp. 74-90, 314-30, 521-­37; 35, 1972, pp. 56-73. Idem, “Khwarezmian Imper­fect Stems,” in Mélanges linguistiques offerts à Émile Benveniste, Louvain, 1975, pp. 389-95. Idem, The Khwarezmian Element in the Qunyat al-munya, Lon­don, 1990. M. Samadi, Das chwaresmische Verbum, Wiesbaden, 1986 (review D. N. MacKenzie, in JRAS, 1988, pp. 197-99; review N. Sims-Williams, “New Studies on the Verbal System of Old and Middle Ira­nian,” BSOAS 52/2, 1989, pp. 255-64). Z. V. Togan, Documents on Khorezmian Culture, pt. 1. Muqaddimat al-adab, with the Translation in Khorezmian, Istanbul, 1951.

(D. N. MacKenzie)