Читать книгу A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire, 2 Volume Set - Группа авторов - Страница 165

The region is shared between sedentary populations dwelling along a net of irrigated oases and agro‐pastoral and nomadic populations aligned along the foothills or in the large steppic areas bounding the oases.

To the west, the Parthian and Margian territories stretched between the Kopet Dagh and the Kara‐kum desert encircling the Murghab delta, while to the northwest, on the delta of the Amu‐darya between the desert and the Aral sea, Chorasmia constituted a deeply sedentarized peripheral extension of the empire (Kidd and Betts 2010). To the east, along the Oxus frontier (Wakhsh river and Amu‐darya), Bactria and southern Sogdiana formed a densely inhabited area (the “Bactro‐Sogdian depression”) centered on Bactra. To the northeast, the natural resources of the Zeravshan enriched Samarkand, one of the largest cities of the empire. Beyond Sogdiana, between the Tamerlan's Gates and the Syr‐darya/Iaxartes frontier, the Scythian satrapies (Saka Tigraxauda and Haumavarga) acted from the Aral to the Pamirs as an intermediary over the trans‐Asiatic steppic belt (the Massagetes cannot be clearly located, however).

The deserts and the mountain ranges did not constitute any barrier for international contact. Several passes across the Hindukush connected the Oxus basin with the Indian world through the crossroads of Kapisa/Begram (future Alexandria on the Caucasus). Among the passes that crossed the Hissar and Alai ranges to the north, the Sogdian Iron Gates near Derbent (Rapin 2018) were the easiest way between Bactra and Maracanda/Samarkand.

The data relating to the occupation of the territory and its economic and administrative organization rely mainly on surveys and excavations (Koshelenko 1985; Francfort 2005; Lo Muzio 2017). Particular attention has been devoted to the irrigation development from the Bronze Age in Afghanistan (see the French researches in northeastern Afghanistan) and in the Central Asian republics (Francfort and Lecomte 2002). Besides the agricultural and pastoral economy, the region was inserted in the international system of exchanges thanks to its precious mineral deposits (see, for instance, the decoration of the palace of Darius at Susa or the luxurious tableware made of stones of eastern origin). In fact, the local excavations have provided rare testimonies of luxurious productions since the jewelry used mainly gold (see infra the treasures of the Oxus, of Mir‐Zakah 2, and of Takht‐i Sangin). The Achaemenid commercial exchanges seem to have been rather limited. To the north, along the lower Syr‐darya, in Kazakhstan and Russia, precious merchandises dating to the very end of the Achaemenid or the beginning of the Hellenistic period are concentrated in the aristocratic burials of the upper classes of the nomad population shattered from the Ural to Altai and Siberia (see Francfort 2005, 2013). Even at the end of the Achaemenid period, the scarcity of coin finds to the north of the Hindukush shows that, in contrast to the Indian world, these regions were less monetarized, a situation which lasted until the Hellenistic period.