Читать книгу A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire, 2 Volume Set - Группа авторов - Страница 166

The Central Asian components of the Achaemenid Empire appear as a heterogeneous synthesis of cultural, social, economic, and political trends. The unity of the region as a part of this empire is more difficult to identify since the real marks of the Persian civilization symbolized by Persepolitan features are scarcely distributed in the archeological material. However, the cohesion is real. Beyond its Iranian roots, the Central Asian area has mainly inherited its cultural frame from a long process which can be stressed in three cultural steps: the first, formed during the Bronze Age, is represented by the so‐called “Oxus Civilization” or “Bactriana‐Margiana Archaeological Complex” (BMAC), which interacted during the second millennium BCE with the “steppic” Andronovo culture. Into the same geographical frame, this period was succeeded during the second half of the second millennium BCE by a first step of the Iron Age characterized by a process of renewal of the architecture, the funeral customs, and the material culture. This new “entity” is known, among others, under the general name of “Yaz I” culture, according to the chronological scale established on the base of the excavation of the homonymous site of Yaz‐depe in Turkmenistan. This period is characterized by the distribution of a handmade pottery with a painted geometric decoration and some gray ware. Whilst the large palaces and sanctuaries proper to the Bronze Age are absent at the beginning of the Iron Age, several settlements are erected on platforms or natural terraces.

Before the arrival of the Achaemenids, the so‐called “Yaz II” period (c. ninth to sixth centuries BCE) is marked by an increase in wheel‐made pottery and the diffusion of real iron objects. This period is more than transitional, since it is documented with new fortified centers dominated by monumental architecture (Ulug‐depe I, Koktepe II, and Sangir‐tepe II, etc.; dating is not sure for El’ken‐depe III, Talashkan I). While irrigation generally developed from the Bronze Age onward, it is not clear to what extent some centers such as in Zeravshan then related to the ancient irrigation programs identified through the surveys.

As for the preceding periods, the few historical facts relating to the Achaemenid rule (“Yaz III” period) do not coincide with a visible transformation dated by direct Achaemenid cultural features. The strength of the regional traditions is represented, for instance, by the continuation of wheel‐made cylindro‐conical pottery, while the shapes linked to proper Persia are limited to very scarce vessels (Lyonnet 1997). The integration in the Achaemenid Empire was realized mainly through the local nobility.

Besides the fact that it must extend to other regions inside and outside of the empire, the study of this period cannot ignore the influences the Achaemenid presence exercised in the later historical phases among its Parthian, Graeco‐Bactrian, and Chorasmian successors, as well as during the still later Kushan and Sogdian periods.