Roads and Kingdoms: Two Encounters With the Nazarenes Beyond the River 9789004527522, 9789004527539, 9004527524

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
Figures and Tables
Abbreviations
Note on Orthography
The Monastery in Urgut
1 Res ipsa loquitur
1.1 First Landmark
1.2 Second Landmark
1.3 Urgut Obscured
1.4 Urgut Explained
2 Searching for Evidence
3 Closing the Books
3.1 The Rock
3.2 The Gorge
3.3 The Cross
3.4 The Scene
4 Hunting the Thimble
5 Urgut Unearthed
5.1 Monastic Compound
5.2 Hermits’ Caves
5.3 Reconstruction
5.4 Finds
6 The Timeline
6.1 Terminus post quem
6.2 Terminus ante quem
6.3 Cemetery
7 Whence and Whither
7.1 From al-ʿIrāq to Urgut
7.2 From Urgut to Panjikent
7.3 From Urgut to Samarkand
7.4 The Urgut Side
7.5 The Bukhara Side
7.6 Priest’s Daughter
The Village in Chach
1 Res ipsa loquitur
2 Sound and Sense
2.1 ويش
2.2 كرد
3 Closing the Books
4 Hunting the Thimble
5 The Environs
5.1 Chach and Ilaq
5.2 Ferghana
Appendix
Concordance of the Variant Readings
Discussed in the Text
Works Cited
Index of Geographical Names

Citation preview

Roads and Kingdoms

Eastern Christian Studies Volume 32

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ecs

Roads and Kingdoms Two Encounters with the Nazarenes beyond the River

By

Alexei Savchenko

LEIDEN | BOSTON

The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at https://catalog.loc.gov LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022043950

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. issn 1783-7154 isbn 978-90-04-52752-2 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-52753-9 (e-book) Copyright 2023 by Alexei Savchenko. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Hotei, Brill Schöningh, Brill Fink, Brill mentis, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Böhlau, V&R unipress and Wageningen Academic. Koninklijke Brill NV reserves the right to protect this publication against unauthorized use. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

To my wife Olga, architect at the East Sogdian Archaeological Expedition, and my companion on every road.

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Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken

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Contents Preface ix List of Figures and Tables x Abbreviations xv Note on Orthography xxi 1 The Monastery in Urgut 1 Res ipsa loquitur 1 1.1 First Landmark 4 1.2 Second Landmark 7 1.3 Urgut Obscured 9 1.4 Urgut Explained 12 2 Searching for Evidence 14 3 Closing the Books 24 3.1 The Rock 25 3.2 The Gorge 27 3.3 The Cross 27 3.4 The Scene 27 4 Hunting the Thimble 28 5 Urgut Unearthed 35 5.1 Monastic Compound 36 5.2 Hermits’ Caves 61 5.3 Reconstruction 61 5.4 Finds 69 6 The Timeline 86 6.1 Terminus post quem 86 6.2 Terminus ante quem 89 6.3 Cemetery 97 7 Whence and Whither 104 7.1 From al-ʿIrāq to Urgut 104 7.2 From Urgut to Panjikent 108 7.3 From Urgut to Samarkand 114 7.4 The Urgut Side 126 7.5 The Bukhara Side 135 7.6 Priest’s Daughter 141

viii

Contents

2 The Village in Chach Res ipsa loquitur 143 1 2 Sound and Sense 151‫يو‬ 3 Closing the Books 158 4 Hunting the Thimble 159 5 The Environs 167 5.1 Chach and Ilaq 167 5.2 Ferghana 185 Appendix 189 Concordance of the Variant Readings Discussed in the Text 210 Works Cited 218 Index of Geographical Names 232

Preface The subject of this research are two Christian enclaves in Central Asia, described by Arab travellers and geographers who visited them in the tenth century. One is a monastery in the mountains near Samarkand, the other—a village on the bank of the Syr Darya in the Tashkent oasis. Ironically, both places had been well-known to the academic community long before the author started his investigations. They have figured in all studies dealing with the history of Christianity in Central Asia since the publication of the mediaeval chronicles late in the nineteenth century; however, their exact location was never established. My study has revealed that the place names identifying the location of each site were corrupted as scribe after scribe copied the Arabic and Persian manuscripts. As soon as credible forms were distilled from the list of variant readings, it became possible to narrow the search area to limited and surveyable territory and to proceed to fieldwork. Additional traces of the monastery’s existence were retrieved, scattered among several museums and libraries in different countries and in the foothills of the Northern Pamirs. After several reconnaissance surveys revealed traces of human occupation and building remains, full archaeological investigations brought to light a major Christian stronghold between Merv and Turfan. While the mediaeval authors described the monastery in much detail, they supplied no information about the village except its name; no additional material has survived, either. Consequently, the result of the second enquiry is less definite; still I hope it would save the future researcher from starting afresh. My work had been envisaged as a solution to one specific problem of Eastern Christian Studies. On closer scrutiny, that problem appeared to be a tangle of discrete questions which had to be addressed alongside the main matter. Gradually, the area under investigation grew from one valley in Urgut to the southern part of the Samarkand province and from the few kilometres between Chinaz and the Syr Darya to the Tashkent oasis and adjacent part of Kazakhstan. Those spaces had to be studied with the same operational resources allocated to the expedition at the outset. As a result, several questions that arose in the research process have remained unanswered, despite my best efforts. That leaves me to reiterate this note to the reader by the founder of Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum, whom I will invoke many more times in the following pages: lectorem rogatum velim ut nusquam negligat conferre addenda et emendanda.1 1 BGA, Praefatio to vol. IV, VIII.

Figures and Tables Figures 1 2 3 4

5

6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

17 18

Part of ‘Samarkand’ 1:250.000, U.S. Army Map Service, NJ 42–1 Series № 502, Washington, D.C. 1952 6 Stages of corruption of the transmitted text 8 Bronze censer from Urgut and its bottom. Photo by Nikolay Tikhomirov †, ЛАФОКИ 15 Only this gravestone has survived, N-310, Ashkhabad National Museum of History. Image courtesy of Mrs Nurgozel Beshimova, Head of the Archaeology Department. Photo by V. Artemyev, architect at the Merv International Project, upon my request 16 Leon Barszczewski with his collection in Samarkand. Photo from the private archive of Igor Strojecki, Col. Barszczewski’s great-grandson and biographer, to whom I convey my sincere thanks 18 Stone cross accidentally found in Urgut 20 Aleksey Kaplunov, director of the Historical Museum in Samarkand, with a local guide near the Red Rock in Urgut. Photo by V.I. Kotovsky 1936, negative courtesy of the Archive, the same Museum, contact print by V. Grachenko 22 The Red Rock in Sufiyan, Upper Urgut, with a small grotto on top unnoticed in 1940 23 Syriac inscriptions in the grotto 24 Carved signs seen by M. Masson in 1929 on approach to the Red Rock, now missing. From Массон, Происхождение, 51 27 Mr Jabbar Rashidov of Urgut, who was the first to see the cave inscriptions in 1955 28 View of the Zarafshan Valley from Upper Urgut, facing north 29 Headwaters of the Urgut Say in April 30 Effects of a sel. Lower Urgut, spring 2004 31 A street in Upper Urgut 31 Aerial view of Sulayman Tepa and its environs facing south. Google Earth Pro 7.3.2.5776, 39°22′37.64″ N, 67°14′29.86″ E, eye altitude 2.00 km, viewed 09.13.2019 33 The western face of Sulayman Tepa before the excavations 34 General view over the monastic and the parish churches, facing east 37

Figures and Tables 19

xi

Ground plan of the compound. Topographic plotting by Gennady Ivanov 38 20 Sectional plan 1-1 40 21 Sectional plan 2-2 40 22 Foundation of the western main wall 42 23 Remains of the dome over the parish church’s chancel 46 24 Idealised plan of the monastery building 47 25 Narthex with a stoup 48 Entrance to the monastic church, view from inside 49 26 Threshold, fallen arch removed 50 27 28 Niches in the southern wall of the monastic church 50 Chancel of the monastic church 52 29 Lectern 52 30 31 Altar 53 32 Refectory 54 South-east corner of the refectory 54 33 34 Kitchen, facing east 55 Chancel of the parish church 57 35 36 Stucco fragment from the parish church’s chancel 58 Trimmed pottery fragment with a drilled hole, embedded in the floor of 37 the parish church by the northern wall 58 38 Trimmed brick of a non-standard shape, embedded in the floor of the parish church by the northern wall 59 Top of the wine cellar 59 39 Wine cellar, stone sealing 60 40 Wine cellar, floor 60 41 42 Mount Allahyarhan at close distance, looking from the south 62 Cave 1 63 43 Cave 2 63 44 45 Cave 3 64 Irrigation tunnels. The lower Magian Darya, Northern Tajikistan 65 46 47 Ground plan of Sulayman Tepa with the adjacent area 68 Drawing of the church tower on a wall of Cave 1 69 48 View of the monastery from Cave 1 70 49 50 Fragment of a ceramic stand 71 51 Niche in the wall of the chancel 71 Bowl with a lid with handle, twelfth century 72 52 Glazed ceramic tile 74 53 Soapstone lamp 74 54

xii

Figures and Tables

55 56

The iron cross 75 Glazed lantern, end of the twelfth–beginning of the thirteenth century 75 a) Ninth century; b), c), d): tenth century 76 a): End of the tenth–beginning of the eleventh century; b), c), d): eleventh century 77 Twelfth century 78 Twelfth century 79 a) Twelfth century: b), c): end of the twelfth–beginning of the thirteenth century; d) thirteenth century 80 End of the eighth–first half of the ninth century 81 a), b): Middle of the ninth–second half of the ninth century; c), d): tenth century 82 Samples of metalwork 83 Engraved bronze plate 84 Animal footprints: a) bear (Ursus sp.); b) domestic dog (Canis familiaris); c) fox (Vulpes vulpes or Vulpes cana); d) porcupine (Hystrix indica); e) snow leopard (Uncia uncia); f) wolf (Canis lupus) 85 Radiocarbon dating by Dr A.I. Sementsov and Dr S.L. Vartanyan, Radiocarbon Laboratory, St. Petersburg Archaeological Institute 87 Pottery from the top of the wine cellar 90 Dating materials from tree different contexts 91 Cooking pot inserted into the floor. The findspot is marked with a dashed circle at Figure 18 92 A-308-1, Samarkand Historical Museum, filed off from the Red Rock in Urgut in 1936 93 Timurlan Khaliqov dit Timur Bobo, chronicler, sorcerer and storyteller 99 The oldest plane tree in Urgut that once housed a Muslim elementary school (maktab); c: Photo taken by Leon Barszczewski in 1895, courtesy of Igor Strojecki 102 Map of the Gulbagh Valley. Local toponymy established with the help of Mr Alimardon Ghaffarov of Sufiyan, Upper Urgut 103 Ceramic mould for casting crosses from Arbinjan 107 Ruins of Arbinjan with the Narpay (ancient Fay) in the foreground 107 Stamped brick from the excavations in Urgut 109 Plan of Ghus with the remains of Kuk Tepa 109 Red-clay pot found in Ghus 110 Pottery collected from Kuk Tepa in Ghus 111

57 58 59 a–f 60 a–c 61 62 a–e 63 64 65 66

67 68 69 70 71 a–b 72 73 a–b

74 75 a–b 76 77 78 79 80

Figures and Tables 81

82 83

84 85

86

87 88 89 90 91

92

93 94

95 96 97 a–b 98 99 100 101

xiii

Densely populated area along the road from Samarkand to Urgut. Sites surveyed and mapped in 2004–2006 without archaeological intervention. 115 Dulta Tepa near Navzandak 116 a): Part of the map of Samarkand 1:60.000, Karl Baedeker, Russia with Teheran, Port Arthur, and Peking: handbook for travellers, Leipzig 1914, 517. Cartographer: Wagner & Debes; b): Chakardiza, based on OpenStreetMap (ODbL), © mapz.com 2021 120 A working watermill on a canal in Panjikent, Tajikistan 129 Cross sewn upon dress, 1072 М4, КП 38912, the Oriental Museum, Moscow. 7 × 6.5 cm, weight 5.05 g, millesimal fineness 800. Photo by I.V. Ksenofontova †, courtesy of the Oriental Museum, published under the Permission of 29.01.2009 136 An Evenki shaman, 1910. The bottom part of the garment is decorated with Manichaean-style crosses. Photo by D.K. Solovyёv, courtesy of the Ethnography Museum in St. Petersburg, published under the Permission РЭМ 5002-85/1 of 18.12.2021 140 Bactrian camels in their typical habitat. Ayaqaghytma Depression, Qyzyl Qum Desert, 90 km north of Bukhara 150 Typical landscape near ancient Usturkath 150 Stages of corruption of the transmitted text 152 Marguzor mountain area in the south-southeast of Panjikent, Tajikistan. Altitude c. 2000 m a.s.l. 156 Fragment of the Карта Голодной степи Ходжентского уезда Самаркандской области, с окрестностями, ПУГУЗЗ, St. Petersburg 1914, 1:525.000 165 NASA Photo ID: ISS032-E-024907.NEF, courtesy of the Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. Colour corrected 166 Map accompanying Ilkin’s account with Ujakent on it 169 Map showing sites mentioned in the text. Based on Оросительная система реки Чирчик Ташкентского уезда, Сыр-дарьинской области, ПУГУЗЗ 1910 175 Copper coin of a Turkic ruler found at Qanqa 176 Qarshovul Tepa, facing north 184 Kettle with a scratched cross from Qarshovul Tepa 184 Bronze cross found at Qarshovul Tepa 185 Bowl for ritual hand washing from Andijan 186 Lid of a large vessel from Rishtan. Photo by Gennady Ivanov 186 Bronze cross from Quva. Photo by Gennady Ivanov 187

xiv

Figures and Tables

102 Stages of corruption of the transmitted text 191 103 Qurghan Tepa in the centre of the map J-42-15-V-b-3, 1:10 000, ТУГШ ВС СССР 1989 199 104 The monastery in Aq Beshim. Ground plan from Семёнов, Раскопки 1996–1998 гг., 45, fig. 2. Room numbers added 200 105 Wearable cross, Mary Museum, Turkmenistan. The circular pattern is identical to that on the shale cross from Urgut. Photo by Hans Birger Nilsen, Wikimedia Commons (commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nestorian_Cross_(31165549337) .jpg). 208 106 Commemorative sign (Kaz. and Mong. tugh—‘flag’) in the form of a four-fingered hand. Early mediaeval site of Vardanze in the north of the Bukhara oasis 208 107 Semantic links of the Sogdian root vēsh in toponymy ­217 108 From left to right: Alexei Savchenko, Olga Zhuravlёva, Gennady Ivanov. Urgut, 2006 217

Tables 1 Place names containing ‘grass’ in Badakhshan 154 2 Common design elements in Urgut and Aq Beshim 205 3 *Anchātkath 211 4 *Ghazkhurt 211 5 *Panāthkath 212 6 Turk (river) 212 7 Ustūrkath 213 8 Vēshkart 214 9 Vēshkart of the Christians 214 10 Vōrkūte 215 11 Derivatives of *kata- in the Pamiri languages and Yaghnobi 215

Abbreviations Languages Ar. Arabic Av. Avestan Az. Azeri Bart. Bartangi Ishk. Ishkashimi Kaz. Kazakh Khufi Khf. Lat. Latin Mong. Mongol Middle Persian MP Old Iranian OI Orosh. Oroshori Oss. Ossetic Par. Parachi Pash. Pashto Pers. Persian Rosh. Roshani Russ. Russian Sangl. Sanglechi Sogd. Sogdian Sh. Shughni Syr. Syriac Taj. Tajik Tk. Turkic Tkm. Turkmen Turk. Turkish Turkis. Turkicised Uzb. Uzbek Wakhi Wa. Wanji Wj. Yghn. Yaghnobi Yzgh. Yazghulami Language is not specified when Uzbek and Tajik use the same word

xvi AA AB AHR AIEO AJSLL ALQ AM AN AOASH APAW AW BAI BEO BGA BJRL BSOAS CII COMSN CSCO CSSH CUP ECR EI EIr EJVS GMS HTR IIFL I JA JAOS JAS JASB JESHO JLR JRAS JSAH

Abbreviations

Publications, Places and Institutions Artibus Asiae Analecta Bollandiana American Historical Review Annales de l’Institut d’Études Orientales American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures Arab Law Quarterly Asia Major Abr-Nahrain Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Antike Welt Bulletin of the Asia Institute Bulletin d’études orientales Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum Bulletin of the John Rylands Library Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum Comparative Oriental Manuscript Studies Newsletter Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium Comparative Studies in Society and History Cambridge University Press Eastern Churches Review Encyclopaedia of Islam (New Edition) Encyclopædia Iranica Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies E.J.W. Gibb Memorial Series Harvard Theological Review G. Morgenstierne, Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages, vol. I: Parachi and Ormuri, Oslo 1929. Journal Asiatique Journal of the American Oriental Society Journal of Asian Studies Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Journal of Language Relationship Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians

Abbreviations

xvii

MAISSP Mémoires de l’Académie impériale des sciences de St. Pétersbourg MME Manuscripts of the Middle East Magyar Őstörténeti Könyvtár MŐK OCA Orientalia Christiana Analecta OS L’Orient Syrien PCGN Permanent Committee on Geographical Names for British Official Use PELOV Publications de l’École des langues orientales vivantes PO Patrologia Orientalis Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities PIASH Rivista degli Studi Orientali RSO SA Scientific American Sitzungsberichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften SAW SB Supplementband SI Studia Iranica Studies on the Inner Asian Languages SIAL School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS SPAW Sitzungsberichte der Preußischen Akademie der Wissenschaften Studi e Testi ST SVNC Scriptorum veterum nova collectio Technology and Culture TC WS Woodbrooke Studies Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft ZDMG Академия наук АН Археологические открытия АО Археологические работы в Таджикистане АРТ Брокгауз и Ефрон Энциклопедический словарь Брокгауза и Ефрона, СПб. 1890–1907. Восточноевропейский археологический журнал ВАЖ Византийский временник ВВ Вестник древней истории ВДИ Вестник ирригации ВИ ВИИСИД Восточное историческое источниковедение и специальные исторические дисциплины Вестник Московского университета ВМУ ВС Восток Свыше ЖМВД Журнал Министерства внутренних дел ЗВОРАО Записки Восточного Отделения русского Археологического Общества Записки института востоковедения Академии наук СССР ЗИВАН Известия Академии наук ИАН

xviii ИИОЛЕАЭ ИМКУ ҚМ КСИА КСИИМК ЛАФОКИ ЛУ МБАЭ МГУ МИА НАА НАН КР НУ ОНУ ПИФК ППВ ПППИКНВ ПС ПТКЛА ПУГУЗЗ РА РТ САГУ СКСО СМССДО СНВ СПб. СТ СЭ ТВ ТГЭ ТИИАЭ

Abbreviations Известия Императорского Общества любителей естествознания, антропологии и этнографии История материальной культуры Узбекистана Қазақстан мектебi Краткие сообщения Института археологии Краткие сообщения о докладах и полевых исследованиях Института истории материальной культуры Лаборатория научно-прикладной фотографии и кинематографии Российской Академии наук Ленин учқуни Материалы Бухарской археологической экспедиции Московский государственный университет Материалы и исследования по археологии СССР Народы Азии и Африки Национальная Академия наук Кыргызской республики Нумизматика Узбекистана Общественные науки в Узбекистане Проблемы истории, филологии, культуры Письменные памятники Востока Письменные памятники и проблемы истории культуры народов Востока Палестинский сборник Протоколы заседаний и сообщения членов Туркестанского Кружка любителей археологии Переселенческое управление Главного управления землеустройства и земледелия Российская археология Русский Туркестан Среднеазиатский государственный университет Справочная книжка Самаркандской области Сборник материалов для статистики Сыр-Дарьинской области Страны и народы Востока Санкт-Петербург Советская тюркология Советская этнография Туркестанские ведомости Труды Государственного Эрмитажа Труды Института истории, археологии и этнографии

Abbreviations ТКАЭЭ ТОВЭ ТСТАЭ ТУГШ ВС УАИ ЭВ

xix

Труды Киргизской археолого-этнографической экспедиции Труды Отдела истории культуры и искусства Востока Государственного Эрмитажа Труды Согдийско-Таджикской археологической экспедиции Топографическое управление Генерального штаба Вооружённых сил Урало-алтайские исследования Эпиграфика Востока

Note on Orthography A book discussing, among other matters, the original sounding of Sogdian place names communicated by a speaker of Persian to an Arab traveller in the Turkic corner of Mawarannahr inevitably has a large number of transliterated words in different languages. Arabic, Persian and Sogdian have enjoyed a long tradition of academic study, so text in those languages is rendered according to the accepted conventions. For Syriac, I follow the Eastern a-pronunciation; for Russian, the transliteration used follows the PCGN conventions; the few Chinese words are written with Pinyin. Compiling the index of geographical names, I encountered a problem with standardising Uzbek place names in the Romanised alphabet. That particularly applies to the spelling principles regarding the common Turkic ö and γ, formerly expressed by ў and ғ in Extended Cyrillic. In the first version of the new alphabet adopted in 1993, the letters for those sounds became ö and ğ. In 1995, they were replaced by o‘ and g‘, supposed to be handwritten as õ and g̃. In 2018, it was proposed to change o‘ to ŏ and g‘ to ğ. One year later, another change was announced: ŏ to ó and ğ to ǵ, and a new reform is currently being planned. In reality, none of those standards has ever been in effect since the additional symbols are missing from the standard computer keyboard. In practice, a surrogate of apostrophe has been used, producing o’ and g’ absent from European orthographies and thus hard to identify with any familiar sounds. To dispense with deceptive diacritics, I decided to use u for both the mid ö and close u. A few homographs, inevitable in any alphabet-based writing system, seem to be a lesser evil than a changed spelling of Uzbek and its derivatives, which would be too radical an innovation. As for the γ, there is hardly a better solution than gh since Arabists have long used this digraph for the same sound. Uzbek orthography does not differentiate between the front and back allophones of i, prescribing i in all cases. I will distinguish between these audibly distinct sounds by rendering them as i and y, respectively. Also, I will ignore the rounding of a to o in modern literary Uzbek, recorded in the official spelling. That Persian-influenced feature, peculiar to the ‘upmarket’ dialects of Tashkent and Ferghana, was codified as standard in 1937; earlier, both the Latin and Cyrillic spellings followed the ‘inurbane’ a-pronunciation. Most of the archival materials I quote go back to before 1937, so the older spelling standard occurs more frequently. I decided to stay with it in all cases to avoid an excess of cross-referenced index entries (‘Andijan: v. Andijon’). I keep the o in Tajik place names (Sar-i Hisor), where it is a matter of course.

xxii

Note on Orthography

With the help of this set of conventions, I was able to put in order the toponymic material covered by this short book, except for Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan formalised by the United Nations. Under the rules above, they would be Qazaqstan and Qyrghyzstan. To make the text readable while remaining within the academic genre, I have chosen to use diacritical marks for direct quotations and keep them to a minimum elsewhere. Original spelling is always retained in citations.

Chapter 1

The Monastery in Urgut 1

Res ipsa loquitur

In 1870 and 1873, the Dutch Arabist Michael Jan de Goeje published two medieval geographical treatises closely related to each other in genre and contents and sharing the title Roads and Kingdoms: the first by Abū Isḥāq Ibrāhīm b. Muḥammad al-Fārisī al-Iṣṭakhrī (completed c.930–33), and the second by Abū’l-Qāsim Muḥammad b. Ḥawqal al-Niṣībī (completed before 967).1 Narrating their travels in Central Asia, both authors supply an account of a Christian monastery, populated by immigrants from Iraq and situated somewhere in the mountains to the south from Samarkand:

َ َّ ً‫ل��س�ا َ دَ ا �ه ا �ل���� ا �لّ��ذ � �ع� ن � ن�� � ّ ��س�م �ق ن���د �ل���� � ن� ا �ح ��س�م �ق ن���د ����ست���ا ق ا �صُّ �ه �آء‬ ‫�ب‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ر‬ � ‫وا� و‬ ‫ح و‬ ‫و ج بل ى � ج ُوبى ر و ي س و ى ر‬ ‫�ز ً ف‬ ‫ع��� �ة ف� ا ��س�خ‬ ‫��هً �م ن���ه ا�ه���له�ا ا �صّ ا ��لن��ا �� ا �ل ا نً�ا ا ��د ا نً�ا ط �ل�ه �ز �ا د �ة ع��ل � ش‬ ‫و لا رع�ا و �وا ك‬ ‫ى ر ر‬ ‫س و وب و و ي‬ ‫و � فح‬ ُْ ‫�ز‬ 2.‫�رد‬ ‫و ب�ا �ل��س�ا ود ا ر �ع�مٌر �ل��لن����ص�ا ر �ى �ي�عر�� ـبو ك‬ َّ ‫َّ�ذ‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ّ ق‬ ‫ل��س�ا َ دَ ا [ا � ش‬ �‫و ا‬ ‫‏ �هو ا �جل� ب���ل ا �ل� �ى �ع� ن� ج� ن��وب�ى ��س�مر� ن���د و �ل��ي��س �ب� ن�وا �حى ��س�مر� ن���د‬‎]‫ل����ا و�ذا ر‬ ‫ر‬ ‫و‬ ُّ ُّ ‫آ‬ ً ً ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ق‬ ‫�ة‬ ‫�ز‬ ً ‫ن‬ ‫�ص‬ ‫ت ق �ص‬ � � ‫ح����س ن �وا ك‬ � � ‫ر����س���ا � ا ح �هو� ء أ و لا ا ج ود رع�ا و لا ا‬ ‫��ه [ �ا ����ه� ] �م���ه و ا�ه�ل�ه ا ح ا�ه�ل‬ ً‫ن‬ ً‫ن‬ ‫ت ق �ز ة‬ ‫ش ة ف ��س�خ‬ ‫ن‬ � � ‫ن�وا‬ ��‫ح���ي�ه�م ا ب��د ا �ا و [� ج �م�ل] ا �لوا �ا و طول �ه��ذا ا �لر����س���اّ � ي�ا د � ع��لى �ع���ر� �را و �هو �م‬ ّ ‫تّ �ة ت غ‬ ‫تن‬ � ‫ا ن��زه ا �جل� ب���ا ل و ا‬ ‫ح����سن����ه�ا � �ع�م�ا ر�ة لا ��ت ن�ق������ط [و �غ�لا‬ ‫ و‬،‫� َ�م�����ص�ل� لا ���� ب�] و لا �تم����ع‬ ٍ‫ت‬ ‫ف�ي‬ ُْ ‫ع ف‬ ‫� ن � �ة �ة‬ ‫قّ ت‬ ‫�ا � ش‬ ‫ل����ا و�ذا ر �ع�مٌر �ل��لن����ص�ا ر �ى ف�ي���ه جم‬ ] �‫ح����سن��� ن��ز �ه‬ � ‫����مع ��ل�ه�م و ��ل�ه�م �ي���ه [ب��ه] ِ��لاي�ا � [و �م��س ك��ا‬ ‫ب‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ً ‫ق‬ ُ ‫ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�ز‬ ‫�ز‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ � ‫ن‬ � � � � ‫�� ���ي�ه�ا و�م�ا �م�� ����ص�ا ر �ى ا �ل�عرا � ا ج����م�عوه �ل��طي�� ب���ه و ���ص�د وه �ل�ع ��ل��ه و � �ه���ه و �ل�ه‬ �‫ا د ر�ك‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ق ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫غ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ش‬ ‫���� ب��ه �و �م����ه� و ي����ر�� ع��لى �م��ـ�ع���ظ� ا �ل��س��ـ���د و �ي�عر�� �ه��ذا ا لم �ض‬ ‫و�و�� و �ي�ع�� ك‬ ‫و�ع‬ ‫م‬ ‫م م‬ 3‎‎.]‫�ود ه‬ ‫�رد [�بو�ز ك‬ ‫�بو�ز ك‬

1 Earlier non-academic (facsimile, etc.) editions and translations are listed by G.R. Tibbetts, ‘The Balkhī School of Geographers’, History of Cartography, vol. II, book I, Chicago 1992, 108–36. 2 M.J. de Goeje (ed.), Viae regnorum. Descriptio ditionis moslemicae auctore Abu Ishak al-Farisi al-Istakhri, Leiden 1870, 321. Same text in Muh. G. Abd el-Aal el-Hini (ed.), Al Masalek wal mamalek by Istakhry (4th cent. H.), Cairo 1961, 180. 3 M.J. de Goeje (ed.), Viae et regna. Descriptio ditionis moslemicae auctore Abu’l-Ḱasim Ibn Hauḱal, Leiden 1873, 372. Here and below in square brackets are the additions and variant readings attested by the Istanbul MS (J.H. Kramers (ed.), Ibn Ḥawqal’s Kitāb Ṣūrat al-arḍ, Leiden 2004, 498).

© Alexei Savchenko, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004527539_002

2

Chapter 1

The Persian translation of al-Iṣṭakhrī provides similar information, calling Christians by a common Persian term which derives from the verb tarsīdan, ‘to fear’:4

‫ن آن‬ ‫ك ت‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ش ن‬ ‫�ن�� ن���د ا ق��ا �ف� �����س���ا � ا ن� ا ����س� ت‬ 5.� ‫ب ي ر بر‬ ‫��ه �ر��س�اي�ا � � ج��ا ج��مع ���و��د و �ع ب���ا د � �ك و و‬

The only English translation of the relevant passage was made by Sir William Ouseley in 1800:

‫ن‬ � ‫ ��س�ا روا‬Sarouan is a mountain on the south of Samarcand: it enjoys a pure air, and the inhabitants of it are healthier and handsomer than those of the other territories. The extent of this hill, and the villages on it, is about ten farsang. At Sarouan is a place where the Christians have built for religious worship, and which is richly endowed. (This place is called ‫�رد‬ ‫�ز روك‬ Zarukird).6

Given that both sources are closely related to each other (Ibn Ḥawqal’s book being essentially a revised edition of al-Iṣṭakhrī’s), and given there is no discrepancy between them (Ibn Ḥawqal’s description is more detailed), I consolidated them into one text, with account taken of both editions of Ibn Ḥawqal:7 Shāwdhār is the mountain to the south of Samarkand. In the vicinity of Samarkand, there is no other district with a healthier climate, more abundant crops and better fruit. Its people excel others in physique and have a better complexion. This district stretches for more than ten farsakhs. It is one of the purest mountain areas, with the best buildings standing closely together and steady harvests. It is not secluded or inaccessible. 4 V. Shlomo Pines, ‘The Iranian Name for Christians and the “God-fearers”’, PIASH II (1968). 5 Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 321, fn. m). 6 Sir William Ouseley (tr.), The Oriental Geography of Ebn Haukal, an Arabian Traveller of the Tenth Century, London 1800, 257. In fact, Ouseley translated an anonymous Persian translation of al-Iṣṭakhrī, erroneously attributed to Ibn Ḥawqal and based on the first Arabic edition of Roads and Kingdoms completed in 930–3. 7 ‘Even if De Goeje had wanted to distinguish between the works of al-Istakhri and Ibn Hawqal, he could not escape using his findings with manuscripts of one text as a textual witness for establishing the other. So his two editions of the oldest texts of the Balkhi geographers, BGA 1 (al-Istakhri) and BGA 2 (Ibn Hawqal), are so closely interrelated that each edition is used as a textual witness to the other’. (J.J. Witkam, ‘Michael Jan de Goeje (1836–1909) and the Editing of Arabic Geographical Texts’, Kitāb al-Masālik wa l-mamālik by Abū Isḥāq al-Iṣṭakhrī. M.J. de Goeje’s Classic Edition (1870), with a biographical note on M.J. de Goeje by Jan Just Witkam, Leiden 2014, 7).

The Monastery in Urgut

3

On Shāwdhār, there is a Christian monastery with a place of assembly, cells and nice and pleasant dwellings. I witnessed a community of Iraqi Christians who gathered in this place because of its goodness. They retired to it for its solitary location and healthy climate. [The monastery] owns inalienable properties, many people retreat to it, and it overlooks the major part of Sogd. This place is known as [several variant readings in the MSS]. This information remained accessible to a narrow circle of Orientalists only, until Wilhelm Barthold made it available to a broader audience by quoting it in his bachelor’s thesis On Christianity in Central Asia, which was soon published in German translation.8 Later, when Barthold first visited Central Asia in 1893–94, he wrote: Now I am convinced that … this [Ibn Ḥawqal’s notice] refers to the mountain range straight to the south of Samarkand, in the foothills of which are situated the towns of Qara-tyube and Urgut…. It would be interesting to survey this locality; if any traces of the once-flourishing Christianity show up, it would be imperative to preserve those antiquities.9 Embracing the territory watered by the Zarafshan and Qashqa Darya Rivers and their tributaries, Sogd in the Early Middle Ages included the provinces of Samarkand and Bukhara in modern Uzbekistan and the north of modern Tajikistan. The description clearly refers to the Zarafshan Valley, plain to see in good weather from the mountains to the southeast from Samarkand. It also provides us with four hints to the monastery’s whereabouts: 1. The direction in which the search should proceed: ‘south of Samarkand’. 2. The position of the site relative to the landscape: high enough to overlook the Zarafshan Valley. It cannot be overstressed that a different translation of the same passage from Ibn Ḥawqal, ‘l’endroit est vénéré plus que les autres lieux du Sughd’10 is untenable because: َ‫َ ُ ف‬ a) it forces the verb ��‫ �ش��ر‬to appear in the passive form of its indirect meaning instead of the active form of the primary meaning;

8 W. Barthold, Zur Geschichte des Christentums in Mittel-Asien zur mongolischen Eroberung, Tübingen–Leipzig 1901, 30–1. 9 В.В. Бартольд, ‘По поводу христианского селения Вазкерд’, Сочинения, т. IV, Москва 1966, 110. Here and below, Russian study works are quoted in my translation. 10 J.H. Kramers & G. Wiet (tr.), La configuration de la terre, Paris-Beirut 1964, 478.

4

Chapter 1

b)

it is inconceivable that in the late tenth century, a Christian monastery anywhere in Central Asia would have been venerated ‘more than any other place’, even if the statement were intended as hyperbole. Here is how the panorama was spontaneously perceived from the same spot in 1873, before the modern development: ‘… whence we got a beautiful view over the valley of the Zarafshan, Samarkand and the hill of Tchupan-ata being at once recognisable in the distance’.11 3. The character of the locality, considered distinct ‘because of its suitability, solitary location and healthy climate’, which increases its memorability. 4. Most importantly, two place names: one identifies the area in general, and the other calls the monastery by its exact name. 1.1 First Landmark I will now try to identify the first explicitly named landmark, ‫ ا �ل��س�ا ود ا ر‬of De Goeje’s editions of al-Iṣṭakhrī and Ibn Ḥawqal, glossed ‘videtur suadere ‫ش‬ ‫ش‬ ‫’����ا و�ذا ر‬‎,12 and ‫ ا �ل����ا و�ذا ر‬of Kramers’ second edition of Ibn Ḥawqal. This last reading should be considered correct in light of the Sogdian etymology of the name, š’w—‘black’ and δ’r—‘have’, ‘possess’, probably referring to the colour of the mountains seen from afar as a dark mass. In modern usage, this name is applied to an irrigation canal branching off the major Dargam Canal in Jumabazar and running parallel to and north of the Dargam. South of Samarkand, it divides into several streams which supply the city with water.13 However, the sources have preserved an original, broader meaning: Concerning the districts of Samarkand, the first is Bunjīkath. Its main town with a mimbar [i.e. with a congregational mosque] is Bunjīkath, then follows Waraghsar with its main town of Waraghsar, and after Bunjīkath follow the mountains of Shāwdhār and there is no mimbar there, and between Shāwdhār and Waraghsar beyond Samarkand are the districts of Māymurgh and Sanjarfaghn with no mimbar.14

11 12 13 14

E. Schuyler, Turkistan. Notes of a Journey in Russian Turkistan, Khokand, Bukhara, and Kuldja, vol. I, New York 1876, 271. Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 313, fn. e). V. map in Yuri Bregel, An Historical Atlas of Central Asia, Leiden–Boston 2003, 41, 3B, 3/2C. Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 321; Ibn Ḥawqal, 371–2.

The Monastery in Urgut

5

Al-Samʿānī’s Kitāb al-Ansāb,15 Yāqūt’s Muʿjam al-buldān,16 and several later sources, all call it Shāwdār: Shāwdār, to the south of Samarkand. It is particular for its healthy air; the local people are strong and healthy. It stretches for ten farsakhs. The inhabitants own many beasts of burden.17 According to two waqf documents of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the area of Shāwdār stretched from the upper reaches of the River Zarafshan to the mountains separating the Samarkand and Shahrisabz oases.18 The Bābur-nāma, finished in 1530, adds the following information: Samarkand has good tūmāns. One is Soghd with its dependencies…. Another tūmān is Shāvdār (var. Shādwār), an excellent one adjoining the town-suburbs. On one side it has the range (Aïtmāk Dābān), lying between Samarkand and Shahr-i-sabz, on the skirts of which are many of its villages. On the other side is the Kohik Water (i.e. the Dar-i-gham canal). There it lies! an excellent tuman, with fine air, full of beauty, abounding in waters, its good things cheap. Observers of Egypt and Syria have not pointed out its match.19 Thus it can hardly be doubted that in terms of modern geography, Shāwdhār should be defined as the western spur of the Chaqil-i Kalan ridge (part of the Zarafshan range belonging to the Hissar-Alay mountain system), which rises to heights up to 3000 m (see Figure 1).20

15 16 17 18 19 20

D.S. Margoliouth (ed.) The Kitāb Al-Ansāb, of Abd Al-Karim Ibn Muhammad Al-Samʿani, Leiden 1912, vol. I, 176, 399, 403; vol. VII, 267; vol. IX, 136, 153. F. Wüstenfeld (ed.), Jacut’s Geographisches Wörterbuch, Leipzig 1866–1873, vol. I, 182; vol. V, 223; vol. VII, 377. Бартольд, ‘Хафиз-и Абру и его сочинения’, Сочинения, т. VIII, Москва 1973, 86. О.Д. Чехович, Самаркандские документы XV–XVI вв. (О владениях Ходжи Ахрара в Средней Азии и Афганистане), Москва 1974, 350, 390. A.S. Beveridge (tr.), The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur), London 1922, vol. I, 84. Mapping archaeological sites in this area in the 1940s, Smirnova noted: ‘The XIXth-century political map repeats in general outline the VIIIth-century map. The borders of the domains that existed in the VIIIth century coincide with those of the counties that existed in the XIXth century’. (О.И. Смирнова, ‘Археологические разведки в бассейне Зерафшана в 1947 г.’, МИА № 15 (1948), 70).

Figure 1

Part of ‘Samarkand’ 1:250.000, U.S. Army Map Service, NJ 42-1 Series № 502, Washington, D.C. 1952

6 Chapter 1

The Monastery in Urgut

7

1.2 Second Landmark Now I turn to the second place name, defining the exact location of the monastery. This crucial landmark is more difficult to identify than the first one. It appears in the MSS in five different spellings: ‫�رد‬ ‫ورك‬, ‫�ود ه‬ ‫ورك‬, ‫�ز رد ك‬, ‫�رد‬ ‫�ز رك‬, ‫�رد‬ ‫ورك‬, ‫�ود‬ duly listed by De Goeje, who honestly warns the reader: Si editor ubique pro certo scire posset veram se auctoris lectionem elegisse, nihil morarer, nec ego, nisi rarius ut codicis indoles cognosceretur, varias lectiones adnotavi quae manifesta menda sunt librariorum. Ubicunque vero haec evidentia desideratur, editoris erga lectorem officium mihi quidem esse videtur, varietatem lectionum diligentissime indicare. Quod imprimis valet de nominibus propriis…. Nam plus semel doctus Arabs falsam lectionem praetulit. Valde autem accrevit annotatio eo quod plures hujus libri in Oriente recensiones circumferebantur, quarum diversitas mihi non videbatur negligenda.21 His warning is echoed by Barthold, who explains that the name of the settlement is not clear: Ibn Haukal sah dort einige Christen aus Irâk, die durch das herrliche Klima und die Fruchtbarkeit der Gegend dorthin geführt waren. Der Name dieser Ansiedelung wird in den Handschriften verschieden überliefert (‫�رد‬ ‫�رد ورك‬ ‫�ود و�ز ك‬ ‫)�ز رد ك‬.22 Finally, one more form is added by the Istanbul MS published by Kramers in 1938–39: ‫�ود ه‬ ‫و�ز ك‬‎.23 According to standard rules of textual criticism, a reading peculiar to a single document is to be considered suspect; an apparent scribal error is to be rejected even though well supported in the manuscripts, and that reading is to be preferred which could have given occasion to the others, or which appears to comprise the elements of the others. Under these rules, the history of the transmitted text can be reconstructed as shown in Figure 2.

21 22

23

Al-Iṣṭakhrī, Praefatio, VII–VIII. Barthold, Zur Geschichte des Christentums, 30–1. ‘The name of the settlement has not been established yet. De Goeje believes it is ‫�رد‬ ‫( و�ز ك‬Vazkerd), but also supplies the readings ‫�ز‬ ‫�ود‬ ‫ ورك‬and ‫�رد‬ ‫ رد ك‬‎’. (Бартольд, ‘Отчёт о поездке в Среднюю Азию с научной целью’, Сочинения, т. IV, 91, fn. 11. Kramers, Kitāb Ṣūrat al-arḍ, 498.

8

Chapter 1

Figure 2 Stages of corruption of the transmitted text

Unlike the rest of the occurrences, the original form is not singular and, therefore, not an accidental one. It occurs in the MSS three times (twice as ‫�ود ه‬ ‫ورك‬ and once as ‫�ود‬ ‫)ورك‬, while each other form occurs only once. It can be easily explained how this spelling could evolve into the rest of the spellings in the process of writing. However, it is not possible to explain the contrary otherwise than by intentional modification or, as probably is the case with ‫�ود ه‬ ‫و�ز ك‬, by mistaking a subscript dot in the line above for a superscript dot in the current line. A thorough investigation of the toponyms in the area, documented by censuses and old maps, revealed a modern place name matching the original Arabic spelling: Urgut, a town 40 km southeast of Samarkand.24 The place ‫ ا ق� ت‬and ‫ )ا ق� د‬in the seventeenth-century waqf appears under this name (� ‫رو‬ ‫رو‬ documents.25 At one instance, Urgut is mentioned in one context with Shāwdhār: Meantime all the forts, Samarkand excepted, and the Highlands and the Lowlands were coming in to us. As in Aūrgūt,26 however, a fort on the skirt of the Shavdār (var. Shādwār) range, a party of men held fast, of necessity we moved out from Khān Yūrtī against them.27 24

25

Список населённых мест Бухарского ханства, сост. чиновниками эмира Алима в 1914–1916 гг., Центральный государственный архив УзССР, ф. И-126 (Канцелярия кушбеги Бухарского эмирата), oпись 1, дело 1544, ед. хр. 70; Список населённых мест Узбекской ССР и Таджикской АССР, вып. II. Самаркандская область, Самарканд 1925. В.Л. Вяткин, ‘Материалы к исторической географии Самаркандского вилаета’, СКСО, вып. VII (1902), Самарканд 1902, 71.

‫گ‬ ‫� ت‬ � ‫ ا ور�و‬in the original text, where the silent

26

This is translator’s blind transliteration of

27

ālif stands before the first wāw to make the latter sound as the vowel u and not as the semivowel w. Bābur-nāma, vol. I, 68.

The Monastery in Urgut

9

At the same time, none of the other variant readings attested by the MSS matches any known place in Shāwdhār. It is now clear that the Arabic ‫�ود ه‬ ‫ ورك‬is nothing else but the present-day Urgut, whose upper part is the furthermost habitable location before entering the ‘Shāwdhār mountains to the south from Samarkand’. Given that Urgut does not figure in any other Arabic or Persian sources, it is unsurprising that its name was unclear both to the medieval copyists writing miles away from the lands described in the geographical treatises and to the nineteenth-century editor working several decades before the first Sogdian texts were discovered in 1907 and published in 1932. The most revealing are the cases of ‫�رد‬ ‫ �ز رك‬and ‫�رد‬ ‫�ز رد ك‬: they betray the cultural background of the scribes ‫�ز‬ ‫�ز‬ who tried to rationalise the unclear word as the Persian ‫ ر‬for ‘gold’, or ‫ رد‬for ‫�ز‬ ‘yellow’, or ‫ رو‬for ‘leech’ followed by the past participle of the Persian verb ‘to do/make’. It is no coincidence that these forms are only found in the MSS of the Persian translation of al-Iṣṭakhrī. The final question is: whence the spelling that made its way into the body text? The relevant passage in al-Iṣṭakhrī’s text is glossed: ‘Nomen ecclesiae in D. est ‫�ود ه‬ ‫ورك‬, in E. ‫�رد‬ ‫�ز رك‬, in B. ‫�رد‬ ‫ورك‬. Fortasse legendum est ‫�رد‬ ‫ر �ز ك‬‎’.28 There is no ‫�ز‬ ‫�رد‬ ‫ و ك‬either in the standard text or in any other MS. The relevant passage in Ibn Ḥawqal’s text is glossed: ‘*L. ‫�ود ه‬ ‫ ; �بورك‬vid. ad I., ‫�ز‬ ‫�ز‬ � � � p. ۱۲۳ m, quibus adde: F. ‫وركود‬, O. ‫ رد كرد‬‎’.29 There is no ‫ و كرد‬either in the standard text or in any other MS. Finally, the geographical index to the first three volumes of the Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum does not even have an entry on ‫�رد‬ ‫و�ز ك‬. The relevant ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫���د )ر �ز �ك‬ ‫ب�ا �ل��س�ا ود ا ر و�ز �ك‬‎.30 entry reads (‫�رد‬ ‫و�ز ك‬, ‫���د‬ Having examined the primary sources exhaustively, I am forced to conclude that the hapax legomenon ‫�رد‬ ‫و�ز ك‬, printed as the body text but not attested ‫�ز ن‬by the ‫و �ك‬, and MSS, is the editor’s learned guess,‫ ن‬later overridden by another guess, ‫���د‬ ‫ر �ز �ك‬, none of which is attested by the MSS. accompanied by another guess, ‫���د‬ 1.3 Urgut Obscured De Goeje’s innocent conjecture made a recognisable place name unclear and begot a long-lasting cargo cult around a scribal mistake. Its scriptural basis has been this paragraph in Barthold’s Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, published in 1900:

28 29 30

Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 321, fn. m). Ibn Ḥawqal, 372, fn. i). Index geographicus, BGA IV, 148.

10

Chapter 1

… the Nestorian settlement Vazkerd, mentioned by Istakhri and described in detail by Ibn-Haukal; it might be identical to Vazd or Vizd in Shavdar in four farsakhs from Samarkand, mentioned by Sam’ani.31 The speculation was soon complemented by Vasily Vyatkin’s article in № 36 of the Russian Turkestan of the same year: Mr V. Barthold’s assumption that Vazkerd is the same as Vazd (Vizd) has serious substance behind it…. In any case, if a more or less precise location of Vazd (Vizd) could be established, an investigation of the area and excavations could be started with a great deal of certainty that this is indeed Vazkerd of Istakhri and Ibn-Haukal.32 Further in the article Vyatkin traces Vīzd in a sixteenth-century waqf document and identifies it with the modern village of Qynghyr six kilometres west of Urgut, assuming that ‘Vazkerd’ could haphazardly turn into Vazd or Vizd. Finally, the English translation of Barthold’s Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion comes out in 1923. There, Вазкерд of the Russian original (without long vowels, as in the Arabic and Persian sources) somehow appears as Wāzkard, ‫ا�ز�ذ‬ thus remotely resembling the place mentioned by al-Samʿānī: ʿWāzdh [ ‫]و‬, one of the villages of Samarkand, in Shāwadhār, in four farsakhs from it’.33 In the same paragraph, Barthold informs the reader that ‘Vyatkin identifies this Christian village with modern Kingir, in the district of Urgut’, thus closing the vicious circle.34 The doctrine remained unreformed for over a century: The place name βzt |Vazd| can be identified with Wzd (Wazd) mentioned by as-Sam‘ani as the name of a village four farsakhs from Samarkand.35 As pointed out by V.V. Barthold, Vazd can be identified with Vazkerd, described by Istakhri and more fully by Ibn Hawqal, who saw there many Mesopotamian Christians. V.L. Vyatkin has proposed to identify Vazkerd with the modern settlement of Kingir near Urgut. Syriac rock inscriptions

31 32 33 34 35

В.В. Бартольд, Туркестан в эпоху монгольского нашествия, СПб. 1900, 96. В.Л. Вяткин, ‘Где искать Визд?’, ПТКЛА, год пятый, Ташкент 1900, 159–64. Al-Samʿānī, vol. 12, 201. W. Barthold, Turkestan Down to the Mongol Invasion, London 1928, 94. V.A. Livshits, ‘Sogdian Sānak, A Manichaean Bishop of the 5th–Early 6th Centuries’, BAI 14 (2000), 49.

The Monastery in Urgut

11

and pictures of the cross have been found in the settlement of Sufiyan to the north-west from Urgut.36 In reality, the name of the settlement mentioned by al-Samʿānī was Wāzdh (the alternating spellings Wāzd and Wīzd in the waqf documents suggest that it sounded as Vēzd).37 This name cannot possibly be equated with βzt because of the difference in vocalism. Neither Wāzdh nor βzt can be identified with Vazkerd, as the last never existed. The fact that Sufiyan is in the south-east of Urgut is less important. Barthold, who never visited the area, was unaware that Qynghyr was a flat place, not ‘overlooking’ anything. But how could Vyatkin, who knew the Samarkand province like a book, ignore this apparent incongruity, saying in the same article: ‘Kyngyr enjoys a prime location: here the terrain becomes more or less flat …’?38 The answer seems to be: the first edition of the Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum had a limited print run distributed among European universities and libraries by subscription. At the time, the publication was unavailable in Turkestan, where academic institutions had yet to appear, so Vyatkin’s source of knowledge was not the original Arabic texts but their translation by Barthold in his long chapter On Archaeological Investigations in Turkestan, published in №№  5–7 of the Turkestan Gazette in 1894. There, the critical phrase on the location of the monastery is translated using the Russian verb доминировать, which can be understood either literally as ‘overlook’, ‘rise above’, or figuratively as ‘dominate’, ‘have precedence’. When the latter meaning is preferred, the main topographic argument becomes indistinct and can be neglected as it had been for a long time. Kramers and Wiet also ascribed no significance to the key word indicating the monastery’s position and assumed a grammatically permissible but cumbersome and unnecessary passive voice. Less diligent writers later touching 36 37

38

Лившиц, Согдийская эпиграфика, 311. Cf. Yghn. place name wízdi rit—‘spot before a single “wizd” tree’ (А.Л. Хромов, Очерки по топонимии и микротопонимии Таджикистана, вып. I, Душанбе 1975, 28); wizd, ‘a kind of tree’ (id., Ягнобский язык, Москва 1972, 184; L. Novák, Jaghnóbsko-český slovnik, Praha 2010, 185). Possibly, the tree is wych elm, v. W.B. Henning, ‘The Kurdish Elm’, AM X (1963), 68–72 (I owe this reference to Prof N. Sims-Williams). Several varieties of elm are widespread throughout the Urgut district and seem to be native to the area (М. Невесский, ‘Список деревьям и кустарникам, произрастающим в Самаркандской области’, СКСО II (1894), 131). Vasily Vyatkin (1869–1932) is remembered as a pioneer archaeologist, founder of the Museum in Samarkand, translator of primary sources and author of many studies on the local antiquities.

12

Chapter 1

upon this subject never attended to the sources in which the monastery was described or cared to explore the scene. 1.4 Urgut Explained The original established form is found in the Sogdian document A-5 from the Mugh Mountain, where Urgut figures in line 19. The text was published three times: by Livshits in 1962 as a legal document (it is a record of expenses made at different times); by Bogolyubov and Smirnova in 1963 as an economic document; and again by Livshits in 2008, among other studies in Sogdian epigraphy. In the first publication, βwrkwt’k is left transliterated in the edited text as an obscure word that cannot be interpreted, explaining it as a ‘personal name or a gentilic’ in a comment.39 In the second publication, it is transliterated in the same way and indexed twice: as a personal name and as a geographical name: Personal name, nickname: “Brown Dog”, “Hyena”…. βwrkwt’k can also be interpreted as an adjectival form of the place βwrkwt with the suffix ’k.40 Possibly, βwrkwt’k is an adjectival form of the place βwrkwt (with the ‫گ‬ ‫� ت‬ suffix ’k), cf. Urgut (� ‫ ;)ا ور�و‬ZKn βwrkwt’k (γwβw)—“to the γwβ [ruler] of βwrkwt”.41 In the third publication, βwrkwt’k is treated as a personal name Vorkutak, commented three times: ‘Or to the ruler of Vorkutak?’,42 ‘βwrkwt’k, lit. “Red dog” (?)—personal name’,43 and ‘Vōrkutak or Vōrkutē’.44 It is impossible to decide whether βwrkwt’k per se is an adjective or a personal name, as the morphological forms would be identical. Still, the context, as I understand it, argues in favour of the adjectival form of a place:

39 40

41 42 43 44

В.А. Лившиц (изд. и пер.), Согдийские документы с горы Муг. Выпуск II: юридические документы и письма, Москва 1962, 182, 184. М.Н. Боголюбов, О.И. Смирнова (изд. и пер.), Согдийские документы с горы Муг. Выпуск III: хозяйственные документы и письма, Москва 1963, 92. In the section The Language of the Documents it is quoted as an example of a compound word: ‘Brown dog? Or “wolf-dog” → “sheepdog” (?)’. (Ibid., 20, fn. 6). Ibid., 103. В.А. Лившиц, Согдийская эпиграфика Средней Азии и Семиречья, СПб. 2008, 216, fn. 28. Ibid., 219. Ibid., 260.

The Monastery in Urgut

13

(17) … δβwrtw ZKn (18) mγwptw XX XX X δrγm ZY ZKn βyškčyk xwβw X ZY ZKn (19) βwrkwt’k pnc ZY ZKn δrγw’k pnc … given to the high priest 50 drachmas, to the ruler of Vēshak—10, to [that of] of Urgut—five, to [that of] Dargh—five. Another enumeration of persons with an ellipsis of ‘ruler’ can be found in Mugh Б-1:6, 9, where the ellipsis is not in dispute.45 The comparison of the sources makes me convinced that the Arabic wrkwdh and the Sogdian βwrkwt’ are the same word, put down in two different but related scripts deriving from a common ancestor. Its original form can be reconstructed with no recourse to conjecture: in case the final Arabic hāʾ in two MSS was intentional and not a scribal omission of the dots over tāʾ marbūṭa, it represented the Sogdian nominal ending -e.46 That means that the tenth-century travellers heard the original Sogdian Vōrkūte as Vurgūde, which they legitimately put down as ‫�ود ه‬ ‫ورك‬‎.47 The texts of al-Iṣṭakhrī and Ibn Ḥawqal are so mixed up in the surviving MSS that it is difficult to disentangle them. Still, it is clear that Ibn Ḥawqal’s description of the monastery, with many details missing from al-Iṣṭakhrī, is based on his own experience: the fourth stem of ‫‘( د رك‬see firsthand’, ‘observe’) has the specific meaning ‘attain the knowledge of it by any of the senses’, ‘perceive it by one’s sight’.48 It is thus evident that the ancient name of Urgut is attested by three written sources, independent from one another and belonging to two different cultural traditions.

45 46 47

48

Согдийские документы III, 44, 96. Veshak and Dargh, mentioned more times in the Mugh documents, are settlements on the Upper Zarafshan, still under those names at present. W.B. Henning, ‘Sogdian loan-words in New Persian’, BSOAS 10 № 1 (1939), 98. Cf. krwt in Mugh Б-16:1 = ‫�رود‬ ‫‘ ك‬in the Tajik dialect of Samarkand’ (Дневник, ведённый во время Искандеркульской экспедиции на самаркандском таджикском наречии с 25 апреля по 27 июня 1870 года, MS SPb. Institute for Oriental Studies D 133, ff. 36a, 37б, apud Согдийские документы III, 104) = modern Kurut (river and village on the Upper Zarafshan). E.W. Lane, An Arabic-English Lexicon, Beirut 1968, 873.

14 2

Chapter 1

Searching for Evidence

Present-day Urgut is a town stretching approximately four kilometres from west to east and six kilometres from north to south. The same territory on Mount Īzlāʾ in Ṭūr ʿAbdīn was home to four monasteries, including their lands,49 and the written record only narrows the monastery’s location to the higher part of the settlement. Within the area to be searched there was an institution which owned build‫ق ف‬ ings or plots of land (��‫ ;) �ل�ه و�و‬it was capable of supporting a substantial popً ‫ق‬ ‫ن‬ ulation (‫ )�و�م�ا �م� ن� ����ص�ا ر �ى‬and could accommodate more settlers moving to the ‫ق‬ ‫ت ف‬ ‫)�ي�ع�� ك‬. Before the monastery could achieve such a degree of area ( �‫���� ب��ه �و �م ن����ه‬ ‫م م‬ prosperity, it must have been in existence for a few generations, given that the founders had to start from scratch. It is also safe to assume that the monastery did not cease to exist immediately after the Arab travellers saw it around the middle of the tenth century. There were no events in the political life of Sogd that could have an impact on a rural community, nor any significant natural calamities or pandemics were reported by the primary sources of that period. Thus, we can expect the community of people who built houses and were engaged in farming and crafts to have left some traces of their long-term presence which can be used as leads on the monastery’s whereabouts. Careful study has revealed more than one such trace: 1. In 1916 a local antiquities merchant, David Mirza Mehdi Yusupov, sold to the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg a bronze censer featuring scenes of the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Nativity, the Epiphany, the Crucifixion and the Women at the Tomb. The censer had no provenance beyond having been ‘found in Urgut’, as stated in the seller’s hand-written receipt for eleven roubles in silver (see Figure 3).50 There are two conflicting opinions as regards the origin of this censer. For Zalesskaya, who dates it to the eighth or ninth century, ‘the Syrian origin of this object is obvious’.51 Dresvyanskaya assumed it to be a coarser local copy of a finer Syrian original, dating from the end of the twelfth–beginning of the thirteenth century, without explaining what the ‘local’ might mean.52 An item of such complication requires a solid tradition of metalworking behind it; 49 50 51 52

E.A. Wallis Budge (ed. & tr.), The Book of Governors: the Historia Monastica of Thomas, Bishop of Marga, London 1893, book I, chapter 4, 37. I owe my sincere thanks to the Keeper, Dr Svetlana Adaksina, who made available for me both the censer (CA 12758) and this archival document. В.Н. Залесская, ‘Сирийское бронзовое кадило из Ургута’, Средняя Азия и Иран, Ленинград 1972, 57–60. Г.Я. Дресвянская, ‘Бронзовое кадило из Ургута’, ОНУ 6 (1995). Her other argument, the alleged late entry of the Women at the Tomb theme into Christian art, is untenable as this

15

The Monastery in Urgut

Figure 3 Bronze censer from Urgut and its bottom Photo by Nikolay Tikhomirov †, ЛАФОКИ

however, the bronze-casting industry in Panjikent died together with the city in the 770s, and no traces of this trade have been found in contemporary Samarkand except for one jeweller’s workshop at Afrasiab.53 I would add Herat, notorious for its export of ‘fine articles of bronze’ since the tenth century, to the potential places of origin;54 a Christian church was attested there at the same time.55 Unlike iсons, wearable crosses or similar objects usually owned by individual Christians, a cast censor, as opposed to a domestic incense-burner, is a church utensil, whose very existence suggests an organised liturgy. This fact alone should dissipate all doubt regarding the validity of searching around Urgut, but here are more supporting facts. 2. In 1920, a group of students of Turkestan Oriental Institute majoring in the Tajik language and folklore discovered in the mountains above the town

53 54 55

theme is attested on several bronze censers dating from the seventh and eighth centuries, to quote the Walters Museum № 54.2575 and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts № 67–22. А.И. Тереножкин, ‘Вопросы историко-археологической периодизации древнего Самарканда’, ВДИ 4 (1947), 132. Ibrāhīm al-Abyarī, Ḥasan Kāmil al-Ṣirāfī (eds.), Abū Manṣūr ʿAbd al-Malik b. Muḥammad b. Ismaʿīl al-Thaʿālibī, Latāʾif al-maʿārif, Cairo 1379/1960, 200. Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 265; Kramers, Kitāb Ṣūrat al-arḍ, 438.

16

Chapter 1

of Urgut a limestone rock carved with Syriac inscriptions and crosses.56 The supervisor, Mr Nikolay Burov made seven wax offprints which he delivered to the Turkestan Library in Tashkent. During his trip to Central Asia in 1920, Barthold saw the offprints and made them known in a publication.57 That will result in a repeated opinion that the inscriptions were discovered by Barthold, who had never been to Urgut. 3. In 1929, Mikhail Masson came across two gravestones with carved crosses and Syriac inscriptions: This is the grave of Pethiōn young boy, and Alqā saʿorā (periodeutes, delegate of a bishop entrusted with teaching and visiting Christian communities in regions situated away from centres), at the Ashkhabad Museum of Local History in Turkmenistan. No records of their provenance existed either at the Museum, founded in 1924, or at its predecessor, the Transcaspian Public Library and Museum, founded in 1895, where ‘all receipts were thoroughly kept indicating the type of every artefact, the donor, and the place of origin’.58 According to the memories of the staff, the objects were brought from Katta Qurghan, a town in the Samarkand Province (see Figure 4).

Figure 4 Only this gravestone has survived, N-310, Ashkhabad National Museum of History. Image courtesy of Mrs Nurgozel Beshimova, Head of the Archaeology Department Photo by V. Artemyev, architect at the Merv International Project, upon my request 56 57 58

At that time and until 1924 the Urgut area was part of the Samarkand Province of the Turkestan Republic, which comprised both modern Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. The Tajik language (a local variety of Persian) and identity are still very much at home there. Бартольд, ‘Отчёт о поездке в Среднюю Азию’, 258. М.Е. Массон, ‘Происхождение двух несторианских намогильных галек Средней Азии’, ОНУ № 10 (1978), 52–3.

The Monastery in Urgut

17

The analysis showed that the gravestones were composed of quartz-mica schist with an admixture of calcite, a mineral combination not found in Turkmenistan, but widely spread in that part of Uzbekistan where Urgut is situated. To trace their origin, in 1938 Masson visited Urgut where he established the following: … one older man from Urgut informed me that in his youth, a local butcher owned four smooth stones of different sizes that served him as weights. Two of them had carved crosses and some inscriptions in an unintelligible alphabet. … The two pebble-stones with crosses were taken from the butcher by a forest guard serving the area. From him, they made their way to the connoisseur of archaeology, Ret. Colonel L. S. Barszczewski, who lived in Samarkand in the 1890s…. His collections went over to academic institutions as well as to private persons. In 1903 he was sent from Samarkand to the Far East as commander of a reserve battalion and tragically died after the Russo-Japanese War. It is unknown where the Urgut gravestones with Christian crosses went.59 (see Figure 5) Trying to reconcile the evidence, Masson proposed that Urgut had been mistaken for Katta Qurghan, as both towns belonged to the same administrative area. 4. In 1955, a regional youth newspaper published an article entitled Help to Find, running as follows: The Uzbek Academy of Arts and Sciences is compiling a register of rock inscriptions and drawings. Unfortunately, the archaeologists cannot investigate the entire country, so many sites remain undiscovered. In 1921, the mounted guard Ivan Maksimovich Larionov discovered a cuneiform inscription at the mountain pass of Takhta-Qarach on the Shahrisabz side. If that inscription is rediscovered and its nature confirmed, it would be the first cuneiform inscription ever found in Central Asia. In the southwest of Urgut, there is a rock rising about a man’s height, with 25 carved inscriptions in the Syriac language. There are also several

59

Ibid., 55. One trail of Col. Barszczewski’s collection leads to the French entrepreneur and philanthropist Lucien Mangini and on to the Guimet Museum. V. in detail in: Igor Strojecki, Utracony Świat. Podróże Leona Barszczewskiego po XIX-wiecznej Azji Środkowej, Helion 2017, 221–2, fn. 5.

18

Figure 5

Chapter 1

Leon Barszczewski with his collection in Samarkand Photo from the private archive of Igor Strojecki, Col. Barszczewski’s great-grandson and biographer, to whom I convey my sincere thanks

The Monastery in Urgut

19

carved crosses. The late Academy Fellow Barthold discovered those inscriptions in 1920. Still, the scholars have never seen them. Young Pioneers [Soviet Scouts] and school teachers! We would appreciate if you help us by going out on a survey! G.V. Parf Ё nov, archaeologist.60

Having discovered more than two hundred Mesolithic and Neolithic cave drawings in the Hissar mountains, the author of the appeal was well aware that Uzbekistan’s hinterland still kept many secrets of the country’s distant past and chose the right audience to address: in the hot climate, children spend most of their time outside, walking for miles around their home area. The result was not long in coming: in about a month, the same newspaper published an account of a trip around Urgut, undertaken by local schoolboys. Among other things, they reported the following:⁠⁠ … We discussed the task and decided to explore the Gulbogh Cave nearby. Our geography teacher Z. Jamilev and scout leader N. Rashidov supported the initiative and took the lead. Having entered the cave, we saw some inscriptions and copied them. Inside we found bones and various stones [sic: harkhil toshlar, i.e. ‘stones’ in the most common sense]. Also, there were 17 books in Arabic. We brought everything we found to our school and set up a museum. We pass into the hands of our scholars everything we have discovered. Soon followed Parfёnov’s reply in the same newspaper: The inscriptions you have found and copied are the first Nestorian Christian inscriptions ever found in Uzbekistan. These inscriptions date from 600–700 years ago. I have sent your copies to Prof. V.V. Struwe for study and translation. Such inscriptions can also be found in Qirghizistan. They are epitaphs containing the name and the date of death of a person. When you saw the bones inside the cave, you probably did not realise that this was an ancient Nestorian graveyard where no one else had ever 60

Г.В. Парфёнов, ‘Қидиришга ёрдам беринг’, ЛУ № 33 (2749), 24 апрель 1955, my translation from Uzbek here and below. The author is confused about Barthold’s contribution. Gavriil Parfёnov (1893–1968) was enthusiast archaeologist, founder and long-time director of the Local History Museum in Termez (South Uzbekistan).

20

Chapter 1

been. Your findings have great scholarly value, as you have discovered the first Nestorian cave burial in Central Asia. I wholeheartedly congratulate you on this remarkable achievement.61 No artefacts related to Gulbagh Cave remained in the school museum when I arrived there forty years after the schoolboys’ trip. Instead, there was another exhibit: 5. Small wearable cross in the form of a grape leaf, made of fine-grained black limestone polished to a shine (see Figure 6).62 It was accidentally found in the Urgut area in the early 1990s. To sum up, the monastery has left a material record of burning incense during the liturgy, burying the dead, wearing crosses, and writing in Syriac. How can this record be relevant to the matter at hand? The place of origin of the censer and the gravestones cannot be identified with certainty. An X-ray spectrometry of the bronze would show a foundry-specific set of minor impurities in the alloy without relating the object to any particular area. However, there are no other specimens of well-established provenance for comparison; even if there were any, the foundry could be miles away from the site where the product was used, closest to the sources of raw materials and not to the markets. As for the gravestones, the same shales and schists can be found everywhere in the Urgut area.

Figure 6 Stone cross accidentally found in Urgut

61 62

Г.В. Парфёнов, ‘Рахмат сизга, Урғутли дустлар’, ЛУ № 45 (2761), 5 июнь 1955. It was analysed at my request by O. Karpova, Mineralogist, and V. Mozhin, Research Fellow at the Zarafshan Geophysical Expedition in Samarkand: ‘Fine-graded limestone with calcite, quartz-calcite and calcite-quartz veins and inclusions. The thickness of the veins is 0,01–0,05 mm; the size of the inclusions reaches 7 mm. The solid is grey-black, the veins and inclusions are white. The limestone is formed with diamond-shaped calcite grains 0,05–0,1 mm in size. The texture is microgranoblastic. All calcite grains are rich in a black opaque carbon-bearing substance that determines the grey-black colour of the stone’.

The Monastery in Urgut

21

On a positive note, three other traces can provide additional information: 1. The rock with inscriptions in the village of Sufiyan. In 1940 it was put on the Map of Archaeological Sites of the Samarkand Province by the expedition of the Samarkand History Museum (see Figure 7): First, the way to the inscriptions goes up the main road along (up) the stream to the ‘Upper Plane Trees’. Then we cross from the left to the right bank of the Urgut Say [a say is a mountain torrent formed by melting snow and ice in the highlands] and keep going up the stream (for about half a kilometre). Then the path deviates to the left and crosses a plot of land under a small vineyard and several trees standing separately from most of the irrigated land, on a canal flowing from a spring [locally known as Qutir Bulaq, Uzb. ‘eczema-healing spring’]. Above this plot of land and to the east rise sheer cliffs of grey marble [more accurately, metamorphosed limestone] with rust-coloured flows at many places. There are two rocks: a smaller one right above the said vineyard and a bigger one further away and towards the southeast. It appeared that the inscriptions were carved in the bottom part of the smaller rock, about the middle. Here, the rock face is almost vertical…. Three crosses are cut above the inscriptions. The most distinct, about 10 cm high, has the shape of a Maltese cross (see Figures 8–9).63 2. The Gulbagh gorge where, according to the schoolchildren, the cave with inscriptions was found. It is marked on two maps: the 1989 General Staff J-42-15-Г, showing terrain as of 1985, and the 1990 Agricultural Map, showing terrain as of 1986.64 3. The wearable cross, if its place of origin could be established. There is nothing more to infer from sources of any kind, so further progress can only be made through fieldwork.

63

64

И.А. Сухарев, Дневник археологической разведки в районах Самаркандской области, архив Государственного Музея истории и культуры Узбекистана, 26–8. In 1936 two specimens were taken off and delivered to the Museum, inventory №№  A-308-1 and A-308-2. Ургут 1:50 000, Главное управление геодезии и картографии при Совете министров СССР, Москва 1983; Ургут 1:10 000, Ташкентский филиал Всесоюзного Института сельскохозяйственных и аэрофотогеодезических изысканий, Ташкент 1990.

22

Figure 7

Chapter 1

Aleksey Kaplunov, director of the Historical Museum in Samarkand, with a local guide near the Red Rock in Urgut Photo by V.I. Kotovsky 1936, negative courtesy of the Archive, the same Museum, contact print by V. Grachenko

The Monastery in Urgut

Figure 8

The Red Rock in Sufiyan, Upper Urgut, with a small grotto on top unnoticed in 1940

23

24

Chapter 1

Figure 9

3

Syriac inscriptions in the grotto

Closing the Books

Situated in the foothills, Urgut is some way off from the mediaeval trade routes, which all pass across the plain and through Samarkand. Moving through Transoxiana from west to east, the Arab travellers could get to Urgut in only one way: by the ancient road underlying the modern A377 Samarkand–Ayni and branching off from it in Taylaq. That this is the same road by which al-Iṣṭakhrī and Ibn Ḥawqal (and before them, the monastery’s founders) came to Urgut is evident from a large number of early mediaeval sites along both sides, and the modern toponymy preserving some ancient place names.65 The town of Urgut consists of two distinct parts: the lower, still on flat terrain, and the upper. Lower Urgut is the town proper, with residential districts around three bazaars which are the centre of all crafts and trade. Beyond the bazaars, further down the same road, the flat terrain ends and the main road splits into small uphill trails leading to separate mountain maḥallas (neighbourhoods). Taken together, they are referred to as Upper Urgut. Above those 65

E.g. Navzandak, attested by the Mugh Nov. 2, Recto, line 12 as n’wz’ntyk. (Согдийские документы II, 104–5; Лившиц, Согдийская эпиграфика, 111–3).

The Monastery in Urgut

25

neighbourhoods, at altitudes more than 1200 m a.s.l., there is no constant human presence except hunters, herdsmen, and herb gatherers. My examination of the three remaining landmarks yielded the following results: 3.1 The Rock Here in Sufiyan, it is known as the ‘Red Rock’ (Uzb. Qizil Qaya, Taj. Sang-i Surkh) because of the reddish colour of its limestone. It has served for a long time as a shelter to the herdsmen (chayla, lit. ‘tea-place’), as its top overhangs its bottom, giving protection from the sun. The rock face has many flat areas (slickenside panels), ideally suited for writing on them. Given the slight hardness of limestone (3–4 on the Mohs scale), the inscriptions could be made by a simple piece of quartz without using any instruments. The survey showed that some inscriptions were reasonably finely written and could be understood at least partially. I published some of them as an attachment to my article which contained the germ of this book.66 As expected, they contained personal names preceded by crosses (given the right-to-left writing order), some of which had broadening arms terminating in ‘pearls’, which shape is a recognisable symbol of the Church of the East. However, many inscriptions were eroded to yield not more than a few isolated characters, while others provided an impression of a beginner’s exercise in handwriting. Realising that detailed study of this corpus was beyond my capacity, I compiled a photo database expecting a real specialist in Syriac epigraphy to take up this matter sooner or later.67 Eventually, Mark Dickens embarked on that laborious task, and I refer the reader to his comprehensive article for complete information on every aspect of those inscriptions.68 In Spring, 1996 I was able to organise the East Sogdian Archaeological Expedition (from now on referred to as ESAREX), obtain all necessary permits from the local authorities and proceed to fieldwork.69 During the first excavations, it became clear that the small plateau adjoining the rock was 66 67

68 69

Alexei Savchenko, ‘Urgut Revisited’, ARAM Periodical № 8 (1996). I am indebted to Rev. Stefan Sado (‫ܡܝܟܐܝܠ ܣܗܕܐ‬ ‫ )ܣܪܓܘܢ ܒܝܬ‬of St. Alexander Nevsky Academy and ݂ Seminary for his help with deciphering the inscriptions. The photos were taken with two Nikon SLR cameras with fast lenses on Ilford Professional 35 mm film and then scanned with a Nikon drum scanner at 1200 dpi. This is the place to thank Vitaly Grachenko, then a staff photographer at the Archaeological Institute in Samarkand and Captain of the Uzbekistan Mountaineering Squad, for his help with macro photography and climbing equipment. Mark Dickens, ‘Syriac Inscriptions near Urgut, Uzbekistan’, SI 46 (2017). Fieldwork license № 189, issued by the Archaeological Institute in Samarkand. All further excavations were also conducted under the rules set by the National Heritage authorities of Uzbekistan. I am grateful to the Spalding Trust for a small yet valuable grant used

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sterile at full depth down to the subsoil except for traces of long-term use by the modern herdsmen (see Figure 10).70 I thoroughly investigated the adjacent area in all directions to find no sign of anything that could be regarded as a shrine or an object of awe. Beyond the rock, bare cliffs stretched as far as the village of Ghus on the other side of the ridge, in five kilometres to the east. Still, the people who carved the inscriptions on this particular rock face in the middle of nothing surely intended to perpetuate and to convey some important message. What could that message be? Given some inscriptions contain personal names, crosses, and dates, each such writing can be regarded as a sentence containing a subject, expressed by a unique name; a predicate, represented by a sign of the cross; and an adverbial modifier of time in the form of a date. The concepts most often symbolised by the cross are baptism and death, directly analogous in Christian theology. Supposing the accompanying date is a timestamp of the event, the purpose of the rock might be explained as a parish register commemorating the conversion of the proselytes or death of the monastic members, according to the common practice of other monasteries: At the monastery of Sts Sergius and Bacchus, just east of Ḥaḥ, there is an arch opposite the entrance of the conventual church, on the underside of which are engraved records of the deaths of monks (and others?) from 1103 to either 1218 or 1232.71 The first two Syriacists who visited the rock in 1980, Prof Yelena Meshcherskaya and Dr Aza Paykova, recognised two dates in the inscriptions: one in the eighth and one in the thirteenth century.72 By the eighth century, baptism had long become a church ritual, and the dead were buried at a cemetery in all ecclesiastical bodies, so conceivably, a church, a cemetery, or both, were situated not far from this spot.

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towards the cost of the first campaign and, belatedly, to Prof C.E. Bosworth † for his support of my application. Strictly speaking, the first excavations related to the monastery took place one century earlier: ‘Recently [before 1900], one of the fellows of the Tashkent Circle for Archaeological Studies conducted investigations in the settlement of Urgut situated to the south-east from Samarkand, in about 40 versts [1 verst = 1066,8 m] from the latter, with the hope of finding traces of the Nestorian settlement that existed in the Xth century’. (Вяткин, Где искать Визд?, 159). However, that fellow’s identity, the place of the excavations and their result have remained unknown. Andrew Palmer, Monk and Mason on the Tigris Frontier, Cambridge 1990, 220. Е. Мещерская, А. Пайкова, ‘Сиро-тюркские наскальные надписи из Ургута’, Культурные взаимодействия народов Средней Азии и Кавказа с окружающим миром в древности и средневековье (тезисы докладов), Москва 1981, 109–10.

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Figure 10 Carved signs seen by M. Masson in 1929 on approach to the Red Rock, now missing. From Массон, Происхождение, 51

3.2 The Gorge Through an appeal launched in the columns of a local newspaper, two participants of the 1955 trip were found alive and well: Jabbar Rashidov and Erkin Asadov, still living in Urgut (see Figure 11).73 They guided me to the Gulbagh gorge and even climbed with me to a substantial height but, after four decades, failed to identify that particular cave among thousands of karst caves scattered up and down the hills. 3.3 The Cross This variety of limestone comes out to the surface in singular deposits, quite noticeable because of their particular dark colour and glossy texture. The villagers whom I showed the cross remembered that in the days of old, buttons were made of such material which could be found in the Zolotinka gorge to the south from the settlement of Sufiyan (in terms of the mountainous terrain, above it, up the only existing path). 3.4 The Scene The fact that all the landmarks are situated within one valley, bordered by higher grounds, tells its own tale. In the mountains, the spread of cultural phenomena is restricted by the same natural barriers that obstruct the free movement of people, mounted or unmounted. A traveller is likely to encounter identical cultural patterns (languages, religions, customs, culinary habits) as long as he moves uphill or downhill within one gorge without crossing the mountain range that separates one community of people from another. At the same time, those patterns can significantly differ in the settlements separated by a ridge, crossing which by steep and narrow tracks requires substantial

73

Амриддин Бердимуродов, Алексей Савченко, ‘Ургутда христианлар манзилгоҳи’, Ургут садоси, № 40–41 (6183), 17 октябрь 1997.

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Figure 11 Mr Jabbar Rashidov of Urgut, who was the first to see the cave inscriptions in 1955

effort and becomes almost impossible in winter when mountain passes are covered with snow and ice. It can therefore be concluded that those who made the inscriptions lived between the Qutir Bulaq ridge (to which the Red Rock belongs) at the east side of the valley and the Gulbagh ridge at the west side. The southern (i.e., the highest) limit of the search area would thus be set by the end of the habitable territory before the steep spurs of Mount Allahyarhan (2092 m). The northern (the lowest) limit should be the point where the valley below becomes visible, so the place could be described as ‘overlooking the major part of Sogd’ (see Figure 12). 4

Hunting the Thimble

The next field season was spent combing the resulting area c.1 × 1 km (from 67°14′14″ E in the west to 67°14′40″ E in the east and from 39°23′15″ N in the north to 39°22′40″ N in the south) for signs of long-term human occupation. In Central Asia, such signs usually take the form of mounds (tepa, same as tell in the Middle East) that develop due to consecutive building over previous mudbrick structures. When the old buildings decay, they are demolished, and their shredded and rammed remains are used as platforms for the new ones.

Figure 12 View of the Zarafshan Valley from Upper Urgut, facing north

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The survey started at the lowest limit defined above and proceeded up the Urgutsay, the primary water source in Urgut, fed by melting glaciers in the highlands. During spring snow breaks, the stream often overflows its banks, flooding everything nearby (see Figure 13). Given this factor, streets in Upper Urgut have been laid in a way that helps to avoid damage from flows of mud and stones accompanying the running water and demolishing everything on their way (see Figure 14).74 Whenever the flood comes, the streets serve as natural drainpipes, with houses on both sides often standing on raised platforms (see Figure 15).

Figure 13 Headwaters of the Urgut Say in April

74

Sel < Pers. seyl—‘torrent, flood’ < Ar. sayl—‘stream, flow of water’.

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Figure 14 Effects of a sel. Lower Urgut, spring 2004

Figure 15 A street in Upper Urgut

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According to present-day residents, the area, once densely covered with juniper trees, became populated only after World War II. This fact gave more hope that the site could survive: cultivation of terraced plots of stony land is far less efficacious than agriculture on the neighbouring plains, so before modern demographic pressures, the mountainous area could hardly attract subsequent settlers who would have destroyed all traces of the past by farming and development works. The survey resulted in discovering a distinctive mound midway between the Gulbagh and Qutirbulaq ridges, at the confluence of the Damgir and Qunlugh brooks, called Sulayman Tepa after its last owner, who built there a house after World War II (see Figure 16). The mound is an extension of the northern spur of Mount Allahyarhan, projecting far into the valley and dividing the settlement of Sufiyan into two parts. Its top is ideally suited for a monastic habitation watered at both sides by two brooks, one coming down from a melting glacier, the other stemming from the Qutir Bulaq spring, and standing on high ground in no danger of sels. However, the local developers were just a step ahead of us, having disturbed the western and eastern slopes of Sulayman Tepa shortly before our arrival. As a result, the western face revealed the remains of a buried building, and the eastern face—two deep cesspits filled with household waste (see Figure 17). This blessing in disguise allowed us to focus on this single work area and establish a basic chronology of the site based on the collected material. Two distinct periods of occupation were detected, one between the tenth and thirteenth centuries and the other between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. In April–May 1999, ESAREX undertook the first archaeological excavations of Sulayman Tepa, uncovering several rooms and corridors over an area of 144 m2.75 Although the purpose of the building could not be immediately established, several characteristics met the criteria for a monastery building: 1. Strict orientation of the main walls along the east-west axis, as in most churches. 2. Width of the rooms from three to five metres, contrasting much narrower rooms in Sogdian houses and suggesting a non-residential purpose. 3. Extensive use of fired brick and ceramic tiles in the mudbrick world, where these materials were reserved for non-ordinary buildings, like temples or palaces.

75

The research team consisted of Amriddin Berdimuradov, Masud Samibayev, and Samariddin Mustafaqulov, Fellows of the Archaeological Institute in Samarkand; Olga Zhuravlёva, architect; and myself.

Figure 16 Aerial view of Sulayman Tepa and its environs facing south. Google Earth Pro 7.3.2.5776, 39°22′37.64″ N, 67°14′29.86″ E, eye altitude 2.00 km, viewed 09.13.2019

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Figure 17 The western face of Sulayman Tepa before the excavations

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4.

Age of the surface pottery, tallying to the time when the monastery was in existence (without considering the late squatter occupation). 5. Location of the site in the valley where all the landmarks converge, with water sources on both sides. To that should be added the priceless bit of information communicated by the late Ruzibay Jabbarov, one of the settlement’s ‘elders’ (Uzb. aqsaqal, lit. ‘white-bearded’), on the eve of his one hundred and fourth birthday: an older name for Sulayman Tepa was used locally in his generation and before—Urus Machit, ‘The Russian Mosque’. That meant that distant memory of the monastery was still alive when Urgut came under Russian rule in 1868.76 At this point, the excavations came to a standstill because of the lack of funds.77 5

Urgut Unearthed

The full-scale excavations carried out in 2004–2007 proved the correctness of every conclusion previously reached from studying the sources, artefacts, and locations.78 In addition, they revealed a plethora of material remnants related to the monastery: 1) An architectural complex consisting of a monastic church, a parish church, and a refectory within one edifice. Although the western and eastern facades were ruined during the development works, the most substantial 76

77

78

Naṣārā Rūsīya was a set expression at the time of the Russian conquest of Turkestan, v. Muḥammad Ṣāliḥ Khwāja Tāshkandī, Tāʾrīkh-i jadīda-yi Tāshkand (written between 1863 and 1888), Tashkent Institute for Oriental Studies, MS IVAN RUz-1, 11073/II, passim (zerrspiegel.orientphil.uni-halle.de/t386.htm). The site was discovered at the very end of the long field campaign, when the expedition’s resources were completely exhausted, and further excavations have not yet been possible for financial reasons. Next year, when all the preparations were made, the second grant from the Spalding Trust arrived at the time of the Russian financial default (August, 1998) and could not be retrieved from the bankrupt Incombank PLC. The excavations of 1999 were conducted at my own expense, under rigid economy. The results of these excavations, together with all the arguments above this line, did not appear convincing to eleven grant-issuing bodies worldwide to which I applied for support between 1999 and 2004, while I never had enough means to maintain a full-fledged archaeological expedition on a long-term basis. The works were conducted under the aegis of the Society for the Exploration of Eurasia and under the Contract on Academic Co-operation between the Archaeological Institutes in Kiev and Samarkand signed on March 5, 2004. My sincere gratitude goes to Dr Christoph Baumer, Prof Pёtr Tolochko and Prof Timur Shirinov for their involvement and support.

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part of the monastery has remained intact. An attempt to reconstruct some missing elements will be made hereafter (see Figures 18–21). 2) A substantial number of artefacts throwing light upon the community’s everyday life and providing a chronological framework. 3) Three caves used by the monks for private devotion and vigilance, with previously unknown Syriac inscriptions carved on their walls. It is in this order that I will now analyse the findings in all categories. 5.1 Monastic Compound 5.1.1 Orientation The edifice is oriented with an east-west axis with an accuracy deviation of 13° towards the south. Such particular error is explained by the fact that, in the absence of a magnetic compass that did not appear in the Persianate world before the thirteenth century,79 the builders’ only reference points were sunrise and sunset, representing east and west. Furthermore, the hills locking the valley hide the skyline so the conventional east is perceived as the point where the sun rises from behind the rocks, further south of the true east. Between the March and September equinoxes, the sun rises south of east for all locations; from September to March—north of east. The error of 13° corresponds to the sun position observed in early September, which must be when the builders marked up the ground. Mudbrick starts to be prepared with the first steady heat as it needs to dry in the sun for several months to become stable, so all construction works in Central Asia are conducted in summer. In Urgut, the timetable moves by one month ahead: in April, when it is already hot in Samarkand, it often rains and even snows in the mountains. According to the ancient tradition common to many Churches, the altar location was laid out first when a new church was erected. Then a line was surveyed from the rising sun on the patron saint’s day through the altar site and towards the western end of the nave. If that rule was observed when the monastery was built, its patron saint’s feast must be in August or September. After a series of observations, it became clear that the Red Rock enjoys a unique location. Perceived from below as a distinct red spot among other rocks of more faded colour, it sits about midway of the assumed vertical line connecting the point where the sun starts to be seen with the bottom of the Qutir Bulaq ridge. It thus shows conventional east at any time of the day. Precisely at noon, the shadow of the mountain top falls on the rock face disappearing after one hour, which might help determine the time for the Sext. A thousand years later, the villagers still use the rock as a sun-dial seen from afar. 79

B.M. Kreutz, ‘Mediterranean Contributions to the Medieval Mariner’s Compass’, TC 14/3 (1973), 369–70.

Figure 18 General view over the monastic and the parish churches, facing east

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Chapter 1

Figure 19 Ground plan of the compound. Topographic plotting by Gennady Ivanov

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40

Figure 20 Sectional plan 1-1

Chapter 1

Figure 21 Sectional plan 2-2

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41

5.1.2 Building as Structure 5.1.2.1 Foundation The building stands on a thoroughly prepared foundation which consists of several layers above the natural soil. First comes a well-pronounced course of rammed earth, then a layer of rammed clay providing thermal and damp proofing, upon which rests the flooring of ceramic tiles 34 × 23 × 3 cm or baked bricks 32 × 16 × 5 cm, 23 × 23 × 5 cm and 28 × 28 × 5 cm. The main walls rest on a continuous footing of flat water-rolled pebble stones, taken from the brook at the foot of the mound, to protect the earthen structure from moisture and salt incrustations penetrating from the soil (see Figure 22). 5.1.2.2 Walls The walls are preserved to a maximal height of 2 m. They consist of two abutting but distinct parts: four courses of clay brick 42–44  × 21–22  × 10–12 cm outside and a course of baked brick 30–32 × 15–16 × 5–6 cm inside. In several places, there are long and narrow horizontal pockets in the brickwork which contained wooden beams absorbing seismic impact in the manner of springs; this old method has been used throughout Central Asia until now. This combination of two materials with different properties cannot be explained from either a structural or a decorative viewpoint: 1. The one-brick-thick facing is too weak to carry the roof, which would inevitably rest on the mudbrick walls making the facing useless. 2. Reinforcing the adobe walls in such a way would have made no sense as those walls are in an excellent state of preservation, without any signs of decay. 3. Aesthetically, rough brickwork with no plastering is far less appealing than painted mudbrick walls, especially in a church. 4. In ancient Mesopotamia, it was a general practice to build the mass of a building of mudbrick and face it with baked brick to protect the unbaked from erosion by wind or water.80 Here, things are the other way round: mudbrick outside, baked brick inside. The method, nowadays termed reverse brick veneer, would have a reasonable explanation if analysed in terms of heat transfer. The critical point is that the thermal conductivity of adobe is half of that of baked brick. For that reason, earthen walls poorly accumulate and transfer heat, making mudbrick an ideal building material for any hot climate. However, the same property has an adverse effect in the cold season. While a house built entirely of baked brick 80

P.R.S. Moorey, Ancient Mesopotamian Materials and Industries: The Archaeological Evidence, Winona Lake 1999, 302.

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Figure 22 Foundation of the western main wall

has to be heated once in a way, a mudbrick building needs to be continuously heated, which is a severe problem in the region where wood and coal are scarce. The ubiquitous mudbrick indicates that in the hot climate of Central Asia, people have preferred the momentary discomfort from cold during the short winter to languishing in the heat most time of the year. Their choice was predetermined by the fact that four tonnes of carbohydrates (wood or coal)

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are needed to bake one tonne of brick. With one single deposit of brown coal in the Samarkand region and no wood in industrial-scale volumes, the use of baked brick was restricted to exceptional cases, and even Zoroastrian temples and early mosques were built of mudbrick. However, our locale is not a typical Central Asian terrain but the highest point of the habitable territory in the Samarkand oasis, with specific weather conditions. Even in the height of summer, it is not too hot in Upper Urgut due to the light winds blowing along the gorges and bringing fresh air from the glaciers. At the other extreme, winter discomfort here would be neither short-term nor insensible. Although the site is not in the highlands (1125 m a.s.l.), the average daily temperature in winter is below 0°C, and cold spells to −20°C are common. Therefore the builders’ priority should have been heating rather than cooling. All known heating systems are aimed both at heat generation and heatstoring, which implies the process of heat exchange. First, people generate heat, among other means, with their bodies (about one-quarter of all heat needed to sustain vital functions), then this heat is accumulated by the walls, which return it to the room. While an adobe wall is hard to heat, a brick wall is heated efficiently. The solution was found by combining the heat-storing brick inside the building with external adobe insulation to prevent the accumulated heat from going off. Another purpose of this technique is to minimise the temperature difference between the inside and outside wall surfaces. The more significant this difference, the closer is the dew point to the warmer surface, so a temperature drop of 20° (−10°C outside and at least +10°C inside) would inevitably move the dew point inside the room, causing mould to appear on the walls. The solution did not come immediately, as the baked bricks project over the flooring tiles, and their dimensions (30 × 15 × 7.5 cm) were standard in the Qarakhanid era (999–1211). As will be seen below, the main mudbrick walls were built well before Qarakhanid construction techniques became widespread in Transoxiana in the eleventh century. Although no heating appliances were found during the excavations, they can be easily conjectured. Those Sogdian buildings with no fixed stoves were usually heated by portable braziers burning charcoal, whose performance is also based on heat transfer. 5.1.2.3 Roof The roof did not survive, but one thing is certain: all halls were covered with large-span roofs without intermediate supports, as evident from the continuous flooring without any post-holes. An ancient house in Central Asia could be covered either with a flat roof (typically made of rows of mudbrick laid across a

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support structure of wood) or with a mudbrick vault in various ways studied in all detail.81 Whatever be the technique, the span of those vaults rarely exceeds four metres. The most concise history of Central Asian architecture quotes the courtyard vaults in the ninth district of Panjikent (4.10 m) and the central court of the Khwaresmian palace of Quy Qirilgan Qala (4.20 m) as extraordinarily wide.82 In the broader geographical context, an arch in Tell Yemmeh spanning 4.25 m was described by its discoverer as exceptional.83 That rules out a mudbrick vault over the largest hall over five metres wide and makes improbable such vaults over other two halls, each just under four metres wide, as the builders must have aimed at maximal security. At the same time, a flat roof would be technically feasible as wooden beams longer than six metres have been used in Central Asia since the earliest times until recently. Here, as in other areas for a long time untouched by modernisation, ethnographic evidence can considerably amplify archaeological record by providing comparative material:84 There is no natural timber over the vast Turkestan province, so homegrown trees must be used for building purposes. The kuk terek variety of poplar [Populus bolleana Lauche] prevails in the Zaravshan valley. In the Zaravshan Valley prevails. It has better qualities than the nice-looking Lombardy poplar (ar-ar) [Populus pyramidalis Rosier] which grows faster but gives less wood. When aged fifteen, both kinds of poplar provide beams twelve arshins [8.53 m] long and up to twenty-two vershoks [98 cm] wide…. As a building material, poplar is the only kind of wood

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82 83 84

Nasiba Baimatowa, Die Kunst des Woelbens in Mittelasien. Lehmziegelgewoelbe (4.–3. Jt. v. Chr.–8. Jh. n. Chr.), PhD Dissertation, Freie Universität Berlin 2004 (refubium.fu-berlin .de/handle/fub188/3107), and the bibliography therein. At the same time, Sogdian architecture knows many examples of even larger premises either roofed with interim support or being open yards, like the northern palace hall in Varakhsha or the Qarakhanid palace hall in Samarkand. Sergej Chmelnizkij, Zwischen Kuschanen und Arabern: die Architektur Mittelasiens im V.–VIII. Jh., Berlin 1989, 40, 188. Gus W. Van Beek, ‘Arches and Vaults in the Ancient Near East’, SA 251, issue 1 (July 1987). Cf.: ‘Henry Frankfort  … compared the ecology of early dynastic towns of Khafaje and Tell Asmar with the present-day city of Erbil. He was able to match specific architectural details, such as the window grilles found in both Khafaje and Hawler, as well making more general comparisons’. (Harriet Crawford, Sumer and the Sumerians, Cambridge 2004, 60).

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in the country used for permanent buildings, cheap furniture and local household needs.85 Additionally, flat roofs were typical for the same architectural tradition in the same period, as is evident from al-Bīrūnī’s report on the customs of the Christians of Merv. Staying on top of a church building inevitably implies a flat roof: Ma‘al‘thâ (Ingressus). On this feast, they wander from the naves of the churches up to their roofs, in commemoration of the returning of the Israelites to Jerusalem. It is also called ‫( ܩܘܕܫ ܥܕܬܐ‬Sanctification of the Church).86 The south chancel was covered with a baked brick dome; its remains were found in the earthen infill (see Figure 23). There is no reason why the north chancel would have been roofed differently, while the refectory must have had a flat roof all over: the absence of a transverse wall between the nave and the chancel rules out a squinch necessary to carry a dome. 5.1.2.4 Measurements and Proportions The proportions have been calculated so that length of a premise (between the main walls, excluding the baked brick facing) would be an exact multiple of its width. The refectory and the monastic church are six times longer than wide (23.04  × 3.84 m); the parish church is four times longer than wide (20.48  × 5.12 m). The subspaces (kitchen, narthex and both chancels) are squares with sides equal to the width of the main space. Those squares, which lie at the root of the whole ground plan, are based on a grid with a metric unit of 64 cm, commonly known as the Persian cubit.87

85

86 87

А. Шишов, Таджики. Этнографическое и антропологическое изследование, Ташкент 1910, 195–6. In the mountainous areas of Central Asia, there remains a tradition to plant forty poplars when a boy is born. By the time he gets married, there would be enough timber to build a house for the couple. C.E. Sachau (ed. & tr.), The Chronology of Ancient Nations. An English version of the Arabic text of the Athâr-ul-Bâkiya of Albîrûnî, or “Vestiges of the Past”, London 1879, 307. W. Hinz, Islamische Masse und Gewichte, Leiden 1955, ‘Arash’, ‘Dhirāʾ’, ‘Gaz’; Е.А. Давидович, Материалы по метрологии средневековой Средней Азии, Москва 1970, ‘Газ’.

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Figure 23 Remains of the dome over the parish church’s chancel

Thus the refectory can be represented as seven squares 6 × 6 cubits, of which one square is the kitchen; the monastic church—as five squares 6 × 6 cubits, of which one square is narthex and one is chancel; and the parish church—as five squares 8 × 8 cubits, of which one square is the chancel (see Figure 24). The

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Figure 24 Idealised plan of the monastery building

footprint of the whole building is 22.20 × 33.30 m = 40 × 60 cubits = 1:1½ with a slight error that can be ascribed to imperfect measurement instruments. A different measuring pattern is observed in the widths of doorways. They are multiple of the old Babylonian ‘royal cubit’ of 555 mm, a main linear unit throughout the Near East well into the Christian times. In Roman Syria, it remained in use specifically for doorways and window openings even after it had been replaced by the foot of 370 mm around the year 500.88 I understand this exception as the builders’ preference to stick to proven and reliable patterns for the structurally essential parts of the building. The main entrance to the northern nave is 1.67 m = three ‘old’ cubits wide; all other entries are 1.11 m = two ‘old’ cubits wide. Maintaining the proportional layout metrics was not an end in itself, but it was necessary for marking out the building ground with the help of peg stakes and ropes. It also allowed calculating the amount of building material to be used and to provide an adequate aesthetic balance of the whole and its parts. 88

C.H. Butler, Early Churches in Syria, Princeton 1929, 182–3.

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5.1.3.1.1

Chapter 1

Building as Church Monastic Church Narthex

The entrance to the monastic church is preceded by a square narthex paved with alternating rows of long- and cross-laid baked bricks 32 × 16 × 5 cm. Along its southern wall stands a raised platform with an oval niche in the centre, formed by bricks laid in a semicircle and probably intended to accommodate a stoup for dipping hands into the water on every visit (see Figure 25). It could also serve as a baptistry for parishioners’ children and adult converts.

Figure 25 Narthex with a stoup in axonometry

The Monastery in Urgut 5.1.3.1.2

Nave

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The main entrance is from the narthex, through the door in the west, there being no need to divide the congregation by sex. On the outside, the doorway is framed by two brick pillars attached to the mudbrick walls on both sides. The pillars are not part of the building structure: their purpose was to carry a blank radial arch over the entrance, which was found fallen in one piece just beyond the threshold (see Figure 26). After passing through the doorway, the visitor steps down on two granite slabs, presumably laid to prevent the threshold from wearing (see Figure 27). From there begins the floor paved with ceramic tiles and plastered with gypsum still intact over most of the church interior; this suggests walking barefoot or wearing indoor shoes. The floor tiles’ rhythm changes halfway along the nave: long-laid tiles give way to cross-laid ones, perhaps demarcating the space to separate monks of different ranks. This divide coincides with the supposed grid line between the second and the third metric unit of 6 × 6 cubits. Along the southern wall, at the height of 70 cm from the floor, there are rectangular niches in the brickwork 30 × 40 cm, which probably nested lights necessary to read the offices by night (see Figure 28). Given the absence of soot on the top sides of the niches, those lights were beeswax candles rather than oil-lamps typical of the area.

Figure 26 Entrance to the monastic church, view from inside

50

Figure 27 Threshold, fallen arch removed

Figure 28 Niches in the southern wall of the monastic church

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51

The nave is connected to the southern nave by a corridor and to the refectory by two doorways in the northern wall. 5.1.3.1.3

Chancel

The entrance to the chancel is emphasised by three stone steps up from the floor of the nave (see Figure 29). On the top of the steps, there is a narrow passage through which only clergymen not lower in rank than a deacon could pass, with brick pillars on both sides which probably carried the rood screen. On the top of the southern pillar, there is a superstructure made of fan-laid bricks with a flat top, which I interpret as a lectern for the scriptures read during the liturgy (see Figure 30). On either side of these steps are later structures of stone and mortar, being perhaps a book-cupboard and a lectern for the ḥusōyō on the right…. The ḥusōyō is a book of homilies composed around the prayers of propitiation (hence the name) which accompany the burning of incense.89 Finally, there is the cross-shaped chancel proper. As in the nave, the floor is paved with ceramic tiles and plastered with fine gypsum. The cubic altar 90 × 90 × 90 cm, made of baked brick, is set upon a raised step, abutting the rear wall. The priest’s seat is marked by ceramic tiles inserted into the floor edgewise in front of it. The altar’s height suggests that the priest was kneeling when serving the liturgy. There are symmetrical ledges raised above the floor on both sides of the altar, probably intended for the implements used in the Eucharistic celebration (see Figure 31). 5.1.3.1.4

Vestry

5.1.3.1.5

Refectory

Before the narrow passage to the chancel, a step to the south leads to what probably was a vestry (Syr. bēth diaqōn). The edges of this small room are poorly preserved because the last owner of this land plot dug a water reservoir (khovuz) right over this particular spot; over the years, leaking water has turned the bricks in this sector into an amorphous mass.90 In many Eastern monasteries, the refectory is considered sacred, and some services are performed there specifically, like the Lifting of the Panagia or the Ceremony of Forgiveness at the beginning of Great Lent. This refectory, running 89 90

Palmer, Monk and Mason, 64 on the Church of the Mother of God in Qartmīn. Hence the mistake in the ground plan attached to my ‘Östliche Urkirche in Usbekistan’, AW 2 (2010), which I have now corrected.

52

Figure 29 Chancel of the monastic church

Figure 30 Lectern

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Figure 31 Altar

parallel with the church on its north, is also constructed as a full church with an altar (see Figure 32). Given its primary non-liturgical purpose, the refectory is designed as a single uniform space without the structural division between the nave and the chancel. The floor there is beaten clay and not paved. Two interior details add to the picture, helping reconstruct the scene: raised benches at the eastern end of the hall, probably for senior monks, and a large pot in the southeast corner. All food served in the refectory had to be blessed, so this pot, standing in one metre from the altar, must have been intended for holy water: water for ablution or any other everyday purpose would be kept at a commonly accessible place (see Figure 33). The refectory is contiguous to the kitchen in the west end, consisting of several ovens and a cesspit (see Figure 34). 5.1.3.2

5.1.3.2.1

Parish Church Nave

This nave is almost twice as large as the other: 82 m2 against 44 m2, counting from the rear wall to the first step to the chancel. It is furnished with a paved floor of baked bricks 30 × 30 × 5 cm and 23 × 23 × 5 cm, plastered with gypsum. This thick flooring, much more durable than the thin ceramic tiles of

54

Figure 32 Refectory

Figure 33 South-east corner of the refectory

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55

Figure 34 Kitchen, facing east

the northern nave, was intended to stand more wear as the room hosted more people. How many more? As obviously the builders were gauging the size of the naves to the number of inmates and visitors, it might be calculated that the numbers they had in mind were c. forty men in the monastic church and c. eighty people in the parish church, given that a person needs at least one square metre to bow and kneel in prayer. The more realistic number would be half as many, as long as prostrations were also part of some ceremonies and churches were not expected to be full all the time. By comparison, in the year 1088, there were 400 monks in the Monastery of St. Macarius at Nitria, 156—in the Monastery of John the Little, sixty in the Monastery of the Syrians, forty in the Monastery of Anbā Pīshōy, twenty-five in the Monastery of John Kāmē, twenty in the Monastery of al-Barāmūs, and two in the Cave of Moses.91 It is noteworthy that the parishioners were twice as many as the monks, which means that the seed fell on good ground in Urgut.

91

H.G. Evelyn White, The History of the Monasteries of Nitria and of Scetis, New York 1973, 360.

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The inside facing of the south wall is in double brick and not in single brick as in all other premises. I explain it by the fact that the south wall is at the windward side, standing up against prevailing southern winds that come from the glaciers in the nearby highlands. This nave is much larger and therefore more difficult to heat, so more heat-saving was needed here, especially given that one should not expect from the lay congregation the same endurance as from chastened monks. That is probably why the doorways in the same wall are a third narrower than the main entrance to the monastic church. Several details betray the presence of women at the services: 1. Two main entrances, one for either sex. 2. Notch in the brick setting right opposite the entrance for womenfolk, probably marking the place of the curtain separating the two sexes. 3. Another sign of demarcation into two parts is the change in the rhythm of the floor paving, from bricks 23 × 23 × 5 cm east of the conventional boundary to 32 × 16 × 5 cm west of it. 4. Low benches in the rear end of the nave, presumably for seated women with little children. Judging from this spatial division, the congregation’s male to female ratio was approximately two to one. Apart from the two doorways, the nave can be entered through a narrow corridor connecting it to the monastic church. The purpose of the corridor might be explained by the need to bring a relic of a saint from the monastic church to the parish church on the yearly feast of Remembrance without leaving the building. 5.1.3.2.2

Chancel

The entrance to the chancel is preceded by a flight of three steps up from the nave floor, leading to a narrowed passage from the lay to holy precincts. The first step is made of baked bricks put edgewise to break the monotony and increase wear resistance (see Figure 35). The development works destroyed the rear wall of the chancel, but the altar remained safe, square shape 120 × 120 × 35 cm, made of baked brick 30 × 15 × 5 cm. The southern wall was fragmented by the roots of a huge plane tree (Platanus orientalis), overhanging the excavation. Still, the room’s shape can be reconstructed from the proportional layout metrics described above. It tends to a square 5.12 × 5.12 m, with a brick-paved floor plastered with gypsum. Only a trace of the rear wall has survived as a small piece in the southeast corner, one mudbrick block in size, allowing to finalise the ground plan. While the monastic church’s chancel is a closed space, this room connects to an ambulatory circumventing the church from the east.

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Figure 35 Chancel of the parish church

Dyes were used for decorating both chancels, providing samples of emeraldgreen, carmine, ochre, white, and cobalt stucco. The fragments were so small that it was impossible to determine whether they were the remains of a single overall colouring or a more elaborate decoration (see Figure 36). Two small fixtures served some immediate purpose which I fail to identify (see Figures 37–38). 5.1.3.2.3

Wine Cellar

In the southwest corner of the building, symmetrically opposite the narthex, there is a room whose purpose was not apparent until rectangular brickwork 1.60  × 1 m was found at floor level, with a pottery assemblage on top (see Figure 39). Upon removing, the surface structure gave way to a sealing made of shale slabs (see Figure 40). Further down, at depth 1.5 m was found a large ceramic vessel dug into the subsoil (see Figure 41). The bottom of the vessel and its inside walls were covered with whitewash and had clear traces of dark ruby depositions typically produced by wine. Putting whitewash (Calcium hydroxide) into wine is a well-known method of preventing the product from souring by neutralising excess acid. Embedding the pot into the ground was needed to maintain a steady low temperature of the stored wine. The permanent brick sealing indicates that the wine was supposed to mature.

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Figure 36 Stucco fragment from the parish church’s chancel

Figure 37 Trimmed pottery fragment with a drilled hole, embedded in the floor of the parish church by the northern wall.

The Monastery in Urgut

Figure 38 Trimmed brick of a non-standard shape, embedded in the floor of the parish church by the northern wall.

Figure 39 Top of the wine cellar

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Figure 40 Wine cellar, stone sealing

Figure 41 Wine cellar, floor

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61

5.2 Hermits’ Caves After several years of searching, the cave with inscriptions was rediscovered, and two more such caves. All three caves sit in the northern hillside of Mount Allahyarhan between 1300 & 1400 m a.s.l., their entrances facing the monastery’s site (see Figure 42). Caves 1 and 2 are situated one above the other, at the vertical distance of c. five metres (see Figures 43–44). I believe it was Cave 1 which the boys reached in 1955, as it is the lowest and the easiest accessible one. Cave 3 is in c. thirty metres above and to the east; its access is through a narrow corniche several metres long and foot-breadth wide (see Figure 45). It is more of a shallow grotto than a cave, while Caves 1 and 2 are several metres deep and spacious enough to serve as a retreat for at least one person.92 In those countries where the winter temperature never falls below zero, caves were often used by the monks of the local monasteries as permanent dwellings. In Urgut, harsh winters make year-round living in the caves impossible: weak heat storage capacity of karst and wide openings of irregular shape which cannot be sealed tightly would render null any attempt to heat the inner space. Not surprisingly, sifting the ground soil in all caves revealed no traces of even elementary homemaking. The purpose of the caves becomes evident in the light of the inscriptions, which have ‘vigil’ mentioned four times.93 Given that different personal names are attested in the same cave, I assume that different people occupied the caves for a short time rather than one person for a long time. The monastic practice of solitary retreats lasting seven weeks was described by Dadīshōʿ d’Qaṭrāyā, Syriac author of the late seventh century who wrote on various aspects of spiritual life.94 5.3 Reconstruction Ibn Ḥawqal, whose description is more detailed than al-Iṣṭakhrī’s, mentions three monastery’s units that cannot be identified with any of the excavated premises. 92

93 94

Caves 1 and 2 were discovered by Sergey Rovensky † and Mikhail Zhuravlёv, and Cave 3— by Sattar Ghaffarov, our field assistants. At that point, my GPS Etrex Summit was showing 142 km covered on foot. Ironically, the caves appeared to be less than one km from the main site. Dickens, Inscriptions, Cave 1, inscriptions 3, 7, 10, 16. A. Mingana (ed.), ‘On Stillness’, WS VII (1934), 70–143 (translation), 201–47 (text). Prof Herman Teule pointed me to this source on our descent from the caves in 2007. Two works by Dadīshōʿ were translated into Sogdian and could be known in the area: N. Sims-Williams, ‘Dādišoʿ Qaṭrāyā’s Commentary on the Paradise of the Fathers’, AB 112 (1994), issue 1–2, 33–64; id., ‘The Christian Sogdian Manuscript C2’, Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur des Alten Orients. Berliner Turfantexte 12, Berlin 1985, 165–7.

Figure 42 Mount Allahyarhan at close distance, looking from the south

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Figure 43 Cave 1

Figure 44 Cave 2

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Figure 45 Cave 3

‫ق‬

‫)��لا �ا ت‬ 5.3.1 Cells (� ‫ي‬ A close look at the eastern face of Sulayman Tepa reveals two deep and narrow wells cut across by the bulldozer bucket. When plotted on the ground plan, the wells appear to be inside the building, enclosed within the missing eastern main wall and under the roof, as implied by the plastered brick floor around them. At a late stage, the wells were abandoned and served as cesspits. The purpose of the wells becomes apparent in the light of the residents’ memories: a half-century ago, in the bank of the now dry stream in about fifty metres to the east, there was an entrance to a tunnel leading towards Sulayman Tepa, which later collapsed.95 Given the significant aridification of the area through the centuries, it is safe to assume that the tunnel once was filled with water flowing from the stream to the vertical wells inside the building. Any student of Central Asia would recognise here the kāhrīz (Pers.; in the Arabic-speaking world, qanāt) water transportation system from the source to the surface by underground channels without the need for pumping (see Figure 46). But why would constant water supply be needed inside the 95

The adjacent grounds are owned by two cousins, Khursanmurod Ghaffarov and Mamadmurod Ibrahimov (east and west of the site respectively), who provided detailed information about the environs.

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Figure 46 Irrigation tunnels. The lower Magian Darya, Northern Tajikistan

building, at the side opposite the kitchen and closest to the altars, given the daily need for water was fully satisfied by two easily accessible streams at both sides? Such sophisticated and laborious solution could be necessitated by an uninterrupted stay in seclusion, whose purpose quintessentialises the purpose of the monastic endeavour: retirement from the world. A similar, if not identical pattern has been established at the church of the Mother of God in Ṭūr ʿAbdīn: The east wall [of the south chamber of the sanctuary] has a larger hole in it, through which you can enter what must have been a hermit’s cell in the interstice between this building and those to the east of it [my italics]. From this cell a tunnel leads through the rock underground for 15 metres to the cistern called the ‘Pit of the Star’. This gave the hermit a private and suitably mortifying passage to the water-supply.96 While the hermit headed to the water in Ṭūr ʿAbdīn, water was channelled to the hermit in Urgut. Still, the substance remained the same in both cases: the wells were needed to provide the pious in the cells with water without breaking their seclusion. 96

Palmer, Monk and Mason, 65.

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Ibn Ḥawqal’s text published by De Goeje has ‘cells in it’ ( fī-hi qillāyāt) which I understand as indicating that the cells were part of the monastery compound. However, Kramers’ edition has ‘by’ or ‘with it’ (bi-hi), which expresses belonging in a more general sense. It is not impossible that ‘cells’ designates the caves in the mountains mentioned above. In the narrative on the consecration of the Church of St. Macarius by Benjamin I, we find the monks informing the patriarch that a ‘new ّ church … has been built for him at the foot of the rock among the cells (‫’)ا �ل��ق���لا لى‬.97 Living in such caves was commonplace at many Syrian and Egyptian monasteries, and the terms ‘cave’ and ‘cell’ were often perceived as synonyms: In Scetis the cells, usually termed caves, were wholly or partly contrived in the rock. The back part was a cavern, natural or artificial, with a forepart and courtyard of loose stone rubble or brick.98 In the absence of other clues, I see no way of establishing whichever kind of cells Ibn Ḥawqal meant.

‫)م‬ 5.3.2 ‘Place of Assembly’ ( ‫��م‬ ‫جع‬ This term is not in al-Iṣṭakhrī, whose Arabic text only mentions ‘monastery’, ‫ت ن‬ ‫�ع ب���ا د � �ك‬, lit. while the Persian translation has ‫ ج��م �ش��ون��د‬, ‘[they] gather’ and ‫��� ن���د‬ ‫ع‬ ‘[they] exercise piety’. It is not impossible to assume that Ibn Ḥawqal intended church and referred to it periphrastically as a place where people gather. However, when the same authors refer to Christian realia in all other cases, they use proper terms in their narrow and strict sense, without any periphrases: 1. When al-Iṣṭakhrī tells about a church near Herat, he calls it the ‘church of the Christians’ (kanīsa li-’l-Naṣārā).99 2. The notion of monasticism being alien to the Islamic culture, the Arabic language uses two Syriac loanwords for ‘monastery’ or ‘community of the monks’: dayr < dayrā and ʿumr < ʿumrā. The difference in usage reflects the real-life difference between a monastery and an abbey, the former being the dwelling place of monks who live a communal life. At the same time, the latter is understood as a more complex territorial jurisdiction whose purpose is not confined to piety and separation from the world. The monastery in Urgut was perceived as ‘umr by both travellers, which is consistent with the scale of that institution: the sources tell us that 97 98 99

Ibid., 241. Evelyn White, History of the Monasteries, 214. Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 265.

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the monastery owned lands or buildings and was home to a significant amount of inmates. 3. Although there are several words in Arabic for ‘room’ or ‘chamber’, Ibn ‫ق ّ �ة‬ ̈ ܳ ‫ ܶܩ‬ < κελλίον), probably to Ḥawqal uses a loanword for ‘cells’ ( ��‫ِ���لي‬ ‎< ‫ܠܝܬܐ‬ ِ emphasise their specific purpose as hermits’ cells. 4. Majmaʿ (‘gathering’) is what both authors call the fair in Ṭāwawis near Bukhara.100 It is hard to believe that the same term could be used for a church or that a monastery comprised a permanent fairground. Thus, there is a good reason to assume that ‘place of assembly’ designates a separate locus which I would identify as the now missing chapter house, a meeting place for the monks usually located on the eastern side of the cloister next to the church. That is where it would have been in Urgut: next to the churches, in the eastern part of Sulayman Tepa destroyed by development works.

‫�ة‬

‫�ة‬

‫ن‬

� � ‫��ا‬ �‫)�م��س ك‬ 5.3.3 ‘Nice and Pleasant Dwellings’ ( �‫ح����سن��� ن��ز �ه‬ The eastern side of the mound that has suffered the most damage could accommodate another edifice like the one excavated, which is enough space to provide a permanent home for several dozen people (see Figure 47). It is unlikely that this usable area stayed empty; also, if the monastery’s residential buildings stood near the churches and were not scattered among the nearby hills, then there hardly was any other place for them: – south (up the hill): in the mountain monasteries known to me, private premises are never situated above the church because everyday activities generate waste which inevitably goes downhill;101 – north (down the hill): in several metres beyond the refectory, the mound sharply descents, coming to nought at the confluence of the two brooks further down; – west: as there is only a narrow strip of land between the western enclosure wall and the steep bank of the Damgir Brook, the buildings would have stood at the opposite side of the stream too deep and fast-flowing to walk across. And as no piles could be put into the stream bed because of the swift current, attending the church services several times a day would have required a suspension bridge in need of constant repair—too cumbersome a solution, given there was enough building land at the opposite side of the mound. 100 Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 313; Ibn Ḥawqal, 362. 101 To quote just one example of wise waste management in the fourteenth-century Armenian monastery of the Holy Cross (Surb Khach Vank) in Eastern Crimea, where the washhouse, the kitchen and the toilet are situated one above another on stone terraces, thus combining efficient sanitation with water-saving.

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Figure 47 Ground plan of Sulayman Tepa with the adjacent area

5.3.4 Spring Apart from the streams on both sides, the monastery had another water source. It was a spring that did not survive but can be reconstructed quite accurately from the memories of the neighbours who remember it running in the western slope of the hill, some ten metres north of the refectory. An arch roof made of baked bricks covered it at about man’s height. After the spring stopped several decades ago, the roof was taken to pieces, and the bricks were used for building purposes. 5.3.5 Upper Church The two churches are separated by an unusually wide wall (c.3.5 m). This fact needs an explanation, as walls over three metres wide were not used in Central Asia except for fortification. In structural terms, such width is unnecessary: roofs over the naves could be propped against the shared wall of the standard width, sparing effort and building materials. The function of this mudbrick mass becomes apparent when it is viewed as a high platform for an upper floor base. That also explains the purpose of the staircase reinforced with baked bricks found in the northeast corner of the corridor connecting the churches.

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69

5.3.6 Tower While other non-extant parts of the monastery can be conjectured at the basis of at least some material remnants or reliable testimonies of eye-witnesses, nothing can confirm the existence of a church tower except its image, captured by a vigilant monk in a drawing carved on the wall of a natural cave overlooking the monastery’s site (see Figure 48). The drawer’s gaze is directed from south to north, allowing him to see the building from the south (see Figure 49). The tower on the drawing is on the left fringe of the building, which means it belongs to the west-facing facade. That would be the proper place for a tower, over the monastic church entrance and aligned with the chancel dome at the opposite side. 5.4 Finds 5.4.1 Sacred Vessels and Objects The following items were found on the floor of the south chancel: – fragment of a ceramic stand with a simple cross embossed with a finger (see Figure 50). Such stands on small pillars (dastarkhan), mainly used for serving meals, were manufactured over the centuries almost without modifications, so the artefact cannot be accurately dated. It was found by the rear side of the transverse north wall with a wide and shallow circular niche ideally suited to accommodate an object of such size and shape (see Figure 51);

Figure 48 Drawing of the church tower on a wall of Cave 1

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Figure 49 View of the monastery from Cave 1

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Figure 50 Fragment of a ceramic stand

Figure 51 Niche in the wall of the chancel

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– fragment of a bowl with a handle and lid. The lid has a potter’s mark with the same motif as on the large wine pots from Krasnaya Rechka102 and Aq-Beshim103 in Semirechye (see Figure 52). I am indebted to Fr. Mathew T. Mathew, Licentiate in Syriac liturgical Christology at the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome, who informed me that in the Coptic, Ethiopian and Eritrean traditions, woven baskets of exactly such shape and covered by a thick piece of cloth were used for prosphora prepared on-premises for the Mystery of the Holy Leaven, and such ceramic bowls were used to store dough;

Figure 52 Bowl with a lid with handle, twelfth century 102 А.Н. Бернштам, ‘Уйгурская эпиграфика Семиречья’, ЭВ 1 (1947), 34–7. 103 Г.Л. Семёнов, ‘Раскопки 1996–1998 гг.’, Суяб. Ак-Бешим, СПб. 2002, 68, fig. 24.

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73

– glazed tile with a concave simple cross 2 × 3 cm with broadening ends (see Figure 53). The small tile could be used to make raised imprints on the prosphora, which, in the East Syrian tradition, tend to be ‘round in shape, 2–2¼ inches across by ½ inch thick’;104 – seven-light lamp made of soapstone (see Figure 54). A similar lamp has been found in Paykend, in the stratum firmly dated to the tenth and eleventh centuries.105 Another one, also of soapstone, with six lights, was found in Samarkand among pottery sherds dating from the eleventh or twelfth century.106 An iron lamp of the same shape was used for the Anointing of the Sick in the Coptic Church.107 Two items were found on the steps up from the nave to the chancel: an iron cross and a three-lobed glazed lantern, the latter probably being a hanging altar lamp lit during the Eucharist (see Figures 55–56). 5.4.2 General Purpose 5.4.2.1 Pottery and Glasswork The domestic ceramics recovered during the excavations (403 items in total) consists of unglazed storage and cooking pots, glazed tableware (bowls, cups and plates big and small), and oil lamps. The assemblage represents well-known types found across Central Asia, from the closest sites like Afrasiab in Samarkand to more distant production centres in Chach and the Bukhara oasis. Technical examination of this pottery would belong to the study of the Sogdian handicrafts rather than fall within the scope of the current work, so I will only be using this material for dating purposes. Except for singular earlier sherds, the main bulk of the pottery and glasswork falls within the time bracket between the Samanids and the Mongols, distributed as follows: the eighth–ninth centuries: 2.99%; the tenth century: 10.9%; the eleventh century: 9.43%; the twelfth–early thirteenth century: 76.68%. Then follows a break, marking the end of the main occupational phase, after which the total number of pottery finds, belonging to later

104 R.M. Wooley, The Bread of the Eucharist, Milwaukee 1913, 58–9. 105 Г.Л. Семёнов, И.К. Малкиель, Д.К. Мирзаахмедов, А.И. Торгоев, ‘Раскопки в Пайкенде в 2003 году,’ МБАЭ V, СПб. 2004, plate 110, 2. 106 Э.Ю. Бурякова, Ю.Ф. Буряков, ‘Новые археологические материалы к стратиграфии средневекового Самарканда (по раскопкам площади Регистан в 1969–1971 гг.)’, Афрасиаб II (1973), 183. The authors quote yet another such lamp, with five lights, kept at the Samarkand Museum, item A-42-30. 107 A.J. Butler, The Ancient Coptic Churches of Egypt, Oxford 1884, vol. 2, 76.

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Figure 53 Glazed ceramic tile

Figure 54 Soapstone lamp

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75

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Figure 55 The iron cross

Figure 56 Glazed lantern, end of the twelfth–beginning of the thirteenth century

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squatter re-occupation, is half as much as that which came before the break: the fourteenth–fifteenth centuries—0.97%; the sixteenth–seventeenth centuries— 7.77%; the eighteenth century—67.48%; the nineteenth–early twentieth century—23.69% (see Figures 57–64).

Figure 57 a) Ninth century; b), c), d): tenth century

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Figure 58 a): End of the tenth–beginning of the eleventh century; b), c), d): eleventh century

77

78

Figure 59 a–f

Chapter 1

Twelfth century

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Figure 60 a–c

Twelfth century

79

80

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Figure 61 a) Twelfth century: b), c): end of the twelfth–beginning of the thirteenth century; d) thirteenth century

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Figure 62 a–e

End of the eighth–first half of the ninth century

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Figure 63 a), b): middle of the ninth–second half of the ninth century; c), d): tenth century

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83

Figure 64 Samples of metalwork

5.4.2.2 Metalwork Four wound silver bracelets of the unenclosed type, widespread in Chach and Ilaq in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.108 Apart from serving as decoration, such bracelets were also an asset as the weight of each was equal to a certain amount of dirhams.109 Found by the residents on the site of the assumed chapter house, they could be a donation kept at a treasury situated separately from the churches. Other metallic finds are: – three iron fragments of the monastic church’s front door lock; – several iron nails and arrowheads; – a fragment of an engraved bronze plate (see Figure 65). 5.4.2.3 Medical Devices A dry cupping vessel, a surgical hook and a sphaerocone for storing mercury (simob-kuzacha). 108 Леонид Сверчков, ‘Три находки из Уструшанского замка Мык’, Sanat № 1 (2000), 1–5; Д.П. Вархотова, ‘Два серебряных браслета X–XI вв. из Чиназа’, ИМКУ 4 (1963), 116–8. 109 Ю.Ф. Буряков, Г. Дадабаев, ‘К истории Чиназа (древний Чинанчикет)’, ОНУ 9 (1972), 44–7.

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Figure 65 Engraved bronze plate

5.4.2.4 Coins The coin material, too limited in quantity to speak of mass statistics, follows the same chronological tendency. The earliest coin was struck by Turgar, the last native ruler of Sogd to issue his silver coins. The one found belongs to type II (with an additional sign in the form of the half-moon, characteristic of Chinese coins of the fourth decade of the eighth century), minted between 738 and 750. The latest coin is Chaghatay Khan’s silver-plated copper dirham struck in Samarkand in AH 630 (1233–34). Between those dates, there are coins of al-Ashʿath b. Yaḥyā (Samarkand, AH 144 (761–62)); al-Junayd b. Khālid (Bukhara, AH 151 (768–69)); Ismaʿīl b. Aḥmad (Samarkand, AH 288 (900–01)); three Bukhār Khudā’s dirhams (middle of the ninth–beginning of the eleventh century), and a Qarakhanid fals minted between 942 and 1212. 5.4.4 Uncategorised Finds Several bricks with animal tracks left during prefabrication drying (see Figure 66). The tracks of a snow leopard whose habitat is restricted to the highlands leave no doubt that the building materials were manufactured locally.110 110 I owe my sincere thanks to Dr Dzhamal Mirzaahmedov and Mrs Yelizaveta Lushnikova for their help with analysing the pottery sherds; to Dr Lyudmila Shpenёva for dealing with the numismatic material; and to Drs E.R. Potapov and S.L. Vartanyan for identifying the animal tracks.

85

The Monastery in Urgut A

B

C

D

E

F

Figure 66 Animal footprints: a) bear (Ursus sp.); b) domestic dog (Canis familiaris); c) fox (Vulpes vulpes or Vulpes cana); d) porcupine (Hystrix indica); e) snow leopard (Uncia uncia); f) wolf (Canis lupus)

86 6

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The Timeline

6.1 Terminus post quem 6.1.1 Direct Evidence The continuous layer of wood charcoal sealed beneath the flooring of both naves shows that the monastery survived a big fire. There would not be enough wooden objects in the churches to form the layer 5–7 cm thick, so the only origin of the charcoal could be timber roof beams. Even wide beams, necessary to span the naves, can catch on fire accidentally, especially in the summer heat. However, to burn to ashes, they must keep burning for many hours without anyone’s attempt to put out the fire. The water sources at hand were: two streams at both sides; two wells; the spring; and the capacious stoop in the narthex. It is hard to believe that nobody was in or around the monastery for a long time, day or night. Thus, it is probable that the fire took place when fire fighting was difficult or impossible. A sample of wood charcoal from the said layer was subjected to radiocarbon analysis which showed that, with the maximum probability, the event that caused the fire occurred around the middle of the ninth century (see Figure 67). In 859–60 ghāzīs, Muslim warriors of faith, raided Shāwdār, as narrated by the local chronicle of Samarkand, the Qandiya: ‘When the year 245 came, the Shawdār district was indiscriminately slaughtered, and many thousand people were killed’.111 Another version of the same source adds that two hundred ghāzīs were killed during the raid,112 which attests to the strong resistance of the defenders. That is cogent evidence to assume that the attack and the fire were related. Nothing foretold troubles on the eve of the raid when Theodosius I (Catholicos 853–58) mentioned Samarkand alongside other external metropolies of the Church of the East.113 Furthermore, even given some inevitable controversies in the process of Islamisation, an intentional attack on a Christian settlement ran counter the mandated activities of a ghāzī corporation, since Christians did not qualify as infidels, nor ninth-century Urgut could be qualified as dār al-ḥarb. Thus, it is logical to seek the reason among matters more prosaic than religious zeal. At the dawn of Islamic polity, monks and hermits were exempt from poll-tax on non-Muslim ‘clients’. However, after its return in the eighth century, 111 В.Л. Вяткин (пер.), ‘Кандия Малая’, СКСО VIII (1906), 242. 112 MS Istanbul, Turhan Valide 70, 54b, apud J. Paul, ‘The Histories of Samarqand’, SI 22 (1993), 83. 113 A. Mai (ed. and tr.), ‘Canon of Theodosius’, SVNC, vol. X, Romae 1825–1838, 146 (Latin), 308 (Syriac).

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Figure 67 Radiocarbon dating by Dr A.I. Sementsov and Dr S.L. Vartanyan, Radiocarbon Laboratory, St. Petersburg Archaeological Institute

many monasteries in Egypt disappeared due to heavy taxation,114 while those remaining tried to avoid the additional tax in every possible way.115 Since then, the rules changed a few times depending on budgetary needs and Caliph’s religious preferences, to take definitive shape in such form: The same refers to the monks in monasteries: if they own material wealth, they are charged a poll tax, but if destitute and live on charity, they are not charged. The same poll tax is charged on hermits in cells [ ‫ ]�صوا�م‬if ‫ع‬ they have enough means and wealth, even if they have passed their assets 114 As shown by Paul E. Kahle, Bala’izah, London 1954, vol. I, 42. 115 ‘In Egypt monks were exempt from poll-tax; the Copts, who since Roman times had been past masters of tax evasion, noted that the taxpayer could escape payment of poll-tax if he left the district where he was enrolled or, better still, if he entered a monastery. It therefore became necessary to make all monks in their turn subject to poll-tax’. (Cl. Cahen, ‘Djizzya’, EI, vol. II, Leiden 1965, 560).

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to another person who would spend them on the support of monasteries and monks and other people living there. In such case, the abbot must pay a poll tax for them, but if the abbot who holds those assets refuses and swears to God or whatever people of his faith swear to that he does not have anything of those assets, then he is left in peace and not charged anything.116 It does not take an expert in fiscal law to see that ‘wealth’, ‘means’ and ‘assets’ can be variously interpreted. But even if the law were on the side of Aḥmad b. Asad al-Sāmānī, the ruler of Samarkand at the time of the raid, enforcing legislation over the monastery in the mountains, where snow leopards walked undisturbed on drying bricks, might have proven difficult. In such a situation, recourse to the ultima ratio combined with the ghāzīs’ lure of plunder might explain the incident. Whatever the historical reality behind the raid, the fire destroyed all previous evidence except two testimonies of the earlier period: the coin struck by Turghar between 738 and 750 and the date in an inscription corresponding to 752–53.117 It is thus evident that the monastery in some form existed before 753 at the latest. 6.1.2 Indirect Evidence It seems clear from Ibn Ḥawqal’s description that the name Vōrkūte, which eventually became a generic name of the whole district, had been initially َ applied to the monastery only: ‘ � ‫—�م ْو �ض‬L’endroit où se trouve une chose’;118 the ‫ع‬ area in general was called Shāwdhār. In the West, it was not uncommon for a monastery to turn into a village over time and a village into a town. It is quite conceivable that the same happened in Urgut, but what matters is when that semantic extension took place. It has been established that all Mugh documents were written before 722.119 At least one generation was needed for the monastery’s name to become extended to apply to the place mentioned in A-5. When the document was written, the settlement already reached significant size: its ruler is called khuv, which term denotes rulers of larger communities as opposed to katē-fšyāus for village heads.120 As towns did not emerge suddenly, another generation was 116 117 118 119 120

Abū Yūsuf Yaʿqūb b. Ibrāhīm al-Kūfī, Kitāb al-Kharāj, Cairo 1382/1962–63, 146. Dickens, Inscriptions, № 31 (Cave 2). R. Dozy, Supplément aux dictionnaires arabes, t. 2, Leyde 1881, 104. Согдийские документы II, 7. Ibid., 277.

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needed for a village to grow into something bigger. These considerations move the time of the founding by two generations earlier, putting it between the Arab conquest of Iran around 651 and the invasion of Transoxiana around 705. 6.2 Terminus ante quem 6.2.1 Direct Evidence The following material makes it possible to establish the latest date: 1. Three sealed assemblages of complete pottery items. Such assemblages usually belong to the time when an archaeological complex is destroyed and testify to its sudden and abrupt death: a) an array of unbroken pottery on the top of the brick cover of the wine cellar (see Figure 68);121 b) twelve oil lamps in a wall niche in the eastern passage from the monastic church to the refectory.122 The fact that the lamps were stored and not in use shows that the disaster happened in the daytime; c) moulded pitcher with red engobe spots inside the oven in the kitchen.123 2. Lantern on the steps leading to the parish church’s chancel (see Figure 69). 3. Cooking pot with animal bones inserted into the floor in the monastic church; a ceramic tile was taken out for that purpose and lay broken at arm’s length (see Figure 70).124 It is hard to believe that a meal could be taken this way in the normally functioning church and that the scene would remain uncleared in the ordinary course of events. 4. Date in an inscription that can be interpreted as 1247–48, 1241–42, or 1261–62 (see Figure 71).125

121 Cf. D.K. Mirzaakhmedov, ‘Mid-12th and Early 13th Century Pottery from Uč Kulāh. A Source for the Economic and Social History of Bukhara’, Italo-Uzbek Scientific Cooperation in Archaeology and Islamic Studies: An Overview, Roma 2001, figs. 42, 43. 122 Cf. Г.В. Шишкина, Глазурованная керамика Согда (вторая половина VIII–начало XIII в.), Ташкент 1979, plate XVII, 1–4. 123 Cf. Л.Ф. Соколовская, Неглазурованная керамика средневекового Самарканда как фактор экономики городского ремесла (по материалам городища Афрасиаб кон. VII–нач. ХIII вв.), PhD thesis, Tashkent 1995 = Археология Центральной Азии: архивные материалы, т. I, Самарканд 2015, 93, 278, fig. 107 (2), № 5. 124 Cf. Ch. S. Antonini, ‘La ceramica e altri reperti’, Gli scavi di Uch Kulakh (oasi di Bukhara), rapporto preliminare, 1997–2007, Pisa–Roma 2009, 145, fig III.9 (UK223); 149, fig. III.14 (UK252); Džamal Mirzaachmedov, ‘La ceramica islamica’, Gli scavi di Uch Kulakh, 178, figs III.24, III.25. 125 Dickens, Inscriptions, № 166 (Samarkand History Museum, A-308-1).

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Figure 68 Pottery from the top of the wine cellar

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Figure 69 Dating materials from tree different contexts

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Figure 70 Cooking pot inserted into the floor. The findspot is marked with a dashed circle in Figure 19 (left).

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B

Figure 71 A–B A-308-1, Samarkand Historical Museum, filed off from the Red Rock in Urgut in 1936

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All pottery assemblages can be firmly dated to the first half of the thirteenth century except the three-lobed lantern, which belongs to the twelfth century. This latter date is not at variance with the age of the rest of the finds, as any item kept at sacred precincts and treated with care, like an altar lamp, would have a longer lifespan. 6.2.2 Indirect Evidence The hiatus in pottery use from the mid-thirteenth until the fourteenth century points to some significant event that interrupted the community’s life. Hardly that event was anything else than the Mongol invasion of Central Asia early in the thirteenth century. However, at the time of Genghiz Khan and his first successors, the Mongols exercised benevolent attitude toward the religions of those they conquered, or at least a policy of benign neglect. Before the Mongol conquest, Christian and Jewish communities in Central Asia and Iran did not play any significant role in the political scene. They stood aside from social trends or power struggles, thus escaping hostile attitudes from the dominant Muslims. In contrast, under the rule of heathen Mongol Khans, leaders of the Christian communities actively engaged in state affairs. They participated in the struggle of the political parties at the Great Khan’s court and courts of the ulus khans— the Chagataids, the Juchids and the Khulaguids. Under Genghiz Khan, the Mongols … were primitive shamanists to whom religious exclusivism was alien. However, such a state of things could not last for long: sedentarised Mongol aristocracy had to adopt one of the older religions of the feudal societies. That part of the Mongol elite which held firm to the nomadic traditions and the Great Yasa of Genghis Khan, began to absorb the culture of semi-nomadic Uygurs and their religions—Nestorian Christianity and Buddhism, already tailored to the social and cultural situation of the Eastern Turks and the Mongols. On the contrary, the part which tended to a consensus with the subordinate Irano-Tajik and Turkmen elites and to absorb the traditions of Islamic statehood eagerly adopted Islam.126 The troubles began when the Muslim and the Christian communities entered the struggle for the favour of the Mongol authorities, who changed their preference for the one or the other side many times before finally opting for Islam. The situation in Samarkand is illustrated by two sources, separated by one decade. The first was written by Smbat Sparapet, brother of King Hetum of Armenia, who went to Mongolia to seek protection for the Armenian kingdom 126 И.П. Петрушевский, ‘К истории христианства в Средней Азии’, ПС 15 (78), 1966, 141–2.

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from the Great Khan Güyük, grandson of Genghiz Khan. Smbat’s letter to his brother-in-law, Henry I Lusignan of Cyprus, compiled in Samarkand on February 7, 1248, paints an idyllic picture of the Christian situation in the lands ruled by the Mongols: Haec est terra, de qua tres Reges venerunt in Bethleem adorare Dominum Iesum natum. Et sciatis potentiam Christi fuisse magnam et adhuc esse, quod gentes illius terrae sunt Christiani; et tota terra de Chata credunt illos tres Reges. Et ego ipse fui in Ecclesiis eorum, et vidi Iesum Christum depictum, et tres Reges, quorum unus offert aurum, et alius thus, et alius myrrham. Et per illos tres Reges credunt in Christum, et per illos Chan et omnes sui modo facti sunt Christiani. Et ante portas suas habent ecclesias suas, pulsant campanas suas, et percutiunt tabulas…. Et notum vobis facio quod inuenimus multos Christianos per terram Orientis effuses, et multas Ecclesias pulchras, altas et antiquas et bene aedificatas, quas Turci deuastauerunt, ita quod Christiani illius terrae in praesentia aui istius Kan venerunt; quos ille cum magno honore suscepit, et libertati donauit, et fecit prohiberi ne quis faceret vel diceret, de quo vel ad modicum possent merito contristari. Ita quod Saraceni, qui prius eis verecundiam faciebant, nunc illunt quod faciebant recipiunt in duplum.127 The idyll was ruined by the following accident, narrated by the Samarkand Sayyid Ashraf al-Dīn to the Persian historian al-Jūzjānī whom he met in Delhi on a business: That eminent Sayyid thus related, that one of the Christians of Samrḳand attained unto the felicity of Islām; and the Musalmāns of Samrḳand, who are staunch in their faith, paid him great honour and reverence, and conferred great benefits upon him. Unexpectedly, one of the haughty Mughal infidels of Chīn, who possessed power and influence, and the inclinations of which accursed one were towards the Christian faith, arrived at Samrḳand. The Christians of that city repaired to that Mughal, and complained, saying: “The Musalmāns are enjoining our children to turn away from the Christian faith and serving ʿIsā … and calling upon them to follow the religion of Muṣtafā … and, in case that gate becomes unclosed, the whole of our dependents will turn away from the Christian faith. By [thy] power and authority devise a settlement of our case”.

127 Io. Lavrentii Moshemii Historia Tartarorum ecclesiastica, Helmstadt 1741, Appendix, № XII, 49–50.

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That Mughal commanded that the youth, who had turned Musalmān, should be produced; and they tried with blandishment and kindness, and money and wealth, in order to induce that sincere newly-converted Musalmān to recant, but he did not recant; … As the youth continued firm to the true faith, and paid no regard to the promises and threats of that depraved set, the accursed Mughal directed so that they brought that youth to public punishment; and he departed from the world in the felicity of religion … and the Musalmān community in Samrḳand were overcome with despondency and consternation in consequence. … A petition was got up, and was attested with the testimony of the chief men and credible persons of the Musalmān religion dwelling in Samrḳand, and we proceeded with that petition to the camp of Barkā Khān, and represented [to him] an account of the proceedings and disposition of the Christians of that city…. After some days, he showed honour and reverence to this Sayyid, appointed a body of Turks and confidential persons among the chief Musalmāns, and commanded that they should slaughter the Christian sect who had committed that dire oppression, and despatched them to hell. Having obtained that mandate, it was preserved until that wretched sect assembled together in the kalīsā [church] and they seized them all together, and despatched the whole of them to hell, and reduced the church again to bricks.128 ‘Barkā Khān’ must be Berkē, grandson of Genghis Khan, the first Mongol ruler to convert to Islam and become a devout Muslim. Therefore the described event could take place between 1257 when Berkē became the Great Khan,129 and 1258–59 when the Sayyid met al-Jūzjānī in Delhi. This point makes me prefer 1261–62 as the intended date in the inscription attesting that someone was still there at the monastery a few decades after the Mongols had taken Samarkand in 1220. History does not record who of the Mongol authorities visited Samarkand at the time relevant, so the identity of the ‘haughty Mughal of Chīn’ remains unknown. Despite its literary flair, the story cannot be entirely fictional because of the high social status of the narrator as a descendant of Muḥammad and 128 W. Nassau Lees (ed.), The Tabaqát-i Násiri of Aboo ’Omar Minháj al-Dán ’Othmán ibn Siráj al-Dín al-Jawzjani, Calcutta 1864, 448–50 = H.G. Raverty (tr.), Ṭabaḳāt-i-Nāṣirī: A General History of the Muhammadan Dynasties of Asia, London 1881–1899, vol. II, 1289–90. 129 Berke’s accession can be dated either to 1257 (Г.А. Фёдоров-Давыдов, Общественный строй Золотой Орды, Москва 1973), or to 1258 (А.Н. Насонов, Монголы и Русь. История татарской политики на Руси, Москва 1940), or to August 1259 (Е.П. Мыськов, Политическая история Золотой Орды (1236–1313 гг.), Волгоград 2003).

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al-Jūzjānī’s reputation as a trustworthy historian. The underlying plot will likely reflect something more significant in scale than a single local conflict. It seems that the Urgut Christians were caught in the middle of the Muslim-Christian rivalry just when the tension reached its height, after which the monastery and its diocese ceased to exist. However, there is all reason to believe that the long-lasting rivalry was not only about political advantage. In the territories directly controlled by the Mongols, before their conversion to Islam, the original fiscal system abolished the poll-tax on non-Muslims; when they adopted the Muslim religion, zealous agents sought to make the Christians pay all the arrears (forty years …)130 Having first surfaced with the ghāzī raid four centuries earlier, the animosity towards local Christians originated from resentment at the wealth accumulated by the Christian community due to the particular geographical situation of the Urgut monastery. I will present below my arguments in favour of this conclusion. 6.3 Cemetery The established chronological framework shows that the monastery was in existence for five centuries, which translates into approximately fifteen generations. If we assume that both churches were always half full during the liturgy, that would beg the question of where some 300 monks and some 600 lay parishioners were interred. Given that a flat grave cannot be smaller than two square metres and assuming one metre between any two graves, the graveyard must have covered about half a hectare, which is the size of a standard football field. Sulayman Tepa cannot accommodate a cemetery of such size, as the monastery building occupies its flat top. South of it, stony soil hardly covers the solid rock of Mount Allahyarhan’s spur, making it impossible to dig a grave six feet deep. (The experience of all civilisations burying their dead in the ground shows that lower depth would be fraught with plague). Moreover, there are streams beyond which rocks rise again in the east and west. Therefore, the cemetery should be sought north of Sulayman Tepa, down the hill and closer to the habitable lowlands. The nearest suitable place, relatively flat and with enough loess sediments on top of the rocky subsoil, is situated in c.500 m to the north. Remarkably, this place is an old cemetery. According to the local legend, the earliest grave 130 Cahen, Djizzya, 562 with ref. to al-Jazarī (Jean Sauvaget (ed.), La Chronique de Damas d’al-Jazari, Paris 1949, 48, Nr 307).

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belongs to Khoja Abu Talib Sarmast, one of four missionaries who came to Urgut from Bukhara to propagate Islam and were stoned to death by infidels. His companions were Khoja Bozmond, Khoja Sangrason, and Khoja Amon. Four plane trees were planted in the memory of the martyrs, giving the name to the place: Chār Chinār. 6.3.1 Legend as Palimpsest The story, circulating in Urgut by word of mouth, was set down in writing by 84-year-old Timurlan Khaliqov as part of his chronicle of Urgut, which he kindly shared with me (see Figure 72). Two features of the text became apparent upon careful examination: 1. The legend was of Sufi origin. The saint’s laqab (nickname) Sarmast, meaning ‘drinker’ in Persian, belongs to the typical Sufi discourse, where ‘divine intoxication’ is often used as a metaphor; many prominent Sufis share this nickname throughout the Muslim world. 2. The language of the chronicle was strikingly archaic, containing words and clauses out of use in Modern Uzbek: toshburon (‘hail of stones’), alobga siginar (‘fire worshippers’), etc. Timur Bobo explained that his primary source was memories of his grandfather, who must have been born sometime between 1860 and 1880. Thus, the ruled school notebook contained a rare historical source in Chaghatay—the ‘Old Uzbek’ of Turkestan’s Sarts, a living language in the grandfather’s generation.131 However, this is where the genealogy of the legend stops: the story was yet unknown to Abu Tahir Khoja who wrote his Samariya in the 1830s: The mazar of Khoja Abu Talib Sarmast is in the southern mountains, in one of the quarters of the settlement of Urgut, in the Samarkand district. At that mazar, there is an orchard of plane trees, where the trees are like minarets in size. At the same place, there is a spring flowing from under the ground, and it brings out enough water to move one millstone…. The biography of Khoja Abu Talib Sarmast is unknown. He is considered to be a saint of the first centuries of Islam.132

131 Before the identification Uzbek became extended to cover all Turks in Uzbekistan, Sart had denoted the long-time settled Turkic-speaking part of the population. On the semantic change of this name over the centuries v. W. Barthold [M.E. Subtelny], ‘Sārt’, EI, vol. IX, Leiden 1997, 66–8. 132 В.Л. Вяткин (пер.), ‘“Самария”, описание древностей и святынь самаркандских Абу Тахир Ходжа’, СКСО VI (1898), 207–8.

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A

B

Figure 72 Timurlan Khaliqov dit Timur Bobo, chronicler, sorcerer and storyteller

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Therefore, either the legend was an outcome of the grandfather’s creativity, or its origin must be sought somewhere where the same language was in use. Such a place is Eastern Turkestan, where modern Uyghurs speak and write in the late form of Chaghatay.133 In is there that we find a similar epic narrative about the Four Sacrificed Imams, codified sometime between 1700 and 1849.134 In the eastern version, the imams leave the city of Madāʾin to assist the Qarakhanid ruler Yūsuf Qādir Khān in spreading Islam in Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan and are murdered by the Buddhists. In both recensions, the central saint becomes invisible and tells people to build a mazār at the massacre site. In both places, the mazārs are venerated and attended by pilgrims; almost certainly, the one in Khotan is an earlier Buddhist shrine: The supposed resting-places of these holy martyrs, Ziarats and Mazārs of all sorts, stud the oasis and its vicinity more thickly than anywhere else…. We have already had occasion to note that many of these Ziarats mark the position of earlier Buddhist shrines, and thus afford proof of the tenacity of local worship. Among the shrines of Khotan territory there are several, like the ‘Tombs of the Four Imams’ (at Tört-Imām) … which annually attract crowds of pilgrims from all parts of Turkestan.135 In Urgut, four plane trees gave rise to a grove, landscaped by the Emir of Bukhara in 1813. The age of the oldest tree is stated on a hand-made plate; the figure is adjusted as time goes by. However, dendrochronology knows no method of determining the exact age of a tree without cutting it, and there is no way to determine that age within a year. That means the age on the plate is based on tradition, not science, being counted from some event deeply rooted in the memory of the local literati. It is currently stated as 1163 years, which brings 133 ‘… the Turkish of Káshghar and Yarkand (which some European linguists have called Uīghur, a name unknown to the inhabitants of those towns, who know their tongue simply as Túrki’. (R.B. Shaw, A sketch of the Túrki language as spoken in Eastern Túrkistan (Káshgar and Yarkand) together with a collection of extracts. Part I, Lahore 1875, iv). The relationship of Chaghatay to other Turkic languages is defined in Lars Johanson, Éva Ágnes Csató (eds.), The Turkic Languages, London–New York 2006, 357, 379. 134 Rian Thum, ‘Modular History: Identity Maintenance before Uyghur Nationalism’, JAS 71 № 3 (August 2012), 632–3. 135 M. Aurel Stein, Ancient Khotan, vol. I, Oxford 1907, 140. ‘At the pretty cluster of little oases known as Imamlar I visited the well-shaded shrine, famous as a pilgrimage-place throughout the Tarim Basin, where pious belief has located the resting-place of four of those legendary imams, or early warrior prophets of Islam, who are such popular figures in Khotan tradition. I wondered whether we should ever learn to which Buddhist shrine this local worship traces its origin’. (Id., Ruins of Desert Cathai, London 1912, vol. II, 440–1.).

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us to the date of the ghāzī raid on Urgut with an error of three years. That is the kind of error that would occur if converting between Hijri and Gregorian without conversion tables by subtracting 622 from the current year number or vice versa (see Figure 73). According to the History of Samarkand, many thousand people were killed in the raid. The need must have inevitably arisen to bury many people at once, out of ethical and hygienic reasons. For this purpose, the place of the current mazār was suited better than any other one (see Figure 74). It thus seems possible to assume the following order of events: 1. The current mazār had been the monastery’s burial ground since that is the most appropriate, if not the only suitable place to bury the dead in Upper Urgut. Immediately beyond starts a steep descent which would have made the procession go several kilometres downhill. 2. The Urgut Christians, killed during the ghāzī raid, were buried there, after which the place became a shrine. 3. To explain the raison d’être of the locus without bringing up the Christian past of the area, later tradition appropriated the Sufi story of the Four Imams and tied it to the vague collective memory of a significant event. Old burial mounds at the cemetery have long merged with the ground, so the orientation of the graves could not be determined. Archaeological investigation of the graves was impossible for the reasons clear to anyone who has ever worked in a traditional society. Still, one observation seems to support my argument: the cemetery is on the eastern slope of the Gulbagh ridge, so the natural position for the buried would be with head to the west. The reader should remember two Christian gravestones that served as weights to an Urgut butcher early in the twentieth century. The top of an early mediaeval grave, the proper place for a gravestone, would now be several metres below today’s ground level. It is inconceivable that the dead could be disturbed at a sacred place at any time, but ‘in AH 1247 [1831–32] Katta-beq Divan-beghi, amir from a sort of Ming who patronised scholars built a small madrasa to the east from the mazar, where now classes take place’.136 In 1914– 16 the mosque was rebuilt; it was during the inevitable groundwork that the gravestones could come out into the light. 6.3.2 Viri religiosi The mountain name Allāhyārhān, ‘God’s followers’, is usually explained as referring to the Four Imams. However, the mountain has little to do with the cemetery well away from it, and an oronym should rather refer to some particular 136 Вяткин, “Самария”, 207, fn. 22.

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A

B

Figure 73 a–b: The oldest plane tree in Urgut that once housed a Muslim elementary school (maktab); c: Photo taken by Leon Barszczewski in 1895, courtesy of Igor Strojecki

C

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Figure 74 Map of the Gulbagh Valley. Local toponymy established with the help of Mr Alimardon Ghaffarov of Sufiyan, Upper Urgut

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feature of the landscape than reflect the plot of a legend. More likely, the name is related to the historical hermits who resided in the mountain caves. I would not venture to guess whether kūh-i Allāhyārhān is a deliberate Persian translation of the well-known mountain name in south-east Turkey or a coincidental match, except to say that there is at least one instance of Ṭūr ʿAbdīn translated and not borrowed.137 It is found in the Garshuni MS ZFRN 00129 at the Monastery of Saint Ananias (Dayrā d-Kūrkmā) in Mardin, where line 3 on the last page has a dedication to ‘Bishop Aḥō, prior of the Mār Mālkē monastery in Jabal al-ʿAbādīn’.138 The author writes ʿābādīn with an alep as in the Arabic ʿābid, ‘worshipper’, ‘servant [of a god]’, at the same time keeping the Syriac plural instead of the Arabic broken plural ʿubbād or ʿabada[t] so as not to distort the familiar place name. 7

Whence and Whither

7.1 From al-ʿIrāq to Urgut Ibn Ḥawqal’s mention of ‘Iraqi Christians who migrated to the area’ needs to be clarified: Mediaeval geographers divided the land between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (Mesopotamia) into two broad regions that roughly corresponded to the ancient designations of Lower and Upper Mesopotamia. Generally, when mediaeval geographers spoke of Iraq, they meant Lower Mesopotamia—the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers south of the town of Tikrit. The territory between the two rivers north of Tikrit (Upper Mesopotamia) was generally referred to as the Jazira (The Island).139 Methods of stone architecture, characteristic of Northern Mesopotamia, cannot be applied to mudbrick, as the latter material has different load force when building walls and bending capacities when building vaults. The fact that the 137 It is always Jebel Tur in W.F. Ainsworth, Asia Minor, Mesopotamia, Chaldea, and Armenia, vol. II, London 1842, 111, 118, 360. 138 This dedication was brought to my attention by Mr Johan Andersson of St. Ignatios College, Södertälje, Sweden. This nineteenth-century MS is available for public view at vhmml.org/readingRoom/view/500884. 139 J.E. Lindsay, Daily Life in the Medieval Islamic World, London 2005, 101. The title ‘Metropolitan of Mesopotamia’ ( Jazīra) was recorded for Athanasius of Mayperqaṭ under 742–3. (Palmer, Monk and Mason, 192).

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founders preferred mudbrick to the limestone of which the rocks in Urgut are composed bespeaks their knowledge of the former and lack of experience of the latter. So the roots of the architectural tradition to which belongs the monastery building, erected by skilful hands, should be sought in the mudbrick realm of Southern Iraq. The written sources tell about more than forty Christian establishments in the region of al-Ḥīra before the Arab conquest.140 This information is corroborated by archaeological data: more than thirty Christian historical sites are now known in the southern Iraqi province of Najaf. In addition to those investigated previously,141 ten were recently excavated by the American and German expeditions and two more—by the Najaf Inspectorate of the Antiquities.142 7.1.1 ʿAyn Shaʿyā One of those sites, ʿAyn Shaʿyā, has been identified as a monastery of the Church of the East. The evidence comes from the design of its church and the palaeography of the inscribed gypsum fragments found there.143 The earliest date of the church, established by the radiocarbon analysis of charcoal, is quoted as ‘AD 690’.144 Other data point ‘to the time from “the first Abbasid epoch” down to “the end of the second half of the second century H.”’,145 i.e. to 750–816. The monastery at large comprised the Dakākīn caves, inhabited by the monks, in 500 m from the main site (about the same distance as from the main site to the inhabited caves in Urgut). One particular category of the finds were fragments of plaster plaques cast in a mould and featuring relief crosses with decorations.146

140 J.-M. Fiey, ‘Diocèses syriens orientaux du Golfe persique’, F. Graffin (ed.), Mémorial Mgr Gabriel Khouri-Sarkis, 1898–1968, Louvain 1969, 177–218. 141 Yasuyoshi Okada, ‘Early Christian Architecture in the Iraqi South-Western District’, Al-Rāfidān XII (1991), 71–83. 142 iraqhurr.org/a/25389332.html. 143 Erica C.D. Hunter, ‘Report and Catalogue of Inscribed Fragments: Ain Sha‌ʾia and Dukakin Caves Near Najaf, Iraq’, Al-Rafidan X (1989), 89–108. The site owes its name to a spring supplying the vicinity with water. In Arabic, springs are often named ʿayn (‘eye’), in this case—‘Eye of Isaiah’, the Biblical prophet whose name (‫ )إ� �ش���عي���ا ء‬is pronounced as Shaʿyā in the vernacular of Christian Arabs. 144 H. Fujii, K. Ohnuma, H. Shibata, Y. Okada, K. Matsumoto and H. Numoto, ‘Excavations at Ain Sha‌ʾia Ruins and Dukakin Caves’, Al-Rāfidān X (1989), 61. OxCal 4.3 puts the same date, 1260 ± 80 BP, at 644–904 (95.4% probability) or at 917–966 (5.3% probability). 145 Ibid., 60. 146 Yasuyoshi Okada, ‘Reconsideration of plaque-type crosses from Ain Sha‌ʾia near Najaf’, Al-Rāfidān XI (1990), 104, fig. 1.

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7.1.2 Arbinjān A ceramic mould for casting such plaquettes was found in the early 2000s at the site of Arbinjān, ninety kilometres west of Samarkand. It was accidentally taken from a small depth by local farmers ploughing a field (see Figures 75–76).147 Within the rabad [Ar. rabaḍ, ‘suburb’] … many holes have been dug in the ground; by all appearances, baked brick was excavated here from basements and lower parts of the buried walls. As a result, the soil was taken to enrich the fields, brick was used as a building material in the next village, and useless sherds were thrown away on the ground. One could gather a collection of quite distinctive sherds among this rubbish in some ½ hours.148 Yakubovsky and Shishkin’s investigations of Arbinjan, conducted in 1934, were rather surveys than full-scale excavations since the goal of their expedition was to map all archaeological monuments in the Zarafshan Valley in a limited time: … if we could stay and work in Arbinjan for at least two weeks, it would have been possible to make a few real digs which would have revealed the actual planning of a residential house dating from the VIIIth–Xth centuries, or to an even earlier time.149 Rostovtsev and Buryakov made further investigations in 1973. The published report tells that ‘a pre-Islamic temple, turned into a mosque in the eighth century, was partly excavated’.150 That must be the same building that Yakubovsky defined as a residential house since the 1934 report describes the rest of the remaining structures as ‘ruins of buildings, or rather traces of ruins’. However, the publication and the original typewritten report kept at the Archive of the Archaeological Institute in Samarkand are silent about the building’s planning, orientation or exact size. The only information comes from Yakubovsky:

147 Ramijan in the waqf documents (Чехович, Самаркандские документы, 176, 183), Oromijan in modern vernacular. There is no present-day settlement under this name. The site is between the villages of Mirbazar and Zirabulaq on the M37 road Bukhara– Samarkand, at 39°55′15.20″N, 66° 4′12.40″E. 148 А.Ю. Якубовский, ‘Археологическая экспедиция в Зарафшанскую долину 1934 г. (Из дневника начальника экспедиции)’, ТОВЭ, т. II (1940), 157. 149 Ibid., 159–60. 150 Ш.С. Ташходжаев, ‘Археологические исследования древнего Самарканда в 1973 г.’, Афрасиаб III (1974), 23.

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Figure 75 A–B

Ceramic mould for casting crosses from Arbinjan

Figure 76 Ruins of Arbinjan with the Narpay (ancient Fay) in the foreground

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This most interesting building once was large and had two floors. It was rebuilt several times, as evidenced by some later walls obscuring the original planning. There are so many reconstructed areas and debris that only full-scale excavations can reveal the original ground plan. Nevertheless, the general outline is already clear, owing to three cleanups made by Turdy Mir-Giyazov. The building is stretched from west to east; its northern wall, which runs along the [canal] Narpay and has turned into an amorphous mass, is 22 m 50 cm long. The building is divided into two unequal parts by a longitudinal east-west corridor 28 m 5 cm long and 2 m 60 cm wide.151 These data are insufficient to decide on the nature of the structure in question. Still, its layout seems to resemble in the broadest strokes that of the monastery building in Urgut: – the main walls are strictly oriented along the east-west axis (on the plain where Arbinjan is situated, nothing obstructs the points of sunrise and sunset); – the northern wall is almost the same length (22.50 m) as the eastern wall in Urgut (22.20 m). Judging by the freehand-drawn ground plan made in 1934, the transversal walls must be of similar length, which means that the buildings have roughly comparable proportions;152 – the structure consists of two elongated parts of unequal width. Both reports mention baked bricks with embossed ornament, found in 1934 and again in 1973. Yakubovsky describes the decorative pattern as a ‘dotted circle with a floral motif inside’. With some reservation, this description could be applied to a brick found amidst the rubble of the parish church in Urgut (see Figure 77). 7.2 From Urgut to Panjikent 7.2.1 Ghus Five kilometres east of the monastery across the mountains or seven and a half kilometres by the ancient road connecting Urgut and Panjikent is situated the village of Ghus. Its old site is the mound of Kuk Tepa in Taza Ghus district, half a kilometre south of the marketplace (see Figure 78). 151 Якубовский, Археологическая экспедиция, 162. 152 Т.Г. Алпаткина, О.Н. Иневаткина, Л.Ю. Кулакова, ‘Зарафшанская экспедиция 1934 г. в Бухарском оазисе’, РА № 1 (2008), 141, plate 6.4; Т.Г. Алпаткина, О.Н. Иневаткина, ‘Из неопубликованных материалов В.А. Шишкина: Зарафшанская экспедиция 1934 г.’, Культура, история и врхеология Евразии, Москва 2009, 253, plate 6.4.

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Figure 77 Stamped brick from the excavations in Urgut

Figure 78 Plan of Ghus with the remains of Kuk Tepa

From this site comes a small red-clay pot, found in 1969 by the local geography teacher Juma Daniyev making an amateur dig with his pupils (see Figure 79).153 The pot was hand-made without the potter’s wheel and burnished before firing; some marks of the burnisher, spatula or pebble, remain distinct. In addition, 153 In the 2000s the pot made its way to the antiquities bazaar in Urgut, where it was purchased by the Samarkand hoteliers Mrs Aziza Haydarova and Mrs Qutbiya Rafiyeva to become an interior decoration of their B&B ‘Antica’ where I observed it. From their description, I identified the seller who showed me the place of discovery. I hereby express my sincere gratitude to the refined ladies who agreed to pass this unique object to the Samarkand History Museum, Acquisition Act КП 6069, 26/09/2005.

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Figure 79 Red-clay pot found in Ghus

a cross consisting of separate clay knobs was pasted to one side, and an imitation Syriac inscription was scratched before firing. Such careful treatment means that the pot was conceived and manufactured to accommodate some particular value substances and intended for repeated use. The pot can hold c.250 ml of liquid, while sacramental oil is used in minimal quantities. The rites in which oil is used (anointing of the sick, baptismal sanctification, consecration of a church or altar) are performed in a church, while holy water can be taken home. In this case, the home was a typical early mediaeval manor that outlived the Arab conquest because of its remote location. The earliest pottery specimen collected during our survey dates from the fifth century, the latest—to the tenth (see Figure 80).

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Figure 80 Pottery collected from Kuk Tepa in Ghus

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The stratigraphy of the site could be observed in detail due to the sad fact that the mound was mostly ruined.154 Its maximal height above the subsoil is about seven metres. According to Mr Daniyev, the pot came from the depth of c.3 m, which depth corresponds to the mediaeval rather than ancient strata. I would tentatively date the object to the ninth–tenth centuries by analogy to similar vessels from the Samarkand region. 7.2.2 Panjikent 7.2.2.1 Site XXIV Following the A377 Samarkand-Ayni towards the east, we arrive in Panjikent, the well-known centre of Sogdian culture, which grew in the fifth century, was taken by the Arabs in 722 and fell to decay by the end of the eighth century. During the excavations of a residential house, an almost flat sherd of a big vessel 12 × 13 cm was found on the first floor of Room 16, with eighteen lines in Syriac written in black ink with a brush or a reed pen. The first three verses of Psalm 1 and six—of Psalm 2 follow the Peshiṭta text with some writing errors. The last two lines, taken from a canon from the Hallowing of Nestorius: ‘Lord God of hosts, heaven and earth are full of Thy glory’,155 are written separately by a different hand. The character of the mistakes indicates that the text was a dictation written by a Sogdian speaker. The student put down the text as he heard it, omitting those characters not pronounced in the oral speech and confusing those expressing sounds absent from the Sogdian phonological inventory.156 Panjikent is too far away from Urgut for a monastic school to be attended regularly (forty-three kilometres by the road or thirty across the mountains). Still, the exercise could be homework, but in this case, it must have been dictated by someone more competent, which implies the presence of a teacher. Despite the mistakes, the text was written by a steady hand with formal Estrangela with some cursive elements, so it was not someone’s first exercise in Syriac. The last two lines were added by a different writer, which means that the student was not the only one. A regular-basis study involving a teacher brings up the idea of an independent school affiliated to the monastery and modelled after Syrian school, where the study of the Psalms was the starting point of the education. The biographies of Mār Narsay, Mār Gīwārgīs, Mār Cyprian, John of Deylam, 154 I am pleased to acknowledge the diligence and dedication of the officers of the Samarkand Regional Inspectorate of Antiquities, Mrs Maysara Naberayeva and Mr Firdaus Naberayev, owing to whose care the site was put on the list of scheduled monuments and its destruction was stopped. 155 Y.P. Badger, The Nestorians and their Rituals, London 1852, vol. 2, 225. 156 А.В. Пайкова, ‘Сирийский остракон из Пенджикента’, ППВ 1974, 81–3.

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Bar ʿIdtā, Rabban Hōrmizd, Sabrīshōʿ I explicitly refer to their study of the Psalms at church schools in their home villages. Bābay the Great founded and renovated twenty-four schools in the Marga province, some related to monasteries and some not;157 a century later Sabrīshōʿ II lists the schools of Mār Theodore and Mār Māri in Māḥōzē without linking them to any particular monasteries.158 Room 16 dates from the beginning of the eighth century. The context of the find does not provide any significant detail: it was a living room decorated with traditional-style murals, same as in many other rooms and halls in Panjikent. A fragment of a ceramic mug with a perfect cross with broadening ends scratched on one side after baking was found in the next room (Room 17).159 7.2.2.2 Dasht-i Urdakon Since the earliest days, the Church has insisted that the faithful must be buried apart from the non-Christians. Accordingly, the Christians of Panjikent must have had a cemetery of their own. Excavations of the Panjikent necropolis have revealed eleven eighth-century graves with skeletons with their heads to the west. A bronze cross with broadening ends and a pocket in the centre was found on the neck of the girl buried in one grave.160 The cross has never been published, so it cannot be compared with another bronze cross accidentally found at the site of ancient Samarkand in 1946.161 The same report mentions a big pot (khum) containing human bones nibbled by dogs. ‘A simplified image of Adoration of the Cross was scratched on the khum before baking’.162 It is hard to believe that people studying the Syriac Bible would disregard one of the essential Christian rites and bury the Zoroastrian way. At the same time, Christians were not alone in their veneration of the cross, but I am not aware of a single ossuary burial proven to be

157 Wallis Budge, The Book of Governors, London 1893, vol. II, 296–7. 158 А. Маi (ed. and tr.), Еbediеsu. Collectio canonum, SVNC vol. 10, р. 1, Rome 1838, 274 (Syr. text), 110 (Lat. translation). 159 А.В. Пайкова, Б.И. Маршак, ‘Сирийская надпись из Пенджикента’, КСИА 147 (1976), 36–8. 160 А.М. Беленицкий, Б.И. Маршак, В.И. Распопова, А.И. Исаков, ‘Раскопки древнего Пенджикента в 1976 г.’, АРТ XVI (1976), 217. 161 А.И. Тереножкин, ‘Согд и Чач’, КСИИМК 33 (1950), fig. 72 (2). Samarkand History Museum, collection А-375, №  259, tentatively dated to the sixth–beginning of the eighth century. In the Museum Register, the material is stated as copper (Coll. A-375, Book 10, 345). 162 Беленицкий et al., Раскопки древнего Пенджикента, 218.

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Manichaean.163 In fact, there need not necessarily be an intrinsic connection between the bones and the pot: the latter, made by a Christian artisan and filled with grain, could have passed into the hands of the people professing the native religion to end up as an ossuary. That seems to be a plausible explanation given that the burial in question does not belong to the Christian sector of the cemetery. 7.3 From Urgut to Samarkand The ‘Russian Mosque’ was not the only memory of the Christians in Shāwdhār. Late in the nineteenth century, Barszczewski recorded a local tradition telling that Christians once lived all along the road from Samarkand to Urgut.164 The same tradition was independently attested by Masson writing in 1938: From the last century until almost forty years ago, there was a strong belief among the Urgutians that Christians had once populated their town. They were allegedly so many that their houses stood all along the main road to Samarkand.165 The fact that Shāwdhār was a populous region was noticed by Ibn Hawqal writing about ‘the best buildings standing closely together’. His notice finds confirmation in the archaeological map of the area: early mediaeval sites in the form of small individual mounds stand all along the Urgut road, reaching maximum density in 10–15 km south-east of Samarkand (see Figures 81–82). Such a settlement pattern would have been understandable on a caravan route. However, the Urgut road leads to mountainous areas, a small market for any good. Thus, it is reasonable to assume that the traffic along the road was towards Samarkand and that closeness to the road provided livelihoods. I will now try to understand why the specific settlement pattern correlates with the area presumably occupied by a distinctive social group over a significant time. For that purpose, I will return to Samarkand from Urgut by the same road on which I came, looking around for any material traces of Christian presence.

163 Kyzlasov opined that ‘all Central Asian burials of clean bones in khums undoubtedly are Manichaean’ (my italics), adducing as proof an empty water jar with a scratched cross accompanying a burial of clean bones in a small pit. (Л.Р. Кызласов, ‘Два ак-бешимских сюжета’, РА 2 (2008), 45). 164 Бартольд, ‘Некоторые известия о памятниках древности в Мавераннахре’, Сочинения, т. IV, 91. 165 Массон, Происхождение намогильных галек, 54.

Figure 81 Densely populated area along the road from Samarkand to Urgut. Sites surveyed and mapped in 2004–2006 without archaeological intervention

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Figure 82 One of the typical sites along the road, Dulta Tepa near Navzandak

7.3.1 Qosh Tepa The site, now destroyed, is thirteen kilometres south of Urgut and two kilometres east of the main road, on the left bank of the canal Dargam which splits here into two branches. The surrounding area was densely populated in the ancient and early mediaeval times, as evident from many artificial mounds and burial grounds to the southeast and northeast of the site. Qosh Tepa (Uzb. ‘twin mounds’)166 consists of two separate mounds fifty metres from each other, Qosh Tepa 1 and Qosh Tepa 2. Both are early mediaeval castles, built almost simultaneously late in the fifth century. Human occupation continued here uninterruptedly for a long time, as witnessed by the array of pottery dating from the fifth century to the tenth, most of it found at Qosh Tepa 2. Qosh Tepa 1 was turned into a burial ground in the ninth or tenth century, while Qosh Tepa 2 was still inhabited. During the excavations of Qosh Tepa 2 in 1973, the investigators found a rim of a khum with three offprints of a seal featuring two male figures: one man in a long robe and a tall hat is standing with a book in one hand, and a cross in the other hand raised high; the other man, also in ceremonial dress and with a 166 This is the only case when I have diverted from my transliteration rules to distinguish qösh (‘twin’) from qush (‘bird’).

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crown-like head-covering, is kneeling in front. The picture was somewhat hesitantly interpreted as a scene of baptism.167 A Sogdian coin of the ‘unknown Ikhshid’ was found in the same context;168 thus, the imprinted sherd can be tentatively dated to the first half of the eighth century. 7.3.2 Rēgistān The road from Urgut eventually brings the traveller to Registan Square in Samarkand, where it ends. In advance of the forthcoming construction works, archaeological excavations were conducted at Registan in 1970, with the following result: At the depth from 4.5 to 5.5 m were found four long and narrow cases made of baked brick, mostly square shape (21 × 21 × 3 cm), less often rectangular (30 × 16 × 4), laid flat. The cases were 192–195 cm long, 60–63 cm wide and 40–45 cm high. On top, they were covered with large-size baked bricks 42 × 20 × 9 cm. The cases were oriented from east to west. Two cases contained human skeletons squeezed into narrow cists. The buried lay on their backs with their heads towards the west…. metallic plaques shaped as Nestorian crosses were found in one burial. The floor of a room whose walls had been taken away manually was cleared to the north from the cases at the same depth. The floor was decorated with majolica tiles arranged in a Nestorian cross. The discovered material suggests that the excavations revealed a cemetery and a church of the Christians of the Nestorian rite.169 The identification of the excavated building is not in dispute: majolica tiles would only be used at a special kind of premises; a cross would hardly decorate profane space; its ‘Nestorian’ shape points at the particular confession; and the adjoining churchyard dissipates the last doubt.

167 Ташходжаев, Археологические исследования, 20; М.М. Исхаков, Ш.С. Ташходжаев, Т.К. Ходжайов, ‘Раскопки Коштепа’, ИМКУ 13 (1977), 93–4. ‘The planning of the rooms and the circular hall resembling Byzantine Christian churches  … allow identifying the building as a Christian house of worship. The fire-worshippers’ altar [more likely, an ordinary hearth] in the same room seems to indicate … performance of the two rites in the same building’ (ibid., 94; my italics). This apparent nonsense should be simply ignored. 168 There are two types of the ‘unknown Ikhshīdh [ruler]’ coins. One type cannot be dated, the other dates from the first quarter of the eighth century. (О.И. Смирнова, Сводный каталог согдийских монет. Бронза, Москва 1981, 308–11). 169 Бурякова & Буряков, Новые археологические материалы, 209–10.

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The material obtained from this excavation did not contain any datable items. Instead, plenty of artefacts were found in the irrigation canal east of the site, assumed to be contemporary with the church. Over a long time, piles of pottery and glasswork kept forming on the canal banks due to the periodic cleansing of its bed. The earliest specimens date from the ninth century, the latest—to the thirteenth; this means that the neighbourhood became deserted around the time the events narrated by the Sayyid to al-Jūzjānī took place. The story tells that the Samarkand Muslims ‘reduced the church to bricks’, while the excavations show that the church walls were removed manually. The absence of the collapsed walls in any form can hardly be explained in any other way, so it is odd to consider it a coincidence. The excavated church is thus likely to be the kalīsā of the ‘wretched sect’ destroyed between 1257 and 1259, given there is no evidence of any other Christian church in Samarkand. The Buryakovs finish their report saying: ‘… in Samarkand, Christians— torsayon lived in the Chakardiza quarter, the southern part of which has been excavated at Site 3’. Masson had earlier voiced a similar idea: The heartbeat of Samarkand now [in the eleventh–twelfth centuries] moved to the newly formed outer city, shahri-birun, as opposed to the inner city, shahristan. Probably, here was situated the foreigners’ quarter spared by the Khwaresmian ruler Muhammad during his massacre of the people of Samarkand in retaliation for their riot against the Khwarezmians in 1212. Perhaps the Nestorian metropoly in Samarkand under the Qarakhanids was also quartered here.170 Although not supported by any arguments, both statements must be close to true since all religious edifices were in the care of the parish: A salient feature of the Bukharan quarters was the almost complete equivalence of a quarter to a parish…. In the late XIX–early XX AD, no single quarter in Bukhara had two parish mosques. Not long after another mosque was built, its parish would have formed another quarter and a separate community.171 Non-Muslim places of worship were even more closely tied to quarters since their communities were banned from building new churches and synagogues 170 М.Е. Массон, ‘К периодизации древней истории Самарканда’, ВДИ 4 (1950), 165. 171 О.А. Сухарева, Квартальная община позднефеодального города Бухары, Москва 1976, 265.

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and clustered around existing ones. It is thus impossible to imagine a church outside of a quarter in a mediaeval Central Asian city: the very construction, decoration, routine repairs and heating of the church building, as well as maintenance of the clergy, must have been the duty of the parish, tied to it territorially, just as in the West before the official legislation of tithing in the seventh century. In what follows, I shall try to put the Christian quarter on the map of mediaeval Samarkand and figure out, so far as possible, how its inhabitants earned their living. 7.3.2.1 Church and Quarter Still under this name, present-day Chakardiza embraces Vabkent, Bukhara, Sabir Abdulla, and Khizmatchi Streets.172 In the Middle Ages, the area belonged to a suburb for merchants and artisans beyond the southern wall of the old citadel, which was still populated in the tenth and eleventh centuries. I have every reason to believe that the quarter’s contours were approximately the same as now since its natural boundaries hardly could change over time (see Figure 83). 7.3.2.1.1

North

Chakardiza is adjoined in the north by the Yahūdīyān (‘Jewish’) quarter, whose date of origin is unknown, with a still-active synagogue. Nasrullah (Emir of Bukhara 1827–60) sold the land to the Jewish community in 1843.173 By that time, the quarter had already existed since Khanykov ‘saw them in Kyatta Kurgan, Samarkand and Karshi; in all named cities, certain quarters are reserved for them’.174 Before that, the sources only occasionally mention Jews in Samarkand without reference to a particular place. The earliest written record goes back to the twelfth century: Benjamin of Tudela, whose Travels must be placed between 1166 and 1171, mentions ‘some 50,000 Israelites’ in Samarkand.175 Around the same time, al-Nasafī tells about a synagogue in

172 М. Абрамов, Гузары Самарканда, Ташкент 1989, 7. 173 В.Л. Вяткин (пер.), ‘Купчая крепость на еврейский квартал г. Самарканда’, З.Л. Амитин-Шапиро, Очерк правового быта среднеазиатских евреев, Ташкент– Самарканд 1931, 41–3. 174 Н. Ханыков, Описание Бухарского ханства, СПб. 1843, 71–2. Khanykov’s book went to press on January, 3, 1843. 175 Marcus Nathan Adler (ed. and tr.), The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, New York 1907, 82. The highly exaggerated number must be hearsay since the traveller never went beyond the eastern border of Persia.

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Figure 83 a): Part of the map of Samarkand 1:60.000, Karl Baedeker, Russia with Teheran, Port Arthur, and Peking: handbook for travellers, Leipzig 1914, 517. Cartographer: Wagner & Debes; b): Chakardiza, based on OpenStreetMap (ODbL) © mapz.com 2021

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Samarkand, saying: ‘At present, (this place) is called the Jewish street’.176 I am inclined to think that in the Middle Ages, the Jewish quarter was in the same place as in the nineteenth century, for the following reasons: 1. In living memory, the main ‘Jewish street’ in Samarkand has always been that on which had stood the oldest and the largest synagogue, Kanīsa-yi Kalān. Now extant, it was situated in the north of the Yahūdīyān, just outside the southern wall of pre-Mongol Samarkand contoured by the modern Shah-i Zinda Street. Six more synagogues were located in the same quarter, so the Jewish presence within those boundaries was neither short-term nor accidental. 2. As witnessed by many contemporary observers, nineteenth-century ‘Bukharan’ Jews were predominantly engaged in leather tanning and cloth dyeing, which industries are heavily reliant on water. Easy access to water in commercial-scale volumes was not taken for granted but regulated by Islamic law: only water in its natural state was common property, tes nullius, while water in human-made receptacles, such as wells, irrigation canals, and vessels, was private property and could be an object of civil transactions. It is improbable that having once secured access to a vital resource, residents of an entire quarter could move to another location, especially given the requirement to stay only at designated areas imposed on the Jews by Muslim authorities. As numerous studies have shown, Jewish quarters throughout the Caliphate remained in the same places where the Arab conquest overtook them. 3. In the Islamic East, Christian and Jewish quarters were usually found side by side. Owing to several supplementary cues in Narshakhī’s description, the church in Bukhara that was turned into the mosque of the Banī Ḥanẓala can be localised next to the Jewish quarter Maḥalla-yi Kuhna (Taj. ‘The Old Quarter’), south-east of the citadel.177 7.3.2.1.2

East

East of modern Chakardiza, there is an old a cemetery for ‘scholars and nota‫� �ة � ش ة‬ ��‫ ) �ل��ل�ع�ل�م�ا ء و ا � بك‬which already was ‘big and famous’ (�‫م�����هور‬ bles’ (‎‫ل�ا ر‬ ‫ ) �كب�ي��ر‬in the twelfth century. In the late ninth–early tenth century, the area or a part of it

176 Вяткин, Кандия, 249. 177 Richard N. Frye (tr.), The History of Bukhara, Cambridge, Mass. 1954, 53; А.М. Беленицкий, И.Б. Бентович, О.Г. Большаков, Средневековый город Средней Азии, Ленинград 1973, 237–8; Сухарева, Квартальная община, 75–6. During our survey undertaken in 2009, Dr Shukhrat Adylov, Olga Zhuravlëva and I reasonably confidently pin-pointed that church at the place of the Regional Inspectorate of the Antiquities at 7, Ibadov Street.

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had been a garden, not populated.178 So probably, the eastern boundary of mediaeval Chakardiza ran along the canal whose dry bed was discovered during the excavations: To the east of the described site were excavated remains of a mediaeval canal passing south to north. Given the muddy sediments, its flow was slow and quiet, and capacity was not high. The west bank was reveted with broken Chupan Ata shale, whose top served as a sidewalk. The east bank was paved with baked brick 28 × 15 × 4 cm, 30 × 16 × 4 cm, and 32 × 16 × 4 cm, laid in alternating edge- and flat-set rows. Clearly, this was a branch of the main channel which supplied water to the large suburban district of Chakardiza.179 7.3.2.1.3

South

7.3.2.1.4

West

Here Chakardiza is bordered by Panjikent Street, so named because outside the city, it becomes the main road connecting Samarkand and Panjikent. According to the Arab geographers, the outer wall of Samarkand, Dīvār-i Qiyāmat, had nine gates called by the names of the nearest suburbs. Inside the wall, the roads connecting suburbs to the town centre became darbs—arterial streets that had to remain unobstructed to secure a steady flow of goods from the countryside to the markets.180 The Varsanīn Gates owed its name to the suburb southeast of Samarkand, of which the mound Tal-i Varsin 4.5 km is now reminiscent.181 In all likelihood, modern Panjikent Street runs over the mediaeval Darb Varsanīn by which goods were flowing to the Registan Market. The western border is Registan Square. Before acquiring its current appearance with three well-known madrasas (the earliest was built in 1420), the square had been a marketplace with shops and workhouses. The puzzling word Registan (Rigistan) seems to point at an old way of improving market squares in Central Asia, meaning a place covered

178 Al-Samʿānī, vol. 3, 164. The Qandiya tells us that ‘in the olden times [sic], this place was a muftis’ street, sunken in the ground’. (Вяткин, Кандия, 265). 179 Бурякова & Буряков, Новые археологические материалы, 210–11. 180 The meaning of the Arabic term is explained in detail by Bolshakov in Беленицкий et al., Средневековый город, 226–8. 181

‫ق‬ ‫( ����سن���ا ن�… �م� ن �ق ا ��س�م �ق ن���د؛ ����سن���� ن‬Yāqūt, IV, 921). ‫ي�… م‬ � .‫ح�ل��ة ��س�مر� ن���د‬ ‫� ر ر ور‬ ‫ور‬

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with sand or pebbles. Modern Uzbeks also explain the word in this way. Cf. ‘area near one tithe [1.09 ha], paved with small pebbles’.182 A very rough estimate of the area within those boundaries brings up the figure of 12 ha. In Antioch, which kept its mediaeval appearance for much of the twentieth century, the Christian neighbourhood of Jneyne covering 1.18 hectares had a population density of 339 persons per hectare in 1932. (However, almost a quarter of that territory was occupied by a church and the space around it).183 With the same population density, the Christian quarter in Samarkand would have had 4000 persons; less the church and the graveyard—3000, i.e. 3.75% of the city’s population in the tenth century (seventy-five to eightyfive thousand people in the city proper, or 100–110 thousand including the suburbs inside the outer wall). 7.3.2.2 Quarter and Guild More than a territorial unit, a quarter was a crucial element in the identity of a Central Asian townsman. On the quarters’ basis, residents were policing themselves, settling their disputes, providing mutual help, articulating their religious affiliation by attending the local worship place, and participating in its affairs. Also, quarter and artisan or merchant guild coincided in most cases, as all craftsmen or merchants of the same category usually lived in one quarter: Artisans formed social and work organisations similar to trade guilds. Each town quarter (mahalla) was engaged in a particular trade; such a quarter was at the same time a trade association that also played a political role in troubled times.184 Chakardiza was hardly an exception; however, an attempt to reconstruct the everyday life of its residents is hindered by the lack of sources. Ibn Khurdādhbih, a geographer of the mid-ninth century, mentions Samarkand 182 Н.Г. Маллицкий, ‘Ташкентские махалля и мауза’, В.В. Бартольду туркестанские друзья, ученики и почитатели, Ташкент 1927, 116, fn. 1, with ref. to Vyatkin’s translation of The Small Qandiya, 281. 183 The calculations were made by Bolshakov based on the plan by Weulersse. (Беленицкий et al., Средневековый город, 258; Jacques Weulersse, ‘Antioche. Essai de géographie urbaine’, BEO 4 (1934), 53). 184 Беленицкий et al., Средневековый город, 501. Cf.: ‘many streets, bazaars, halls, and “houses” [in Fusṭāṭ] were named for a certain branch of commerce, and industry, or a product’ (S.D. Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, Berkeley–Los Angeles–London 1967– 1985, vol. IV, 15).

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among other cities without describing it in any way. The first description made by Ibn al-Faqīh at the beginning of the tenth century only tells about the size of the citadel and suburbs without going into detail. From al-Iṣṭakhrī, Ibn Ḥawqal and al-Muqaddasī, we infer that in their time, the area to the south from Afrasiab was a suburb whose inhabitants were engaged in crafts and commerce. The only source for the twelfth century, the Qandiya, contained a characterisation of the city in the original version; still, only a fragment about irrigation has remained after numerous editions. The social and economic history of Mawarannahr in the X–XI centuries has been studied only in most general terms. Speculations about forms of land ownership, the prevalence of iqṭāʿ [Islamic land code] under the Qarakhanids, etc., are based on analogies with Khorasan and Iran since no written sources originate in Mawarannahr of the time. Thus, all we have is some information on political history. There are no even basic descriptions of towns that would allow us to compare their state in the XI–XII centuries with that described by the geographers in the X century. Qubawi’s additions to Narshakhi’s ‘History of Bukhara’ are the only notable exception. We do not know anything about the living standards, incomes, prices of commodities, land, properties, almost anything—about the value of money used in Mawarannahr. The reason is the absence of private documents as opposed to the XII-century official charters and correspondence: deeds of sale, wills, recruitment or lease contracts.185 The exception is two waqf documents issued by the Qarakhanid ruler Ibrahīm b. Naṣr Ṭamghāch Khān (1046–68) who made Samarkand his residence.186 Specifying the whereabouts of the properties made into waqf, the documents list various facilities and occupations. Among them, we find trade in timber (Pers. chũb khāne), articles thereof (Pers. takhte band bāzār, ‘boarding market’), and pruning wastes (Pers. hīzam forũshān, ‘sellers of firewood’).187 Perhaps the 185 О.Г. Большаков, ‘Два вакфа Ибрахима Тамгач-хана в Самарканде’, chB X (1971), 170. 186 M. Khadr, ‘Deux actes de waqf d’un Qarahanide d’Asie Centrale’, JA CCLV (1967), 305–35. The source has been re-edited and re-translated several times since the first study. The latest attempt on a critical text was made by Шамсиддин Камолиддин, Мухайё Махмудова, Баходир Мусаметов, Два вакфа Тамгач Бугра-хана в Самарканде, Saarbrücken 2012. 187 In sixteenth-century Bukhara, bāzār-i chūb where constructional timber was sold adjoined bāzār-i dar, the market for doors and gates. (Р.Х. Мукминова, Очерки по истории ремесла в Самарканде и Бухаре в XVI веке, Ташкент 1976, 140–1). The fact that those outlets are named in Persian in the Arabic-language document means that for the writer and his audience, they were well-known micro-toponyms.

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easy access to firewood explains the presence of several bathhouses in the same area. The marketplace was consistent with modern Registan Square, referred to as ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‘sand [or “pebbles”] of the woodmongers’ (‫)ر�م�ل �رو�ش���ا � �ه��ي�ز �م‬, or ‘the beginning ‫ي�ز ف� �ش ن‬ of the Woodmongers’ Bridge’ (� ‫)��سر پ�ل �ه�� �م رو ���ا‬. In all likelihood, the bridge spanned a canal that carried the waters of the Dargam to the old citadel, still populated. Traces of that canal were discovered under the north-western minaret of the Sher Dor madrasa during the archaeological excavations in 1973.188 The same source mentions the trade of bakery products, which business also depends on the competitive cost of firewood. It can be conjectured where the bakers got their flour: early in the twentieth century, the Flour Market in Samarkand was near the Bībī Khānum mausoleum, 500 m northeast of modern Registan Square.189 In the sixteenth, it figures in a legal document as situated next to a clothes market and a market of alācha fabric.190 The descriptions of the waqf stores at some Samarkand markets make us convinced that under the first Sheybanids, the layout of all streets, even secondary, was exactly the same as the Russians found here.191 My conjecture is substantiated by the fact that at least two premises mentioned in Ṭamghāch Khān’s documents remained in their places for several centuries. First, there were still bathhouses in Registan in the sixteenth century,192 and the facility called Chahār Sū (Pers. ‘four sides’) has survived to the present day, having changed its purpose from an inn (Ar. ribāṭ) to a covered market hall built in the eighteenth century. Moreover, archaeological excavations have revealed a building structure and materials dating from the eleventh–twelfth centuries beneath the modern Charsu.193 188 Бурякова & Буряков, Новые археологические материалы, 212–3. Given its direction towards north-west, that should be the same canal which Masson detected in 1920–1922, dating it to the tenth century. (М.Е. Массон, Ригистан и его медресе, Ташкент 1926, 1–2; id., Падающий минарет, Ташкент 1968, 30). 189 В.В. Бартольд, ‘Отчёт о поездке в Самарканд летом 1904 года’, Сочинения, т. IV (1966), 131; В.А. Шишкин, ‘К истории археологического изучения Самарканда и его окрестностей’, Афрасиаб I (1969), 51. 190 Мукминова, Очерки по истории ремесла, 52, with ref to MS ЦГА УзССР, ф. И-18, оп. 1. д. 10484. 191 Вяткин, Материалы к исторической географии, 20; ‘… the main market in Samarkand seems to have stood in about the same place as now’. (Ibid., 19). 192 М.Е. Массон, ‘Самаркандский Регистан’, Труды САГУ XI (1950), 83. 193 Ю.Ф. Буряков, Ш.С. Ташходжаев, ‘Археологические исследования на городище Афрасиаб в 1970–1972 гг.’, Афрасиаб II (1973), 8; Бурякова & Буряков, Новые археологические материалы, 212.

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My special attention to the wood-mongers and bakers clustering in one area is explained by the fact that there is no wood in Samarkand except orchards, no wheatfields, and mills to turn grain into flour. Until modern times, the primary source of timber and wheat were the foothills to the southeast from Samarkand, while the streams coming down from the mountains supplied energy to the watermills along the Urgut road ending at Registan. 7.4 The Urgut Side In the vernacular, the vicinities of Samarkand are often referred to as consisting of two distinct parts: the flat ‘Bukhara side’ in the west and north-west, and the mountainous ‘Urgut side’ in the east and south-east. The division must have a long history, as in the nineteenth century, the scene was perceived in the same way: The lands outside the walls of Samarkand divide into two halves: the half west of Samarkand is called the Anhār district, and the eastern half is called the Shawdār district…. The mountains at the southern side of the Samarkand province are populated and suited for life. Many trees grow there…. All plants and animals found in the southern mountains are also found in the eastern mountains.194 7.4.1 Timber The elevated ‘Urgut side’ has much more vegetation due to higher humidity in the highlands and the abundance of water in the streams that originate in the mountains. Along the streams grow riparian forests (Taj. tugay < Uzb. tuqay), cane thickets, poplars and willows, while the canals deliver water to planted trees and orchards. With saxaul, which has exceptionally high calorific value, those species can satisfy the city’s need for firewood. However, they cannot provide enough constructional timber, most of which came from the mountainous areas before regular import was established. Late in the nineteenth century, mountain forests still occupied c.872000 hectares in the Samarkand Province, a thousand times larger area than planted forests.195 Samarkand grew from three to four times in the ninth and tenth centuries, reaching its maximal area in the eleventh century. Throughout Central Asia, the IX century was marked by an outburst of urban development. Instead of small towns with an area of 5–15 ha 194 Вяткин, “Самария”, 162. 195 Брокгауз и Ефрон, т. XXVIIa, 571.

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characteristic for the VIII century, several dozen large centres of crafts and commerce appear by the beginning of the X century. … In XI–XII, urban development slows down but continues throughout Central Asia…. By the end of the said period, cities reach their maximum size, exceeded only in the XIXth century.196 The fast-growing city needed timber and firewood in industrial-scale volumes since every house needed a roof, doors, and other parts made of wood. Frye has noticed that ‘A characteristic of 10th century buildings was the relatively large quantity of wood used in them’.197 Also, homes need to be heated, and warm meals must be prepared. However, wood in any form had always been in short supply: the History of Bukhara mentions reusing wood of an old palace for a new mansion;198 according to al-Bayhaqī (995–1077), during the famine in Nishapur, ‘landlords were taking off roofs and selling them, dying of hunger ‫ش �ف‬ ‫ا�ز‬ ‫ف‬ ‫��د خ��د ا �ا ن � ق‬ with their wives and children’ ( ‫��ا �ت���ه و �ب����رو خ�ت���ه و‬ ‫�س�������ف �ه�ا �ی خ��ا ن��ه �‏ها ب���� ک‬ ‫وک‬ �‫ی‬ ‫گ‬ ‫گ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�ز‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ��‫� ����س‬ ‫‏‬.‫�ی ب�ا ی‏��ا ل و �ر ��د ا � �ب���مرد ه‬ � ).199 Thus, the value of this commodity through‫ر � ع‬ out the arid areas of the Caliphate could not be overemphasised. 7.4.2 Grain Describing Shawdhār, Ibn Ḥawqal specifically mentions its advantage over other districts in crops and fruit, explained by the favourable environmental conditions. Those conditions, altitude and humidity, have not changed over time, so before the integration of the local farming into more extensive economic space, better wheat was still growing in the mountains: … rain-fed wheat grown far away from the mountains gives relatively low yields; its grain is tiny and not suitable for the high grades of the most refined wheat flour. The best quality grain is obtained from rain-fed wheat, especially that grown in the foothills. A large amount of land in no need of irrigation allows the farmer to practice swidden cultivation, letting part of the field rest for several years. 196 Беленицкий et al., Средневековый город, 208. 197 Frye, The History of Bukhara, 156, fn. 330 based on А. Якубовский, ‘Время Авиценны’, ИАН 3 (1938), 97–8 and В.Л. Воронина, ‘Резное дерево Зарафшанской долины’, ТСТАЭ № 15 (1950), 210–20. 198 Frye, The History of Bukhara, 18. 199 Manūchihr Dānishpazhūh (ed.), Tārikh Bayhaqī, vol. I, Helmand Publishing 1376/1957, 924.

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It is worth noting that bread made of rain-fed wheat has more flavour and is tastier than bread made of irrigated wheat.200 Given that baked bread was the main food for the city residents, possession of sown land close to the sound market could be easily monetised and converted into economic stability. 7.4.3 Mills Bread was much more expensive than flour, so the less prosperous in Samarkand preferred to do the baking at home, milling grain manually with grinding stones. Larger-scale grain production required wind-independent water mills standing on privately owned canals whose waters were as much property of the canal’s maker as the mills. … if anyone diverts someone else’s canal to his land and they appear before a court of justice, then the matter would be concluded in favour of the canal’s owner. The offender would be forbidden to divert the owner’s water to his land, be it from a canal, an underground tunnel, or a body of water. If a person digs a well, a canal, or an underground tunnel on another person’s land without permission, the latter may prevent him from doing so and demand that he fill the dig.201 On the ‘Urgut side’, the milling business was an essential part of the economy since the earliest times. In Mugh В-4, certain Māhyān rents from Dēvāshtīch ‘three mills with all the canals, buildings, and millstones’ for 460 kafch of grain per year (see Figure 84).202 Archaeology amplifies the written record by registering fragments of millstones found along the Urgut road, while blanks for making millstones are attested wherever suitable granite can be found.203 A careful observer will notice dry beds of the old canals everywhere between Samarkand and Urgut. 200 М. Вирский, ‘Зерновые хлеба Самаркандского уезда’, СКСО, вып. VI (1898), Самарканд 1899, 261–5. 201 Abū Yūsuf, Kitāb al-Kharāj, section ‘On Underground Tunnels, Wells, Irrigation Canals, ‫آ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ف� ق ن‬ ‫ش‬ � and Water Use’ (�‫ل��� ْر ب‬ ِ � ‫)����ص�ل ى ا �ل�����ى و اا �ل�ل ب�ا ر و الا ���ه�ا ر و ا‬. 202 Согдийские документы II, 56–7. 203 И.А. Сухарев, Археологические исследования и составление археологической карты Самаркандской области, архив Государственного Музея истории и культуры Узбекистана, №  559  = Археология Центральной Азии: архивные материалы, т. III, Самарканд 2016, 58, 107, 131, 225; 110–1.

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Figure 84 A working watermill on a canal in Panjikent, Tajikistan

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7.4.4 Taxation In the Islamic times, mills near the towns in Qumm paid annually seventy dirhams of tax, while those on mountain rivers and in remote areas were only charged twelve or twenty-five dirhams;204 thus, closeness to the places of consumption was offset by higher taxation. The figures varied across the Caliphate, but not the pattern, so around Samarkand, milling mountain-grown grain on the ground must have been more cost-effective and economically viable. 7.4.5 The Holdings The picture that emerges is one of a cohesive social group populating a forested area where better wheat also grew in no need of irrigation and possessing energy sources for milling grain into flour. Such a group would have enjoyed— by accident or design—a monopoly on daily bread and roof over every head in one of the country’s largest cities situated nearby. Throughout the Mediaeval world, ‘the strongest self-help groups undoubtedly ensued where kinship, residence and religious affiliation coincided’.205 Implying the Christians on the ‘Urgut side’, the Arab conquest would have united them even closer since marriage to a Muslim necessarily involved conversion to Islam leading to loss of the community support. The presented picture can explain how the monastery and its diocese remained in existence for half a millennium and even survived a devastating ghazi raid that took the lives of many thousand group members. But, unfortunately, no apparent traces of the conjectured situation can be observed for reasons beyond the historian’s control. Archaeological excavations were conducted twice in Registan, the main square of modern Samarkand: first in the 1920s, during the restoration of the Ulugh Beg Madrasa, and in the 1970s, due to the construction of the Historical Museum,206 when the city centre was long built over and paved in concrete. Their results relating to the issue are summarised above, and I have already touched on the paucity of the written sources. The problem with the only two meaningful texts at our disposal is that Tamghach Khan’s waqf deeds are not the original legal documents but copies of copies used by lawyers-in-training as style samples.207

204 Kitāb-i tāʾrīkh-i Qumm taʾlīf-i Ḥasan b. Muḥammad b. Ḥasan Qummī, Tehrān 1353/1934–5, 119–20. 205 Patricia Crone, Pre-Industrial Societies: Anatomy of the Pre-Modern World, Oxford 1989, 52. 206 Whereto went all finds made by ESAREX in Urgut. The most important ones were on display at a special stand until the building was demolished in 2010. 207 ‘As the deed of waqf was the constitution of the waqf, the words used in it were immensely important in order to determine the intention of the founder. Therefore, separate chapters on the interpretations of words and phrases used in the waqf deeds are found in

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Moreover, the students have corrupted many personal names and place names, treating them as variables of little importance. For example, the text ‫��ة �م�ع ف���ة ���س ��ة‬ mentions a ‘street known as the such-and-such street’ (‫���ذا‬ ‫�� ك‬ ‫)��س �ك� رو ب ك‬, ‫�ف‬ a ‘house known as so-and-so’ (‫���ذا‬ ‫)ا �ل�د ا ر �ي�عر� ب� �ك‬, and stores and bathhouses defined in the same way. Such treatment would have been impossible in an original document as objects of waqf must be described accurately, naming the area of the town where it is located, suburb, neighbourhood and exact boundaries of the house in relation to the cardinal points. And yet, there is one lead to run down: in the texts, sales outlets are called ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‘market’ (Pers. ‫)ب�ا ا�زا ر‬, ‘warehouse’ (Pers. ‫) خ��ا ن��ه‬, or ‘mongers’ (Pers. � ‫)�رو�ش���ا‬. But at two occasions, ḥānūt and its plural, ḥāwanīt are used. In one case, just the owner’s name is mentioned; in the other, we learn that the business was a baker’s shop (al-khabbāz; two preceding words are uncertain). Ḥānūt < Syr. ḥanūtā, ‘shop’ was generally used in Egypt to designate any shops or boutiques—contrary to Mesopotamia, where it more often meant wine shops and wine-houses.208 ‘A shop; and particularly the house [or shop] of a vintner, in which wine is sold…. Also The vintner himself’.209 Mesopotamia was home to the monastery’s founders, while some linkage with Egypt is attested by the ampoule of Saint Mīna accidentally found in Afrasiab.210 But no sporadic contacts with the Syriac-speaking world can explain why a Samarkand store selling the most ordinary local food would be called a non-native word unusual in these environs. The last editor quotes the readings of only six out of fourteen MSS used. ‫ ا �لخ �ز‬in the singular or plural, in one MS, those words are Four of them have ‫� ب���ا‬ ‫ا �ل �ز‬. Perhaps the reading ‫ا �لن�����ا �ذ‬, ‘wine seller’ omitted, in another one there is ‫� ب���ا‬ ‫ج‬ ‫ب‬ could be found in the copies that remained silent.211 Around the time when our document was written, there were two Winesellers’ Streets in Cairo: one in the city, al-Qāhira, the other—in the-then suburb, Fusṭāṭ.212 It would be small wonder if wine production and trade in Samarkand were in the hands of the Christians, given the highly favourable conditions for viticulture on the

208

209 210 211 212

Fiqh books’. (Muhammad Zubair Abbasi, ‘The Classical Islamic Law of Waqf: A Concise Introduction’, ALQ 26 (2012), 144). Two cases when ordinary shops in Cairo were mistaken for taverns selling alcohol due to the double meaning of the term are described by Paulina B. Lewicka, ‘Restaurants, Inns and Taverns that Never Were: Some Reflections on Public Consumption in Medieval Cairo’, JESHO vol. 48 № 1 (2005), 72. Lane, Lexicon, Part 2, 661. Б.Я. Ставиский, ‘“Ампула святого Мины” из Самарканда’, КСИИМК 80 (1960), 101–2. Strictly speaking, nabīdha is not wine but ‘A kind of beverage, made of dates, and of raisins; i.e., must; and of honey, i.e., mead; and of wheat, and of barley, etc.; i.e. wort’. (Lane, Lexicon, 2757). Attested respectively in 1038 and 1156. (Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. IV, 254).

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‘Urgut side’213 and a long-standing tradition of winemaking: wine is mentioned in various contexts in Mugh А-5, А-16, Б-2, Б-8, Б-9, and Nov. 5. According to the Qandiya and Samariya, the garden that became the Chakardiza cemetery was owned by a Samarkand jurist whose name in the fullest form can be reconstructed as ʿAbd al-Zāhid Abū Ishāq b. Ibrāhīm b. Sammās al-Muṭṭawiʿī. While there is no meaningful root for sammās in Arabic or Persian, the comprehensible Arabic shammās (‘deacon’, ‘priest’s attendant at mass’ < Syr. shammāshā) would suggest descent from the Christian clergy. In that case, it would be quite revealing that a deacon’s grandson bore the nisba that meant ‘volunteer [fighter for Islam]’.214 7.4.6 Pious Endowments Transferring income-producing assets to a public utility (waqf khayrī) or one’s relatives or descendants (waqf ahlī) was widely practised in the Islamicate world, for the most part, to protect property against arbitrariness and abuse from the authorities. One of the chief motives for establishing a waqf was to escape confiscation…. Anecdotes of confiscations abound in medieval chronicles and biographical works. Now and then, an emir would emerge who did not have a policy of confiscation; in which case, the chroniclers would announce that the people could make a show of their wealth without the risk of having it confiscated. Such magnanimity on the part of an emir was worthy of mention.215 In this context, the legal security of the dhimmīs was even more ephemeral: With the progressive deterioration of the legal status of the non-Muslim minorities (and that of Islamic justice in general), estates were confiscated simply when the legal heirs happened not to be present at the time of a person’s demise.216

213 V. И.М. Слуцкий, ‘Краткий очерк самаркандского виноделия в связи с виноградарством’, СКСО, вып. V (1897), 31, table ‘Comparison of the vineyard productivity’. 214 Cf.: ‘Precisely the late datings suggest that these persons were not active ghāzī fighters themselves, but were called or known by a nisba earned by some forebear’. (Paul, Histories, 84–5). 215 George Makdisi, The Rise of Colleges. Institutions of Learning in Islam and the West, Edinburgh 1981, 39–40. 216 Goitein, A Mediterranean Society, vol. II, 398.

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Against this background, it would be small wonder if some Christianised dihqān (landlords) decided to validate their commitment under the new legislation, thus enhancing the monastery’s well-being and helping maintain the delicately adjusted economic mechanism of which they were part. The identity of the donors could be inferred from the fact that two manors showing signs of Christianisation, Qosh Tepa and Ghus, were still active in the tenth century when most Sogdian estates had long passed into the hands of the Arabs. However, the donor’s determination alone is not enough for a gift to qualify as waqf and to be attested as such by an Islamic notary. The donation must meet several conditions, one of which assumes God’s pleasure in the act of charity. That rules out monasteries as recipients of waqf since monasticism, although not prohibited, was not favoured by Islamic lawmakers who regarded it as a kind of a perversion.217 Besides waqf, Islamic jurisprudence knows another form of charitable giving: ṣadaqa, donation of private property distinguished from a simple gift (hiba) by the intention to please God in the hope of a reward in the hereafter. Ṣadaqa, combined with ḥubs (another word for a pious endowment), figures in several Coptic donation documents from the middle of the eighth century onwards. Evidence shows that there were different ways to describe the act of endowing property to a monastery, donors could choose between a variety of ways to legally endow property to Christian institutions. However, it was only from the late twelfth century that we have documentary evidence of endowments which were specifically established as waqf.218 Still, the plural of waqf figures in Ibn Ḥawqal’s list of the monastery’s attributes. If understood literally, that brief notice yields the earliest instance of waqf within the entire corpus of Arabic historical texts. 7.4.7 Nemoribus copiosis Monasteries of the Church of the East were mainly situated in the arid regions where wood or water could not be used as a commercial asset. A glance at the same-time monasteries in the West, located in forested and well-watered areas, shows that wood and water, where available, provided sustainable resources 217 The doctrinal rationale for such an attitude is summarised by A.J. Wensinck, ‘Rahbāniyya’, EI, vol. VIII, 396–7. 218 Johannes Pahlitzsch, ‘Christian Waqf in the Early and Classical Islamic Period (Seventh to Twelfth Centuries)’, Sabine Mohasseb Saliba (ed.), Les fondations pieuses Waqfs chez les Chrétiens et les Juifs du Moyen Âge à nos jours, Paris 2016, 44.

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for a broad spectrum of economic pursuits. In the densely wooded Ardennes, monks harvested timber, coppiced and pollarded their woods, stripped bark from trees to use it in torches, and burned wood for coal. Thus they were putting their natural resources to as many uses as possible without being tangled up in worldly affairs: The monks of Stavelot and Malmedy controlled large amounts of forested land. They recognized the economic value of their woodland resources, and in general, it appears that their management of and interaction with the woodlands matched larger medieval trends.219 Stavelot-Malmedy was founded in 651. Its ecclesiastical principality, 600 km2, is comparable in area to the Urgut diocese, understood as Urgut and its environs.220 The ‘Life’ of its founder, written in the middle of the eleventh century, describes nature’s gifts to the monastic community: Rivulis et fluminibus piscosis, solo foecundissimo, pasquis pecorum uberrimis, vinetis nectareis, nemoribus copiosis, magna fructuum abundantia celebris….221 These lines revoice almost verbatim Ibn Ḥawqal’s description of the bounties of Shāwdhār, written a hundred years earlier:

‫�ذ‬ ‫ك ف�ج� �م ن���ه�ا ف����ه ا ن��ه�ا ��ا ��ة ال ض������ا � خ��لا �ل�ه خ‬ �‫�ل����ا �ذا ف‬ ‫ش‬ ]‫[��لا ل �ل�ك‬ ‫ا‬ � � � ‫ج‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ر‬ ‫و �ل� و ر‬ ‫و‬ ‫ج‬ ‫ج‬ � � ‫ى‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ل‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ع ف�ي‬ � ‫�غ ق‬ ‫ن �كث ة‬ ‫ن �غ‬ ‫ح����سن����ة [�زا �ك �ة‬ ‫ش‬ � ‫��ي��ر� �خ����ص� ب� و �د � �م� ن� ج��مي��ع و ج�وه ا �ل�ع��ي��� و‬ ‫�ي�� ] و ��ص��يود �م�� ي��ر ج�����س‬ ‫ت‬ 222.‫ا �ل�تم�� ب��ه‬ ‫ع‬

219 E.F. Arnold, Negotiating the Landscape Environment and Monastic Identity in the Medieval Ardennes, University of Pennsylvania Press 2012, 3, 147. The page numbers might not match the printed edition since I used an electronic version of this book with a slightly different page numbering. 220 The suburbs of Samarkand were probably pastored from the city, which was a metropolitan see. The administrative border between the two districts is Jumabazar, about midway from Samarkand to Urgut. 221 J.P. Migne (ed.), Notgerus Leodiensis, Vita S. Remacli, Paris 1853, 1. 222 Ibn Ḥawqal, 372.

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In Shāwdhār there are valleys; in each valley clean rivers in their gorgeous beauty flow to farmsteads. There is a big catch of fish without any dams,223 abundance and fertility in all aspects of life, and enjoyment. The stylistic affinity of the two accounts is explained by the uniformity of the monastic way of life, East or West: apart from supplying water, streams provided all monastic communities with the Lenten fare, being a source of fish, a staple of the monastic diet. In mediaeval Europe, monks actively exploited this excellent natural resource, collecting fish as part of tithing payments and using and constructing weirs and fishponds.224 In Shāwdhār, fishing was even easier, as it did not require man-made facilities. Rivers were also a source of energy: water-powered mills were an important part of the agricultural landscape, and their presence shows the pervasiveness of monastic control of water resources. Mills were a visible sign of the wealth and status of their owners, and of human control of the landscape.225 7.5 The Bukhara Side In 1986, Prof Galina Shishkina’s research team conducted excavations at Durman Tepa in some twenty kilometres to the northwest from Samarkand by the ancient route to Bukhara along the left bank of the Zarafshan.226 The excavations revealed ten roughly coeval burials in two sectors separated by c.500 m. The objects found in those graves which remained untouched by ancient tomb robbers indicate the high social status of the buried: – gold-plated iron armour details and a silver thin-walled hemispherical bowl in Grave 2, Site 12; – decorated bone quiver and silver belt straps in Grave 1–12; – silver belt buckles in Grave 3–12; – bronze aigrette with inlays of glass beads in Grave 5, Site 1. 223 Comprehensible ‫‘—حِ � ب���س‬dam’‎, attested by MS L as ‫( ح� ب���س‬Ibn Ḥawqal, 372, fn. k) seems ‫ن‬ more fitting than ‫‘— ج�����س‬species’ in both editions with the privative out of place. 224 V. Richard C. Hoffmann, ‘Economic Development and Aquatic Ecosystems in Medieval Europe’, AHR 101 № 3 (June 1996), 646–7. 225 Arnold, Negotiating the Landscape Environment, 127. 226 Г.В. Шишкина, ‘Несторианское погребение в Согде самаркандском’, Из Истории древних культов Средней Азии. Христианство, Ташкент 1994, 56–63. Photographs of the artefacts listed below can be found in К. Абдуллаев, Э. Ртвеладзе, Г. Шишкина (сост.), Культура и искусство древнего Узбекистана. Каталог выставки, Москва 1991, т. 2, 165, plate 691; 167, plate 693; 168, plate 694.

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Two more items must be singled out for special mention: the purple and gold brocade cloak put over a white undergarment in Grave 2–1 and the cross of thin sheet gold in Grave 1–12. It was stitched to some unpreserved dress in the abdominal area, as evident from symmetrical holes at the arms’ ends (see Figure 85). At the same time, the burials provide an array of objects unique to nomads: – iron arrowheads in quivers in Graves 1–12; 2–1 and 3–1; – wooden saddle and iron stirrups in Grave 5–1; – iron arrowheads and a birch quiver in Grave 3–1; – belts with iron rivets and straps in Graves 1–12 and 3–1; – armour too heavy for an unmounted warrior in Grave 2–1. The scene is completed by the horse burial on the top of the hill, with a bridle put to the bottom of the pit. Shishkina writes: ‘The impression is that the animal sacrifice was dedicated to all buried at once’. I would add that a horse burial is yet another marker of an elevated social status since such burials usually accompany the remains of high-ranking or wealthy nomads. The impractical brocade garment and the fragile golden cross are so much out of context with the traditional nomadic pattern that they cannot be explained otherwise as ceremonial dress, not worn casually but on special occasions. For that reason, Shishkina defines the buried in Graves 1–12 and 2–1 as high-ranking clerics of whom the one in Grave 1 is ‘undoubtedly Christian’ while saying: ‘If not the cross found there, everything would speak against the Christian nature of the graves’. The scholar dates the cemetery to the late eleventh century.

Figure 85 Cross sewn upon dress, 1072 М4, КП 38912, the Oriental Museum, Moscow. 7 × 6.5 cm, weight 5.05 g, millesimal fineness 800 Photo by I.V. Ksenofontova †, courtesy of the Oriental Museum, published under the Permission of 29.01.2009

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Investigating mediaeval Suyab where Christians and Manichaeans were neighbours, Leonid Kyzlasov studied visual symbols used by the respective communities in China (Changan and Quanzhou), the Upper Indus Valley, and Semirechye. He noticed that followers of each religion used crosses of different shapes: It suffices to compare the cross on the burial vessel with the VIIIth-century bronze cross from one of the burials near the Christian church in Aq-Beshim to see that both Manichaean and Christian crosses had widening ends but differed in another respect: the former were even-armed, while the latter had an elongated descending arm.227 Following Kyzlasov’s typology, the cross from Grave 1–12 should be recognised as Manichaean. Below I will argue that the rest of the archaeological record portrays the buried at Durman Tepa as Manichaeans with a strong touch of Shamanism. 1. The cross from Grave 1–12 is quite similar to the one on Fragment a of the Uighur Manichaean hanging scroll from Kocho, created in the middle of the ninth–early eleventh century.228 2. White robe and purple cloak edged in gold from Grave 2–1 are unmistakable characteristics of Manichaean priests.229 3. In Grave 4–1, the buried person’s hands are bent as if they were holding some object on the chest that rested on the left palm and was kept in place by the right hand on top. That is precisely the position of Jesus’ hands on a Manichaean icon from Southern China dating from the twelfth–thirteenth centuries.230 Before touching on the following two artefacts, it should be borne in mind that the buried came from South Siberia. According to Shishkina, that fact follows from the birchbark quiver from Grave 3, Excavation 1 characteristic of Altay pastoralists, and the mirror from Grave 5, Excavation 1 made in Siberia in the eleventh century. 4. The bronze mirror with two figures under a branch of a blossoming tree was cast from a mould of a Chinese original.231 In South Siberia, such mirrors

227 Кызласов, Два ак-бешимских сюжета, 40–1. 228 Zsuzsanna Gulácsi, Mani’s Pictures: The Didactic Images of the Manichaeans from Sasanian Mesopotamia to Uygur Central Asia and Tang-Ming China, Leiden 2015, 235, fig. 5/7 a. 229 Gulácsi, Mani’s Pictures, passim. 230 Ibid., 418, fig. 6/29. 231 Культура и искусство древнего Узбекистана, 167, plate 692. Cf. E. Loubo-Lesnitchenko, ‘Imported Mirrors in the Minusinsk Basin’, AA 35, № 1/2 (1973), fig. 45.

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(toli), ornamented on one side and polished on the other, were used by shamans (kams) for various magical practices.232 Un personnage à la longue robe a perdu son miroir (ou « ses miroirs ». Il n’y a pas de marque distinctive du pluriel) dans le lac…. Sachez cela, c’est ennuyeux, c’est très mauvais. La référence au miroir peut prouver que l’homme au long vêtement est un kam…. La valeur marchande seule n’explique pas l’insistance avec laquelle l’oracle répète: « c’est très ennuyeux, c’est très mauvais! » Mais tout s’éclaircit des que nous savons que ce disque métallique a une telle importance magique qu’on peut chamaniser même sans le costume et sans le tambour pourvu qu’on le possède.233 Heading further east from Central Asia, Manichaean priests could not escape meeting Siberian shamans. The exact mechanism for their interaction is poorly known. Still, one thing seems to be clear: at some point, ministers of each faith have merged in the minds of the unsophisticated audience into a revered holder of higher syncretic truth. An illustration is this Turfan fragment where ‘shaman’ complements the Syriac title of respect which came to mean ‘religious teacher’ in Old Turkic: qam mar amu možaqqa ïnča tep ajïtï—‘Master [Syr. Mār] shaman said that to Amu the mozhak [Manichaean high priest < Sogd. mōchāk, lit. ‘teacher’]’.234 5. The fragile bowl made of precious metal in Grave 2–1 is hardly an ‘essential travel item’, as Shishkina assumes. Although not a typical incantation bowl since all known Manichaean incantation bowls are inscribed with spells while the report is silent about any decorations,235 it can be identified as a part of the shaman’s toolkit:

232 И.Л. Кызласов, ‘Новые материалы по енисейской рунической письменности’, CT № 4 (1981), 93–4. 233 Jean-Paul Roux, ‘Le nom du chaman dans les textes turco-mongols’, Anthropos 53 (1958), 137–8. Nothing justifies Tekin’s translation of uzun tonlug as ‘woman’. (Talat Tekin, Irk Bitig. The Book of Omens, Wiesbaden 1993, 35). 234 A. von Le Coq, Türkische Manichaica aus Chotscho I, Berlin 1911, Man I, 33:17. 235 Jason David BeDuhn, ‘Magical Bowls and Manichaeans’, Marvin Meyer and Paul Mirecki (eds.), Ancient Magic and Ritual Power, Leiden–New York–Köln 1995, 420–34.

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Le religieux [m. à. m. l’homme au long vêtement] est parti en laissant son bol et sa coupe. Le bol et la coupe ne paresse pas fondamentaux pour un chaman et font davantage penser à une moine mendiant tel qu’un connaît le Bouddhisme par exemple. Néanmoins aucune trace du Bouddhisme ne se trouve dans l’ensemble du manuscrit et jusqu’à preuve du contraire on est obligé de considérer ce personnage comme turc.236 The manuscript in which mirror and bowl figure as shaman’s attributes is Irq Bitig, a ninth-century Runic book on divination discovered by Aurel Stein in Dunhuang in 1907. Although there is nothing recognisable as Manichaean among the sixty-five short fables in Old Turkic, the anonymous author identifies himself in the colophon by the Manichaean term ‘junior dintar [high electus supported by common co-religionists < Sogd. δēnδār, lit. ‘possessing faith’]’. The material evidence of qam mar, literally carved in stone, are the rock drawings of men in long dresses (cf. uzun tonlug of Irq Bitig XXII, XLII) and tiara-like high hats discovered by J.R. Aspelin during his expeditions to Siberia and Mongolia in 1887–89.237 Searching for archaeological traces of Manichaeism in the Uybat Valley, Kyzlasov noted: ‘having reached Siberia, the Manichaean dressed up as a shaman’.238 A real-life illustration of this metaphor is the surviving shaman’s dress with crosses of the ‘Manichaean’ shape (see Figure 86). The above-said explains the identity of the buried, but not the choice of the burial ground. The graves were situated on the top of a mound covering the remains of an eighth-century manor (Site 1) and on a suburban hill (Site 12). In the first quarter of the eleventh century, life here wholly faded, so by the time the burials were made, the area was essentially waste ground except for a small village near the old citadel. The choice of place for the cemetery is thus inexplicable unless we assume the force of some old habit. But if so, there is a chance that the long-held custom has left some material traces that could be found using conventional archaeological methods. The excavations conducted on the southern edge of Durman Tepa in 1988 revealed an Early Mediaeval dakhma, a place of exposure for the dead according to Zoroastrian tradition. The funerary tower was in existence long 236 Roux, Le nom du chaman, 137. 237 Hjalmar Appelgren-Kivalo (tr.), Alt-Altaische Kunstdenkmäler. Briefe und Bildmaterial von J.R. Aspelins, Helsingfors 1931, plates 95, 100–2, 303–7. 238 Л.Р. Кызласов, ‘Северное манихейство и его роль в культурном развитии народов Сибири и Центральной Азии’, ВМУ, серия 8: история, № 3 (1998), 33.

140

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Figure 86 An Evenki shaman, 1910. The bottom part of the garment is decorated with Manichaean-style crosses Photo by D.K. Solovyёv, courtesy of the Ethnography Museum in St. Petersburg, published under the Permission РЭМ 5002–85/1 of 18.12.2021

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141

enough for the area to become engraved in the public memory as a permanent burial ground.239 Furthermore, there seems to be a reason explaining the specific attraction of the Manichaean-influenced shamans towards this place. (I fail to adequately define their religion since arms and armour can hardly be reconciled with the explicit prohibition of killing people or animals in canonical Manichaeism). While characteristic signs portray the building as Zoroastrian, it comprises a crypt built into the adobe mass and containing an inhumation burial—a phenomenon incompatible with Zoroastrian funeral practice. Such an incursion is also attested in Suyab, where a contemporary (seventh-to-eighth century) dakhma and naus (a depository for ossuaries) were situated side by side with a crypt with inhumation burials. The same funeral structure contained burials in pits without any coffins or urns. In one such grave was found a jar with a scratched cross of the shape Kyzlasov defined as ‘Manichaean’.240 It may thus be assumed that the Manichaeans buried their dead in distinct sectors of conventional cemeteries to keep a low profile. While nothing is known about their legal status in Central Asia, persecutions on the Manichaeans in Sasanian Iran are well-known. The Sasanian Book of a Thousand Judgements declares them legally incapable; their property had to be forfeited for the imperial treasury, and inhumation burials are mentioned explicitly as an offence.241 7.6 Priest’s Daughter Another settlement near Samarkand that owes its modern name to a settled Turko-Mongol tribe is Dulta. The remains of its ancient site are shown in Figure 82 on page 116. In the early thirteenth century, that tribe moved out of Mongolia to support Genghis Khan, settled in the western Tarim basin area, and served the Chaghatay khans as hereditary vassal rulers from the fourteenth until the sixteenth century.242 Eventually, they became the most numerous group within the Senior Zhuz (‘horde’), one of the three main territorial and tribal divisions ‫د �ۋلا ت‬, Duwlat, Дулат). of the Kazakh nation (Kaz. � 239 From the middle of the seventh until the middle of the eighth century according to Г.В. Шишкина, ‘Сооружение у стен Исбискета’, Центральная Азия. Источники, история, культура, Москва 2005, 766; from the fifth until the second half of the seventh century according to З.С. Галиева, О.Н. Иневаткина, ‘Исторический ландшафт Самаркандского Согда’, ibid., 289. 240 Кызласов, Два ак-бешимских сюжета, 40. I find that Kyzlasov’s interpretation of both dakhmas as purely Manichaean is a vast overstatement. 241 А.Г. Периханян (изд. и пер.), Сасанидский судебник, Ереван 1973, 356, 501. 242 W. Barthold–[B. Spuler], ‘Dūg̲̲ h̲lāt’, EI, vol. II, 621–2.

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The site is some ten kilometres southeast of Samarkand by the Urgut road. When settling in the area once populated by Christians, the Dulat were hardly aware that their distant ancestors had Christians among them. The Christian connection follows from the inscription on the gravestone Cat. 206/1 from the History Museum in Tashkent, published by Mark Dickens, which has ‫‏‬‎Dwlṭāīšī, daughter of Šliḥa the priest in lines 5–7.243 I understand Dwlṭāīšī as a gentilic Dūlṭāyshā, with the due change of č in common Turkic suffixes for š in Kazakh and other languages within the Qypchaq-Nogay branch.244 The same gentilic occurs on two other gravestones published by Chwolson, both times also related to females.245 243 Mark Dickens, ‘Syriac Gravestones in the Tashkent History Museum’, Dietmar W. Winkler & Li Tang (eds.), Hidden Treasures and Intercultural Encounters. Studies on East Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia, Berlin 2009, 33–6. 244 Э.Р. Тенишев (ред.), Сравнительно-историческая грамматика тюркских языков, Москва 2002, 269. 245 D. Chwolson, ‘Syrisch-Nestorianische Grabinschriften aus Semirjetschie’, MAISSP, VII série, tome XXXVII (1890), № 49,9, № 229; id., Syrisch-Nestorianische Grabinschriften aus Semirjetschie. Neue Folge, St. Petersburg 1897, № 8.

‫‪Chapter 2‬‬

‫‪The Village in Chach‬‬ ‫‪Res ipsa loquitur‬‬

‫ ‪1‬‬

‫‪Following in the footsteps of the Arab travellers ‘towards the most remote‬‬ ‫‪lands of Islam’, we cross Ustrushana and approach Chach and Ilaq, which are‬‬ ‫‪described in Arabic and Persian with slight differences:‬‬

‫ن ف ث ث ة َّ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ة‬ ‫َّ �ش �ش‬ ‫َ ق ف� �ق‬ ‫خ‬ ‫ض‬ ‫و ا�م�ا ا �ل�� �اآ �� و اي�لا � �م�� �د ا ر �عر����ه���م�ا �م��سي��ر� �يو�مي��� �ى �لا ��� اي�ا م و �ل��ي��س ب�را ��س�ا � و‬ ‫ل �م�ا � ءَ ا ��ل ن��ه ا �ق��ل� ع�� �م���ق�د ا �ه�ا ف� ا لم��س�ا ح��ة ا�ث�� �م ن���ا � �ق � �ع�م�ا �ة ��س�ع��ة � ط��ة‬ ‫و ب��س��‬ ‫ا ور‬ ‫ك ر ب ر و رى َّر و‬ ‫ر ٌى‬ ‫� َر يم لى‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫�ش �ش�� �ذ‬ ‫ق‬ ‫�ق ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫� �ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�ى ا �ل�عما ر� ا لى و� � �ش� وك‬ ‫��� �م����ه�م‪ ،‬وح�د ��ل�ه�اَ ي�����هى ا لىأَ وا د �ى ا �ل�� �ا ا �ل� �ى ي���ع ى بحي��ر‬ ‫ٌّ‬ ‫َ‬ ‫ت ف ُ ف‬ ‫ّّ ة‬ ‫�ق‬ ‫خ�وا ر �ز وح�د ��ل�ه�ا ا لى ب�ا � ا �ل‬ ‫�‬ ‫ح�د ي��د ب���بر�ي�� و ب�ي�� ب� � ��س�ب���ي�� ج��ا ب� َّ��عر�� [�ي�عَر��] ب�ا �ل�� �لَا �ص‬ ‫ب‬ ‫م‬ ‫ٌ‬ ‫ل�� �ا �ش�� ال [�غ�� ] ا نّ ا � �ة ا ل��تّ ص���ة‬ ‫�ه �م ا ح ّ�د ��له�ا ا ل �� �ا ل �ه �م� ن���س ���ة ا ل �ع�م� ا � �ش‬ ‫ا ير � ل�عما ر م ��� ل‬ ‫و ى ر ٍ و � ى ج �ب ى وب ى ل‬ ‫�ش �ش�� ف‬ ‫� ع �ق � �ف ت ق � �ة ٌّ � ل �ن � �ق‬ ‫ة‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�‬ ‫�ل‬ ‫�‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ا لى ا ��جل��ب�ل و ب�ا ي���ه م�� ��ر� ا ل�عما ر وح َ�د �ل�ه�ا ا ى وي� ك�رد ‪ l‬ر�ي�� ل ����ص�ا ر ى‪ ،‬و ل�� �ا ى‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ة �تّ ة‬ ‫ة‬ ‫�ف ة‬ ‫� �مرت��� �ع�� ‪1.‬‬ ‫� ���س�ه�ل�� و �ل��ي��س �ى �ه��ذه ا �ل�عما ر� ا لم� ���ص�ل�� ج���ب�ل و لا ا ر �ض‬ ‫ا ر �ض‬

‫�رد ‪, B.‬و�ي ك�‬ ‫�رد ‪, F.‬وٮ ك�‬ ‫�ر ‪ s.‬وٮ ك�‬ ‫�رد ‪�, Jacut‬ٮٮ ك�‬ ‫‪. Vid. porro I.,‬ت�ن� ك�‬ ‫�رد ‪, E. et O.‬و�ٮٮ ك�‬ ‫�رد ‪l) L.‬‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�رد ‪, O.‬وق��ٮ ك�‬ ‫‪�,‬ت�عر�� ب����ق ر�ي��ة ا ��لن����ص�ا ر �ى ‪ . Deinde Jacut‬ف��ٮ ك�‬ ‫�رد ‪p. ٣٣٦ f, quibus adde F.‬‬ ‫ن‬

‫��ه د ي��ه ت�ر��س�اي�ا � ‪F.‬‬ ‫‪.‬ك‬

‫ح� ت� �هر د و ن�ا �‬ ‫� �ش� �ا �ش�� و اي�لا ق� �م��س�ا �‬ ‫حي��� ت� د و رو�زه را ه ب�ا � �ش� �د د ر ��س�ه رو�زه‪ .‬و د ر �ه�م�ه‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫� �غ‬ ‫�س��د �م�ا ا ء ا ��ل ن��ه � ن���� ن ا ق��ل�����م ن������س� ت� ��ه �آ �ا د ا �ن � ت‬ ‫و ور‬ ‫ى و ع�م�ا ر�‪ .‬ح�د �ى ب�ا وا د �ى چ��ا�چ‬ ‫� ر چ ي� ي ى ي‬ ‫ب ب‬ ‫آ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ّ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ن‬ ‫كى د ا رد د ر د ري�ا �ى خ�وا ر �ز ا ���ت�د‪ ،‬و ح�د �ى ب�ا �‬ ‫كا � � �ه� ن� ب�ر ح�د ود ��س�ب���ي�� ج��آا ب�‪ ،‬و ح�د �ى‬ ‫م‬ ‫نگ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�و��ه�ه�ا ي�ى كى ب��ه ا �ع�م�ا ل � �ش� �ا �ش�� پ�ي�و����س��ت�ه ا ����س� ت�‪ ،‬و ح�د �ى ب�ا وي�� �‬ ‫�رد ‪ ٤١‬ت�ر��س�ا � �‪ .‬و �ه�م�ه‬ ‫ب�ا ك‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�ز �م�� ن �ه�ا �م � ا ����س� ت‬ ‫�‪2.‬‬ ‫ي� و‬

‫]‪[Here and below I omit glosses to other place names in the text‬‬

‫� د‪ ،‬ت‬ ‫�‪ :‬ب�ي� ك�‬ ‫�ر‬ ‫‪ - ٤١‬م‪� :‬ىي� ك�ر‬ ‫‪1 Ibn Ḥawqal, 384.‬‬ ‫‪2 Al-Iṣṭakhrī (Afshār), 259.‬‬

‫‪© Alexei Savchenko, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004527539_003‬‬

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Ouseley’s translation from Persian runs as follows:

‫ق‬ ‫ن �ش ن‬ ���‫ ��� �ا �مي‬Neshamein and � ‫ اي�لا‬Ailak are two districts, the extent of both

which is two days journey by three. In all Soghd and Maweralnahr there is not any country equal to this in populousness and in buildings: one of its borders is the valley or water-course of ‫ پ�ا ج‬Chaje, which falls into the � ‫خ �ز‬ lake of Khuarezm ‫ ;د ري�ا �ي� �وا ر �م‬it is bounded also by the �‫كا ر ا�ه� ن‬ � Kar Ahen (or iron-works) on the confines of �‫ ����سن���� خ��ا ب‬Sinkhab; another of its ‫ن‬ boundaries extends to the mountains, adjoining the territories of �‫� �ش�� �ا �مي�� ن‬ ‫ن‬ Neshamein; and another extends to Benagur of the Christians � ‫�ر ت�ر��س�اي�ا‬ ‫ب�ن��ا ك‬ (Benagur Tersaian.) All the land is flat.3 I translate the Arabic (fuller) version as follows: As to Chāch and Ilāq, the size of each land is two days’ journey by three days’ journey. There is no other region [‘climate’] in Khorasan or Mawarannahr excelling this in size, the number of congregational mosques and built-up settlements, or abundance in numerous buildings, down to the strength and might of its people. One extent reaches the valley of [the River] Chāch, which flows into the Khwārazmian Lake. Another extent reaches the iron gate in the wild country between [Chāch and] Isfījāb which is called Qalāṣ, and it is pasture. Another extent reaches the mountains which belong to Chāch except the districts adjoining the mountains. The rest of the space is divided amongst households. Yet another extent reaches [several variant readings in the MSS], a village of the Christians. Chāch is on a plain, there are no mountains adjacent to it, and there are no high grounds. As in the case with Urgut, the exact name of the village had never been established: Ausserdem erwähnen Ibn Ḥawqal1) und Jakût2) eine christliche ‫ق ة‬ ‫ق ة‬ Ansiedelung (‫�ر�ي�� ا ��لن����ص�ا ر �ى‬‎, ‫ )�ر�ي�� �ل��لن����ص�ا ر �ى‬an der Grenze des Gebietes von Taschkent.

3 Ouseley, Oriental Geography, 265.

145

The Village in Chach

Auch dieser Name wird in verschiedenen Formen überliefert (vgl. unten Anm. 1 und 2).4 �‫د ي�ن� ك‬‎, (‫�رد‬ �‫وٮ ك‬, ‫�رد‬ �‫و�ٮٮ ك‬, ‫�رد‬ �‫�ٮٮ ك‬ 1) Bibl. Geogr. Arab. p. ۳٨٤, Zeile 12: p. ۳٨٤, Zeile 12: ‫�رد‬ �‫و�ي ك‬, ‫�رد‬ �‫و�ي ك‬,). ‫�رد‬ ‫ت ف‬ ‫ت�ن � ة‬ 2) Ed. Wüstenfeld, III, ۲۳٤. Zeile 8: �‫�ر‬ ‫[ � ك‬Yāqūt has: ‫] ��عر�� ب����ق ر�ي��ة ا ��لن����ص�ا ر �ى‬ The same place is mentioned several more times in the same texts, but without any reference to Christians:

َ ‫دي��ز ك‬ ‫رب�ا ط‬

‫ا لى‬ ‫ا لى‬

َّ ‫ف‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ا�َّم�ا ط � ق ا � �ش‬ ‫[ و �م ن����ه�ا‬Ustrushana] …ُ ‫ل�� �ا �ش�� ا لى ا ����صى ب��ل�د الا ��س�لا ��ا ن��ك‬ ‫و‬ �‫ر‬ َّ�‫ن ي ئ �ل ن ث�َّ ئ ح ث� ن م ث�َّ أ �تُ ْ ث ث�َّ تُ نْ َ ت ث‬ � � ‫ل‬ � � � � � ‫ا‬ ‫ا‬ � �� ��‫و م����ه�ا ى ب���ر ح��س‬ �� ‫�ك‬ �‫��س� �ك‬ f ‫� ك� د‬ ‫�� م���د‬ ‫ور � م و � م‬ ‫ي ن� م ب� ر ي م وي ر م‬ ‫َّ �ف‬ 5.�‫ب�ا �ل���ق�لا �ص ي���س���مى نا��� ر‬ ‫ف‬

‫ف‬

�‫و�ٮى ك‬, B. ‬‫��د د‬ �‫ر�ىى ك‬, D. ‫�رد د‬ �‫د �ٮٮ ك‬, E. ‫�رد‬ �‫� ن�� ك‬, Ous. ‬‫�ي���ك‬, Edrîsî ‬‫�رد‬ �‫د ي�ب� ك‬. f ) A. ‫�رد‬ ‫و�ىى �ك‬, C. ‫�رد‬ �‫و�ي �ش�� ك‬, D. ‫�ود‬ Infra A. ‫���برد‬ ‫وي�ن� ك‬. Conjectura edidi. ‫ون� �ك‬, B. ‫���برد‬ ‫و��س �ك‬, C. et E. ‫�رد‬

As for the Chāch road to the most remote lands of Islam … from there to Dīzak, from there to the well of Ḥusayn, then the well of Ḥumayd, then �‫وي�ن� ك‬, then ’stūrkth, then Tūnkath, then to the inn in Qalāṣ called Anfuran. ‫�رد‬ The Persian translation closely follows the Arabic text:

‫ن‬ ‫ آنگ‬٤ ‫ق ح آنگ ن گ‬ ‫ن آنگ‬ �‫و ا �ز ا �ج‬ � �‫ و ا �ز دي��ز ك ب��ه � �ش� ق‬،‫��ا ب��ه دي��ز ك‬ � � � ، ‫�رد‬ � ��‫��ه وي‬ � � � ،‫��ه ب��ه � �ش� � �مي���د‬ � � � ،���‫ح��سي‬ ‫��ه‬ ‫�ت ث آنگ ت ن ث آنگ‬ ‫آن‬ ‫�ف ن خ‬ 6.‫��ه � � را نا��� ر� �وا ن�ن��د‬ ‫��ه �و� ك‬ �‫ا ����س� ور�ك‬ ‫��ه رب�ا ط ب�ا �ل���ق�لا �ص ك‬ � � � ،��� � � � ،�� ‫ف‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ ت‬-٤ �‫ ��ٮ ك‬: ،‫�رد‬ �‫ �ي�� ك‬:� ‫�رد‬ ‫م‬

… from there to Dīzak, from Dīzak to the well of Ḥusayn, then the well �‫وي�ن� ك‬, then ʾstūrkth, then Tūnkath, then the inn in Qalāṣ of Ḥamīd, then ‫�رد‬ called Anfuran.

4 Barthold, Zur Geschichte des Christentums, 31. 5 Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 336. The misplaced note markers f ), g) and h) are put back in order in BGA IV, Addenda et emendanda, 430. ‫��ه د ��ه ت� ��س�ا �ا ن� ا ����س� ت‬ 6 Al-Iṣṭakhrī (Afshār), 269. Al-Iṣṭakhrī F has ‘� ‫’ ک ي ر ي‬.

146

Chapter 2

Ibn Ḥawqal has the same text, but after ʾstūrkth comes Binkath instead of �‫ وي�ن� ك‬is glossed: ‘L. et B. ‫�رد‬ �‫د ي�ى ك‬‎’.7 Tūnkath. ‫�رد‬ More directions further in al-Iṣṭakhrī:

‫� ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫�� ث� �� ن��ه�ا ��� ن ن��ه ا � �ش‬ ‫ل�� �ا �ش�� ف�ر��س‬ �‫وي�ن� ك‬ 8.� ‫�خ�ا‬ ‫ ا لى ب�� ك و ب ي � و بي� � ر‬b ‫�رد‬

َ َ ْ‫نَ ن‬ ‫�� ث� ع�� ط � ق‬ �‫و ج�ي�����ا �ج‬ � ‫ك‬ �‫لى ري‬

�‫ وي�ن� ك‬road to Binkath, and between it and the Chīnānchkath is on the ‫�رد‬ River Chāch there are two farsakhs. Further in Ibn Ḥawqal there is the same text with the addition: ‘the two val‫ن‬ � ‎). ‫� د‬ �‫ �ن� ك‬is glossed: leys merge near it [Chīnānchkath]’ (‫� ت�����م ا �لوا د ي�ا � �ع ن���د �ه�ا‬ ‫وي ر ي�ج ع‬ ‫ن‬ b) L. ‫�ود‬ ‫‏وي�� ك‬‎.9 Finally, the same place is mentioned by al-Muqaddasī who lists the landmarks in reverse order, from east to west:

‫ةث‬ ‫ئ‬ �‫�مرح�ل��ة ث� ا لى وي�ن� ك‬ ‫�رد (وت�ي��رك‬ ‫) �مرح�ل�� �م ا لى ب���ر‬Cod. ‫�رد‬ ‫م‬ ‫ة‬ 10. ��‫ا لى دي��ز ك �مرح�ل‬

َْ ُ ْ ُ‫أ‬ َْ ‫ث‬ � ‫�بِن� ك‬ ��‫�� ث� ا لى � ����س��تور�ك‬ ‫ب�ئ��ر ا �ل‬ �‫ح��س�� ن �م ح���ة ث‬ � ‫ي� ر ل م‬

‫ت �خ �ذ ن‬ ��‫و �ا � �م‬ ‫ث‬ ‫ح�مي���د �م ا لى‬

Allow one daily march from Binkath to Ustūrkath, then one daily march �‫وي�ن� ك‬, then to the well of Ḥumayd, then one daily march to the well of to ‫�رد‬ Ḥusayn, then one daily march to Dīzak. I will use the place names mentioned in the accounts as reference points, so I must be sure there is no confusion, hence the need for the following checklist. 1. The identity of the water bodies is not in doubt: the Khwarazmian Lake is the Aral Sea, and the Chach River is the Syr Darya. Concerning modern Chirchik, Barthold assumed that ‘The reading Turk adopted by de Goeje is ‫ف‬ erroneous, and the name should be spelt ‫ ب�رك‬for ‫( �رك‬Parak). The name Parak is mentioned as late as the sixteenth century’.11

7 8 9 10 11

Ibn Ḥawqal, 399, fn. i). Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 345. Ibn Ḥawqal, 405. M.J. de Goeje (ed.), Descriptio imperii Moslemici auctore Shams ad-dīn Abū Abdallah Ibn Ahmed Ibn abī Bekr al-Bannā al-Basshārī Mohammed al-Moqaddasi, Leiden 1877, 345 b): ‘In C itineraria Transoxaniae haec sunt’. Barthold, Turkestan, 163, fn. 4.

The Village in Chach

147

There is no confirmation for this statement in the Arab sources. ‫ ب�رك‬does not appear but in al-Idrīsī, whose work is a late compilation of ُ the original travel� lers’ accounts. In al-Iṣṭakhrī A and B it is vocalised as ‫ ب رك‬where the ḍamma, not aُfatḥa, is where it would be in Turk. In most cases, it is ‫ت�رك‬, fully vocalised ْ as ‫ ت�رك‬in Ibn Khurdādhbih MS A.12 Perhaps ‫ ت�ي��رك‬in D and twice in Ibn Ḥawqal L reflects the original pronunciation Türk. Nahr Turk seems to be a calque of rūd-i Turk since ‘the River of the Turks’ would require a definite article in Arabic.13 ‘Parak’ appears in 1904, when Barthold’s Report on a Trip to Turkestan is published in the Memoirs of the Oriental Department of the Russian Archaeological Society: ‘based on Khoja Akhrar’s documents, Mr Vyatkin … was able to estab‫ف‬ lish the reading ‫ �رك‬for the old name of the Chirchik instead of ‫ ت�رك‬which I have adopted, following De Goeje’.14 The ‘old’ name is not older than the sixteenth-century sources where it appears, given it is not a trivial scribal mistake. Following Barthold’s logic, the reader would have to assume that the river, known to the tenth-century Arab geographers as Turk, changed its Turkic name for an Iranian one after the invasion of Turkic tribes into Mawarannahr in the sixteenth century—just when Turkic dialects largely ousted Persian as a spoken language. However improbable such a turn of events, Barthold’s influence was so strong that Kramers also decided to put ‫ب�رك‬, never attested by the Istanbul MS, in the edited text. ‫ة‬ 2. Dīzak, ‘town on a plain’ (‫)�م�د ي�ت��� �يف� ا �ل���س�ه�ل‬ < Sogd. δizā, ‘stronghold, fort’ surely is modern Jizzakh on the M39 Samarkand–Tashkent, 100 km west of the left bank of the Syr Darya. 3. Wells of al-Ḥusayn15 and al-Ḥumayd:16 such wells along the caravan routes were in use until recently. There are two roads from Chinaz to Dizakh through the Starving Steppe; they part after the bridgehead and join halfway to Dizakh, at Mirzarabat….

12 13 14 15 16

Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Mixt. 783. (Ibn Khurdādhbih, 27, fn. d). The question whether the Persian text of al-Iṣṭakhrī is not a translation, but the original version of the treatise initially written in Persian, raised by C. Brockelmann (Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, SB I, Leiden 1937, 408), is still an open issue. Бартольд, ‘Отчёт о командировке в Туркестан’, Сочинения, т. VIII, Москва 1973, 199. The mistake followed to the English translation of Turkestan, 163, fn. 4.

‫ئ‬

‫ح��س�� ن‬ ‫� ح‬, F ‫ح�ى�ى�ٮ‬ ‫ ا �ل‬iidem ‫ح���� ن‬ ‫�ل‬ �, O ‫�ى�ى�د‬ � Or al-Ḥasan. ‘Pro ‫ ب���ر‬L et F �‫�ىى ق‬. Pro �‫ي‬ �‫ �ك‬.’ �‫ا � س‬. Pro ‫ �مي���د‬L ‫ح�ى�د‬

(BGA IV, Addenda et emendanda, 430). Or Ḥamīd. Al-Iṣṭakhrī (Afshār), 269.

148

Chapter 2

The right-hand-side road first goes through the reeds and the bare steppe. There are several wells with bad water along the way.17 Some of them remain in the form of sardoba (domed structure over a well) in Yoghochli in a day’s journey from Jizaq, in Mirzarabat, and Yakka Sardoba (at the portion of the road passing through modern Kazakhstan). 4. Chīnānchkath is the namesake of another ‘Chinese town’ in Turfan.18 Its identity with modern Chinaz is apparent. The site is in the town of Chinaz, in its eastern suburb. The east part is preserved quite well. The citadel and the bastion in front of it are seen clearly. The levees of the eastern and northern walls have remained. There is pottery from the most ancient to modern.19 5. Barthold rationalised ʾstūrkth as ‘Shutūrkath or Ushtūrkath (“Camel-town”), the third-largest town in the province’.20 Repeated by Le Strange,21 the identification soon became commonplace: ‘Lying to the east of Stari Tashkent and opposite Kirshul upon the left bank of the Chirchik river are the ruins of Shuturket or Ushturket—the town of Camels’.22 َْ ُ ُ ‫�ث‬ The name does not appear in this form but in Ibn Khurdādhbih: � �‫� �ش� ��طور�ك‬, ‫�ث‬ glossed: ‘e) Scribitur quoque � �‫����س��تور�ك‬‎, �‫� ث‬ �‫ ش������تور�ك‬‎, �‫� ث‬ �‫ ا ����س��تور�ك‬et �‫� ت‬ �‫ا ش������تور�ك‬‎’.23 Other sources give various forms of which Ustūrkath is the most frequent. Writing at a time when Sogdian was still not recognised, Barthold and his contemporaries were at liberty to see in the name the Persian for ‘camel’. However, this hybrid of living Persian (shutur) with extinct Sogdian (kath) seems a shibboleth for time and place. It makes us assume that a Sogdo-Persian pidgin was the local language long enough for a place name to come into being. In the light of the present knowledge, it can be argued that the name derives from 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

Сборник статей, касающихся до Туркестанского края, А.П. Хорошихина, СПб. 1876, 67–8. V. Minorsky (tr.), Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam. The Regions of the World. A Persian Geography 372 A.H.– 982 A.D., Cambridge 1982, 94, 271. Г.В. Григорьев, Отчёт об археологической разведке в Янгиюльском районе УзССР в 1934 г., Ташкент 1935, 47. By ‘walls’ Grigoryev means the walls of the citadel; al-Muqaddasī states that the town as such had no walls (al-Muqaddasī, 277). Barthold, Turkestan, 170. Comparison with two other towns in al-Iṣṭakhrī, 185, fn. 5. G. Le Strange, The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate, Cambridge 1905, 482. A. Hamilton, Afghanistan, London 1906, 59. M.J. de Goeje (ed.), Abu’l-Kâsim Obaidallah ibn Abdallah Ibn Khordâdhbeh, Kitâb al-Masâlik wa‌ʾl-Mamâlik, Leiden 1889, 27.

The Village in Chach

149

the Sogdian xuštr-, ‘camel’. But more plausibly, the first element is the Sogdian ustūr—‘sheep’, ‘cattle’, for two reasons: first, in ustūr, the long vowel, attested by the Arabic sources, is in its place, while in xūštǝr it is not.24 Second, the well-watered Chirchik Valley is much more suitable for breeding cattle than camels, as high humidity is harmful to the latter. Ideal for sheep, green grass is not proper food for camels whose standard diet consists of salsola, alhagi, and saxaul (see Figures 87–88).25 6. Despite many variants of Binkath in the MSS, it can be said with confidence that the name was in use in the form preferred by De Goeje. Al-Sam‘anī and following him, Yāqūt quote several prominent persons with the nisba ‫)�ق ���ة ا � �ش‬, as opposed to al-Binkathī, explaining it as ‘settlement in Chach’ ( ��‫ل�� �ا �ش‬ ‫ري‬ Binkat in the vicinity of Ishtikhan near Samarkand.26 A city with a congre‫ ق�����ص� ��ة ا � �ش‬or ��‫ �م�د �ن���ة � �ش� �ا �ش‬by the Arab gational mosque, several times called ��‫ل�� �ا �ش‬ ‫ي‬ ‫�ب‬ authors, Binkath has been studied archaeologically well enough to be sure that it was the most important place in the area from the ninth century onwards. Also, the earliest plans of Tashkent made late in the nineteenth century show details of the ancient planning that match the Arab geographers’ descriptions of Binkath.27 7. Tūnkath is out of place in al-Iṣṭakhrī’s list. Once the capital town of Ilaq, half the size of Binkath, it has been identified with the site of Imlaq at the left bank of Ahangaran fifteen kilometres northeast of Almalyq.28 This place is about ninety kilometres east of the Syr Darya, far away from the road we are following. The puzzle is solved if we consider that Tūnkath comes after Ustūrkath in al-Iṣṭakhrī A and B only. In all other MSS, there is Binkath instead, and the road continues further north to Isfijāb via the inn in Qalāṣ. The

24 25

26 27 28

V. the Iranian cognates in Václav Blažek, ‘Indo-European Zoonyms in Afro-Asiatic Perspective’, JLR vol. 9, issue 1 (2019), 48–9. My confidence is based on the information obtained from the camel-breeders in the Northern Qyzyl Qum Desert. They are amongst the few remaining members of this profession after the last regular caravans went from South Turkmenistan to India and from the Alay Valley to China in the 1920s. During one of our excavations at the early mediaeval site of Vardana, forty-five kilometres north of Bukhara, I visited them to get an idea of camel breeding and living conditions. Al-Samʿanī, II, 317; Yāqūt, I, 746. Беленицкий et al., Средневековый город, 196–7. Ю.Ф. Буряков, ‘Археологические материалы по истории Тункета и Абрлыга’, Материалы по истории Узбекистана, Ташкент 1966, 76–123. Perhaps the same place as the ‘land of Twmkt’ of the Sogdian inscription from Taraz (Лившиц, Согдийская эпиграфика, 356).

150

Chapter 2

Figure 87 Bactrian camels in their typical habitat. Ayaqaghytma Depression, Qyzyl Qum Desert, 90 km north of Bukhara

Figure 88 Typical landscape near ancient Usturkath

The Village in Chach

151

anomaly can be explained by parablepsis, a phenomenon when the scribe’s eye skips from one text to a similar text: Tūnkath is mentioned earlier, with a gloss ‘sic habent A. et B.’.29 2

Sound and Sense

With the help of those landmarks, I will try to pinpoint the Christian village, whose name can be anything but the form in the edited text, as no single MS attests such a spelling. In a gloss to the text of al-Iṣṭakhrī De Goeje makes it �‫ وي�ن� ك‬is his invention: ‘Conjectura edidi’.30 That conjecture passed clear that ‫�رد‬ to the edited text of Ibn Ḥawqal, and then on to Kramers’ edition: while the �‫وت� ك‬‎and ‫�رد د‬ �‫د ي�ن� ك‬‎,31 the edited text has ‫�رد‬ �‫ وي�ن� ك‬faute forms in the MS Istanbul are ‫�رد‬ ‫ت‬ de mieux. In al-Muqaddasī the proviso is: ‘Cod. ‫�رد‬ ‫’و�ي��رك‬. Following the standard rules of textual criticism, the original form can be �‫ و�ي �ش�� ك‬occurring twice (in al-Iṣṭakhrī C and reconstructed as the lectio difficilior ‫�رد‬ E), as shown here: (see Figure 89). It is clearly a compound of two nouns, ��‫و�ي �ش‬ and ‫�رد‬ ‫ ك‬, the nature of which I will now try to understand. 2.1 ��‫و�ي �ش‬ This first element is found in many place names in modern Tajikistan, some of them on the Upper Zarafshan:






Veshist: a village with the castle Kala-i Vurun, active in the seventh– twelfth centuries.32 Vashan: a village with the castle Kala-i Tuda-i Hisorak, active in the fifth– eighth centuries.33

29 30 31 32 33

Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 333, fn. a). Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 336, fn. f ). Kitāb Ṣūrat al-arḍ, 507, 516. ‘The reading of the manuscript has been given each time in the foot-notes’. (Ibid., VII). Ю. Якубов, Раннесредневековые сельские поселения горного Согда, Душанбе 1988, 30; 287, № 54. Якубов, Раннесредневековые поселения, 30; 287, №  86. The farmers have accidentally found there a hoard of silver Samarkand drachmas of the eighth–ninth centuries. (Ю. Якубов, Паргар в VII–VIII веках нашей эры, Душанбе 1979, 58).

152

Chapter 2

Figure 89 Stages of corruption of the transmitted text




Vishkent: a village with the castle Kala-i Sar-i Hisor, active in the seventh– eighth centuries.34 Mugh Б-1 (left: 1, 5) mentions knδ,35 which has not been identified with any place so far. Livshits is correct in saying that this knδ is not the same as knδ of A-14:31, identified with Kanibadam in the Ferghana Valley, since ‘as a rule, Б-1 mentions persons closely related to Devashtich’s court, or residents of the Upper Zarafshan settlements’.36 Indeed, the village head, mentioned in the same context, disagrees with the notion of a big ْ ‫ن ة �غ َ ن‬ ‫) �ل��ي��س �يف� �ع�م���ل�ه�ا �م�د ي���� ي��ر �ك‬.37 place equalling Khujand which Kanibadam was (‫���د‬

34 35 36 37

Якубов, Раннесредневековые поселения, 30; 288, № 90. Согдийские документы III, 43–5 (as an adjective of place knδ’k). Согдийские документы II, 177. Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 333; Ibn Ḥawqal, 392.

The Village in Chach





153

Surprisingly, Livshits attempts to tie this knδ to Kansi in the Yaghnob Valley, contradicting his previous argument: the Yaghnob and the Zarafshan Valleys are two different isolated loci, separated by a mountain range. Vishkent on the Upper Zarafshan seems to be a more likely candidate. Veshab: a village with the castle Kala-i Jar-i Hisor, active in the seventh– eighth centuries.38 The name figures in Mugh A-5:6: and to wyšyčh (or wyšβčh) shoes worth two drachmas. wyšβčh: proper name (?), a gentilic: ‘one from wyšβ’, ‘a wyšβ man’; cf. Vishap—the name of the settlement on the right bank of the Zarafshan, downstream of Dashti Kozi, opposite Kshtut.39

It is also attested as �‫ و�ي ش����� پ‬by the Diary of the Iskanderkul Expedition to Upper Zarafshan, kept by Alexander Kuhn and put down in Tajik by Abdurahman Mustajir of Samarkand.40 Of importance here is that each settlement on the list is situated at the inflow of a mountain brook with the same name into the Zarafshan. I am going to come back to that point very soon. The root occurs more frequently in the Pamiri highlands (see Table 1).41

38 39 40 41

Якубов, Раннесредневековые поселения, 30 (archaeological map); 288 (list of sites), № 110. Согдийские документы III, 51–2, 108. Дневник 1870 г., f. 62a. J-42-16 (Пенджикент), J-42-17 (Урмитан), J-42-18 (Айни), J-42-58 (Калаихум), J-4259 (Ванч), J-42-60 (Бунай), J-42-70 (Сангевн), J-42-71 (Джомарджи-боло), J-42-72 (Бартанг), 1:100 000, ТУГШ ВС СССР 1989. These are the unclassified maps with the highest level of detail publicly available. The last four digits indicate the point of intersection of the latitude and the longitude in the southwest (bottom left) corner of the quadrant where the place name appears. The spellings in brackets are from NJ42-8 Series N502 (Kusai), U.S. Army Map Service 1952, 1:250.000.

154 Table 1

Chapter 2 Place names containing ‘grass’ in Badakhshan

Beshdavdug

J-42-71, 2698

Beshnaud

J-42-59, 5698

Bichkharv (Vichkharf) Bisav (Usav)? Bishav Ushkharv Vashnishor

J-42-59, 4810

Veshnau (river) Vishif

J-42-59, 5898 J-42-59, 5600

J-42-72, 1244 J-42-71, 1098 J-42-70, 3836 J-42-58, 5668

Dav—‘two’, ‘double’. Oss. doǧ, ‘milk of one yield’ (В.И. Абаев, Историко-этимологический словарь осетинского языка, Ленинград 1989, т. I, 364); Sh. δůγ, Sangl. dūk, Ishk. dūγ, ‘buttermilk’ (G. Morgenstierne, Etymological Vocabulary of the Shughni Group, Wiesbaden 1974, 30; id., Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages, vol. II: Iranian Pamir Languages, Oslo 1938, 404, 521); Taj. důγ, Pers. dūγ, ‘churned sour milk’ (F. Steingass, A Comprehensive Persian-English Dictionary, Beirut 1998, 545) Wa. nod, ‘cane’, ‘reed’ (И.М. СтеблинКаменский, Этимологический словарь ваханского языка, С.-Петербург 1999, 245–6); Khf. naδ, ‘a kind of grass, straw’ (Morgenstierne, Vocabulary of the Shughni Group, 47) = Vishkharv Av—‘water’ = Vishkharv Wa. nišыr, ‘the shady side of a valley’ (СтеблинКаменский, Словарь ваханского языка, 244); Yzgh. nǝsůr, ‘the sun passing behind the mountains in winter, when it cannot be seen in the valley’ (ibid., 245); Par. nisōr, ‘the shady side of a hill’ (Morgenstierne, Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages, vol. I: Parachi and Ormuri, Oslo 1929, 277); Pers. nasār, ‘a place impervious to the sun’s rays’ (Steingass, Persian-English Dictionary, 1399) Nau—‘new’ Сf. Yghn. Mŭštif, Rúpif (М.С. Андреев, Е.М. Пещерева, Ягнобские тексты, Москва– Ленинград 1957, 288); Taj. < Yghn Rogif, Inmif (Согдийские документы III, 103).

155

The Village in Chach Table 1

Place names containing ‘grass’ in Badakhshan (cont.)

Vishkharv

J-42-58, 6472 J-42-72, 3420

Vishkharvak (Ushkhorvak) Vyshanch

J-40-60, 7240

Vyshkhuf

38°28′36.32″N, 70°53′16.48″E 38°28′18.34″N, 70°52′44.20″E

Sangl. xarav, ‘mountain-brook’, xaraw, ‘gorge with a stream’ (Morgenstierne, Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages, vol. II, 422); Wa. ǰǝráv, ‘mountain torrent’, ‘lateral tributary’, ‘river in a gorge’ (Стеблин-Каменский, Словарь ваханского языка, 201) Ishk. xaravēk, ‘ravine water’ (Morgenstierne, Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages, vol. II, 422) Not on any map. Mentioned in Н.А. Кисляков, А.К. Писарчик (ред.), Таджики Каратегина и Дарваза, вып. I, Душанбе 1966, 372 Khuf: Wj., Khf. ‘summer pasture’ (Morgenstierne, Vocabulary of the Shughni Group, 97). Not on any map. Mentioned in Кисляков & Писарчик, Таджики Каратегина и Дарваза, 372

The list is far from complete, as it covers a small part of the formerly Sogdianspeaking lands. Still, it is clear that all those places share one distinctive feature: each of them, without a single exception, lays at the confluence of two water streams, where an alluvial plain would be formed during the flood season, making the land more productive both in terms of pastures and crops.42 Moreover, place names with the same root do not appear in other topographic contexts in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan. This is undoubtedly cogent evidence to assume that the root in question is the Sogd. vēsh, ‘herb’, ‘plant’, ‘grass’ < OI *vāstriya-, ‘pasture’, whose simplicity would explain its ubiquitousness. As a rule, a place name would come into being when it marks some characteristic of the landscape which all members of the same group find essential. However, human perception is selective: while terrestrial navigation is most important for nomadic pastoralists, farmers would rather pay attention to favourable conditions for agriculture. These conditions are limited in number, so namesakes would inevitably be found within areas with similar climate and economic practices. The abundance of the root in the highlands, where indigenous toponymy remained largely intact, is explained by the fact that fertile plots of land suitable for growing crops are particularly noticeable among bare rocks and glaciers (see Figure 90). 42

Cf. the warning ‘during flood path is underwater’ on J-42-60, 8050 showing the confluence of the Dara-i Murgutga and the Panj.

156

Chapter 2

Figure 90 Marguzor mountain area in the south-southeast of Panjikent, Tajikistan. Altitude c.2000 m a.s.l.

2.2 ‫�رد‬ ‫ك‬ This second element cannot be the past participle of the Persian verb ‘to do/ make’ for two reasons: 1. Even if we assume that the spoken language in Chach in the tenth century was a Sogdo-Persian pidgin, still in all Persian place names of this kind, the agent is followed by a participle ‘made’, ‘built’.43 In the case of vēsh, I fail to imagine grass as an agent. 2. Such a linguistic situation would have implied an erstwhile Persian presence in Chach before the tenth century, as place names do not come into being in no time. Such presence was not there to the best of our knowledge of early mediaeval Transoxiana. More plausibly, this is a derivative of the OI *kart-, ‘cut’, attested with different connotations in all East Iranian languages, including Sogdian.44 Its semantic 43 44

Sāsāngird and other settlements in the Sasanid province of Merv. In the case of Dastagird (‘estate’, lit. ‘built with hand’) the semantics remains the same. Д.И. Эдельман, Этимологический словарь иранских языков, т. 4, 311–8. Sogd. kart, ‘knife’ and ākartē, ‘sword’ are particularly telling (B. Gharib, Sogdian Dictionary, Tehran 1995, 4867, 136).

The Village in Chach

157

link with ‘grass’ is most pronounced in Ossetic, where the very word ‘grass’ is a substantivised participle of the verb ‘mow’, lit. ‘that which is being mown’, and ‘hayfield’ is construed as ‘Compound of xos | xwasæ “hay” and -gærdæn from kærdyn “to mow”’.45 �‫ و�ي �ش�� ك‬as Vēshkart—‘meadow’ I believe that is a sufficient reason to vocalise ‫�رد‬ (‘grass’ and ‘cut’). The established semantics agrees well with our knowledge of agricultural practices that existed in the area until recently: Most often, non-irrigated meadows are situated along river valleys which are flooded during the spring wet season; for this purpose are also used swampy hollows (‘saz’), where water continues to stay for a long time after a spring flood…. The best herbs for making hay are ‘biydayek’ (bluegrass), ‘jabay-jonushka’ (wild alfalfa) and ‘tenga-japrak’ (clover).46 Calling the settlement ‘Vēshkart of the Christians’, the Arab geographers implied that its inhabitants were Christians par excellence. In all likelihood, they also shared the same occupation. A grassy place at the confluence of two rivers was a valuable natural asset that could provide its owners with a natural monopoly on the agricultural produce obtained there, much like the humid and forested area in Shāwdhār provided local Christians with a monopoly on timber and grain. The reconstructed name of the settlement betrays the commodity behind it: hay, needed by cattle breeders in bulk quantities as animal fodder. The importance of cattle breeding for the local economy had condensed into the name of Ustūrkath, ‘Cattle-town’, conveniently accessible by the straight road, well-trodden during centuries of caravan trade.

45

46

Абаев, Словарь осетинского языка, т. IV, 220–1. ‘Saka, if we adopt the Achaemenian value of the word for all the northerners from the Danube to the Iaxartes, now survives in Ossetic of the Caucasus and in the Iranian dialects of Shughnān, Wakhān, and Munjān of the Pamirs’. (H.W. Bailey, ‘A half-century of Irano-Indian studies’, JRAS 2 (1972), 103). Cf. vēsh as ‘hay’, ‘straw’ in the Pamiri languages: И.М. Стеблин-Каменский, Земледельческая лексика памирских языков в сравнительно-историческом освещении, DLitt thesis, Ленинград 1986, 314–5, 318–9. Материалы по изучению хозяйства оседлого туземного населения в Туркестанском крае. Сартовское хозяйство в Чимкентском уезде Сыр-Дарьинской области, Ташкент 1912, 197. The quoted local names of plants are rather Kazakh then Uzbek: С.С. Сахобиддинов, Ўрта Осиёдаги фойдали ва зарарли ўсимликларнинг илмий ҳам маҳаллий номлари луғати, Тошкент 1953, q.v.

158 3

Chapter 2

Closing the Books

Now I will start looking for a place suitable for meadow, at a confluence of two water streams, within the boundaries set by the Arab geographers in their descriptions: – in the south, the River Chach (Syr Darya); – in the north, the ‘Iron Gate’ in the Keles steppe between Chach (the Tashkent Province in Uzbekistan) and Isfijab (Sayram district in Kazakhstan). The memory of the ‘Iron Gate’ has remained in the name of the settlement Darbaza (Turkis. Pers. ‘gate’) in about twenty-five kilometres north-northeast from Tashkent; – in the east, the mountains, which are the Pskem and the Chatkal ridges of the Tian Shan system, better known as the Chimgan mountains; – in the west, the Christian village itself. The identity of the main water stream is clear: the Syr Darya. Three smaller streams flow into it: the Keles, the Chirchik and the Ahangaran. The mouth of the Keles is too far north, while the mouth of the Ahangaran is too far south from the road from Samarkand to Tashkent as we know it from the Arab geographers. Therefore the sought place must be situated near the mouth of the Chirchik. Out of hand, Vēshkart is nowhere to be found in the Tashkent region, either in a modified form or in any Turkic reinterpretation of ‘hayfield’.47 The definition qarya only tells us that the place had no congregational mosque: the criterion used by the Arab geographers was the administrative rank of a place, not its size: In it [the Bukhara] there are many settlements [‫ ]ا �ل���ق ر�ى‬which are larger ‫ن‬ than towns [� ‫]�م�د‬: Varakhsha, Barrāniya, Afshina … To be towns, they only lack a congregational mosque.48

47

48

Список населённых мест Бухарского ханства; Список населённых мест Узбекской ССР и Таджикской АССР, вып. 4: Ташкенская область, Самарканд 1925–1926; Узбекская ССР. Центральное статистическое управление. Сектор социальной статистики. Список населённых пунктов УзССР 1928 г. Ч. 5: Округ Ташкент, Самарканд 1929. Al-Muqaddasī, 267, fn. c). V. on this point О.Г. Большаков, Средневековый город Ближнего Востока, Москва 1984, 48, 50.

159

The Village in Chach

The only additional detail is the dictionary meaning of qarya: ‘a small ‫ب��ل�د‬, ‫ة‬ smaller than a ���‫’�م�د ي�ن‬‎.49 Since Vēshkart does not figure in any form in the lists of the towns of Chach,50 I will assume it to be a village. 4

Hunting the Thimble

The scant information from the primary sources can be summarised as follows: 1. Chīnānchkath is situated ‘on the Vēshkart road to Binkath’. That was said to differentiate this northern road from Sogd to Chach from the other, southern road that went from Zāmīn to Khāwaṣ, reaching the Syr Darya some twenty kilometres to the south from the inflow of the Chirchik:

��‫� �ش� �ا �ش‬ ‫�خ�م��س��ة‬

‫ف �غ ن ة ف‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ق‬ �‫ ��ا �م�ا طر�ي‬.��� ‫و ط�ا ر�ي� ا لى �ر �ا‬ ‫�م� ن �خ �ا � ا ل ن��ه ا � �ش‬ ��‫ل�� �ا �ش‬ ‫و � و ص ى �ر‬

��‫و �ز ا�مي�� ن� �ه��ذه �م��ف� رق� ا �ل��طر����ق ي�� ن� طر� ق� ا لى � �ش� �ا �ش‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ف��م� ن �ز ا�م�� ن ا ل �خ �ا � � �م��ف� �ا �ز �ة ����س��ت��ة ف� ا ��سخ‬ �‫� ي� ى و ص يف‬ �‫ر‬ ‫ف‬ 51.‫�را ��سخ‬ �

Zāmīn is the crossroads of the road to Chāch and the road to Farghāna. The road to Chāch is as follows: from Zāmīn to Khāwaṣ through waterless desert six farsakhs, from Khāwaṣ to the River of Chāch five farsakhs. The familiar landmarks tell that the Arab geographers were following the same road, which in the past centuries was known as the Great Uzbek Track. After crossing the Syr Darya, it underlays the older М34 as opposed to the more recent M39. 2. Vēshkart is described as the western border of Chach, which means that it stood on the right bank of the Syr Darya. This second largest river in Central Asia always was a big divide between cultural entities at the opposite banks: as Jaxartes, it separated Sacae from Sogdians; as Sayḥūn—Moghulistan from Mawarannahr. When our geographers arrived, it separated Sogd from Chach and Ilaq, so its left, western bank would not have belonged to Chach, just like Calais would not have been quoted as the border of Britain—except during the two centuries when it would have. However, it is hard to imagine the Chach River Fleet always staying on ready alert to defend a village on the opposite bank. 49 50 51

Lane, Lexicon, Supplement, 2988. Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 328–31; Ibn Ḥawqal, 385–6; al-Muqaddasī, 264–5. M.J. de Goeje (ed.), Kitâb al-Kharâdj auctore Kodâma ibn Dja‘far, Leiden 1889, 204.

160

Chapter 2

Barthold argues: … it is not impossible that, apart from the territory watered by the Chirchik, Shash also included a narrow strip of land on the left bank of Syr-Darya, watered by this river, and that Vinkerd was situated there.52 That could have been true if not the permanent danger from the northern nomads, for whom a narrow strip, cut from the mainland by the full- and fast-flowing river, was an easy target. The reality of the threat is demonstrated by the Kampir Duval wall, erected in the eighth century on the right bank of the Syr Darya to defend the northern border of Chach.53 3. It seems evident that Vēshkart should also stand on the right bank of the Chirchik as all other settlements mentioned in the accounts. Otherwise, after crossing the Syr Darya and reaching Vēshkart on its left bank, the caravan would have had to cross the Chirchik again to continue to Chīnānchkath, Ustūrkath, and Binkath. A Bactrian camel carries the load of 200–250 kg, which has to be put on its back in the morning and taken off in the evening, after a daily march of twenty-five–thirty kilometres. Another crossing would imply dealing with an extra half a tonne of weight for one camel, while each merchant usually accompanied several camels for the apparent reason of cost-effectiveness. Before loading, the camel’s humps need to be wrapped in several covers, then wooden sticks are put on the back, and finally, the pack is attached to the saddle with long ropes. The whole procedure is as annoying as exhausting, so the caravaneers have always tried to avoid repeating it more times than needed. 4. Vēshkart must be close to the river since all the grass-places studied above stand at the confluence of two water-streams forming an alluvial plain. It follows from the above-said that Vēshkart was situated between the River Chach and Chīnānchkath, on the right bank of the River Turk. Since 1894, when the Christian village was exposed to scholarship, there has been enough time to bring the issue to closure by surveying the five kilometres separating the Syr Darya from Chinaz. The fact that this was never done is so surprising that it needs a rational explanation which I hereby propose.

52 53

Бартольд, ‘К истории орошения Туркестана’, Сочинения, т. III, Москва 1965, 219. ‘Investigations have shown that there was not one but two walls, independent from each other…. The walls demonstrate that the settled people were protecting themselves from the nomads and also that one feudal lord was protecting himself from another. The traces of these ancient walls correspond to the boundaries of Zengiata and Chinaz townships which existed until 1925’. (Григорьев, Отчёт, 48 & map).

The Village in Chach

161

Barthold assumed the following: This settlement, which the Arabs call Vinkerd, can be located quite accurately. The Arabs place Vinkerd on the road from Jizaq to Binket (Tashkent), with Vinkerd being the first station after the Starving Steppe. Further down the same road was the town of Jinanjket on the left bank of the Chirchik, in two farsakhs (12–15 verst) from the bank of the Syr-Darya …; only after Jinanjket the road went over to the right bank of the Chirchik. Thus, the Christian settlement must have been situated not far from the Syr-Darya, on its left or right bank, in the latter case—to the south from the Chirchik.54 In a footnote, Barthold refers to the relevant pages in al-Iṣṭakhrī and Qudāma as if those sources supported his thesis. However, the reality on the ground is: 1. Chīnānchkath is on the right side of the Chirchik. 2. Al-Iṣṭakhrī does not indicate in any way on which side it is; nor crossing the river is mentioned in his account. 3. Crossing the Chirchik is mentioned by Qudāma, but regarding the other, southern road from Sogd and Ustrushana, which crossed the Syr Darya in some forty kilometres upstream, went north, crossed the Chirchik, and merged with the northern road to Binkath in Chīnānchkath:

‫� ت� ا ل �ن� ن� ك ت ث ث ة ف ��سخ‬ ‫ف��ا �ذ ا ع�� ت� ك ف�����س��ت �ك� ت‬ ‫ن �ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ور‬ ‫بر ر‬ ‫ و �م�� ����س� ور�ك� ى ب و‬i ‫ ع��لى ا �ل��ي��س�ا ر‬h �� ��‫ ���ل��� �را � و �م‬k ��� ‫�ن ن ت ل � �ن ة � �ش�� �ه ف‬ ‫�خ ن‬ �� ‫س‬ � � ‫ب�و� ك‬ 55.� ‫��� ا ى م�د ي��� �ش� �ا و ي� ر �ا‬ h) Cod. ‫ �ٯ�ٮورل‬et mox ‫�ٮ‬ �‫�مور�ك‬.

i) Cod. ‫ا �ل�ى��س�ل‬. Conjectura scripsi. Distantia 1 Par. supplenda videtur, sed

‫ف‬ � k) Cod. ‫ �مرا ط�ٮ‬et ‫�ٮ‬ �‫�مور�ك‬. Recepi lect. Ibn Khord. licet incertam.

legere ‫ ع��لى �ر��سخ‬vetat lectio cod.

Before the passage can be translated, these inconsistencies must be corrected: 1. ‘Ustūrkath to the left’. All other accounts firmly place Ustūrkath between Chīnānchkath and the capital city of Chach, i.e. to the right from the َْ crossing. Reading ‫ ع��لى ا �ل�ى��س�ل‬as ‫ع��لى ا �ل����سي���ل‬, ‘up the stream’ (meaning the Chirchik) makes much better sense than forcing ‫ ا �ل�ى��س�ل‬to be ‫ا �ل��ي��س�ا ر‬, ‘left’. 54 55

Бартольд, ‘Ещё о христианстве в Средней Азии’, Сочинения, т. II, ч. 2, Москва 1964, 316. Qudāma b. Jaʿfar, 204.

162

Chapter 2

�‫ �مور�ك‬as �‫�� ت‬ Nothing can justify interpreting ‫ �مرا ط�ٮ‬or ‫�ٮ‬ ‫ب�ن� نو� ك‬, even ‘Ibn Khurdādhbih’s reading’ which is another editor’s conjecture. It does not figure in either MS of Ibn Khurdādhbih used by De Goeje: A: ‫ب�ن� نو� ك‬, �‫�� ب‬ ُ ‫�� ت‬ B: � ‫ٮو�م ك‬‎.56 I understand ‫ �مرا ط�ٮ‬as the broken plural of �‫‘—�م ْرِط� ب‬land abounding with ruṭb (herbage, or pasture)’.57 With these preliminaries, I translate the fragment as follows: 2.

When you cross the Turk, then Ustūrkath is up the stream, from Ustūrkath to the pastures three farsakhs, and from the pastures to the capital city of Chāch two farsakhs. It can thus be seen that in the correctly interpreted sources, all landmarks stand at their places and proper distances from one another: Vēshkart by the river, then Chīnānchkath ‘on the Vēshkart road to Binkath’, then Ustūrkath, Binkath and the rest of the route to Isfijāb. As explained earlier, fellows of the Turkestan Circle for Archaeological Studies had no access to the primary sources except in Barthold’s interpretation. While Barthold’s competence as an Orientalist is beyond any doubt, his knowledge of the Tashkent district in 1895 went only as far as the Tashkent Military Hospital, where he stayed after a riding accident. Unfortunately, in 1893 I only managed to see the road from Chimkent to Awliye-Ata and the Talas Valley; the broken leg made me stay in Awliye-Ata and return to Tashkent afterwards…. Next year I decided to continue my trip, but, being unable to ride a horse, I invited lieutenant Kovalёv to examine and describe those ancient sites which could only be reached on horseback.58 Thus the birth of the cargo cult around the Christian village in Chach can be dated to May 1895, when Barthold’s article More on Christianity in Central Asia was published in № 36 of the Turkestan Gazette. More complications have set in since Latin was withdrawn from the Humanities curriculums, and scholars

56 57 58

A = MS Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Mixt. 783, B = MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hunt. 433. Lane, Lexicon, part 3, 1101. Бартольд, ‘Отчёт о поездке в Среднюю Азию с научной целью’, Сочинения, т. IV, 21–2. ‘With all his academic knowledge of written sources on Afrasiab, a desk scholar, one-leg limp since his fall from the horse during the first visit to Turkestan in 1893, he became confused on the ground, outside his habitual environment, now and then asking where north was’. (Массон, Падающий минарет, 34, on Barthold in Samarkand in 1920).

The Village in Chach

163

felt free to ignore De Goeje’s commentaries, no less important for understanding the sources than the body text. The only specialist who did not fall into the trap of the received wisdom was Grigoryev, whose reading of the situation I endorse every line of it: V.V. Barthold was looking for the town of Jinanjiket on the left bank of the Chirchik. He writes: ‘the left bank of the Chirchik was reached near the town of Jinanjiket (four farsakhs from Benaket and two farsakhs from the bank of the Syr-darya)…. Here, the road from Khavas joined the road from Dizak. The distance from Dizak to the mouth of the Chirchik was traversed in three days …; farther on, they arrived to the Christian (probably Nestorian) village of Vinkerd. From Istakhri’s statement that Jinanjket was on the road from Vinkerd to Benket, it might be concluded that Vinkerd also was on the left bank of the Chirchik’.59 All this must be reconsidered if we agree that by saying ‘the left bank of the Chirchik was reached near Chinanchket’, Istakhri was merely pointing at the place of crossing, while Chinanchket could well stand on the opposite river bank. This settlement must have stood on the right bank of the Chirchik, not on its left bank (if it did not stand on the left bank of the Syr), as the road from Dizak and Binket tended to circumvent the Chirchik to avoid yet another river crossing. It would have made no sense to cross the Syrdarya upstream of the inflow of the Chirchik (thus covering extra distance), to wallow in the swamps of the floodplain, and then, after several kilometres, to cross the copious and moody river again. It was possible to avoid an extra crossing by making it across Syr downstream of the mouth of the Chirchik.3 … If my considerations are correct, then there was no point in looking for Vinkerd somewhere around Uljaket between the Chirchik and Angren Rivers, as V.L. Vyatkin tried to do. 3 That is why the modern railroad and the motorway (the latter follows the ancient route) bypass the mouth of the Chirchik.60 Grigoryev also noticed and took into account one crucial fact, fundamental to all further reasoning on this topic:

59 60

Barthold, Turkestan, 170. Grigoryev refers to the extract from the first Russian edition of Turkestan published in The Turkestan Gazette № 101 (1900). Григорьев, Отчёт, 9–10. Before the railway bridge was built in 1899, the crossing used to be made by ferry. On the stretch near Chinaz, the Syr Darya may stay frozen from mid-January to mid-February. During this period, the caravans could cross it on ice.

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The Syr-darya was in two farsakhs, i.e. in 10–12 km from Chinachket ‫� ن‬ ‫ �� ن��ه�ا ��� ن ن��ه ا � �ش‬‎];61 meanwhile, at present, Chinaz is only ‫ل�� �ا �ش�� ف�ر��س‬ [� ‫�خ�ا‬ ‫و ب ي � و بي� � ر‬ 5–6 km from the Syr-darya. Perhaps this is explained by the fact that the Syr-darya has moved 5–6 km to the right during the last millennium. Such a move is quite possible since rivers in Central Asia sometimes move by several kilometres in one year.62 Various studies quote different lengths of farsakh, from six kilometres for Sassanian Iran or seven and a half for mediaeval Transoxiana to eight and a half for pre-modern Central Asia.63 Although there are reasonable grounds for each quote, I would better define farsakh as a measure of endurance rather than one of length. It is the distance covered by a loaded camel between two halts without unloading, the standard daily march consisting of four farsakhs.64 Thus, the length of each farsakh would depend upon many factors: road surface condition, the gradient of ascent or descent, etc., and so cannot be defined but conditionally. Using the smallest figure ever quoted: six kilometres, and accounting for the fact that the centre of mediaeval Chinaz was near its modern eastern suburb, two farsakhs is twice as far as this place now is from the Syr Darya. This kind of distance inevitably brings us to the opposite (left) side of the Syr Darya, where the 1914 map shows the bluffs of the ancient bank about five kilometres west of the modern water’s edge (see Figure 91). Former beds of the Syr-darya, in approximately 4–5 km west of the current course, are excellently seen. They form a sequence of swamps, called by the Uzbeks Qalaghan-Syr, “the old bed of the Syr” (literally, “abandoned Syr”). Thus, the settlement of Vinkerd is to be searched for somewhere on the banks of old riverbeds, which are now called Lake Urumbay (on whose west bank stand the remains of the Urumbay fortress), up to Lake Chibintay, or down the same line towards the Ashikul old bed.65

61 62

63 64 65

Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 345; Ibn Ḥawqal, 405. Григорьев, Отчёт, 10. Grigoryev was as close to pin-pointing Vēshkart as Sukharev was to finding the Urgut monastery. Tragically, in 1941 Georgy Grigoryev was arrested on false charges and died of excaustion in a Leningrad prison. In the same year, Ivan Sukharev volunteered for the front line and was killed in action. The quality of their work remains exemplary even now. Hinz, Islamische Masse und Gewichte, 72; Давидович, Материалы по метрологии, 120. ‘It is [said to be] from the same word as signifying “rest,” or “ease”; because, when a man walks the distance thus called, he sits down, and rests’. (Lane, Lexicon, part 6, 2369). Григорьев, Отчёт, 10–1.

The Village in Chach

165

Figure 91 Fragment of the Карта Голодной степи Ходжентского уезда Самаркандской области, с окрестностями, ПУГУЗЗ, St. Petersburg 1914, 1:525.000

Seen by the unaided eye in 1935, the former river bed is also visible in the satellite image taken in 2012. A rectangular pattern of cotton fields overlies relict bends, and the old floodplain appears as more diffuse dark vegetation (see Figure 92).66 The said area of about twenty square kilometres was split into quadrants one by one kilometre and surveyed on foot three times: with Sergey Rovensky in 2008, Gennady Ivanov in 2009, and Leonid Sverchkov in 2010.67 I wish I were mistaken stating that Vēshkart is now under the water, and there is no hope of finding its traces: the fast-flowing river, steadily moving east in the centuries, must have washed away all mudbrick structures that had stood between its old bed and the modern one. The above-said explains the disappearance of the settlement, but not of the name. The river did not come close overnight, so the village could be moved away in advance without damage to the people and their business. Even if we assume a sudden and extreme flood, mudbrick homes are easy to build again to stay close to the unique source of subsistence. The likely factor to have come into play was the intrusion of Turkic tribes into Central Asia in the sixteenth century, which entailed turning farmland into pastures and trampling the 66 67

NASA Photo ID: ISS032-E-024907.NEF (raw file from the camera), courtesy of Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. Colour corrected. I would be remiss if I did not mention our tireless driver Kamil Rahimov who carried us across all sites mentioned in this book by his everlast Moskvich 2141.

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Figure 92 NASA Photo ID: ISS032-E-024907.NEF, courtesy of the Image Science and Analysis Laboratory, Johnson Space Center. Colour corrected

fields by herds that accompanied the nomads. As a result, many agricultural lands disappeared together with their Iranian names. The area directly bordering on the steppe was bound to bear the brunt of the invasion, with human crowds and animal herds concentrating near the crossing over the Syr Darya— the gateway to the lands further west. It must therefore be presumed that the village name was gone with the bearers of the culture in which it originated and their economies. Mutatis mutandis, the same socio-linguistic pattern has allowed the monastery name to survive: While many ancient place names have remained among Tajik settlements that cluster around Samarkand and in the foothills, they occur far less often in the areas inhabited by Uzbeks. This phenomenon, attested everywhere in Turkestan, can be explained by the gradual influx of Uzbeks that began with the country’s conquest by Shaybani Khan and the displacement of the Tajik people from flat parts that continued until recently.68

68

Вяткин, Материалы к исторической географии, 15.

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167

Indeed, the map published by the Society for the Study of Tajikistan and Iranian Peoples Outside of It in 1925 shows that of the array of Iranian place names listed by the Arab geographers, there remained only three: Pskent, Parkent, and Zarkent referring to the enclaves in the Tashkent province.69 At the same time, the Lists of Populated Places published in the 1920s are full of names of Turkic tribes and lineages that have become place names. 5

The Environs

5.1 Chach and Ilaq 5.1.1 *Anjākath In 1900 Barthold quoted a local tradition which reached him not long before: The late N.S. Lykoshin made the following remarks in a private letter to me (dated 13/14 April, I 896): ‘Concerning the ancient Christian village on the left bank of the River Chirchik, near its estuary, I have heard tales from our natives, who call the ruins of this village Uljā-kend, and refer to literary evidence that Christians (tersā) lived there at one time or another’.70 In the same year, Vyatkin identified Uljakent with a settlement mentioned in the waqf documents: In the easternmost corner, formed by the Syrdarya and the Chirchik, stood the settlement of Mulket, whose lands were adjacent from the south (in part) and from the east to the lands of the settlement Unjaket. ‫ن‬This last ‫�ت‬ �‫� ت� ا و�ج‬ name is spelt in different ways—as Unjaket and as Ujaket (� �‫��ا �ك‬ �‫�ج �ا �ك‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ت‬ � � � � and ��‫)ا �ج �ا �ك�� ا و�ج �ا �ك‬. However, judging from other settlements around, those names refer to the same settlement situated right near the bank of the Syr-Darya. … Comparing the name of the town of Nejaket in the mouth of the Chirchik, quoted by Mr Barthold, and that of the settlement of Unjaket, mentioned in Khoja Akhrar’s documents, one cannot but ‫ ن‬notice that ‫ن‬ ‫�ت‬ �‫ ا �ج‬and �‫� ت‬ �‫ �ج‬. their spellings only differ in the omission of the “alif”—� �‫��ا �ك‬ �‫��ا �ك‬ Such omission can easily happen when MSS are being copied…. perhaps this is the area called Ujakentik on the new 10-verst map.71 69 70 71

Н.Л. Корженевский (ред.), Таджикистан. Сборник статей, Ташкент 1925, supplement. Barthold, Turkestan, 170. В. Вяткин, ‘К исторической географии Ташкентского района’, ТВ №  101 (1900)  = ПТКЛА, год 5 (11 декабря 1899–11 декабря 1900), 158.

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Two things remain unclear: In Barthold’s edition of the same documents which Vyatkin had used, the spelling is always Ūjākat (Ūjākat Lab-i Āb, Ūjākat-i Farqat‎).72 The same spelling figures in Chekhovich’s complete academic edition, where the editor clearly states: ‘The documents described by V.L. Vyatkin have survived and are published here … also using older manuscripts found ‫ن‬ ‫ ن‬later’.73 ‫�ت‬ �‫ ا و�ج‬and �‫� ت‬ �‫ ا �ج‬written Still, there is no doubt that Viatkin had seen � �‫��ا �ك‬ �‫��ا �ك‬ that way since he quotes the documents using Arabic script. 2. The only ten-verst (1:420.000) map of the area published at the end of the nineteenth century is the one by the Turkestan Command.74 It does not have Ujakentik on it. Fortunately, those details do not affect pinpointing yet another Christian site. Unjaket was put on the map by Bakhti-Ghani Muhammad-Ali Ilkin, interpreter and translator in the Governor General’s Office in Tashkent. He went looking for it upon request from the fellows of the Turkestan Circle for Archaeological Studies, being best suited for this task because of his knowledge of the local languages and cartography. In 1900 Ilkin’s Report on the Trip Made to Collect Information on Ujikent (Ulji-kent) was published, showing Unjaket atop the simplified two-verst (1:84.000) map of the area (see Figure 93).75 Within the space marked by Ilkin as ‘dacha Ujakent’,76 there is only one mediaeval site, discovered by Buryakov during his archaeological survey of 1971. Turtkul Tepa 3, twenty-four hectares in area, is situated near the modern village of Gul, 1.2 km east of the Syr Darya and 3.5 km south of the Old Chirchik. The earliest material found during the small-scale excavations dates from the ninth century, the main bulk of pottery—to the eleventh and twelfth centuries. The Mongols destroyed the fortification, but the settlement was still populated through the fifteenth until seventeenth century.77 1.

72 73 74 75 76 77

Бартольд, Отчёт о командировке в Туркестан, 199. Чехович, Самаркандские документы, 291–2 (Pers. text), 298 (Russ. transl.), 587 (facsimile). Десятивёрстная карта Туркестанского Военного Округа, Р. VI Л. V, Литогр. Турк. Военно-Топогр. Отдела 1891, row VI, sheet V. On the history of cartography of Central Asia v. В.Н. Федчина, Как создавалась карта Средней Азии, Москва 1967. Б. Илькин, ‘Поездка, совершённая с целью собрать сведения об Уджикенте (Ульджи-кент), о котором говорит В.В. Бартольд в своей книге « Туркестан в эпоху монгольского нашествия »’, ПТКЛА, год 5 (11 декабря 1899–11 декабря 1900). Dacha is a now obsolete term of the Russian land law referring to a unit of land granted to the owner in perpetuity and named other than after a village, settlement or wasteland. (Брокгауз и Ефрон, т. X, 162–3). Ю.Ф. Буряков, Историческая топография Ташкентского оазиса, Ташкент 1975, 43–7.

The Village in Chach

Figure 93 Map accompanying Ilkin’s account with Ujakent on it

169

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Most probably, the Christians of Vēshkart and Unjāket were contemporaries, so the place where the latter lived might also figure in same-time sources. Here is what the Arab geographers tell us:

‫ن‬ ‫ن �ن� ث ف‬ ‫ ع��ل ا د � ا � �ش‬i�‫� ث‬ �‫ل�� �ا �ش�� و ي�ج‬ �‫و �ج‬ � 78‎.‫ �را ��سخ‬٣ � �‫� ت�����م �ع ن���د �ه�ا ب� ن���هر ت�رك و ب�ي� ن���ه�ا و ب�ي��� ب��ا �ك‬ � ‫�ك‬ ‫ا‬ � ‫و‬ � ‫ى ي‬ � ‫ع‬

Njākth is on the River Chāch where it flows into the River Turk, and between it and Bnākth, there are 3 farsakhs.

‫ّ ن‬ ‫�ث‬ ‫ ف�����ق � ا د � ا � �ش‬‎…‫ا �ل ا د � ��ع �ف� ب� ن��ه ت� ك‬ �‫ل�� �ا �ش�� �ف� ح�د �ج‬ 79‎.� �‫��ا �ك‬ ‫�ر ر‬ �‫ي ع يف� و ي‬ ‫و ي� ي ر‬ ‫ي‬

The river known as the River Turk flows into the River Chach within the boundaries of Njākth.

‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫� ث� ع��ل ا د � ا � �ش‬ �‫ل�� �ا �ش�� و ي�ج‬ �‫و �ج‬ �‫� ت�����م ا �لوا د ي�ا � �ع ن���د �ه�ا ب� ن���هر ت�رك و ب�ي� ن���ه�ا و ب�ي�� ن� ب�ن��ا �ك‬ �‫��ا �ك‬ �‫� ث‬ ‫و‬ � ‫ى‬ ‫ي‬ ‫ع‬ ‫ف‬ 80.‫ �را ��سخ‬٣ �

Njākth is on the River Chāch where it meets with the River Turk, and between it and Bnākth, there are 3 farsakhs. The same place is also mentioned twice in al-Muqaddasī: ‘near’, or ‘within the ‫�� ث‬ ‫)ب�ب� ن� ك‬, and in the list of the towns of Chach.81 realm of Binkath’ (� There is all reason to agree with Vyatkin on the loss of the initial ālif in njākth, not only because that would be a prevalent scribal mistake but also because Arabic does not permit consonant clusters at the beginning of syllables. The identity of the town mentioned by the Arab geographers with Unjāket of the waqf documents is now apparent, while ‘Uljā-kend’, recorded by Lykoshin viva voce, must be a later Turkic re-etymologisation of the name involving Uzb. ulja—‘booty’. However, the second element of the compound, -kath, betrays an older Sogdian place name which pre-dates all other forms. To try and identify that name, I will turn again to the sources of the earlier period.

78

‫�� ت‬ Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 345. MS E has � ‫ �ىى ك‬instead of �‫� ث‬ �‫( ب�ن��ا �ك‬ibid., fn. l). ّ

79

Ibn Ḥawqal, 388. Instead of ‫ح�د‬

81

Al-Muqaddasī, 48, 264.

‫ن ت‬ ‫�� ث‬ ‫���هر ���ه��ل ك‬ 80 Ibid., 405. MS L has �

‫ش‬ ‫ش‬ �‫ �يف‬MS F has ‫د ر �����هر‬, MS O—‫( ب������هر‬ibid., fn. m). ‫( �ع ن���د ن��ه ت��� ك �� ن��ه���م�ا ��� ن‬ibid., fn. d). �‫� ر ير و ب ي � و بي‬

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171

Mugh Б-6 lists a few persons from four places in the Upper Zarafshan Valley still under the same names. Livshits explained the beginning of line 3 as three personal names: MN δrγ”wtk n’β ZK ’nc’nt’k γwn ZY γr’tk Anchā̌ndak, Gōn and Khartak from the Darghaut community.82 Bogolyubov and Smirnova suggested another interpretation: ZK ’nč’nt’k—meaning not established; cf. Sogd. ’nč’n ‘comfort’, ‘cessation’, from ’nč’–; or the form of ’nc’nt’k is the same as that of δrγ”wt’k. Given that γrt’k means ‘gone’, the text can be understood as ZK ’nc’nt’k γwn ZY xrt’k—“the ’nč’nt—adj. γwn has left”.83 I suppose the sentence would make better sense if γwn is understood as ‘Turk’ as in Mugh В-17, where its identity with Eastern Turks is not in doubt.84 It can be seen as described by the adjective ‘of Anchāt’, just as the adjective mrtš’k describes another γwn in Mugh Б-1:1.85 Mrtš also appears in the same sources as mrtškt, identified by the editors with modern Madrushkat on the Upper Zarafshan.86 Likewise, Anchāt can be interpreted as a short for Anchātkath, perceived by the Arab travellers as Anjākath due to the likely reduction of the consonant cluster in spontaneous speech. To finally equate *Anchātkath of Mugh Б-6 with *Anjākath of the Arab geographers and Unjāket of the waqf documents, it remains to explain how *Anjākath could stand at the inflow of the Chach into the Turk in the tenth century if, in the nineteenth, the Chirchik met the Syr Darya some six kilometres 82 83 84

85

86

Согдийские документы II, 149; Лившиц, Согдийская эпиграфика, 172. Согдийские документы III, 84, fns. 2 & 3. Согдийские документы II, 117, 120–1; Лившиц, Согдийская эпиграфика, 131. In the Sogdian Ancient Letter № ii, the name refers to Xiongnu (W.B. Henning, ‘The Date of the Sogdian Ancient Letters’, BSOAS 12 (1948), 604–6, 615). On γwn as Eastern Turks in the Mugh documents v. В.А. Лившиц, ‘Согдийский посол в Чаче’, СЭ № 2 (1960), 103; С.Г. Кляшторный, Древнетюркские рунические памятники как источник по истории Средней Азии, Москва 1964, 108, fn. 150. Sogdian Documents II, 72; Sogdian Documents III, 43, 45–6, 105. I am grateful to Prof N. Sims-Williams for pointing out that ’nc”t should be preferred as a meaningful morphological form, equally possible as in the script of the Mug documents there is usually no distinction between ālaf and nūn. Согдийские документы II, 173; Согдийские документы III, 105–6; Лившиц, Согдийская эпиграфика, 207.

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further north from Turtkul Tepa 3 as it does now. There appears to be no contradiction on closer scrutiny since the Chirchik, like the Syr Darya, was also changing course over time. The hydrographical picture of the area has dramatically changed since several power stations were built on the Upper Chirchik in the 1930s to provide electricity to fast-growing Tashkent and its industries. Still, the pre-modern condition can be reconstructed from a record by a contemporary observer: On the left-hand side, there is a lowland with lakes and reeds, known as Qalghan-Chirchik (Old Chirchik), that which we call a staritsa [old river bed], which flows into the R. Syr-Darya in some five versts upstream of Russian Chinaz. Flowing in 2–4 versts from the current river course, Qalghan-Chirchik does not have a clear outline except in its lower reaches (over some 15 versts). It consists of lake-like broadenings (stretches), sometimes with tall banks formed with gritty gravel, bare or covered with a thin vegetation layer. It is uneasy to decide whether that once was a separate river bed or a channel. … The pressure applied by the Chirchik to its right bank, due to which the winding appeared, results from the apparent downward shift of the pebble subsoil under the loess mass of the right bank. That is confirmed by the fact that there are far fewer canals on the left side of the river bend, and they continue parallel to the river over a long distance, which is not the case in the upper reaches. The decline of the subsoil just mentioned must have been why the water has ceased to flow down the Qalghan-Chirchik; after washing away the loess mass, the river moved right and laid its present-day bed.87 The fact that the Chirchik was changing course is indirectly confirmed by a legendary story in which Tashkent had stood at the place of modern Iski Tashkent (‘Old Tashkent’) on the Lower Chirchik and then moved to its present location. Of course, that never happened, but the critical point is that the river changing its flow is presented as a matter of course: According to a legend, Tashkent moved from the Chirchik to its present place one hundred years before Khan Barak conquered Bukhara.1 That 87

Е.Т. Смирнов, ‘Древности в окрестностях г. Ташкента’, ПТКЛА, вып. 1, Ташкент 1896, 129, 131. Later hydro–geological investigations, which began in the 1930s, fully confirmed Smirnov’s account: Н.Ф. Безобразова, З.Ф. Гориздро-Кульчицкая, Н.И. Толстихин, П.Д. Трусов, ‘Материалы к гидрогеологии бассейна рр. Чирчик, Ангрен, Келес’, ВИ 7 (1925), 83–5; 11 (1925), 69–86; 12 (1925), 79–108; 1 (1927), 77–81; 8 (1927), 81–3; 11 (1927), 81–91.

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173

happened because of the devastation caused by the fast-flowing River Chirchik (for a good reason called by the Kyrgyz ‘Jindy’, i.e. the Mad River), which was eroding its right bank year after year and taking away the town bit after bit.88 1) That is, around AD 1455. Finally, the last issue: al-Iṣṭakhrī and Ibn Ḥawqal quote the distance of three‫ن‬ ‫ة‬ ‫�ث‬ �‫�ج‬ farsakhs from *Anjākath to Bnākth, while Yāqūt quotes two farsakhs: � ‫� ب��ل�د‬ �‫��ا �ك‬ ‫ف‬ ‫�خ ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ت‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ �� ‫س‬ � � � � �‫بم�ا ورا ء ا �ل���هر ب�ي����ه�ا و ب�ي��� ب���ا �ك‬‎.89 � ‫�� ر �ا‬ That makes Bnākth the only reliable reference point, fortunately, easy to identify. Courtesy of Barthold, the place became known as Бенакет (Benaket) in Russian, and as Banākath in English; below I will show that its ancient name was Panākath. Timur rebuilt the town destroyed by the Mongols and renamed it after his son Shahrukh. The ruins of Shahrukhiya, long and well studied archaeologically, have stood at the inflow of the Ahangaran into the Syr Darya. The distance between the two places is thirteen kilometres as the bird flies, equivalent to two farsakhs. However, the road could not go straight as it had to round numerous bends of the Syr Darya and marshy areas on its right bank, so the former figure must be correct. The figure in Yāqūt is thus an error explained by the easy distortion of ۳ into ۲ in the process of copying MSS. Without knowing exactly how the road ran in the tenth century, it can only be stated that Turtkul Tepa 3 stands at the same distance from Panākath as *Anjākath would. The mound was intact when I last saw it in 2012. 5.1.2 Qanqa Apart from Unjaket pin-pointed, another Ilkin’s trophy was an extended version of the legend previously recorded by Lykoshin. It runs as follows: The local natives tell that in the reign of the 4th caliph Ali, ‘Iski-Ujakent’ and ‘Magruf-kurgan’ were the same town named Ujakent, which was part of the domain of a Christian king called Anqa or Qanqa…. As for V.V. Barthold’s reference to the information from N.S. Lykoshin, who quoted the tradition that one day Christians had lived in Ujakent …, the local natives have confirmed this fact, explaining that this town, as said above, was part of the domain of the Christian king Anqa. However, the people were called not tarsa but ‘Isa-parast’, i.e. followers of Jesus Christ…. According to the local tradition, king Anqa had to wage war with Ali’s son 88 89

Д.И. Эварницкий, Путеводитель по Средней Азии от Баку до Ташкента в археологическом и историческом отношениях, Ташкент 1893, 148–9. Yāqūt, IV, 743.

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Muhammad b. al-Hanafiya, which ended in converting Anqa’s subjects to Islam and Ibn al-Hanafiya’s marriage to king Anqa’s daughter named ‫ت �غ‬ Toghra (‫) �و� را‬.90 Close to *Anchātkath stands the massive site of Qanqa (c.140 ha within the fortified perimeter), where Christian materials have been consistently found: cross with an elongated base painted in a niche in the wall of a public building, 21 × 16 cm; a fragment of a bronze cross with broadening ends, found at an ancient trade street, four centimetres long; bead of dark gemstone with a scratched equilateral cross, 1.4 × 1.2 × 0.7 cm, assumed to originate from a ruined cemetery dating from the fourth–sixth centuries. The first two items have been loosely dated to ‘the Middle Ages’.91 Besides, I have seen a report on some ungazetted excavations at Qanqa, which lists Christian artefacts dating from the first half of the eleventh century, all found within one city quarter. That means Christian presence here continued well into Islamic times (see Figure 94). The same legend has been attested once more, with more details: At present, the local people consist of the qurama and identify themselves as the Uzbek lineage of Tama. They believe that Qanqa (or Anqa) is the proper name of the mighty king who had here his capital long before the coming of the Arabs. Allegedly he was Russian (Urus-padishah), which might be interpreted as ‘non-Muslim’. [Cf. Urus Machit] … According to the local elders, this great and mighty Qanqa was defeated by Ali, and since then, his huge capital has stood in ruins, among which are sometimes found coins with Qanqa’s portrait on one side.92 Copper coins with male portraits, found at Qanqa, are well-known to the numismatists. One of the largest groups of such coins, with a fork-shaped tamgha (tribal emblem) on the reverse, consists of fifteen types; nine of them feature on the obverse a local ruler of characteristically Turkic appearance. The largest number of known specimens belong to the type with a cross on the right (from the coin observer’s perspective) accompanying the ruler’s 90 91 92

Илькин, Поездка, 153–4. Г.И. Богомолов, ‘О христианстве в Чаче’, Из истории древних культов Средней Азии. Христианство, Ташкент 1994, 77; 73, plate 6. М.Е. Массон, Ахангеран. Археолого-топографический очерк, Ташкент 1953, 106–7. Masson must have heard this legend in 1934 when he was in charge of a research team surveying the Ahangaran Valley. Since traditions are kept by the elders, Ilkin’s informants of 1900 would have been no more after thirty-four years separating the two accounts. Thus this tradition comes from a separate and independent source.

Figure 94 Map showing sites mentioned in the text. Based on Оросительная система реки Чирчик Ташкентского уезда, Сыр-дарьинской области, ПУГУЗЗ 1910

The Village in Chach

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Figure 95 Copper coin of a Turkic ruler found at Qanqa

portrait (see Figure 95).93 All coins of this group date from the second half of the seventh–beginning of the eighth century. 5.1.2.1 The Christian King Both versions of the legend agree that the Christian king of Qanqa lived ‘in the time of the Caliph ʿAlī’ (656–61), or ‘long before the coming of the Arabs’ who do not appear in Chach before the turn of the seventh century, to secure firm footing a century later. Around the same time, Elias, the metropolitan of Merv, converted a warlike ruler, baptised him and his people in a river, and ordained priests and deacons for them:

‫ ܕܟܕ ܡܬܟܪܟ‬.‫ܡܬܐܡܪܐ‬ ‫ܥܠ ܗܢܐ ܕܝܢ ܐܠܝܐ ܡܝܛܪܦܘܠܛܐ ܕܡܪܘ‬ ܼ ̈ ‫ܦܓܥ ܒܗ‬ . ‫ܡܢܗܘܢ‬ ‫ܕܠܓܘ‬ ‫ܕܒܬܚܘܡܐ ܒ̈ܪܝܐ‬ ‫ܗܘܐ ܒܐܬ̈ܪܘܬܐ‬ ܼ ݂ ܼ ܿ ‫ܗܘܐ‬ ‫ܗܝܕܝܢ ܟܕ‬. … ‫ܠܡܩܪܒܘ ܥܡ ܡܠܟܐ ܐܚܪܢܐ‬ ܼ ܼ ‫ܡܠܟܘܢܐ ܚܕ ܕܐܙܠ‬ ܿ .‫ܢܦܠ ܘܣܓܕ ܩܕܡܘܗܙ‬ ݂ ̣ .‫ܚܙܐ ܡܠܟܘܢܐ ܗܘ ܡܕܡ ܕܣ ̣ܢܪ ܛܘܒܢܐ ܐܠܝܐ̣‏‬ ܿ ̇ ‫ ܘܐܥܡܕ‬.‫ ܘܐܚܬ ܐܢܘܢ ܠܢܗܪܐ ܚܕ‬.‫ܘܗܝܡܢ ܸܗܘ ܘܟܠܗ ܡܫܪܝܬܗ‬ ̈ ‫ܐܢܘܢ ܠܟܠܗܘܢ ܘܐܩܝܡ ܠܗܘܢ‬ ̈ 94‫ ܘܗܦܟ ܠܐܬܪܗ܀‬.‫ܢܐ‬ ‫ܟܗܢܐ‬ ̣ ‫ܘܡܫܡܫ‬

93

94

В.Д. Шагалов, А.В. Кузнецов, Каталог монет Чача III–VIII вв., Ташкент 2007, 201–4. V. also Э. Ртвеладзе, История и нумизматика Чача. Вторая половина III–середина VIII в. н. э., Ташкент 2006, 56–7; Гайбулла Бабаяров, Древнетюркские монеты Чачского оазиса (VI–VIII вв. н. э.), Ташкент 2007, 65–6. I am reproducing the image from a high-quality photograph which Prof E.V. Rtveladze gave me in 2004, soon after the coin had been found. Ignazio Guidi, Chronicon anonymum de ultimus regibus Persanum, CSCO, Scriptores Syri 1 & 2, Paris 1903, 34–5.

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177

De Elia isto metropolita urbis Marū narrant haec: cum peragraret loca quae ad fines exteriores ex interiore parte sunt, regulus quidam ei obviam fuit qui ad bellum cum alio rege gerendum iter faciebat…. Tunk regulus, visis quae sanctus Elias patraverat, pronus veneratus est, et cum suo comitatu fidem christianam amplexus est. Ad flumen quoddam eos deduxit Elias, atque ad unum baptizavit; tum sacerdotibus et diaconis constitutis in suam regionem reversus est.95 Von diesem Elias, Metropoliten von Merw, erzählt man folgendes: wahrend er einst in den Gegenden an der äussern Gränzen umherging, begegnete ihm innerhalb dieser (Gegenden) ein Fürst, der mit einem andern König Krieg führen ging…. Da so der Fürst sah, was der selige Elias gethan hatte, fiel er in Verehrung vor ihm nieder und nahm mit seinem ganzen Lager den Glauben an. Der Metropolit führte sie zu einem Fluss hinab, taufte alle, stellte Priester und Diakonen für sie an und kehrte heim.96 About this Elijah, Metropolitan of Merw, it is related that when travelling in the countries situated beyond the border line (of the river Oxus) he was met by a king who was going to fight another king…. When the king saw what Elijah did, he fell down and worshipped him, and he was converted with all his army. The saint took them to a stream, baptised all of them, ordained for them priests and deacons, and returned to his country.97 Относительно же этого Илии, митрополита мервского, рассказывают, что когда он обходил области у внешней границы, внутри одной из них он встретил некоего царька, который отправлялся воевать с другим царем. ... Когда увидал царёк то, что сделал блаженный Илия, он упал перед ним и почтил его; уверовали он и весь его лагерь.[Илия] свёл их к одной реке, окрестил их всех, поставил им священников, дьяконов и вернулся в свою землю.98 95 96 97 98

Ibid., 29. T. Nöldeke, ‘Die von Guidi herausgegebene syrische Chronik übersetzt und commentiert’, SAW, Phil.-hist. Kl., B CXXVIII, Vienna 1893, 39–40. Alphonse Mingana, ‘The Early Spread of Christianity in Central Asia and the Far East: A New Document’, BJRL 9 (1925), № 2, 305–6. Н.В. Пигулевская, ‘Анонимная сирийская хроника о времени Сасанидов’, ЗИВАН VII (1939), 75–6.

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In Mingana’s translation and commentary, the converted people were no other than Turks: In about AD 644 history makes mention of the conversion of large communities of Turks, thanks to the efforts and the zeal of Elijah, Metropolitan of Merw:— “And Elijah, Metropolitan of Merw, converted a large number of Turks….”.99 In fact, the original text only says ‘Ēlyā, metropolitan of Marw, converted many people from the Turks and other peoples’. The date quoted by Mingana, ‘in about AD 644’, does not arise from the text either: the story is preceded by the reference to the death of the Patriarch Mār Ama, which occurred in 650, and followed by a reference to Saʿd b. Abī Waqqāṣ who died in 664; then follows the story of Khālid b. al-Walīd, who died in 642. This chronological confusion made Kmoskó note that ‘we cannot state positively whether the missionary activity of Elias of Marw preceded or followed the Arab conquest…. Thus, the exact date of the event cannot be fixed’.100 Still, two dates in Elias’s biography are known for sure: in 651–52 he organised the funerals of Yazdegerd III not far from Merv, and in 659 he was among the bishops present at the deathbed of the patriarch Ishoyahb III. Accordingly, he was active between 651–52 and 659, i.e. during the reign of ʿAlī. The ruler’s identity remains unknown, but following Mingana, I will assume that the headline of Elias’s biography that explicitly mentions the Turks and the following story of the conversion are directly linked. My concern is with one particular aspect of the Metropolitan’s mission: his travel itinerary across Central Asia. The ambiguity of the ‘borderline’ made Guidi and Nöldeke suggest the same conjecture, ‘the borderline of the city of Merv’: Nonnulla verba hic supplenda esse suspicatur N., e. g. ‫ܬܟܐ ܡܕܝܢܐ‬

‫‏ܕܡܪܘ‬‎.101

‪In der Übersetzung nehme ich das ‫ ܕ‬vor ‎‎‫( ܕܠܓܘ‬31, 1) als Wiederholung des von ‫( ܕܟܕ‬30 ult.). Aber ich bin meiner Sache nicht sicher. Vielleicht sind einige Worte ausgefallen, etwa ‫ܝܬܟܐ ܡܕܝܢܬܐ ܕܡܪܘ‬‎ (‎‫ ܡܢܗܘܢ‏‬‎‫)ܕܠܓܘ‬‎ ‎,innerhalb derer die Stadt Merw liegt‘. ‬Dass der 99 Ibid., 305. 100 Kmoskó Mihály, Szír írók a steppe népeiről, MŐK 20, Budapest 2004, 143–4. 101 Guidi, Chronicon, 34, fn. 2.

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179

Barbarenfürst mit einem Heere innerhalb der Umwallung des Stadtgebietes ge­gen seinen Feind ziehen durfte, konnte sich doch selbst ein syrischer Mönch kaum einbilden. Sonst liegt allerdings die Übersetzung am nächsten: ,in den Gegenden an den äussern Gränzen, aber innerhalb dieser (Gränzen d. h. des äussern Walles)‘102 The conjecture is apparently lacking in reality: it is hard to imagine Turkic rulers waging war anywhere near the capital of an imperial Persian province, let alone inside the city walls; or the new Arab authorities unable to prevent disorder while having at their disposal an army which just conquered all Iran. This obvious inconsistency made Mingana move the borderline away from Merv, adding another conjecture: ‘the border line of the river Oxus’. Presumably for the same reason Pigulevskaya translated this phrase as ‘the outside border’. I believe this is the correct interpretation for the following reasons: 1. Having completed his mission, the Metropolitan returns to his country (‫)ܠܐܬܪܗ‬, which implies a journey from afar rather than returning to the city from the suburbs. 2. Moving through the land most of which is steppe (sāḥil) or waterless desert (mafāza) is only possible by beaten tracks that take the traveller from one relay station to another. From Merv, surrounded by the Qara Qum Desert, such tracks led either to Herat in the south and Mashhad in the south-west or to the Sogdian city-states in the north-east.103 The further south from the seventh-century Merv the Metropolitan moved, the fewer were his chances to meet warring Turkic rulers or just any Turks. 3. It seems all but certain that the cleric and his entourage were heading towards Oxus. After the treaty Khosrow I made with the Turks in 570, it was the boundary between Persia and the Western Turkic Qaghanate and was hence perceived by the contemporaries as a borderline. Beyond the River, in three days’ journey from it lay the Bukhāra—a loose confederation of five city-states, from where trade routes continued via Sogdian merchant cities further east to China. The Turks were at home in Sogd from the 560s onwards, when the territory became part of the Western Turkic Khaganate. However, the available sources show them as part of community that is impossible to single out as an ethnic or political entity.104 They could rule, like Chegin Chūr Bilgā, Dēvāshtīch’s predecessor as ruler of Panch, but 102 Nöldeke, Chronik, 40, fn. 1. 103 On the ancient roads leading to and from Merv v. М. Алиханов-Аварский, Мервский оазис и дороги, ведущие к нему, СПб. 1883, passim. 104 V. the marriage contract concluded in 710 between a noble Turk and a Sogdian woman, where both the bride and the groom have two names, one Iranian and one Turkic: Согдийские документы II, 18, 21, 23; Лившиц, Согдийская эпиграфика, 25, 28, 31.

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not selectively over other Turks like themselves as opposed to the society al large. Of 170 personal names mentioned in the Mugh documents, three are Turkic, which figures cannot but reflect, if approximately, the actual structure of the population.105 In contrast to Sogd, the land beyond the Jaxartes unambiguously was ‘Home of the Turks’ where Patriarch Timothy I (780–823) would later appoint a metropolitan of Bēth Ṭurkāyē. For the Arab geographers, it was Chach where the Turks lived: ‘Zāmīn is the crossroads of the routes to Chāch and the Turks and ‫ت‬ ‫ف �غ ة‬ ‫) �ز ا�م�� ن �م��ف� ق ط ����ق�� ن ا ل ا � �ش‬.106 to Farghāna’ (���‫ل�� �ا �ش�� و ا �ل��رك و ا لى �ر �ا ن‬ ‫و ي� ر� ري ي� ى‬ Thus the most likely, if not the only suitable place to meet Turks en masse was Chach, divided into small principalities which were governed by semi-independent dehqans (land-owning magnates) subordinate to a Turkic ruler and often in conflict with one another: ‘There are some ten towns in this country, each governed by its chief; as there is no common sovereign over them, they are all under the yoke of Tuh-kiueh’.107 Xuanzang also noticed local feuds and wrote that in Chach, ‘local ploughmen wear armour and take one another captive’.108 The story mentions a river to which Elias brought the converts. Hardly any river in Mawarannahr was better suited for baptising the Turks in its waters than the River Turk or the River Ilaq running parallel to it two dozen kilometres south. Qanqa stood on the left bank of the latter until it changed its course towards the north at the end of the twelfth century, after which life there faded. Another character of the legend of the Christian King is his daughter with an explicitly Turkic name, Tughra—‘righteous’. Her marriage to Muḥammad b. al-Ḥanafiyya (637–700) seems to be a local paraphrase of the grander, but not any more plausible story of Khosrow I (531–579) marrying the daughter of the Qaghan Istemi (Sizibul of the Byzantine sources, 553–576) to strengthen the treaty of 570.109 Before dismissing both narratives as pure fiction, I would recall that it was customary for the Turks to create political bonds through marital relations with their suzerains, as attested by six instances in the Chinese sources.110 105 106 107 108

Index of personal names, Лившиц, Согдийская эпиграфика, 258–63. M.J. de Goeje (ed.), Ibn al-Fakîh al-Hamadhânî, Kitâb al-Boldân, Leiden 1885, 327. S. Beal (tr.), Buddhist Records of the Western World, London 1884, 30. Н.Я. Бичурин (Иакинф), Собрание сведений о народах, обитавших в Средней Азии в древние времена, Москва–Ленинград 1950–1953, II, 314. 109 Ibn Khurdādhbih, 259–61. 110 J.K. Skaff, ‘Western Turk Rule of Turkestan’s Oases in the Sixth through Eighth Centuries’, The Turks, Ankara 2002, 13–4.

The Village in Chach

181

5.1.3 Panākath The MSS attests the town’s name in several forms, among which only one could ‫ف‬ ‫�ث‬ give occasion to the rest: � �‫ پ�ن��ا �ك‬in al-Muqaddasī C. Another spelling, �‫� ث‬ �‫��ٮ�ا �ك‬‎ in al-Iṣṭakhrī D and Kramers’ edition of Ibn Ḥawqal, reflects an equally possible Arabic transcription of Panākath (Pers. panāh, ‘asylum, refuge, protection’; ‘shade, shelter’).111 The name seems to have developed from Sogd. *Panāthkath when the area became Persianised, and the original Sogdian word came to be ‫�� ث‬ pronounced Persian style.112 � ‫ ي�ب��لا ن� ك‬in al-Iṣṭakhrī A is a scribal error rather than a residue of the original Sogdian pronunciation, which must have become extinct when the geographers arrived. The town appeared in the second–third centuries, reached the size of thirty to thirty-five hectares in the Early Middle Ages and grew to 140 hectares before the Mongols destroyed it.113 It is probably no accident that we find in its name the same overtones as in *Anchātkath < Sogd. anchāt(ē), ‘appeased’, ‘rested’, ‘resided’.114 Panākath and *Anchātkath are within walking distance and share distinctive environmental features. The common theme of peace or safety can be explained by the sense of security from the nomads disturbing the northern boundary of Chach in the distance. In the eighth century, a defensive wall, Kampyr Duval, was built to protect the oasis from the raids, still seen by the unaided eye in 1934.115 Christian presence here is marked by an oil lamp with a cross on its bottom and a small bronze lid with a scratched cross.116 Unfortunately, these incidental finds are not dated either stratigraphically or typologically in the publication without images. Binkath 5.1.4 The Arab geographers see Binkath as the capital city of Chach and the largest settlement in the oasis. However, its Christian community has not left but a slight archaeological trace. In 1922, a human burial was discovered on the right 111 Steingass, Persian-English Dictionary, 256. Cf. Mid. Pers. panāh, ‘protector’, ‘refuge’ (D. Durkin-Meisterernst, Dictionary of Manichaean Middle Persian and Parthian, Brepolis 2004, 275). 112 I once again express gratitude to Prof N. Sims-Williams who informed me about the unattested Sogdian form *panāth. 113 Буряков, Историческая топография, 14–30. 114 Gharib, Sogdian Dictionary, 951, 953. 115 Григорьев, Отчёт, attachment. 116 Сервер Аширов, Елена Поторочина, Константин Шейко, ‘“Крест проросший”’, ВС XIX (2010), 41.

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bank of the Canal Salar (one of the channels of the Chirchik), which was the eastern boundary of the mediaeval city. In the same burial were also found: a blown silver necklace; six golden and twenty silver coins; a bowl; fragments of a pitcher; a bronze goblet; a small silver vase; and a small figurine of Jesus on a donkey.117 The finding was signalled by I.A. Anboyev, professional hydrogeologist and enthusiast of local lore, who managed to purchase only one insignificant item from the list. The rest went missing and thus cannot be dated or described in detail. With the coming of Arabs, the city changed its name for Tashkent, for the first time attested by al-Bīrūnī.118 That made Polivanov rationalise its new name as Tāzkandh, ‘town of the Arabs’ (Sogd. tāzīk—‘Arab’ and kandh—town, city).119 His voice remained lonely, and another interpretation became widespread: ‘stone town’ (Turkic tash—‘stone’ and Sogdian kandh—‘town’). The latter’s adherents usually quote Beishi, ‘History of the Northern Dynasties’, compiled in 659, where Chach is referred to as 石國. The first hieroglyph, shí, means ‘stone’ and the second, guó—‘country’, ‘state’, so the hieroglyphic transcription can indeed be interpreted as ‘stone country’. Despite its prevalence, I find such interpretation unconvincing. There is no way of conveying the sounds of a foreign name with semantics-free symbols in Chinese except by putting a 口 (‘mouth’) radical on a character to indicate that it represents sound without meaning, which is not the case. Therefore, any standard Chinese transcription would consist of common hieroglyphs selected for phonetic affinity, whose meaning is to be ignored. Thus Shíguó can equally mean ‘the country of Shí’, with Shí conveying the sounding of Chach. Subsequent advances in archaeology prove Polivanov right: – the name change and the coming of the Arabs correlate: with the arrival of the Arabs, the town rapidly expands, while archaeological materials earlier than the ninth century are scarce.120 The expansion implies a radical change of the economic and cultural paradigm, likely to be reflected by the new name pointing at the key factor; – Polivanov’s question: ‘what could there be “of stone” in old Tashkent?’ has been answered by the archaeological investigations of several decades: nothing. The most thorough studies did not reveal in mediaeval Tashkent any stone structures worthy of mentioning, let alone mass use of stone for whatever purposes; 117 И.А. Анбоев, ‘Древний несторианский клад (?) в г. Ташкенте’, ИАН Узбекской ССР, серия ‘Общественные науки’, № 6 (1959), 39–40. 118 Edward C. Sachau (ed.), Alberuni’s India, vol. I, London 1910, 298. 119 Е.Д. Поливанов, ‘О происхождении названия Ташкента’, В.В. Бартольду, 395. 120 Древний Ташкент, Ташкент 1973, 84.

The Village in Chach

183

– it is highly doubtful that the people of Binkath suddenly switched to a Turko-Sogdian pidgin, while none of their immediate neighbours did the same, as evident from the tenth-century local toponymy recorded by the Arab geographers. Suggested in 1927, ‘the Arab town’, with its flawless morphology and explicable semantics, seems the old still most plausible interpretation. 5.1.5 Qarshovul The remains of a large mediaeval town were first noticed and described in 1893: This site stands on the right bank of the River Chirchik, opposite the qishaq [village] of Qirshaul, to the east of Iski-Tashkent. It continues as separate mounds for eight versts along the riverbank and two or three versts towards the west and into the steppe; various traces of human occupation can be found at this site—bricks, broken dishes, bones, glass, ashes, etc. Judging from the thick buildups forming the site and the cultural remains found there, like pottery sherds of various kinds, it can be assumed that this site is one of the most ancient ones and that a large town once existed here.121 As noticed by Grigoryev, Evarnitsky grossly exaggerated the town’s size, having added several independent feudal castles to it.122 Its actual size at present is с.330 m from east to west and 200 m from north to south, as attested by our topographic survey in 2010 when ESAREX began the excavations of Qarshovul under the aegis of the Society for the Exploration of Eurasia (see Figure 96).123 Among the pottery found, there is a moulded ceramic kettle with two crosses scratched on its side after baking (see Figure 97). The vessel shows signs of repair: two pairs of holes were drilled in its neck to bind the broken part to the body. The known analogies from Ferghana and the Keles steppe date from the Early Middle Ages.124 The find was accompanied by a bronze wearable cross discovered in the same context (see Figure 98). After three years of excavations, I became convinced that the town had faded with the Arab invasion and thus cannot be identified with any place seen by the Arab travellers in the tenth century. 121 Эварницкий, Путеводитель, 149. 122 Григорьев, Отчёт, 46. 123 The research staff consisted of Konstantin Sheyko, Gennady Ivanov, Olga Zhuravlëva and the present writer. 124 Б.А. Литвинский, Керамика из могильников Западной Ферганы, Москва 1973, plate 44, № 5.

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Figure 96 Qarshovul Tepa, facing north

Figure 97 a–b

Kettle with a scratched cross from Qarshovul Tepa

185

The Village in Chach

Figure 98 Bronze cross found at Qarshovul Tepa

5.2 Ferghana The following materials are not a result of my personal work. Still, I find it appropriate to mention them here since Chach and Ferghana are two neighbouring areas, closely related to each other in all respects. Taken together, they reveal a higher number of Christianity-related sites than any other part of Mawarannahr. 5.2.1 Andijan A bowl for handwashing was found during development works, among other pottery and glasswork that included defective items; thus, its local origin is beyond doubt (see Figure 99).125 The fact that the bowl was manufactured in a cast tells its tale: ritual hand washing is a church ritual taking place during the liturgy, so series production of such bowls would have only made sense if there were more than one church. Abdulgaziyeva dates the item to the eleventh– twelfth centuries based on the pottery from the same stratum. 5.2.2 Rishtan A ceramic lid of a large vessel with offprints of crosses was found while digging a modern grave at Sahib-i Hidaya cemetery (see Figure 100). With a small grant from the Society for the Exploration of Eurasia, Dr G.P. Ivanov conducted small-scale archaeological investigations of the area to establish that the lid belonged to the stratum dating from the tenth to twelfth centuries. The vessel for which the lid was intended can be safely identified as a large wine pot

125 Б.А. Абдулгазиева, ‘Крышка сосуда из Андижана’, Из истории древних культов Средней Азии. Христианство, Ташкент 1994, 82–3, without an image. The author erroneously identified the item as a lid of a vessel.

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Figure 99 Bowl for ritual hand washing from Andijan

Figure 100

Lid of a large vessel from Rishtan Photo by Gennady Ivanov

187

The Village in Chach

(khum). Its bottom is eroded due to long-term exposure to reactive fumes, and the lid diameter (27 cm) matches the neck width of the wine pots in Urgut and Aq Beshim. Stamps were used to print the larger and the smaller crosses, which means that serial production of pots with lids accompanied wine production in mass quantities. 5.2.3 Quva A bronze cross was incidentally found by G.P. Ivanov during his excavations at the site of Quva in the 1990s, out of any archaeological context and thus not datable (see Figure 101).126

Figure 101 Bronze cross from Quva Photo by Gennady Ivanov

126 For no good reason, the item was published as А. Раимкулов, Г.П. Иванов, ‘Нательный крест с городища Кува’, ИМКУ 31 (2000), 160–1 without Dr Ivanov’s knowledge and consent. Another surprise was this publication using our names: А.А. Грицина, А.В. Савченко, Г.П. Иванов, Отчёт о работах Восточно-согдийской археологической экспедиции АН Узбекистана и АН Украины, Самарканд–Киев (sic!) 2006. The prolific writer whose name stands first never took part in our excavations; neither have I ever co-authored with him. Despite this, he had no scruples about publishing photographs stolen from my annual reports in yet another opus: А.А. Грицина, ‘Трансоксиана-Мавераннахр: христианство и манихейство’, Религии Центральной Азии и Азербайджана, том IV: христианство, Самарканд 2018, 124–6, plates 10–14. The next plate shows two gravestones from Semirechye as ‘crosses on a rock near Urgut’, etc.

Appendix

Prominent Namesake

Vēshkart also occurs in the same sources with regard to a different place:

ّ ‫نة غ‬ ‫�� ق ن ش ّ ش ش‬ ‫ع��� ف� غ��ا ن���ة � ن�� �ّ��ه�ا �� ض‬ ‫ض‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ع���� ح�د ود‬ ‫ج وبي � ب‬ ‫ح�د ود ا ���رو����س���� � رب�ي���ه�ا ح�د ود س�مَْر����د ���ما ��لي���ه�ا ا �ل����ا ��� و ب�� � ر‬ ‫�ش َّ ا � ص غ���ا ن���ا ن �شُ�� �م�ا ن َ ا ش��� د ا ش��ْ��� ت �ش�� ق� ّ���ه�ا �� ض ف غ ة‬ 1. ���‫ع���� �ر��ا ن‬ ‫�ك��� و ل��� ي � و و � و و جِر و ر � ر ي � ب‬ The borders of Ustrushana [are]: in the west—the borders of Samarkand, in the north—Chāch and part of Farghāna, in the south—some of the borders of Kesh, ‫ش‬ Chaghānīān, Shūmān, ‫ وا �� ج�رد‬and Rāsht, in the east—part of Farghāna.

‫ش‬

�‫و�ي ش��� ك‬, it also appears as ‫ و�ي ش����� ج�رد‬,‫وا �� ج�رد‬, and ‫�رد‬ �‫وا �ش�� ك‬, with same or Apart from the form ‫�ر‬ similar scribal errors.2 More variant readings provide a fuller phonological picture: the alternating spellings wāsh/wīsh betray the original Sogdian [ɛ:], majhūl (‘unknown’) vowel in Arabic, while the alternating krd/jrd mean that the Arab writers heard the sound as [ɡ].3 Sometimes the name is applied to the town and sometimes—to its extensive district (balad) in the south of modern Tajikistan. In the latter case, it is accompanied by the definite article since names of countries and regions are definite in Arabic. The district had c.700 fortifications and paid land tax of thousand dirhams,4 so obviously, the town and the district were far better known than the village in Chach with the same name. That must be why the Arab geographers had to specify ‘of the Christians’ when speaking of the latter to avoid confusion. This second Vēshkart is no exception from the pattern established for all other grassy places. Its site, Kala-i Sangin near modern Fayzabad in Tajikistan, stands at the mouth of a mountain brook flowing into the River Ilaq (map J-42–55, 6628).

1 Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 325. 2 Apart from BGA, v. also Ibn Khurdādhbih, 34, 37, 179, 212, 243; Yāqūt, 325; Ю.Е. Борщевский (изд.), Муx̣ аммад ибн Наджӣб Бакрāн, Джахāн-нāме (Книга о мире), Москва 1960, 340; Ḥudūd al-‘Ālam, 117 (24b). 3 The Arabic jim can be realised as a voiced velar stop, as was the case in pre-Classical Arabic and still is in several modern dialects. V. Janet C.E. Watson, The Phonology and Morphology of Arabic, New York 2002, 15–6. 4 Ibn Khurdādhbih, 37.

© Alexei Savchenko, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004527539_004

190

Appendix In all likelihood, the settlement in its early days was situated at the cape formed by the brook’s inflow into the Ilak. The brook flowed along the site’s western wall, and the Ilak rounded the cape on its south side.5

As explained above, grass-names directly relate to floodplains, so perhaps it is no coincidence that the old name has been reinterpreted as Fayzabad < Pers. fayz, ‘being plentiful, copious (water, tears); being brimful (vessel or river)’6 < Ar. fayḍ, ‘flood’, ‘overflow’. A similar issue had been raised previously on another occasion, but with the same conclusion: Several canals in the Tashkent district are named after the heroes of the Shahnameh…. The Shahnameh is very popular in Central Asia but not enough to bring the names of its heroes into the local toponymy so that the oldest irrigation canals would have been named after them.7 Hence I am inclined to believe that commenters of the Shāhnāmeh well-meaningly elevated rustic ‘meadow’ to elaborate ‘built by Vīsa [the god]’. This traditional interpretation has been reaffirmed by Humbach, who described the name Vīsa as ‘etymologically obscure’, interpreting it as the name of a deity applied to the settlement in question.8 There are two problems with this interpretation. Firstly, the earliest strata of the ancient site in Fayzabad date from the Kushan era, when New Avestan could not be the spoken language in Khuttal.9 Secondly, knowledge of the Vidēvdād does not come naturally to ploughmen and stockbreeders. Subsistence peasants’ villages could hardly support high culture and provide a social niche for storytellers; food and the natural conditions for obtaining it must have preoccupied the people much more than old Iranian gods (see Figure 102). The oldest known MS of the Shāhnāmeh dates from 250 years after Firdowsī’s death, which means that before reaching us, the text had already been copied more than once.10 But even given a chain of scribes, a residue of the original form seems to

5 А.М. Беленицкий, ‘Отчёт о работе Вахшского отряда в 1946 г.’, МИА 15 (1950), 136. 6 Steingass, Persian-English Dictionary, 944. 7 Григорьев, Отчёт, 37. 8 Helmut Humbach, ‘“Wind”, an Old Iranian Deity’, EJVS 21/2 (2014). I wish to stress that my criticisms here are directed at overintellectualisation of archaic place names and not at Prof Humbach’s article in particular, which I genuinely found very interesting. 9 Д. Довуди, Т. Худжагелдиеев, А. Абдуллаев, ‘Археологические раскопки на городище Вашгирд в 2007 г.’, АРТ XXXIII (2009), 177. 10 The British Museum, Add. 21, 103, copied in 1276–7.

191

Appendix

Figure 102 Stages of corruption of the transmitted text

have been preserved by two authoritative MSS as ‫�رد‬ ‫و�ي��س ك‬‎as opposed to ‫�رد‬ ‫و�ي��س�ه ك‬‎in all other MSS.11 The older name of Kala-i Sangin, Tal-i Vozjur, still in use by the older residents in 1946,12 must be a folk re-etymologisation involving modern Tajik roots.13



Tamarisk Treat

Place names with the second element ‫�رد‬ ‫ ك‬are found in the Sogdian-speaking lands three more times: ‫�رد‬ ‫�رك‬ ‫د ك‬, ‫د‬‎ ‫�ر‬ ‫ ج�رك‬, and ‫د‬‎ ‫�ر‬ ‫�غ�ز ك‬.‎The first two are only mentioned in al-Muqaddasī, among the towns of Ferghana and Isfijab respectively, without any referencing. No similar names are found in any censuses, maps or other modern or pre-modern sources in a recognisable form, which makes targeted search for them impossible. ‫غ‬ The third name occurs in the works of the Balkhī school as ‫�رد‬ ‫‏�غ�ز ك‬‎, ‫�رد‬ ‫ �رك‬and ‫�رد‬ ‫�عرك‬. The editor’s choice is always the first form, explained as follows: ‘Apud Istakhrî et ُ‫غ‬ Mokadd[asi] recepi ‫�رد‬ ‫ � �ز ك‬, sed propter voc[alitatem] in nostris cod[icibus] haec lectio dubia fit’.14 Following De Goeje, I will prefer the lectio difficilior ‫�رد‬ ‫�غ�ز ك‬, attested by two MSS, also because there is no Iranian or Turkic sound َْ‫ غُ�ز‬to be reflected by the Arabic ʿayn. ْ� However, the provenance of the vocalisation ‫ � كرد‬is unknown. Whether imposed by De Goeje or a scribe in the chain, it clearly reflects one’s intent to identify the place with the Oghuz Turks, ‘built by the Oghuz’. Such identification seems strained for the following reasons:

11 12 13 14

The Public Library and the Institute for Oriental Studies in St. Petersburg: Е.Э. Бертельс (ред.), Фирдоусӣ, Шāх-нāмэ. Критический текст, Москва 1960–89, т. I, 12–3; т. V, 100, fn. 6. Беленицкий, Отчёт о работе Вахшского отряда, ibid. V. Фарҳанги тафсирии забони тоҷикӣ, Душанбе 2008, ‘воз’, ‘ҷӯр’. Ibn Khurdādhbih, 27, fn. m.

192

Appendix

1.

Nomadic Oghuz lived in camps and built nothing, as unanimously attested by several contemporary historians: ‘they are nomads, their houses are of haircloth, and they stop and go again’ (Ibn Faḍlān, who spent some time among the Oghuz in the tenth century); ‘they have no towns, they are a large number of people living in tents’ (Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, late tenth century); ‘they have no houses or fortresses, living in Turkic ribbed tents’ (al-Yaʿqūbī, the eleventh century); ‘they live at lifeless places, looking for fertile pastures. Their houses are made of felt’ (al-Idrīsī, middle of the twelfth century). 2. Some of the Oghuz had settled high in the mountains: ‘Le pays habité par ces peuples … est remarquable par de hautes montagnes, sur lesquelles les Ghozzes ont élevé des citadelles très fortes’.15 On the map accompanying Maḥmūd al-Kāshgharī’s Diwān, those mountains are marked as ‘Qarachuk’; we know them as Qara Tau being the north-western spur of Tian Shan.16 However, the foothills of Qara Tau start in c.100 km north-east from the area where the Arab geographers place ‫�رد‬ ‫�غ�ز ك‬, while real highlands are about twice as distant. 3. According to Ibn al-Athīr, the Oghuz came to the northern environs of Mawarannahr in the time of the Caliph al-Mahdī (775–785). However, in the tenth century, they still lived to the north from the Syr Darya, bordering with the Muslim world on the south, and there was hardly any way they could build a town inside the Samanid realms. The same sources mention a place with truly ‘nomadic’ etymology: Jabghūkath, but here the second element rightly means ‘seat’, ‘location’, not a result of human action. The sounding of the rasm is thus far from clear: before various languages using Arabic script developed their own orthographies with additional symbols like ‫ڨ گ‬ ‫ګ‬, �, �, etc. for the sounds absent from Classical Arabic, foreign words containing ‫غ‬ ‫ق‬ [ɡ], [ɢ] or [ɣ] had been transcribed with ,‎‫ ك‬,�‎, or ‫ ج‬, either arbitrarily or depending � � on the realisation of the phoneme. On the plus side, pinpointing ‫�رد‬ ‫ �غ�ز ك‬should be a feasible task, as the distance to and from it is stated in absolute figures, counted from well-established places. It also served as a reference point for the travellers passing through, so it must sit right on the caravan route, as caravans went from one stop to another the straightest possible way. The place is described as a village on the road from Chach to Isfijab, immediately after the previous landmarks:

15 16

Al-Idrīsī, t. II, 339. С.П. Толстов, ‘Города гузов’, СЭ № 3 (1947), 56.

193

Appendix

Then to the village of ‫�رد‬ ‫ �غ�ز ك‬, then to Isfijāb.

َ‫ْ ج‬ َ َ ‫غ�ز ق ة ث‬ 17�‫�رد �ر�ي�� �ّ ا لى ا ��س �ب�ِ��ي����ا ب‬ ‫ث�ّ ا لى � ك‬ ‫م‬ ‫م‬

‫خ‬ ‫غ‬ ‫غ‬ ‫ف‬ ‫� ئ ف ��سخ ن‬ � ‫و �م� ن �م�د ي�ن���ة �ش���ا ش��� ا لى �م�ع��س ك� �خ‬ ‫�رد‬ ‫�رد ��م��س��ة �را ��سخ و �م� ن� �رك‬ ‫��ا � و �م ن���ه ا لى �رك‬ ‫�رة دف ا �ل ا لح�ا ���ط �ر‬ � ‫ف ��ف �ز ة‬ 18.‫�ى �م�� �ا � ا لى ا ����سب����ي ش����ا ب� ا ر ب��ع�� �را ��سخ‬ �

Two farsakhs from the capital city of Chāch to the military camp on this side of the wall, five farsakhs from there to ‫�رد‬ ‫ �غ�ز ك‬, four farsakhs from ‫�رد‬ ‫ �غ�ز ك‬through the

waterless desert to Isfijab.

‫غ�ز‬ ‫� د �م ح�ل��ة ث� ا ل ا ��س�������ا � � ��د � ن‬ ‫�م� ن �ن� ك ث‬ 19.�‫ي‬ ‫و �ب‬ ‫��� ا لى � كر ر م ى �ب ي ج ب بري‬

From Binkath to ‫�رد‬ ‫ �غ�ز ك‬one daily march, then to Isfijāb two barīds [postal tracks].

‫ل����ا ش�� ا ل �م�ع�د ن ا � ض َّ���ة ����س���ع��ة‬ ‫ش‬ ���‫� ل‬ ‫و �م� ن� ا � � ى‬ ‫ب‬ ُ ‫غ‬ ‫� ا ن ث� ا ل ك ف ��سخ ن‬ ‫�رد‬ ‫��ا � ث� ا لى �رك‬ ‫ م ى ب��ا ل �ر‬،� ‫مي���ل‬ ‫م‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ل����ا ش�� ا ��ل��ه�ا ث��� ثل���ة � ش‬ ‫ش‬ 20‎.‫ع���ر �ر��سخ‏ا‬ � ‫ا� � ي‬ � ‫ن‬ Eight farsakhs from Chāch to the silver mine and this is Ilāq and ‫�ك‬ ��‫ب�لا ن� ك‬, then two miles [1 mile = 1/3 farsakh] to the Iron Gate, then to ‫كا ل‬ ��‫ ب‬, then six farsakhs to ‫غ‬ ‫�رد‬ ‫�رك‬, then four farsakhs to Isfijāb [through] waterless desert, so thirty farsakhs ‫ن‬ ‫ق‬ ‫ف‬ ‫ ث� ا لى ب�ا ب� ا �ل‬،‫�ك‬ � ‫ح�د ي��د‬ ��‫�را ��سخ و �هى اي�لا � و ب�لا ن� ك‬ ‫م‬ � ْ ‫�ف �ز ة‬ ‫تَّ ة ف ��سخ ث‬ ‫ة ف ��سخ ف� ن‬ ��‫ �م‬،� ‫ �م ا لى �إِ ��س�ب���ي�� ج��ا ب� �م�� �ا � ا ر ب��ع�� �را‬،� ‫����س���� �را‬

from Chāch to get there.

While some place names mentioned in these accounts remain unidentified, the starting point and the endpoint are not in doubt. Binkath is the ancient site of Tashkent; Isfījāb has been identified with Sayram ten kilometres east of modern Shymkent in Kazakhstan; and al-Qalāṣ (Keles in Turkic pronunciation) is the name of the steppe between them, across which flows the Keles River. So my journey now is from Tashkent to Shymkent through the Keles steppe, up and along the River Keles. About halfway down the ancient road underlying the modern A-2, the traveller arrives at the foot of the Qazyghurt mountain range (Қазығұрт in the official Kazakh

17 18 19 20

Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 337; Ibn Ḥawqal, 399. Qudāma b. Jaʿfar, 204. Al-Muqaddasī, 342; in MS C—marḥala (id., 345). Ibn Khordâdhbih, 27.

194

Appendix

spelling), put on the map by Duke Władysław Massalski in 1901. ‘The western part of the Talas Alatau ends with the Kazykurt range, whose western spurs are crossed by the postal road from Tashkent to Chimkent’.21 The name is also applied to the territory adjoining the mountain and a modern village. The Isfijab region was the home of several Turkic peoples, but Qazyghurt does not have a Turkic etymology except a Volksetymologie. In 1896, Divayev recorded a ‫ق �ز �غ ة‬ Kazakh legend in which it appears as the name of a saint (�‫ ��ا �ى � ور‬in the inordinate pre-modern spelling) who was created together with the Earth and the Sky and lived on this mountain in the days of Noah.22 Another legend, whose source I fail to identify, expands on the same topic: at the lean times after the Flood, a she-wolf broke the ban on animal slaughter and was punished by the Just Wolf (an awkward attempt to cross qazi < Ar. qāḍī—‘judge’ with qurt—‘wolf’ in the languages of the Oghuz group (Az. qurd, Turk. kurt) not spoken here). A modern pseudoscientific explanation is also available: ‘The name probably derives from the names of the ancient Turkic tribes qaz and qurt that lived in VII– VIII AD’.23 No such tribes ever lived in the region or anywhere. The fact that the place name does not convey any apparent meaning in the Turkic dialects of the area means that it belongs to an older lexical stratum which is likely to be Sogdian. The Keles Valley is extremely poor in archaeological sites even compared with less habitable areas in Kazakhstan, which fact was noticed by Bernshtam during his first systematic surveys in the 1950s.24 Along the entire length of the route, there is only one ancient settlement, situated in about fifty kilometres from Tashkent, i.e. in one day’s march (one marḥala = six to seven farsakhs ≈ forty-five to fifty-three kilometres)25 from the northernmost suburb (rabaḍ) of Binkath, or two leagues (one barīd = four farsakhs ≈ thirty kilometres) from Isfijab. That is the distance to ‫�رد‬ ‫ �غ�ز ك‬indicated in the

Arab travel accounts.

21 22

23 24 25

Владислав Масальский, ‘Таласский Алатау’, Брокгауз и Ефрон, т. XXXIIa, 533–4. Легенда о Казы-Куртовском ковчеге, ‘Этнографические материалы, собранные и переведённые А.А. Диваевым’, СМССДО, том V, Ташкент 1896, 1–12. Earlier we find it in the MSS of Mashhur Zhusip Kopeyev: МәшҺүр-Жүсiп Кепеев, ‘Нұх пайғамбар мен бiр кемпiр туралы’, ҚМ 4–5 (1994), 79. This legend incorporating Scriptural stories could not originate in the native nomadic milieu. Uways al-Qaranī, mentioned in the same context, betrays its Sufi origin, v. J. Baldick, Imaginary Muslims. The Uwaysi Sufis of Central Asia, London 1993, 15–21. Cf. the legend of the foundation of Tashkent by the mythical hero Tāsh recorded by Polivanov (Е.Д. Поливанов, ‘О происхождении названия Ташкента’, В.В. Бартольду, 400. К. Умиралиев, ‘Этнолингвистический этюд’, ҚМ № 4 (1967). А.Н. Бернштам, ‘Древний Отрар’, ИАН Казахской ССР 3 (1951), 87. ‘We travelled six or seven farsakhs in one marḥala’. (Al-Muqaddasī, 106).

Appendix

195

The site consists of two separate elevated areas totalling about two hectares, thoroughly fortified with an earthen berm with towers and a deep moat. The settlement has a long history, as evident from its pottery dating from BC to the Timurid era. Apparently, the town grew there because of the Keles’ sharp turn south, which would form a flood plain during the spring tide and create favourable conditions for cropping and cattle grazing (map K-42-79, 3840). The above-said makes me convinced that Sharap Khana is the site on the road from Binkath to Isfijab, mentioned by the Arab geographers.26 Its name, recorded as ‫�رد‬ ‫�غ�ز ك‬, became extended to apply to the whole area in a form consistent with the rules of Turkic phonology. In the ancient and modern languages of the Qypchaq group, [γ] is not used at the beginning of a word; in the loanwords, it is replaced by its voiceless allophone.27 Eventually, the Arabic spelling appeared as a result of voicing of [χ] affected by [z] in Sogdian28 and dissimilation γ–γ > γ–g in Persian. Devoicing of the final [d] in Turkic requires no explanation. Qazyqurt, or Qazghurt, is also the name of two mountains in the Nura district in Central Kazakhstan, ‘Good Qazyqurt’ and ‘Bad Qazyqurt’, and of the river at their foot (map M-42-93, 6600 & 7490). Both places share one essential natural feature: in Isfijab, the bend of the Keles would form a flood plain during the spring tide; in Nura, a flood plain would also be formed by the confluence of the Qazghurt and the Moksh Qara Su. The Keles Valley abounds in tamarisk; probably, so does the area in question in Central Kazakhstan where I have not been, as tamarisk flourishes exceptionally well on flood plains. Tamarisk did not leave a trace in Sogdian, but it is attested in its closest relatives: Yghn. gazək,29 Wa. iž, yiž,30 Pash. γaz,31 also MP gaz,32 Pers. and Taj. gaz < OI *gaza-, species of the genera Tamarix and Astragalus.33 Thus, the Sogdian predecessor can 26

27 28 29 30 31 32 33

The same opinion was first expressed in 1958, based on archaeological data: ‘The remains of Sharap-khana are the only urban settlement discovered in this region, as well as in the whole valley of the Upper Keles. In our view, it can be identified with the ancient town of Gazgird’. (Е.И. Агеева, Г.И. Пацевич, ‘Из истории оседлых поселений и городов Южного Казахстана’, ТИИАЭ АН Казахской ССР, т. V, Алма-Ата 1958, 146). Тенишев, Сравнительно-историческая грамматика, 279. В.А. Лившиц, А.Л. Хромов, ‘Согдийский язык’, Основы иранского языкознания. Среднеиранские языки, Москва 1981, 396. А.Л. Хромов, ‘Говоры таджиков Матчинского района’, Труды АН Таджикской ССР CVII (1962), 194; id., Ягнобский язык, 168. И.М. Стеблин-Каменский, Очерки по истории лексики памирских языков. Названия культурных растений, Москва 1982, 90; γūz: Morgenstierne, Vocabulary of the Shughni Group, 111. Id., A New Etymological Vocabulary of Pashto, Wiesbaden 2003, q.v. D.N. MacKenzie, A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary, London 1971, 36. Эдельман, Словарь иранских языков, т. 3, 265; И.М. Стеблин-Каменский, ‘Флора иранской прародины (этимологические заметки)’, Этимология 1972, Москва 1974, 140.

196

Appendix

be reconstructed as a compound of ‘tamarisk’ and ‘food’, *ghaz-khurt, cf. vēsh-khurt, ‘grassland’, ‘pasture’.34 Young branches of tamarisk are a treat for cows, sheep and goats. The plant is not consumable for humans, but confection is made with the sweet exudate extracted by the insects on its branches in the hot season (Pers. gaz-angobīn). We have observed bushes of Tamarix szovitsiana in the riparian woodlands of the R. Murgab Valley and the valleys of the Bukan Mountains in the centre of the Kyzyl-kums. The bark of its branches was all covered with thick, sweet and syrupy liquid. Nomadic Kazakhs were very familiar with this phenomenon. Full of admiration, they were talking about sugary juice that jingil [Kaz. жыңғыл] gives them.35 Due to that feature, the name has survived as the local name for Tamarix aphylla in India—khoragaz and Pakistan—gaz khor, lit. ‘tamarisk food’.36



Sanjarfaghn

Historical sources tell about four monasteries in or near Samarkand: Christian, Manichaean, and two Buddhist. The matter of the Christian monastery is now closed. The Manichaean one is mentioned only once, without reference to its whereabouts: ‘In Samarqand stands the monastery of the Manichaeans (khānagāh-i Mānaviyān) who are called nigūshāk (“auditores”)’.37 Ibn al-Nadīm writes that ‘This people, who are called Ajārā, are at Rustāq, Samarqand, Ṣughd (Sughd), and especially Tūnkath’.38 If the order in which the places are mentioned reflects their relative position, then the enumeration is from west to east. That would mean that a Manichaean stronghold should be sought west of Samarkand, where Durman is. The earliest information about Buddhist monasteries comes from the Chinese traveller Xuanzang who visited Samarkand in the 630s:

34 35 36 37 38

Emile Benveniste (éd. & tr.), Textes sogdiens, Paris 1940, 134, 13:6: ‘Il alla jusqu’au beau pâturage’. Ф.Н. Русанов, Среднеазиатские тамариксы, Ташкент 1949, 118, 151. Umberto Quattrocchi, CRC World Dictionary of Medicinal and Poisonous Plants, CRC Press 2012, 3669. Minorsky, Ḥudūd al-ʿĀlam, 113. Bayard Dodge (ed. & tr.), The Fihrist of al-Nadīm, vol. II, New York–London 1970, 802–3.

Appendix

197

There are here [in the ‘country of Sa-mo-kien’] two religious foundations, but no priests dwell in them. If stranger-priests seek shelter therein, the barbarians follow them with burning fire and will not permit them to remain there.39 By the time another Eastern traveller, Hyecho, reached Samarkand in 721, one monastery remained with one monk.40 Smirnova made the first step towards pinpointing either monastery in 1971: The site of the Buddhist monastery (sangarma), which gave its name to the settlement of Sanjarvagn, can be pinpointed quite accurately. As known, its name has survived as a cemetery’s name near the village of Zanjirbog on the right bank

‫ڨ‬ ‫ن‬ ‫� غ‬ ‫“ � ش ه ����س� ت �ب�ز ��� ا‬The Sanjarvagni area (i. e. related to Sanjarvagn) is known ��‫م����� ور � ج يرب‬

of the Yangiaryq Canal. The waqf documents explicitly state that �‫�مو ض�� ����سن���� ج�ر��غ��� ن‬ ‫ع‬ as Zanjirbog”.41

Below I will try to translate this etymological hint into archaeological practice. Zanjirbog is not attested by the lists of populated places, censuses or old maps. The only written record comes from the Waqf-nāma, a sixteenth-century collection of legal acts compiled in Samarkand in the 1520s. There, Zanjirbogh and Sanjarfaghn are mentioned a few times in the contexts customary for such kinds of documents, for example: The twenty-ninth area is made into waqf: two adjacent plots of land in the bottom end of the known ravine. Their boundary at the qibla side adjoins the Emir Makhdum’s land. Their northern boundary adjoins the exclusion strip along the Sanjar Fighani Canal. Their eastern boundary adjoins the land left by Mir Kalon. Their southern boundary adjoins the land of Khojako, son of Emir Dervish.42 Elsewhere in the text, Sanjarfaghn is mentioned relative to some privately owned lands; three canals; a congregational mosque; a market; and ‘mounds of the Zanjirbog cemetery’. The cemetery should have survived, but its only attribute is its mounds.

39 40 41 42

S. Beal (tr.), The Life of Hiuen-tsiang by the Shaman Huni Li, London 1811, 45. W. Fuchs (ed. and tr.), ‘Huei-ch-ao’s Pilgerreise durch Nordwest Indien und ZentralAsien um 726’, SPAW XXX, Ph.-hist. Klasse, Berlin 1938, 451. О.И. Смирнова, ‘Места домусульманских культов в Средней Азии’, СНВ X (1971), 94. Р.Г. Мукминова, К истории аграрных отношений в Узбекистане XVI в. По материалам “Вакф-наме”, Ташкент 1966.

198

Appendix

Fortunately, a more specific description is available, providing the necessary information: Later [in the text of a waqf document], the village of Zanjir-Bag is mentioned north of the Abbas Canal and south of the Qaraunas Canal. Clearly, this is the exact same village that now stands on the right bank of the Yangi, near the inflow of the Kamangaran Say, close to the huge mounds pointing to the old age of the settlement. There once was a big bazaar with many stores outside the village. It seems that in the south, the bazaar adjoined the wall of the Sanjar-figani cemetery, better known as Zanjir-bag.43 The area described by Vyatkin was the starting point of my search for the Christian monastery in Urgut. That was the first place where I came to verify Vyatkin’s identification of Qynghyr with Vizd, discussed at the beginning of this book. Knowing the area reasonably well, I can confidently say that there is only one archaeological mound on the right bank of the Yangi Canal, near the inflow of the Kamangaran Say: Qurghan Tepa, on the south-western outskirts of the small town of Jaraptepa (see Figure 103). The site was described by Sukharev, who explicitly mentions the mounds nearby, probably those seen by Vyatkin.44 West of the site, there is a cemetery, in all likelihood the one mentioned in the waqf documents. The Sattar Hajji mosque in 1.5 km towards the northwest is new; still, according to older residents, it was built instead of an old one which must have been the ‘congregational mosque of the Sanjar Fighani precinct’.45 Just like the name of the Christian monastery became extended to apply to the broader area of Urgut, the Buddhist monastery gave its name to the rustaq (district) of Sanjarfaghn mentioned by the Arab geographers.



The Monastery in Aq Beshim

In 1996–1998, investigating ancient Suyab in the Chu Valley (modern Aq Beshim in Kyrgyzstan), the research team led by Dr G.L. Semënov uncovered several buildings and open areas and identified them as a church compound. Most regrettably, a few years later, Grigory Semënov, a well-known specialist in Sogdian fortification, passed away in the prime of his professional life. The excavations were never resumed, and the abandoned site was lost to the study.46

43 44 45 46

Вяткин, Материалы к исторической географии, 2. Сухарев, Археологические исследования, 190, 197, 203, 230–1. Мукминова, К истории аграрных отношений, 255. So according to Кызласов, Два ак-бешимских сюжета, 46.

Appendix

Figure 103

199

Qurghan Tepa in the centre of the map J-42-15-V-b-3, 1:10 000, ТУГШ ВС СССР 1989

The only information about those excavations comes from the report published in 2002, which describes seventeen rooms from seven to 130 m2 and many finds, some of which are invaluable for the history of the Church in Asia. However, not all premises were fully uncovered, and the purpose of some investigated rooms has not been determined. Therefore, some of my questions, mainly regarding liturgical planning and absolute dating, remained unanswered, and those answers I found seemed either too vague or inadequate. Since this monastery shares several characteristics with the one in Urgut, I could not ignore it in a work dedicated to the latter. So I decided to re-interpret the excavated structures based purely on the measurements, plans and other raw data given in the 2002 publication, and using my unfair advantage of having the Urgut materials on hand (see Figure 104). Common Area Parish Church Rooms 2 and 3 are undoubtedly the chancel and the nave of an East Syriac Rite church. A closer look at Room 3 reveals two entrances on one side, intended to divide the congregation by sex, and benches stretching along the walls from about the middle of the nave to its rear end. A narthex precedes the nave on the eastern side.

200

Appendix

Figure 104

The monastery in Aq Beshim. Ground plan from Семёнов, Раскопки 1996–1998 гг., 45, fig. 2. Room numbers added

The chancel has bays on three sides which make its shape broadly cross-like. The eastern bay was decorated with red and dark blue paint over clay plastering. Roof The longitudinal nave walls have three pairs of notches placed symmetrically, one opposite another and intended for vertical posts standing to the full height of the room. Relying on Marshak, Semёnov suggests that the posts carried beams upon which rested mudbrick domes so that the height of the nave reached 8.4 m.47 If that were the case, then the sides of a mudbrick dome weighing a few tonnes would have rested on a five-meter-long wooden beam supported by two wooden posts 22–33  × 18–22 cm across, standing on the earthen floor without any post-holes. That is highly unlikely, not least because a flat roof, used as a platform on the Feast of Dedication, is far easier to make and much more reliable. Even if the builders decided to experiment with carrying capacities of relatively thin wooden beams, they would have put those beams upon the rigid main walls, not on wooden posts. The argument of the Deggaron mosque in Khazara is out of place since the columns in the Deggaron are made of fired brick; they are 128 cm in diameter and stand on the foundations two metres wide and 47

Семёнов, Раскопки 1996–1998 гг., 95, 97–8.

Appendix

201

a metre and a half deep.48 More probably, the posts carried cross-beams upon which rested the ribs of a lightweight wooden ceiling. Side Aisles Rooms 5 and 6 are the nave and the chancel of the southern aisle. The transition from the nave to the chancel in the eastern end is emphasised by a step 25–30 cm up from the nave floor. The elevated floor continues through the narrow passage into the chancel decorated with red and dark blue stucco. The report mentions a small jade cross found on the chancel floor. On the north side, the nave is flanked by Rooms 8 and 1, which seem to mirror the layout of their southern counter-types. The origin of the aisle lies in the mediaeval tradition of receiving pilgrims wishing to attend shrines and altars within the church. Side aisles made an efficient path for them to come and go without disrupting the daily services in the central nave. In this church, foreign presence is attested by the inscriptions in Old Uyghur, made on a fragment of a wall painting.49 However, it is equally possible that the Uyghurs were not foreigners: a plaster fragment fallen from the ceiling of Room 2 was decorated with a motif known from the Dunhuang caves.50 This last assumption seems even more likely as the inscriptions were made on a passage wall between the nave and chancel, the area only accessible to the clergy. Among the rock inscriptions in Urgut, there is one in Uyghur and remnants of another with only one legible Uyghur letter.51 Wine Storage Fourteen large wine stock pots were found in Room 8, and eighteen holes in the floor intended for inserting such pots—in Room 7, ‘other holes were destroyed by two cesspits’.52 Here as in Urgut, the wine was stored at a place closest to the parish church. Counting only the available pots and holes for them, and given the pots mentioned in the report held not less than 100 l, approximately 3200 l of wine were stored in both rooms.53 If the nave 128 m2 was always half full, then this amount seems to far exceed the congregation’s needs between harvests. Even with all uncertainty of such 48

49 50 51 52 53

‘Probably, the mosque owes its good state of preservation to this meticulous care about the stability of the columns—the essential structural part of the building’. (С. Хмельницкий, Между арабами и тюрками. Раннеисламская архитектура Средней Азии, Берлин– Рига 1992, 74). Семёнов, Раскопки 1996–1998 гг., 51, fig. 8 bottom. Ibid., 51–2, figs. 8 top, 9. Dickens, Syriac Inscriptions, 221–2, 247. Семёнов, Раскопки 1996–1998 гг., 65. To calculate the volume of the vessels, I have used the method developed by Ye. A. Begovatov et al. at the Chair of Mathematical Statistics, University of Kazan: old.kpfu. ru/archeol/ceramics/select_sosud.phtml.

202

Appendix

a calculation, it is clear that wine production in industrial-scale volumes implied a long-standing tradition of maintenance, cultivation and manufacturing, common to many monasteries in Egypt, Syria and Iraq. There, winemakers’ workforce was rewarded in kind for watering the vineyards; wine was an essential commodity in moneylending or loans; it also was among other agricultural products from which the monasteries sourced revenue to meet their needs.54 Parish Oratory To the north of the parish church, there is an open yard easily recognisable as bēth ṣlutho, an outdoor praying area with a cross-shaped chancel in the east. Running Water The report mentions a pipeline made up of a series of ceramic sections leading from outside the eastern perimeter wall to the open yard, passing under the floor of Room 19. The choice of the pipes’ diameter (28 and 22 cm) shows that the pipeline was intended for a constant supply of a large volume of water needed by permanent residents for various household activities. The yard has not been excavated except a narrow strip along the eastern wall, so the pipe endpoint remained unknown. Monastic Area Monastic Church The locus of the community seems to be the opposite, the northern side of the compound. It comprises a premise with all the hallmarks of a monastic church which, as in Urgut, is situated to the north of the parish church. The nave interior cannot be analysed as a whole since only a small part of it has been excavated. Still, two details are clearly defined: benches in the eastern end and a step marking the entrance to the chancel.55 The chancel’s eastern wall has a niche with a heap of broken fired bricks 16–18 × 4–4.5 cm and clay bricks 36(?) × 20 × 6.5 cm. It is preceded by a narrow raised platform 12 cm high beginning in the centre of the room. The chancel is adjacent to Room 26 with arched niches in the eastern, western and southern walls, which might be the sacristy.

54

55

Myriam Wissa, ‘“Twenty-five hundred knidia of wine … and two boats to transport the wine to Fustāt”. An Insight into Wine Consumption and Use Amongst the Dhimmīs and wider Communities in Umayyad Egypt’, Ana Echevarria, Juan Pedro Monferrer-Sala, John Tolan (eds.), Religion and Law in Medieval Christian and Muslim Societies: Between Theory and Praxis, Brepolis 2016, 104–6. Семёнов, Раскопки 1996–1998 гг., 90, fig. 51.

Appendix

203

Monastic Oratory There is another bēth ṣlutho, smaller and not fully excavated: Room 25 to the south from the monastic church, with a cross-shaped chancel. The cross shape of the chancels is observed one more time in the stand-alone church excavated in Aq Beshim in 1954 and dated to the eighth century.56 Refectory Cenobitic living implies communal meals and thus also cooking and storage facilities. There remains only one walled building within the compound that could carry a permanent roof to serve the said purpose all year round: Room 30, constructed as a full church with the chancel in Room 29. The western wall of Room 30 has a doorway leading to ‘rooms of the western perimeter’, mentioned here for the first and last time. If those rooms existed, they would be the proper place for the kitchen and storehouse, placed on the opposite side of the chancels as in Urgut. Cells My reconstruction of the Urgut compound has shown that there used to be cells behind (i.e., to the east of) the chancels. A similar layout is found in Aq Beshim, where three premises behind the refectory’s chancel show signs of permanent habitation: – The eastern part of Room 23 was walled off to form a small cell 2.2 × 2.75 m with a niche in the eastern wall filled with human bones: the long limb bones, the pelvic bone, the scapula and the skull. A chapel over the relics of a martyr was built over this part of the room. – Room 22 has niches in the eastern, western and northern walls and sufas (benches or beds) along all walls. Apart from usual signs of habitation, such as a bronze buckle and a fragment of a ceramic mug, a ‘stamping tool’ of unfired clay with a cross was found inside.57 – Room 24 has niches in the eastern, western and southern walls and sufas along all walls. Ten fragments of a book in Sogdian in a leather cover with an iron clasp were found here. The Scriptures were read at night in the light of two glazed lanterns found on the floor. Altars In the eastern bays of all chancels except one were found structures made of a mixture of raw brick and baked brick, interpreted as ‘heaps’, ‘sealing’ or ‘backfill’.

56 57

Л.Р. Кызласов, ‘Исследования на Ак-Бешиме в 1953–1954 гг.’, ТКАЭЭ II (1959), 231–3. In the report, the reference is made to fig. 54 on page 93 showing five ceramic fragments with crosses.

204

Appendix

– Room 6: raised structure 30 cm high inside the niche in the eastern wall 145 cm wide and 55 cm deep. – Room 21: course of fired bricks 24 × 10 × 4 and 34 × 18 × ? cm on the floor of the eastern bay. – Room 27: a heap of broken fired bricks 16–18 × 4–4.5 cm and clay bricks 36(?) × 20 × 6.5 cm in the niche in the eastern wall. – Room 25: structure in the eastern bay made of undefined bricks, covered with plaster and painted with red and dark blue paint, over which were laid thin sheets of gold foil. There is also a heap of baked bricks in the centre of Room 22 (cell); another heap in the passage between Rooms 27 and 28 (chancel and nave); and single bricks in the eastern wall of Room 27 (chancel). Except those contexts, baked brick was not used anywhere except the winery, where it was needed as a watertight material. I am inclined to think that the structures in the eastern bays are, in fact, cubical-like altars adjacent to the wall for the liturgy ad orientem, as is the case in Urgut. This assumption is supported by the fact that baked bricks of a particular type, grey clay with longitudinal grooves, were found in Rooms 22 and 27 with altars, and only there. Judging from the size of the pieces found (? × 16.5 × 5.8 cm, ? × 16–18 × 4–4.5), this is the same kind of bricks that was used for the ledges on both sides of the altar in the monastic church’s chancel in Urgut. Specific use of baked brick is also observed at ʿAyn Shaʿyā where ‘a pair of square podiums built of baked bricks and then plastered’ stand in Room 5, Site F, decorated with red, blue and black paint and identified as a chancel.58 Raised platforms in three chancel rooms are mentioned in conjunction with the altars: – Room 2: ‘before the eastern wall the gypsum-coated floor raises to form a rectangular platform reaching the wall of the niche’; – Room 21: ‘in the centre of the room the floor forms a high pace’; – Room 27: ‘an altar in the form of a platform stands in the middle of the room, reaching the niche in the eastern wall’. The dimensions of the platforms are not specified. Judging from the plan with a scale on page 47, the one in Room 21 is c.3.75 m long and c.0.8 m wide. Judging from the photograph on page 52, the one in Room 27 is c.15 cm high. I believe that those platforms are unnecessarily long and inappropriately low to be altars, contrary to their identification in the report. More plausibly, they are a form of the Celebrant’s chair, the seat of the serving priest accentuated in another way than in Urgut, where this place in front 58

Fujii et al., Excavations at Ain Sha’ia, 38. Perhaps the ‘blue’ paint is, in fact, dark blue, as in Aq Beshim and Urgut.

205

Appendix

of the altar is marked by ceramic tiles standing edgewise. In this part of the world, a podium instead of a chair is quite likely because people would rather sit cross-legged than use chairs. The following table lists those features of similarity between the two compounds which I was able to identify. However, the differences are more striking than the similarities, as different kinds of bricks raw and baked, other widths and proportions, other dye colours, etc., were also used in both places. So while affiliation with the same tradition is apparent, the same cannot be said about direct continuity, at least at the state of knowledge that the published report provides. Dating Three kinds of evidence were used for dating: coins, armaments and offprints of potter’s stamps on the wine pots from Room 8. This last kind must be removed from the list, as the same motif occurs in a great variety of unrelated contexts: interior Table 2

Common design elements in Urgut and Aq Beshim

Urgut Monastic

Aq-Beshim Parish

Monastic

Parish 43 × 19 × 8, 41 × 23–24 × 7–8, 41 × 20 × 8

Raw bricks, cm

42–44 × 21–22 × 10–12

40 × 20 × 8, 36(?) × 20 × 6.5

Baked bricks, cm Metric unit Proportions

32 × 16 × 5 cubit 64 cm 5 squares 6 × 6 cubits 3.84

? × 16–18 × 4–4.5 cubit 64 cm 6 squares 6 × 6 cubits? ‘3.5–3.6’

Width, m Doorways, cm Wall niches, cm Altar bay, cm Stucco

167 30 × 40 × 20 250 × 90 carmine, cobalt

5 squares 8 × 8 cubits 5.12 111

6 squares 8 × 8 cubits 5.10* 109–110 166** 34 × 39 × 20 250 × 100 ‘red’, ‘dark blue’

* The nave is 5.2 m wide on page 50 and 5 m wide on page 95. This is the arithmetic mean of the two figures. ** The doorway between Rooms 3 and 9 is 162 cm wide on page 54 and 1.7 m wide on page 65. This is the arithmetic mean of the two figures.

206

Appendix

decorations of the Khoresmian palace of Teshik Qala (the seventh and eighth centuries), a leather-covered chest from the Mugh castle (the eighth century), the facing tiles of the Samanids’ mausoleum in Bukhara (the ninth century), household pottery of Samarkand (from the tenth to the twelfth century), and many others. Outside Central Asia, its variations are found on the tombstone № 1 in the Church of the Mother of God in Ḥesna Dēh Zayd in Eastern Anatolia (the sixth century),59 in the lintel of the south-west door of the church in Baqīrḥā in north-west Syria (the fifth century),60 and at other places. Terminus post quem The earliest date is implied by the Türgesh and Tukhus coins found on the main floor of Room 23 and below the floor level in Room 2. Those coins appeared at the beginning of the eighth century; they were minted until the middle of the ninth century and remained in use until the end of the tenth century, together with coins of subsequent dynasties.61 Any date within those limits can be considered the earliest in the absence of other dating material. The chronological picture is complicated by another coin found on the lower floor of the nave of the parish church, called ‘fels’ on page 55, but also referred to as ‘probably, a Qarakhanid coin’ on page 95. This find led Semёnov to conclude that ‘the lower floor of Room 3 is not earlier than the tenth century.’ However, that floor ‘was reached only at two spots in the south-western sector’, so its date, based on a single uncertain coin, cannot be deemed to have been established. Terminus ante quem The latest date is implied by the plaster medallion fallen from the ceiling of Room 2, akin to the decorations of the Dunhuang caves №№ 440–442, 150, 157, 302, which date from the tenth and eleventh centuries; armaments from the upper floors of many rooms, dating from the turn of the tenth century; and ‘possibly, a Qarakhanid coin’ found on the upper floor of Room 1. Based on that evidence, Semënov concludes that ‘the lifespan of the compound fits into a relatively short period of around 100 years’.62 I believe that, in the light of the rest of the data presented in the report, it would be more accurate to say that the monastery was in existence for one to three hundred years, subject to the more precise analysis of the coins in their contexts. 59 60 61 62

Michel Thierry, ‘Monuments chrétiens inédits de Haute-Mésopotamie’, Syria 70 fasc. 1/2 (1993), 184, fig. 5. Emma Loosley, The Architecture and Liturgy of the Bema in Fourth-to-Sixth-Century Syrian Churches, PhD Thesis, SOAS, University of London 2001, 209, fig. 126. А.М. Камышев, Введение в нумизматику Кыргызстана, Бишкек 2008, 83–91. Семёнов, Раскопки 1996–1998 гг., 95.

Appendix

207

Turkmenistan

The ceramic plaque with an embossed cross accidentally found at Gaur Qala in 1962 is well known to specialists.63 However, some other traces of Ancient Christianity in Turkmenistan seem to have escaped scholarly attention (see Figure 105): There are distinctive small mounds with the remains of tombstones and monuments of white stone in the shape of crosses with rounded ends on either side of the road. —Many believe that those are remnants of the Nestorian Christians who once lived here [near Yaghli Olum] … —There are three different cemeteries here: perhaps one of them, with inscriptions in an Oriental language, belongs to the ancient Christians …64 The most interesting artefacts found here [in the Misrian Valley] are silver coins with the image of a wide cross; however, they are very scarce. … in these parts [in the same valley], I have come across burial vaults with traces of crosses carved on the walls.65 In a few versts from Gasan-Kuli [Tkm. Esenguly] we saw an ancient cemetery. The continuous raws of stone monuments, in the shape of our crosses but with broadening ends, were clearly seen against the yellow sand of the valley. They were cut from limestone slabs and sandstone, and some of them were utterly weathered…. The further inland you go, the more of them you will see. Christians of the Nestorian rite once lived here. Muslims borrowed the shape of the monuments but made the cross seem more like a hand with fingers. Older crosses have their ends cut or rounded. Many pieces of hoary antiquity are scattered all over here, awaiting an archaeologist who may not arrive soon (see Figure 106).66 Of more interest were the caves near the Pende Oasis, on the hilly right bank of the Murgab above the mouth of the Kushka [Tkm. Guşgy], quite high above the river…. The caves appeared to be man-made, dug in the soft sandy clay soil of the hill. We entered the long passage leading inside through a hole; there were door openings of separate rooms on either side. The passage was 40 m long and 2 to 3 m wide and high. The rooms of the same width and height did not connect but to the corridor. Some rooms had a staircase leading to another such room on the upper floor. 63 64 65 66

Массон, Происхождение, 51, fig. 1a. Д.Н. Логофет, На границах Средней Азии, СПб. 1909, книга I, 67. Ibid., 83. Ibid., 36.

208

Appendix

Figure 105 Wearable cross, Mary Museum, Turkmenistan. The circular pattern is identical to that on the shale cross from Urgut Photo by Hans Birger Nilsen, Wikimedia Commons (commons.wikimedia.org/ wiki/File:Nestorian_Cross _(31165549337).jpg)

Figure 106

Commemorative sign (Kaz. and Mong. tugh—‘flag’) in the form of a four-fingered hand. Early mediaeval site of Vardanze in the north of the Bukhara oasis

Appendix

209

This multi-room cave, dug in the permeable but stable yellow rock, was perfectly preserved. It had a vaulted ceiling; the walls and doors had simple decorations; there were niches covered with soot, perhaps from lamps. One room was probably used for prayer: its rear part was separated from the front with a barrier under an arch, and there were four arched niches in the side walls. [Cf. the ‘bays’ in the parish church’s chancel and the arched niches in Room 26 in Aq Beshim] By the entrance, rough images of hands and a cross were carved on the rock surface. The second cave, situated down the hill, was a single room, divided into two parts by a barrier; in the rear, a ledge looked like an altar with two steps. The third cave consisted of three rooms, half filled up. Entrances to two other caves opposite Takhta Bazar and two more upstream the Murgab could be seen in the steep breakage over the river so that they could only be reached by rappelling down the sheer face. Perhaps they were of the same kind as those which we have seen. These cave dwellings surely were not dug by the Turkmen. The signs of the cross and shapes of some rooms pointed to some ancient Christians who once lived there. Modern Turkmen were not using those caves even in winter, although it was much warmer inside them than in a tent.67 I can say nothing about the ‘giant image of a perfect cross carved on the rocks near the upper reaches of the Chuyan-Bulaq-say in the Kugitang Mountains’, quoted by Dresvyanskaya in her doctoral thesis.68 However, it is hard to believe that a figment of the writer’s imagination could remain unnoticed by the supervisor, Prof Mikhail Masson, a perfectly rational scholar with a great experience of Turkmenistan. 67 68

В.А. Обручев, За тайнами Плутона, Москва 1986, 26–7. Г.А. Дресвянская, Раннехристианские археологические памятники Мерва до арабского завоевания, автореферат кандидатской диссертации, Ташкент 1968, attachment.

Concordance of the Variant Readings Discussed in the Text This concordance lists only those readings which are found in the MSS of the Balkhī school, as attested by De Goeje in his footnotes. Those readings in the edited texts which are not supported by references to the MSS are not considered, since in many cases, they are De Goeje’s and Kramers’ conjectures. The coronavirus pandemic that disrupted communication among European countries and the subsequent war in Ukraine, where I live, took away a chance to examine the original MSS at the libraries where they are kept. Nevertheless, I do not give up hope of completing this task when it becomes possible. The conventions are those used by De Goeje:1 Al-Iṣṭakhrī: A: MS Bologna, Biblioteca Universitaria, Cod. 3521; B: MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Sprenger 1 (used as the standard text);2 C: MS Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek, Arab. 1521; D: according to Witkam, ‘the Kitāb al-Masālik wal-Mamālik by Ibn Ḥawqal, edited by De Goeje as BGA vol. 2’.3 That is hardly so since readings marked as D differ from the edited text of Ibn Ḥawqal, as shown below. The only MS marked with that siglum was MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Grav. 3837–3842, which De Goeje used for his edition of al-Idrīsī, together with Dozy.4 The edition only contained the part on Africa and Andalusia; it is thus possible that D refers to the then unpublished part describing Transoxiana, which De Goeje could well consult for his subsequent editions of other authors and probably did so. I can neither confirm nor disprove this suggestion since the recent full edition of al-Idrīsī by E. Cerulli et al. is beyond my reach at the moment. E: MS Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek, Pers. 36; F: MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ouseley 373; L: MS Leiden, University Library, Or. 3101; O: MS London, India Office Library 1026; Ous.: the translation of al-Iṣṭakhrī by William Ouseley. 1 Witkam, Michael Jan de Goeje, 10–12. 2 De Goeje considered the readings in Iṣṭakhrī A and B the most trustworthy: ‘praetulissem lectionibus quas ex codice Bononiensi (A) et codice Berolinensi (B)’. He had the same view of the readings in Ibn Ḥawqal L and B: ‘praecipuas lectiones L. et B.’ That is only true about the Middle Eastern and Iranian toponymy; my experience has shown that this rule does not always work on Central Asian material, unfamiliar to the Arab and Persian scribes. 3 Witkam, Michael Jan de Goeje, 10. 4 R. Dozy, M.J. de Goeje (eds. & tr.), Description de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne par Edrisi, Leyde 1866. © Alexei Savchenko, 2023 | doi:10.1163/9789004527539_005

211

Concordance of the Variant Readings

Ibn Ḥawqal: B: MS Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hunt. 538; I: MS Istanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi, № 3346; *L: MS Leiden, University Library, Or. 314 (used as the standard text); P: MS Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Arabe 2214. Al-Muqaddasī: B: MS Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Sprenger 6; C: MS Istanbul, Süleymaniye Kütüphanesi, Aya Sofya 2971. I and IḤ are the published texts of al-Iṣṭakhrī and Ibn Ḥawqal respectively. AE means ‘Addenda et emendanda’, BGA, vol. IV. Shaded are the readings which I consider correct. Table 3

*Anchātkath

Edited text

Al-Iṣṭakhrī A

‫ن‬ �‫ج��ا ك‬ �‫� ث‬

Table 4

B

‫غ‬ ‎‫�رد‬ ‫� ز�ك‬ ْ َْ َ�‫غ‬ ‫�رد‬ ‫رك‬

Ous.

I

‫ن‬ � � �‫ح�ا ك‬ �‫� ت‬

‫ٮ‬ � ‫ح�ا �ٯ�ٮ‬

345, fn. i)

*L

‫ت‬ � � �‫ح�ا ك‬ �‫� ث‬

�‫ج��ا ك‬ �‫� ث‬

265

507

405, fn. c)

*Ghazkhurt

Edited Altext Idrīsī?

ُ‫غ‬ ‎‫�رد‬ ‫� ز�ك‬

Ibn Ḥawqal

D

‫�رد‬ ‫�عرك‬ 337

Al-Iṣṭakhrī

A

ُ‫غ‬ ‫�رد‬ ‫� ز�ك‬

B

337 correct rasm

Ibn Ḥawqal

C

L

Ous.

B

I

‫�رد‬ ‫�عرك‬

‫�رد‬ ‫�عرك‬

‫�رد‬ ‫�ع ب���د ك‬

‫�رد‬ ‫�عرك‬

‫�رد‬ ‫�عرك‬

337 IḤ, 399, fn. m)

*** MSS are not specified: ‘Mokaddasi ‫�رد‬ ‫ �غرك‬et ‫�رد‬ ‫’�عرك‬.

274

399, fn. m)

516

AlMuqaddasī*** B

C

‫�رد‬ ‫�غرك‬

‫�رد‬ ‫�عرك‬

I, 337, fn. b)*

342, fn. d); 345, fn. a)

212 Table 5

Edited text

ََ �‫�ب� ن��اِك‬ �‫� ث‬ �‫�ب� ن��ا ك‬ �‫� ت‬

Concordance of the Variant Readings *Panāthkath

AlIdrīsī?

Al-Iṣṭakhrī

D

A

‫�ف‬ �‫��ٮ�ا ك‬ �‫� ث‬

B

E

‫��يب��لا ن� ك‬ �‫�� ث‬

I, 329, fn. a)

Ous.

�‫��س�ا ك‬ ‫�ٮ‬

329, fn. a)

329, fn. a)

Ibn Ḥawqal

AlMuqaddasī

I

*L

B

�‫�ن�ب��ا ك‬ �‫� ث‬

�‫�ب� ن��ا ك‬ ‎�‫� ت‬

�‫�ب� ن��ا ك‬ �‫� ث‬

‫ٮ‬ � ‫حك‬ �‫�� ث‬

�‫��س�ا ك‬ �‫� ت‬

‎‫�� ث‬ ‫ب���ه��ل ك‬ �

‫ت‬ ‎‫�� ث‬ ‫���ه��ل ك‬ �

274

509

265

523

�‫�ب�ي��ا ك‬ �‫� ث‬

C

404, fn. b)

264, fn. k)

405, fn. d)

264, fn. k)

‫�ف‬ �‫��ٮ�ا ك‬ �‫� ث‬ 522

�‫�يٮ��ا ك‬ �‫� ث‬

�‫پ�ن��ا ک‬ �‫� ث‬

325, fn. p)

�‫�ٮٮ�ا ك‬ �‫� ث‬

342, fn. g)

507

�‫�ن�ي��ا ك‬ �‫� ث‬

512, 516

Table 6

Edited text

ُْ ‫ت�رك‬

Turk (river)

AlIdrīsī? D

‫ت���يرك‬

344, fn. p)

Al-Iṣṭakhrī

A

B

‫ٮرل‬

344, fn. p)

‫ٮرك‬

ُ ‫ب�رك‬

344, fn. p) 344, fn. p)

‫�ن�ز ل‬

344, fn. p)

C

‫ت‬ ‫ا �ل���ز ك‬

344, fn. p)

‫ا �ل ن��رك‬

E

‫ت�رك‬

Ibn Ḥawqal

F

‎‫ت�رك‬

O

Ous.

‫د‬ ‫د‬ ‫ت��روت ن ت��روت ن‬ 344 IḤ, 388, � ‫ر�ك����س���ا � ر�ك����س���ا‬

fn. p)

‫د‬ ‫ت� رو ن‬ �‫ر‬ � ‫�ك����ست���ا‬

344, fn. p) IḤ, 388, fn. g)

fn. g) IḤ, 388, fn. g)

267

I

‎‫ت�رك‬

522

‫ت��ز ك‬

523

‫ن�رك‬

523

‫��سرك‬ 509

*L

‫ت���يرك‬

404, fn. m); 405, fn. d)

B

IḤ, 389, fn. g)

�‫����س�ٮور ك‬ �‫� ث‬

C IḤ, 389, fn. g)

�‫����س�ٮوك‬ ‫�ٮ‬

E

L

IḤ, 389, fn. g)

�‫����س�ٮور ك‬ �‫� ث‬

Al-Iṣṭakhrī

IḤ, 389, fn. g)

�‫����س�ٮوك‬ ‫�ٮ‬

O 274

�‫ا � �ش� ور ك‬ �‫� ت‬

Ous. 389, fn. g)

�‫��سور ك‬ �‫� ث‬

B

510

�‫����ست��ور ك‬ �‫� ث‬

516, 522

�‫ا ����ست��ور ك‬ �‫� ث‬

I

Ibn Ḥawqal

�‫����س��بور ك‬‎, ‫ا ����س�ٮو�ن�ٮ‬‎, �‫�� ث‬ ‘Variis modis nomen corruptum legitur in Codd. e. g. � ‎‫�ث‬ ‫ا ����ست��ون� ك‬‎, �‫� ث‬ �‫����س��يور ك‬‎, �‫� ث‬ �‫ ا � �ش� ور ك‬cet’. (Al-Iṣṭakhrī, 336, fn. g).

336, fn. g)

�‫����ست��ور ك‬ �‫� ث‬

336, fn. g)

�‫ا ����ست��ور ك‬ �‫� ث‬

344, fn. e)

�‫ا ��سور ك‬ �‫� ت‬

336, fn. g)

�‫ا ����س�ٮور ك‬ �‫� ث‬

A

Ustūrkath

ُ

‫�أ��ْ��ستُ�� ْ َك ث‬ � ‫ر‬ َْ ‫ُ ُو‬ ‫ث‬ �‫����ست�� ر ك‬ �� َْ ‫أُ ْ ُو‬ �‫� ����ش�ت��ور ك‬ �‫� ث‬

Edited text

table 7

342 fn. f)

�‫����س��بور ك‬ �‫� ث‬

364, fn. u)

�‫ا ����سن��و�ز ك‬ �‫� ث‬

364 fn. u)

364, fn. u)

C

�‫ا ����ش�ت��ور ك‬ �‫� ث‬

277, fn. b)

�‫ا ����ست��ور ك‬ �‫� ث‬

‫ا ����سن�� نو� ك‬ �‫�� ث‬

B

AlMuqaddasī

Concordance of the Variant Readings

213

214 Table 8

Concordance of the Variant Readings Vēshkart

Edited text

Al-Iṣṭakhrī

A

B

���‫وا ����ش�ن���� ج�رد وا ����س�ٮ‬ ‫حرد‬ 325, fn. k)

340, fn. b)

340, fn. b)

340, fn. b)

E

Ibn Ḥawqal

L

O

Ous.

I

348, fn. c)

‫ش‬ ‫وا �� ج�رد‬

‫ش‬ ‫وا �� ج�ر�ز د‬

�‫ب� ش��� ك‬ ‫�رد‬

297, fn. a)

B

277

B

C

‫ش‬ ‫وا �� ج�رد‬ 326, fn. i)

‫و��س‬ � 465, ‫حر‬ 474, 25, 476, fn. i) ‫� د و�� جس‬ 477, ‫�رد‬ ‫وا � �ش� ك�ر‬ 503, 350, 284, 345, fn. c)** 519 fn. b) fn. b) (twice)

‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ ‫ش‬ ‫ش‬ �‫ا ش��� د و�ي ش��� ك‬ �‫ٮ��� ك‬ ‫�رد وا ����س���� ج�رد وا ����س���� ج�رد وا �� ج�رد‬ ‫�رد‬ ‫و‬ ‫و جر‬ ‫ش‬ 297, 297, ‫ش‬ �� 298, �‫ و�ي��� ك‬239, ‫ا �لوا ج�رد‬ IḤ, ‫�رد‬ fn. a) fn. g) 350, AE, 427 240, ‫ا ش��� د‬ *‫ د ����ست���� ج�رد‬fn. a) ‫و جر‬ 325, fn. c)** fn. k) ‫ن‬ ‫ن‬ � � ‫وا ����ش����� ج رد‬‎ ‫ ا �لوا ����س���� ج رد‬340, fn. b) 340, 340, fn. b) fn. b)

AlMuqaddasī

* ‘Lectio quam ‫ ش‬reposui certe Moqaddasīi est, vid[etur] supra p. ۲۵, 7 [7 is a misprint of i)]. Videtur autem esse error pro ‫’وا �� ج�رد‬. (Al-Muqaddasī, ‎284, fn. b). ** ‘sine copula’.

Table 9 Edited text

Vēshkart of the Christians AlIdrīsī? D

Al-Iṣṭakhrī A

B

C

E

�‫�رد د �ٮٮ ك‬ �‫��د د و�ٮى ك‬ �‫�رد و�ي ش��� ك‬ �‫و�ي ش��� ك‬ ‫�رد د‬ ‫�رد و�ىى �ك‬ I, 336, fn. f )

336, fn. f )

336, fn. f )

336, fn. f )

336, fn. f )

�‫�ٮٮ ك‬ ‫�ر‬

IḤ, 384, fn. l)

F

Ibn Ḥawqal L

O

�‫و�ي ك‬ ‫�رد‬ �‫و�ٮٮ ك‬ ‫�ر‬ IḤ, 384, fn. l)

IḤ, 384, fn. l)

�‫د ��يٮ ك‬ ‫�رد‬ IḤ, 399, fn. i)

�‫�ٮٮ ك‬ ‫�ر‬

IḤ, 384, fn. l)

Ous.

B

I

384, fn. l)

507

�‫�رد وٮ ك‬ �‫وت� ك‬ ‫�رد‬

AlMuqaddasī *L

215

Concordance of the Variant Readings Table 9 Edited text

Vēshkart of the Christians (cont.) AlIdrīsī?

Al-Iṣṭakhrī

D

A

B

C

E

Ibn Ḥawqal

F

L

fn. f )

fn. f )

fn. f )

fn. f )

IḤ, 384, fn. l)

�‫�ف� ن�� ك‬ ‫�رد‬

�‫( ’د ��يب� ك‬al-Iṣṭakhrī, 336, fn. f ); ‘Jacut ‘Edrîsî ‫�رد‬ * Also al-Iṣṭakhrī, 336, fn. f ). ** MS is not specified: ‘cod. ‫�رد‬ ‫’وت���يرك‬. Vōrkūte

Edited text

Al-Idrīsī?

‫�رد‬ ‫و�ز ك‬ ‫�رد ه‬ ‫و�ز ك‬

Table 11

I

B

‫�ود ه‬ ‫ورك‬

‫�رد‬ ‫ورك‬

IḤ, AE, 384, 430 fn. l); AE, 430

AE, 430

fn. i)

fn. b)

‫�رد‬ ‫وت���يرك‬

345, fn. b)**

‫ت�ن � �ة‬ ‫( ’ � ك�رد‬Ibn Ḥawqal, 384, fn. l).

E

321, fn. m)

*L

IḤ, 384, fn. l)

Al-Iṣṭakhrī

D

321, fn. m)

B

�‫�ود ن � د ��يٮ ك‬ ‫�رد �ف‬ ‫و��ي ن� ك‬ ‫��ق‬ � ‫�ق‬ ‫ن‬ � �� ‫د‬ ‫د‬ ‫د‬ ‎ � � � ‫ك‬ ‫ك‬ ‫�ي‬ � ‫ ي‬399, ‫ر‬ �‫��د و �� ك�رد و��ٮ ك‬ ‫�ٯ�ٮ �ك‬ 336, ‫�رد‬ 405, 516 274*

fn. f )

Table 10

Ous.

�‫�ٯ�ٮ ك‬ ‫�رد‬

�‫وٮ ك‬ ‫�ر‬

�‫ر�ىى ك‬ ‫�ود‬ ‫���برد و��ي ن� ك‬ ‫���برد و�ن� ن� �ك‬ ‫�رد و��س �ك‬ ‫ن‬ �‫ و��ي� ك‬I, 336, 336, 336, 336, ‫�رد‬

O

AlMuqaddasī

‫�رد‬ ‫�ز رك‬

321, fn. m)

Ibn Ḥawqal

F

O

‫�ود‬ ‫ورك‬

IḤ, 372, fn. i)

‫�رد‬ ‫�ز رد ك‬

IḤ, 372, fn. i)

Ous.

‫�رد‬ ‫�ز روك‬ 257

I

‫�ود ه‬ ‫و�ز ك‬ 498

*L

‫�ود ه‬ ‫ورك‬ 372, fn. i)

Derivatives of *kata- in the Pamiri languages and Yaghnobi

Bart.

Ishk.

Khf.

Orosh.

Rosh.

Sangl.

Wa.

Wj.

Yghn.

Yzgh.

čöd

kǝskǘd kǝskūd

čod

čud čöd

čǖd čod

kiskǘδ kiskūδ

kū̆ t kut

-god in place names

kūt

kůd

216

Concordance of the Variant Readings

The name of the monastic settlement is the only reconstructed place name for which I fail to suggest a reliable etymology. The first element seems to be the same as in Urmetan on the Upper Zaravshan, as first noted by Smirnova.5 The second element closely resembles the following Pamiri and Yaghnobi words for ‘house’ or ‘roof’. The scholarly consensus is that, despite the etymological conflict with *kuta- as ‘dog’ in East Iranian, all those forms derive from OI *kata-, ‘house’, ‘building’, ‘fortified settlement’.6 If kūte is allowed to belong to the same category, then the description ‘spacious house’ fits the monastery like a glove.7 No doubt, the monastery edifice was strikingly different from other houses in the area, and one of a kind since Sulayman Tepa is the only suitable building site among the cliffs and mountain streams.8 © Alexei Savchenko 1995–2020. All photographs are mine unless otherwise stated. All plans, drawings and other visuals by Olga Zhuravlëva. Topography and assistance by Gennady Ivanov.

5 ‘The first part derives from the Iranian vouru—wide, spacious, urmetan—spacious dwelling’. (О.И. Смирнова, ‘Вопросы исторической топографии и топонимики Верхнего Зеравшана’, МИА № 15 (1950). 6 H.W. Bayley, ‘Arya Notes’, Studia Classica et Orientalia Antonino Pagliaro Oblata, vol. I, Roma 1969, 147; G. Morgenstierne, Indo-Iranian Frontier Languages, vol. II: Iranian Pamir Languages, Oslo 1938, 400, 527; И.И. Зарубин, Бартангские и рушанские тексты и словарь, Москва–Ленинград 1937; id., Орошорские тексты и словарь, Ленинград 1930; А.З. Розенфельд, Ванджские говоры таджикского языка, Ленинград 1964, 144; В.С. Соколова, Очерки по фонетике иранских языков, II. Осетинский, ягнобский и памирские языки, Москва–Ленинград 1953, 182; Стеблин-Каменский, Словарь ваханского языка, 213; Эдельман, Словарь иранских языков, т. 4, 340–1. 7 OI *vouru-kata (Bartholomae Altiranisches Wörterbuch, 432, 1429–31). 8 Cf.: ‘If the abbey was originally called “monastery of the House of the Men of the Wall” … then it is unlikely that there existed at the time in Ṭur ʿAbdin another monastery with an enclosure-wall. (It is useless to designate someone as “the man with the hat” if there is more than one such man in sight)’. (Palmer, Monk and Mason, 46).

Figure 107 Semantic links of the Sogdian root vēsh in toponymy

Figure 108

From left to right: Alexei Savchenko, Olga Zhuravlёva, Gennady Ivanov. Urgut, 2006

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Maps

J-42-16 (Пенджикент), J-42-17 (Урмитан), J-42-18 (Айни), J-42-58 (Калаихум), J-4259 (Ванч), J-42-60 (Бунай), J-42-70 (Сангевн), J-42-71 (Джомарджи-боло), J-42-72 (Бартанг), 1:100 000, ТУГШ ВС СССР 1989. Kusai 1:250.000, NJ42-8 Series № 502, U.S. Army Map Service, Washington, D.C. 1952. Samarkand 1:250.000, NJ 42-1 Series № 502, U.S. Army Map Service, Washington, D.C. 1952.

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Index of Geographical Names The Pamiri settlements listed on pages 82–83 are not included since their list is itself an index. Abbas Canal 198 Afrasiab 15, 73, 124, 131 Afshina 158 Ahangaran  149, 158, 163, 173, 174 Alay 149 Allahyarhan 28, 32, 61, 62, 97, 101, 104 Almalyq 149 Altay 137 Anatolia 206 Andijan 185 Anfuran 145 Angren v. Ahangaran Anhar 126 Anjakath 163, 167, 168, 170, 171, 173 Antioch 123 Aq Beshim 137, 187, 198, 200, 203–205, 209 Aral Sea 146 Arbinjan 106, 107, 108 Ashkhabad 16 Aurgut v. Urgut ʿAyn Shaʿya 105, 191, 204 Banakath v. Panakath Baqirha 206 Barraniya 158 Benaket v. Panakath Binkath 146, 149, 159–162, 170, 181, 183, 193, 194, 195 Bukhara  city 67, 106, 118, 121, 124, 149, 150, 206 country 3, 73, 84, 98, 100, 119, 135, 158, 172, 179, 208 Bunjikath 4 Cairo 123, 131 Central Asia 1, 3, 4, 16, 17, 20, 28, 36, 41–45, 64, 68, 73, 94, 122, 126, 127, 138, 141, 159, 164, 165, 168, 178, 190, 206 Chach country 73, 83, 143–145, 149, 156, 158–162, 167, 170, 176, 180–182, 185, 189, 192, 193 river 144, 146, 158–160, 170, 171 Chaghanian 190 Chakardiza 118–123, 132

Changan 137 Chaqil-i Kalan 5 Chatkal 158 Chibintay 164 Chimgan 158 Chimkent v. Shymkent China 137, 149, 179 Chinanchkath 146, 148, 159–163 Chinaz 147, 148, 160, 163, 164, 172 Chirchik river 146–148, 158–161, 163, 167, 168, 171–173, 182, 183 valley 149 Chu 198 Chupan Ata 4, 122 Chuyan Bulaq Say  209 Crimea 67 Dakakin 105 Damgir 32, 67 Dara-i Murgutga 155 Darbaza 158 Dargam 4, 5, 116, 125 Dargh 13 Darghaut 171 Dasht-i Urdakon 113 Dastagird 156 Delhi 95, 95 Dizak 145–148, 163 Dulta 116, 141 Dunhuang 139, 201, 206 Durman Tepa 135, 137, 139, 196 Eastern Turkestan 100 Egypt 5, 87, 131, 202 Erbil 44 Esenguly v. Gasan Kuli Euphrates 104 Europe 135 Fay v. Narpay Fayzabad 189, 190 Ferghana 152, 183, 185, 191 Fustat v. Cairo

233

Index of Geographical Names Gasan Kuli 207 Gaur Qala 207 Ghus 26, 108–111, 133 Gul 168 Gulbagh cave 20 gorge 21, 27 ridge 28, 32, 101 valley 103 Guşgy v. Kushka Hah 26 Hamid (well) v. Humayd Hawler 44 Herat 15, 66, 179 Hesna Deh Zayd 206 Hira 105 Hissar 5, 19 Hissar-Alay 5 Humayd (the well of) 145–147 Husayn (the well of) 145–147 Ilaq  country 83, 144, 149, 159, 167, 193 river 180, 189 Imlaq 149 Indus 137 Iran 89, 94, 124, 141, 164, 179 Iraq 1, 104, 105, 202 Iron Gate 144, 158, 193 Isfijab 144, 149, 158, 162, 191, 192–195 Iski Tashkent 148, 172, 183 Iski Ujakent 173 Izlaʾ 14 Jabal al-ʿAbadin v. Tur ʿAbdin Jabghukath 192 Jaraptepa 198 Jazira 104 Jaxartes 159, 180 Jerusalem 45 Jinanjiket v. Chinanchkath Jizzakh v. Dizak Jizaq v. Dizak Jneyne 123 Jumabazar 4, 134 Kala-i Jar-i Hisor 153 Kala-i Sangin 190 Kala-i Sar-i Hisor 152

Kala-i Tuda-i Hisorak 151 Kala-i Vurun 151 Kamangaran Say 198 Kampir Duval 160 Kanibadam 152 Kansi 153 Karshi v. Qarshi Kashgar 100 Katta Qurghan 16, 17, 119 Kazakhstan 148, 158, 193, 194, 195 Kazykurt v. Qazighurt Keles steppe 158, 183, 193 river 193, 195 valley 194, 195 Kesh 189 Khafaje 44 Khavas 163, 159 Khawas v. Khavas Khazara 200 Khan Yurti 8 Khorasan 124, 144 Khotan 100 Khujand 152 Khuttal 190 Khwarazmian Lake 144 Kirshul v. Qarsovul Kocho 137 Kohik Water v. Dargam Krasnaya Rechka 72 Kuk Tepa 108, 109, 111 Kurut 13 Kushka 207 Kyatta Kurgan v. Katta Qurghan Kyngyr v. Qynghyr Kyrgyzstan 198 Madaʾin 100 Madrushkat 171 Maghruf Qurghan 173 Magruf-kurgan v. Maghruf Qurghan Magian Darya 65 Mahalla-yi Kuhna 121 Mahoze 113 Mardin 104 Marga 113 Mashhad 179 Mawarannahr 124, 144, 147, 159, 180, 185, 192 Maymurgh 4 Merv 45, 156, 176, 178, 179

234 Mesopotamia 41, 104, 131 Middle East 28, 47 Mirbazar 106 Mirzarabat 147, 148 Misrian 207 Moghulistan 159 Moksh Qara Su 195 Mongolia 94, 139, 141 Mugh 12, 206 Mulket 167 Murgab v. Murghab Murghab 196, 207, 209 Najaf 105 Narpay 107, 108 Navzandak 24, 116 Near East v. Middle East Nishapur 127 Nitria 55 Nura 195 Oxus 177, 179 Panakath 163, 173, 181 Panch 155, 179 Panjikent 15, 44, 108, 112, 113, 122, 129, 156 Parkent 167 Paykend 73 Pende 207 Pskem 158 Pskent 167 Al-Qahira v. Cairo Al-Qalas 193 Qalghan Chirchik 172 Qalaghan-Syr v. Qalghan Syr Qalghan Syr  164 Qanqa 173, 174, 176, 180 Qara Qum 179 Qara Tau 192 Qara Tube 3 Qara-tyube v. Qara Tube Qarachuk v. Qara Tau Qarshi 119 Qarshovul 148, 183–185 Qartmin 51 Qashqa Darya 3 Qazyghurt 193, 194 Qosh Tepa 116, 133 Quanzhou 137

Index of Geographical Names Quy Qirilgan Qala 44 Qumm 130 Qunlugh 32 Qutir Bulaq  spring 21, 32  ridge 21, 36 Quva 187 Qynghyr 10, 11, 198 Qyzyl Qum 149, 150 Rasht 190 Red Rock 22, 23, 25, 27, 28, 36, 93 Registan 117, 122, 125, 126, 130 Rishtan 185, 186 Russian Chinaz 172 Russian Mosque v. Urus Machit Sahib-i Hidaya 185 Salar 182 Samarkand administrative province 3–6, 10, 11, 16, 84, 86, 88, 98, 126, 153, 189, 190 city 1–5, 8–10, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20–22, 24–26, 32, 35, 36, 44, 73, 84, 88, 93–96, 106, 109, 112–115, 117–126, 128, 130–132, 134, 135, 141, 142, 147, 149, 151, 153, 158, 162, 166, 196, 197, 206 oasis 5, 43 Sanjarfaghn 4, 196, 197, 198 Sasangird 156 Sayhun 159 Sayram 158, 193 Scetis 66 Semirechye 72, 137, 187 Shahrisabz 5, 17  Sharap Khana 195 Shavdar v. Shawdhar Shawdhar 2–5, 8–10, 88, 114, 127, 134, 135, 157 Shiguo 182 Shuman 190 Shymkent 162, 193, 194 Siberia 137, 139 Sogd 3, 14, 28, 84, 159, 161, 179, 180 Stari Tashkent v. Iski Taskent Starving Steppe 147, 161 Stavelot-Malmedy 134 Sufiyan 11, 21, 23, 25, 27, 32, 103 Sulayman Tepa 32–35, 64, 67, 68, 97, 216 Suyab 137, 141, 198

235

Index of Geographical Names Syr Darya (Syr-Darya, Syr-darya, Syrdarya) 146, 147, 149, 158–161, 163, 164, 166–168, 171–173, 192 Syria 5, 47, 202, 206 Tajikistan 3, 16, 65, 129, 151, 155, 156, 190 Takhta Bazar 209 Takhta-Karach v. Takhta Qaracha Takhta Qaracha 17 Talas 162 Talas Alatau  164 Tal-i Vozjur 191 Taraz 149 Tarim 100, 141 Tashkent city 16, 142, 147, 149, 158, 161, 162, 168, 172, 182, 193, 194 province 158, 162, 167, 190 Tawawis 67 Taylaq 24 Taza Ghus 108 Tchupan-ata v. Chupan Ata Tell Asmar 44 Tell Yemmeh 44 Termez 19 Teshik Qala 206 Tian Shan 158, 192 Tigris 104 Tikrit 104 Transoxiana 24, 43, 89, 156, 164, 210 Tunkath 145, 146, 149, 151, 196 Tur ʿAbdin 14, 65, 104, 216 Turfan 138, 148 Turk (river) 146, 147, 160, 162, 170, 171, 180, 212 Turkestan 11, 15, 16, 35, 44, 100, 162, 166, 168 Turkey 104 Turkmenistan 16, 17, 149, 207–209 Turtkul Tepa 168 Ujaket, Uljaket, Unjaket v. Anjakath Urgut 1, 3, 8–17, 19, 20, 22, 24, 26–28, 30, 35, 36, 55, 61, 65, 67, 86, 88, 93, 97, 98, 100102, 104, 105, 108, 109, 112, 114–117, 126, 128, 130, 132, 134, 142, 144, 164, 187, 198, 199, 201–205, 208 Lower 24, 31 monastery 1, 66, 67, 97, 108, 164, 198, 199, 204

road 24, 108, 114, 115, 117, 126, 128, 142 Upper 9, 16, 17, 23, 24, 29–31, 43, 101, 103 Urgut Say 21, 30 Urumbay 164 Urus Machit 35, 114 Ustrushana 143, 145, 161, 189 Usturkath (Shuturkath, Shuturket, Ushturkath, Ushturket) 146, 148–150, 157, 160–162, 213 Uybat 139 Uzbekistan 3, 16, 17, 19, 25, 98, 155, 158 Varakhsha 44, 158 Vardanze 208 Varsanin 122 Vashan 151 Vazd v. Vezd Veshab 153 Veshak 13 Veshist 151 Veshkart 157–160, 162, 164, 165, 170, 189, 214, 215 Vezd 10, 11 Vishkent 152, 153 Vizd v. Vezd Waraghsar 4 Wazd v. Vezd Wazdh v. Vezd Wizd v. Vezd Yaghli Olum 207 Yaghnob 153 Yahudiyan 119 Yakka Sardoba 148 Yangi Canal 198 Yarkand 100 Yoghochli 148 Zamin 159, 180 Zanjirbogh v. Sanjarfaghn Zarafshan mountain range 5 river 3, 5, 13, 135, 151, 152, 153, 171 valley 3, 4, 29, 106, 153, 171 Zarkent 167 Zengi Ata 160 Zirabulaq 106 Zolotinka 27