âThe Turquoise Was Brought From Chorasmiaâ Mining, Empire, and the People of the Steppes across the Achaemenid Northeastern Borderlands
äºJournal of the Economic and Social History of the OrientUniversität Augsburg, Historisch-Philosophische Fakultät Augsburg Germany
Search for other papers by Marco Ferrario in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
Two main scholarly trends dominate the study of the relations between the Northeastern frontier zone(s) of the Achaemenid Empire and the steppes: the assessment of the military strategies to control the Saka and the development of artistic currents within and beyond the Empire through diplomatic relations and gift-giving. This paper makes the case for a more complex and dynamic scenario, in which the Central Asian borderlands transpire to have been a fertile ground for experimentation and innovation (not only of strife and rebellion), while local actors are given back their agency. In doing so, it first of all focuses on the extraction and working of precious stones. Secondly, recent research on Achaemenid archival materials shall be discussed which suggest the importance of trade in these and similar items for both imperial agents and local elites. Thirdly, and finally, the paper considers material evidence originating from the Empire but found beyond its Northeastern territories as far as China.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Abdullaev, Kazim A. 2020. Eastern and Western Motifs in the Composition with a Scene of Sacrifice from Noin Ula in Northern Mongolia: the Embroidered Cloth from Mount 31. Ancient West & East 19: 167â217.
-
Abbott, Benjamin. 2022. Elephants, Greeks, and Gold: The Silk Road in the Age of Hellenistic Empires. In The World of the Ancient Silk Road, ed. Xinru Liu. London: Routledge: 429â441.
-
Ando, Clifford and Seth Richardson, ed. 2017. Ancient States and Infrastructural Power. Europe, Asia, and America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
-
Balatti, Silvia. 2017. Mountain Peoples in the Ancient Near East. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
-
Ball, Warwick. 2019. Archaeological Gazetteer of Afghanistan. Revised Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Barfield, Thomas J. 1989. The Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China. 221 BC to AD 1757. Cambridge (MA): Blackwell.
-
Barfield, Thomas J. 2020. Afghan Political Ecologies: Templates Past and Present from the Eastern Iranian World. In The Limits of Empire in Ancient Afghanistan. Rule and Resistance in the Hindu Kush, circa 600 BCEâ600 CE, ed. Richard E. Payne, and Rhyne King. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 1â20.
-
Barfield, Thomas J. 2021. Supersize me: political aspects of monumental tomb building in the early steppe empire. In Masters of the Steppe: the Impact of the Scythians and Later Nomads Societies of Eurasia, ed. Svetlana V. Pankova and St J. Simpson. Oxford: Archaeopress: 30â42.
-
Beckwith, Christopher I. 2023. The Scythian Empire. Central Eurasia and the Birth of the Classical Age from Persia to China. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.
-
Benjamin, Craig G. R. 2018. Empires of Ancient Eurasia. The First Silk Road Era, 100 BCEâ250 CE. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Bernardini, Michele. 2022. Tamerlano. Il conquistatore delle steppe che assoggettò lâAsia dando vita a una nuova civiltà . Roma: Salerno.
-
Bichler, Reinhold. 2021. Kyrosâ letzte Schlacht und sein Tod. In Beiträge zur Geschichte und Kultur des alten Iran und benachbarter Gebiete. Festschrift für Rüdiger Schmitt, ed. Hilmar Klinkott, Andreas Luther, and Josef Wiesehöfer. Stuttgart: Steiner: 49â92.
-
Bonora, Gian Luca. 2020. The Oxus Civilization and the Northern Steppes. In The World of the Oxus Civilization, ed. Bertylle Lyonnet and Nadezhda. A. Dubova. London: Routledge: 734â775.
-
Bresson, Alain. 2020. Silverization, Prices, and Tribute in the Achaemenid Empire. In ArÅ¡Äma and his World: The Bodleian Letters in Context. Volume III: ArÅ¡Ämaâs World, ed. Christopher J. Tuplin, and John Ma. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 209â248.
-
Briant, Pierre. 1984. LâAsie centrale et les royaumes proche-orientaux du premier millénaire (c. viiiáµâiváµ siècles av. notre ère). Paris: Association pour la diffusion de la pensée française.
-
Briant, Piersre. 2002. From Cyrus to Alexander. A History of the Persian Empire. Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns.
-
Briant, Pierre. 2020. Bactria in the Achaemenid Empire: The Achaemenid Central State in Bactria (again). In The Limits of Empire in Ancient Afghanistan. Rule and Resistance in the Hindu Kush, circa 600 BCEâ600 CE, ed. Richard E. Payne, and Rhyne King. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 21â44.
-
Briant, Pierre and Raimond Descat. 1998. Un registre douanier de la satrapie dâÃgypte à lâépoque achéménide. In Le commerce en Ãgypte ancienne, ed. Nicolas Grimal and Bernadette Menu. Cairo: Institut français dâarchéologie orientale: 59â104.
-
Brosseder, Ursula B. 2015. A Study on the Complexity and Dynamics of Interaction and Exchange in late Iron Age Eurasia. In Complexity of Interaction Along the Eurasian Steppe Zone in the First Millennium CE, ed. Jan Bemmann and Michael Schmauder. Bonn: Bonn University Press: 199â332.
-
Canepa, Matthew P. 2020. âAfghanistanâ as a Cradle and Pivot of Empires: Reshaping Eastern Iranâs Topography of Power under the Achaemenids, Seleucids, Greco- Bactrians and Kushans. In The Limits of Empire in Ancient Afghanistan. Rule and Resistance in the Hindu Kush, circa 600 BCEâ600 CE, ed. Richard E. Payne, and Rhyne King. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 45â80.
-
Cerasetti, Barbara. 2020. Who interacted with whom? Redefining the interaction between BMAC people and mobilepastoralists in Bronze Age Southern Turkmenistan. In The World of the Oxus Civilization, ed. Bertylle Lyonnet and Nadezhda. A. Dubova. London: Routledge: 487â495.
-
Chang, Claudia. 2018. Rethinking Prehistoric Central Asia: Shepherds, Farmers, and Nomads. London: Routledge.
-
Childs-Johnson, Elizabeth, ed. 2021. The Oxford Handbook of Early China. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Chirico, Peter G., Robert G. Stamm, Thomas W. Moran, and Alexander Chaihorsky (2011). Summary of the north Takhar placer gold area of interest. In Summaries of important areas for mineral investment and production opportunities of nonfuel minerals in Afghanistan, ed. Stephen G. Peters, Trude V. V. King, Thomas J. Mack, and Michael P. Chronack. Reston (VA): U.S. Geological Survey: 951â968.
-
Colburn, P.H. 2020. Archaeology of Empire in Achaemenid Egypt. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
-
Colburn, Henry P. 2021. âThe Spear of the Persian Man Has Gone Forth Farâ: The Achaemenid Empire and its African Periphery. In Iran and its Histories. From the Beginnings through the Achaemenid Empire. Proceedings of the First and Second Payravi Lectures on Ancient Iranian History, UC Irvine, March 23rd, 2018, & March 11thâ12th, 2019, ed. Touraj Daryaee and Robert Rollinger. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 291â336.
-
Colburn, Henry P. forthcoming. On the Date and Cultural Context of Sir Aurel Steinâs Gilgit Rhyton.
-
Coloru, Omar 2021. Les Achéménides en Inde à la lumière des fouilles à Barikot (Pakistan). In Achemenet. Vingt ans après. Ãtudes offertes à Pierre Briant à lâoccasion des vingt ans du Programme Achemenet, ed. Damien Agut-Labordère, Remy Boucharlat, François Joannès, Amélie Kuhrt, and Matthew W. Stolper. Leuven: Peeters: 65â72.
-
Curtis, John. 2012. The Oxus Treasure. London: British Museum Press.
-
Degen, Julian. 2022. Alexander III. zwischen Ost und West. Indigene Traditionen und Herrschaftsinszenierung im makedonischen Weltimperium. Stuttgart: Steiner.
-
Dvurechenskaia, Nigora D. 2018. K metodike polevykh issledovanii v gornoi mestnosti (na primere ellinisticheskoi kreposti Uzundara). Kratkie soobshcheniia Instituta Arkheologii 251: 168â180.
-
Dwivedi, Mamta. 2019. Evidence for Early South Asia. Indic Sources. In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies. Volume I: Contexts, ed. Sitta von Reden. Berlin: De Gruyter: 424â467.
-
Dwivedi, Mamta. 2021. Political, Corporate, and Ritual Economic Processes of Early Historic South Asia. In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies. Volume II: Local, Regional, and Imperial Economies, ed. Sitta von Reden. Berlin: De Gruyter: 745â774.
-
Ebbinghaus, Susanne. 2018. Feasting like the Persian King. In Animal-Shaped Vessels from the Ancient World. Feasting with Gods, Heroes and Kings, ed. Susanne Ebbinghaus. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press: 135â148.
-
Elikhina, Iuliia I. 2010. Baktriiskie tkani iz kollektsii Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha. In Drevnie kulâtury Evrazii. Materialy mezhdunarodnoi konferentsii posviashchennii 100-letiu so dnia rozhdeniia A. N. Bershtama, ed. Vadim A. Alekshin, Liubov B. Kircho, Liudmila A. Solokova, and Veronika Ia. Stegantseva. St. Petersburg: Institut istorii materialânoi kulâtury: 153â156.
-
Fabian, Lara and Eli J. S. Weaverdyck. 2021. Economic Actors in the Hellenistic and Roman Empires: The Mediterranean and Southwest Asia. In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies. Volume II: Local, Regional, and Imperial Economies, ed. Sitta von Reden. Berlin: De Gruyter: 63â146.
-
Favereau, Marie 2021. The Horde. How the Mongols Changed the World. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.
-
Fragner, Bert G. 2022. The End of the Timurid Empire. In The End of Empires, ed. Michael Gehler, Robert Rollinger, and Philipp Strobl. Wiesbaden: Springer: 309â318.
-
Folmer, Margaretha L. 2017. Bactria and Egypt. Administration as mirrored in the Aramaic sources. In The Administration in the Achaemenid EmpireâDie Verwaltung im Achämenidenreich. Imperiale Muster und Strukturen, ed. Bruno Jacobs, Wouter F. M. Henkelman, and M. W. Stolper. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 413â455.
-
Francfort, Henri- Paul. 2013. Lâart oublié des lapidaires de la Bactriane aux époques achéménide et hellénistique. Paris: De Boccard.
-
Francfort, Henri- Paul. 2021. Scythians, Persians, Greeks and horses: reflections on art, culture, power and empires in the light of frozen burials and other excavations. In Masters of the Steppe: the Impact of the Scythians and Later Nomads Societies of Eurasia, ed. Svetlana V. Pankova and St J. Simpson. Oxford: Archaeopress: 134â155.
-
Garrison, Mark B. and Wouter F. M. Henkelman 2020. Sigillophobe suppliers and idiosyncratic scribes. Local information handling in Achaemenid PÄrsa. In The Art of Empire in Achaemenid Persia. Studies in honour of Margaret Cool Root, ed. Elspeth R. M. Dusinberre, Mark B. Garrison, and Wouter F. M. Henkelman. Leuven: Peeters: 167â286.
-
Gehler, Michael and Robert Rollinger. 2022. Imperial Turn: Challenges, Problems and Question. In Empires to be remembered. Ancient Worlds through Modern Times, ed. Michael Gehler and Robert Rollinger. Wiesbaden: Springer: 3â39.
-
Graeber, David and David Wengrow. 2021. The Dawn of Everything. A New History of Humanity. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
-
Grewal, David S. 2008. Network Power: The Social Dynamics of Globalization. New Haven: Yale University Press.
-
Hämäläinen, Pekka. 2008. The Comanche Empire. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.
-
Hämäläinen, Pekka. 2019. Lakota America. A New History of Indigenous Power. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.
-
Heckel, Waldemar. 2020. In the Path of Conquest. Resistance to Alexander the Great. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Henkelman, Wouter F. M. 2017. Imperial Signature and Imperial Paradigm: Achaemenid administrative structure and system across and beyond the Iranian plateau. In The Administration in the Achaemenid EmpireâDie Verwaltung im Achämenidenreich. Imperiale Muster und Strukturen, ed. Bruno Jacobs, Wouter F. M. Henkelman, and M. W. Stolper. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 46â256.
-
Henkelman, Wouter F. M. 2018. Bactrians in Persepolis â Persians in Bactria. In A Millennium of History. The Iron Age in southern Central Asia (2nd and 1st Millennia BC). Proceedings of the conference held in Berlin (June 23â25, 2014). Dedicated to the memory of Viktor Ivanovich Sarianidi, ed. Johanna Lhuillier and N. B. Boroffka. Berlin: Reimer Verlag: 223â257.
-
Henkelman, Wouter F. M. 2021. Persia. In A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Volume 2, ed. Bruno Jacobs and Robert Rollinger. Malden (MA): Blackwell: 881â904.
-
Henkelman, Wouter F. M. forthcoming. This Wide Earth with many Lands in it. Satrapal networks, roads, travel and transport in the Achaemenid empire.
-
Henkelman, Wouter F. M. and Margaretha L. Folmer. 2016. Your Tally is Full! On Wooden Credit Records in and After the Achaemenid Empire. In Silver, Money and Credit. A Tribute to Robartus J. Van der Spek on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday on 18th September 2014, ed. Kristin Kleber and Reinhard Pirngruber. Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor Het Nabije Oosten: 133â239.
-
Henkelman, Wouter F. M. and Bruno Jacobs. 2021. Roads and Communication. In A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Volume 1, ed. Bruno Jacobs and Robert Rollinger. Malden (MA): Blackwell: 719â737.
-
Hirth, Kenneth. 2020. The Organization of Ancient Economies: a Global Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Hoo, Milinda. 2020. Globalization and interpreting visual culture. In The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek World, ed. Rachel R. Mairs. London: Routledge: 553â569.
-
Hoo, Milinda. 2021. Globalization beyond the Silk Road: Writing Global History of Ancient Economies. In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies. Volume II: Local, Regional, and Imperial Economies, ed. Sitta von Reden. Berlin: De Gruyter: 7â28.
-
Hornborg, Alf. 2021. Imperial Metabolism: Empire as a Process of Ecologically Unequal Exchange. In The Oxford World History of Empire. Volume 1. The Imperial Experience, ed. Peter F. Bang, Christopher A. Bayly, and Walter Scheidel. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 437â459.
-
Hyland, John O. 2020. ArÅ¡Äma, Egyptian Trade, and the Peloponnesian War. In ArÅ¡Äma and his World: The Bodleian Letters in Context. Volume III: ArÅ¡Ämaâs World, ed. Christopher J. Tuplin, and John Ma. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 249â259.
-
Inagaki, Hajime. 2002. Treasures from Ancient Bactria. Kyoto: Miho Museum.
-
Jacobs, Bruno. 1994. Die Satrapienverwaltung im Perserreich zur Zeit Dariusâ III. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
-
Jacobs, Bruno. 2010. Höfischer Lebensstil und materielle Prachtentfaltung. In Der Achämenidenhof / The Achaemenid Court. Akten des 2. Internationalen Kolloquiums zum Thema »Vorderasien im Spannungsfeldklassischer und altorientalischer Ãberlieferungen« Landgut Castelen bei Basel, 23.â25. Mai 2007, ed. Bruno Jacobs and Robert Rollinger. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 411â458.
-
Jacobs, Bruno and Birgit Gufler. 2021. The Nomads of the Steppes. In A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Volume 1, ed. Bruno Jacobs and Robert Rollinger. Malden (MA): Blackwell: 681â693.
-
Khatchadourian, Lori. 2016. Imperial Matter. Ancient Persia and the Archaeology of the Empire. Oakland: University of California Press.
-
Kim, Minku. 2021. The Pinnacle Ornament of Flowers: Quatrefoils of Early China and Their Achaemenid Parallels. In Occult Arts, Art History, and Cultural Exchange in Early China: A Festschrift in Honor of Professor Ling on the Occasion of his Seventieth Birthday, ed. Guolong Lai. Hangzhou: Zhejiang University Press: 185â246.
-
King, Rhyne. 2019. Taxing Achaemenid Arachosia. Evidence From Persepolis. Journal of Near Eastern Studies 78: 185â199.
-
King, Rhyne. 2020. Local Powerbrokers in Iranian and Post-Iranian Bactria (ca. 300â 800 CE): Aristocrats, Dependents, and Imperial Regimes. In The Limits of Empire in Ancient Afghanistan. Rule and Resistance in the Hindu Kush, circa 600 BCEâ600 CE, ed. Richard E. Payne, and Rhyne King. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 245â270.
-
King, Rhyne. 2021. The House of the Satrap and the Making of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, 522â330 BCE. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Chicago.
-
King, Rhyne. forthcoming. âCamels of the Kingâ between Persepolis and Bactria.
-
Kiser, Edgar and Margaret Levi. 2015. Interpreting the comparative history of fiscal regimes. In Fiscal Regimes and the Political Economy of Premodern States, ed. Andrew Monson and Walter Scheidel. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 557â571.
-
Kistler, Erich. 2010. Achämenidische Becher und die Logik kommensaler Politik im Reich der Achämeniden. In Der Achämenidenhof / The Achaemenid Court. Akten des 2. Internationalen Kolloquiums zum Themaâ »Vorderasien im Spannungsfeldklassischer und altorientalischer Ãberlieferungen«â Landgut Castelen bei Basel, 23.â25. Mai 2007, ed. Bruno Jacobs and Robert Rollinger. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 411â459.
-
Kulikov, Vadim E., Elena Iu. Mednikova, Iuliia. I. Elikhina, and Sergei S. Miniaev. 2012. The method of polypolarization: An experiment in studying the ancient fabrics from Noyon Uul. Tyragetia 21: 329â345.
-
Lanfranchi, Giovan Battista. 2021. Training for Empire: The Assyrian Pressure on Western Iran (9thâ7th century BCE). In Iran and its Histories. From the Beginnings through the Achaemenid Empire. Proceedings of the First and Second Payravi Lectures on Ancient Iranian History, UC Irvine, March 23rd, 2018, & March 11thâ12th, 2019, ed. Touraj Daryaee and Robert Rollinger. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 133â148.
-
Lemaire, André. 2022. The A9 Aramaic Document from Ancient Bactria revisited. In Biblical and Ancient Near Eastern Studies in Honor of P. Kyle Mccarter Jr, ed. Christopher Rollston, Susanna Garfein, and Neal H. Walls. Atlanta (GA): SBL Press: 357â366.
-
Lennox, Jeffers. 2022. North of America. Loyalists, Indigenous Nations, and the Borders of the Long American Revolution. New Haven (CT): Yale University Press.
-
Linduff, Katheryn M. and Karen S. Rubinson. 2021. Pazyryk Culture Up in the Altai. London: Routledge.
-
Litvinskii, Boris A. 2010. Khram Oksa v Baktrii (Iuzhnii Tadzhikistan). Tom 3. Iskusstvo, khudozhestvennoe remeslo, muzikalânye instrumenty. Moscow: Vostochnaia Literatura.
-
Lhuillier, Johanna, Julio Bendezu-Sarmiento, and Philippe Marquis. 2021. Ancient Bactra: New Data on the Iron Age Occupation of the Bactra Oasis. In Archaeology of Central Asia during the 1st millennium BC, from the Beginning of the Iron age to the Hellenistic period. Proceedings from the Workshop held at 10th ICAANE, ed. Johanna Lhuillier. Vienna: ÃAW Press: 33â48.
-
Lyonnet, Bertille and Michel Fontugne 2021. Back to the Iron Age Chronology in Southern Central Asia. From Yaz II to the Hellenistic Period. Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 27: 337â377.
-
MacGinnis, John. 2020. Assyrian Exploitation of Iranian Territories. In Archaeology of Iran in the Historical Period, ed. Kamal-Aldin Ninkami and Ali Hozhabri. Wiesbaden: Springer: 37â54.
-
Makvandi, Leila. 2020. Glimpse of Highways Network of Achaemenid Empire. Construction, Maintenance and Service. In Archaeology of Iran in the Historical Period, ed. Kamal-Aldin Ninkami and Ali Hozhabri. Wiesbaden: Springer: 109â208.
-
Manilov, Iurii P. 1974. Biriuzovye vyrabotki VIâV vv. do n. e. v. Khorezme. Vestnik Karakalpakskogo filiala Akademii Nauk Uzbekskoi SSR 55.1: 53â57.
-
Marquis, Philippe 2018. The Balkh Oasis. A huge potential. In A Millennium of History. The Iron Age in southern Central Asia (2nd and 1st Millennia BC). Proceedings of the conference held in Berlin (June 23â25, 2014). Dedicated to the memory of Viktor Ivanovich Sarianidi, ed. Johanna Lhuillier and N. B. Boroffka. Berlin: Reimer Verlag: 159â171.
-
Minardi, Michele. 2015. Ancient Chorasmia. A Polity between the Semi-Nomadic and Sedentary Cultural Areas of Central Asia. Leuven: Peeters.
-
Minardi, Michele. 2016. Elite, Wine Consumption and Status Symbol in Ancient Chorasmia. Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 22: 262â294.
-
Minardi, Michele. 2020. Achaemenid Echoes in the Wall Paintings of Akchakhan-Kala, Chorasmia, and their Broader Significance for Central Asia. Journal of Asian Civilizations 43.2: 1â42.
-
Minardi, Michele. 2021. The North-eastern Border of the Achaemenid Empire: Introducing the Chorasmian Late Iron Age. In Archaeology of Central Asia during the 1st millennium BC, from the Beginning of the Iron age to the Hellenistic period. Proceedings from the Workshop held at 10th ICAANE, ed. Johanna Lhuillier. Vienna: ÃAW Press: 69â85.
-
Morris, Lauren. 2019a. Evidence for Central Asia. In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies. Vol. I: Contexts, ed. Sitta von Reden. Berlin: De Gruyter: 381â423.
-
Morris, Lauren. 2019b. Constructing Ancient Central Asiaâs Economic History. In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies. Vol. I: Contexts, ed. Sitta von Reden. Berlin: De Gruyter: 669â692.
-
Morris, Lauren. 2021a. Economic Actors under the Greek Kingdoms of Central Asia to the Kushan Empire. In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies. Volume II: Local, Regional, and Imperial Economies, ed. Sitta von Reden. Berlin: De Gruyter: 159â207.
-
Morris, Lauren. 2021b. Tools of Economic Activity from the Greek Kingdoms of Central Asia to the Kushan Empire. In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies. Volume II: Local, Regional, and Imperial Economies, ed. Sitta von Reden. Berlin: De Gruyter: 449â490.
-
Morris, Lauren. 2021c. Economic Development under the Greek Kingdoms of Central Asia to the Kushan Empire: Empire, Migration, and Monasteries. In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies. Volume II: Local, Regional, and Imperial Economies, ed. Sitta von Reden. Berlin: De Gruyter: 695â744.
-
Müller, Sabine. 2015. Alexanders indischer Schnee, achaimenidische Wassersouvenirs und Mental Mind-Mapping, Anabasis. Studia Classica et Orientalia 5: 47â52.
-
Naiden, Fred S. 2019. Soldier, Priest, and God. A Life of Alexander the Great. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Naveh, Joseph and Saul Shaked, ed. 2012. Aramaic Documents from Ancient Bactria (fourth century BCE) From the Khalili Collections. London: Khalili Family Trust.
-
Nichols, Andrew. 2008. The complete Fragments of Ctesias of Cnidus: Translation and Commentary with an Introduction. Ph.D. Diss. University of Florida.
-
Nishiyama, Shinâichi. 2020. Provincial control in the eastern reaches of the Assyrian Empire: A view from Yasin Tepe, Iraqi Kurdistan. In The Reach of the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires. Case Studies in Eastern and Western Peripheries, ed. Shuichi Hasegawa and Karen Radner. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 45â72.
-
Noori, Noor A., Luca M. Olivieri, and Elisa Iori. 2019. Fashion Ware in Mes Aynak, Logar: Chronology and Comparison (with an Appendix on a Single Specimen of Tulip Bowl from Site MA-100). Afghanistan 2/1: 91â114.
-
Olivieri, Luca M. 2020. GandhÄra and North-Western India. In The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek World, ed. Rachel R. Mairs. London: Routledge: 386â415.
-
Osborne, James. F. 2021. The Syro-Anatolian City-States. An Iron Age Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Parzinger, Hermann. 2020 3. Die frühen Völker Eurasiens. Vom Neolithikum bis zum Mittelalter. München: C. H. Beck.
-
Payne, Richard E., Myles Lavan, and John Weisweiler. 2016. Cosmopolitan Politics. The Assimilation and Subordination of Elite cultures. In Cosmopolitanism and Empire. Universal Rulers, Local Elites, and Cultural Integration in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean, ed. Richard E. Payne, Myles Lavan, and John Weisweiler. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 1â28.
-
Payne, Richard E. and Rhyne King 2020. The Limits of Empire in Ancient Afghanistan: An Introduction. In The Limits of Empire in Ancient Afghanistan. Rule and Resistance in the Hindu Kush, circa 600 BCEâ600 CE, ed. Richard E. Payne, and Rhyne King. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: VIIâXIX.
-
Peterson, Sara. 2020. A closer look at the Tillya-tepe folding crown and attached pendants. Afghanistan 3/1: 48â82.
-
Petrie, Cameron A. 2020. Achaemenid north-west South Asia. In The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek World, ed. Rachel R. Mairs. London: Routledge: 619â652.
-
Pitts, Martin and Miguel John Versluys 2021. Objectscapes: a manifesto for investigating the impacts of object flows on past societies. Antiquity 95: 367â381.
-
Porten, Bezalel and Ada Yardeni. 1986. Textbook of Aramaic documents from ancient Egypt. 3 vols. Jerusalem: Hebrew University.
-
Potts, Daniel T. 2021. Some Thoughts on the Indian Lands of the Achaemenid Empire. In Iran and its Histories. From the Beginnings through the Achaemenid Empire. Proceedings of the First and Second Payravi Lectures on Ancient Iranian History, UC Irvine, March 23rd, 2018, & March 11thâ12th, 2019, ed. Touraj Daryaee and Robert Rollinger. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 337â348.
-
Pruger, Eduard B. 1989. Mesto Kyzylkumov v istorii dobychi i rasprostranenii sredneaziatskoi biriuzy. Drevnii Merv 8/1: 192â205.
-
Rapin, Claude. 1992. Fouilles dâAï KhÄnoum, VIII: La trésorerie du palais hellénistique dâAï KhÄnoum, lâapogée et la chute du royaume grec de Bactriane, Paris: De Broccard.
-
Rapin, Claude. 2013. On the way to Roxane: The Route of Alexander the Great in Bactria and Sogdiana (329â327 BC). In Zwischen Ost und West. Neue Forschungen zum antiken Zentralasien. Wissenschaftliches Kolloquium 30. 09â02. 10 2009 in Mannheim, ed. Gunvor Lindström, Sven Hansen, Alfried Wieczorek, and Michael Tellenbac. Darmstadt: Phillip von Zabern: 43â82.
-
Rapin, Claude. 2018. On the way to Roxane 2. Satraps and hyparchs between Bactra and Zariaspa â Maracanda. In A Millennium of History. The Iron Age in southern Central Asia (2nd and 1st Millennia BC). Proceedings of the conference held in Berlin (June 23â25, 2014). Dedicated to the memory of Viktor Ivanovich Sarianidi, ed. Johanna Lhuillier and N. B. Boroffka. Berlin: Reimer Verlag: 257â299.
-
Rapin, Claude, Mutalib Khasanov, and Shokhimardan Rakhmanov. 2022. The Iron Gates Wall near Derbent (Uzbekistan). From Alexander the Great to the 19th Century. In Cultures in Contact. Central Asia as Focus of Trade, Cultural Exchange and Knowledge Transmission, ed. Christoph Baumer, Mirko Novák, and Susanne Rutishauser. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 233â260.
-
Rollinger, Robert. 2020. The Medes of the 7th and 6th c. BCE: A Short-Term Empire or Rather a Short-Term Confederacy? In Short-term Empires in World History. International Conference âShort-term empires in world history: decapitated or defective?â, ed. Robert Rollinger, Julian Degen, and Michael Gehler. Wiesbaden: Springer: 189â213.
-
Rollinger, Robert. 2021a. The Median Dilemma. In A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Volume 1, ed. Bruno Jacobs and Robert Rollinger. Malden (MA): Blackwell: 337â350.
-
Rollinger, Robert. 2021b. From Assurbanipal to Cambyses. In A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Volume 1, ed. Bruno Jacobs and Robert Rollinger. Malden (MA): Blackwell: 365â388.
-
Rollinger, Robert. 2023. Conceptualizing the Achaemenid-Persian Empire: What does empire mean in the First millennium BCE? In Achaemenid Studies Today, ed. Gian Pietro Basello, Pierfrancesco Callieri, and Adriano V. Rossi. Naples: LâOrientale University Press: 201â248.
-
Rollinger, Robert and Julian Degen. 2021a. Conceptualizing Universal Rulership: Considerations on the Persian Achaemenid Worldview and the Saka at the âEnd of the Worldâ. In Beiträge zur Geschichte und Kultur des alten Iran und benachbarter Gebiete. Festschrift für Rüdiger Schmitt, ed. Hilmar Klinkott, Andreas Luther, and Josef Wiesehöfer. Stuttgart: Steiner: 187â224.
-
Rollinger, Robert and Julian Degen. 2021b. Alexander the Great, the Indian Ocean, and the Borders of the World. In Achemenet. Vingt ans après. Ãtudes offertes à Pierre Briant à lâoccasion des vingt ans du Programme Achemenet, ed. Damien Agut-Labordère, Remy Boucharlat, François Joannès, Amélie Kuhrt, and Matthew W. Stolper. Leuven: Peeters: 321â342.
-
Rouse, Lynne M. 2020. Silent partners: archaeological insights on mobility, interaction and civilization in Central Asiaâs past. Central Asian Survey 39/3: 398â419.
-
Rudenko, Sergei I. 1970. Frozen Tombs of Siberia: the Pazyryk Burials of Iron-Age Horsemen. Berkeley: University of California Press.
-
Ruffing, Kai. 2021. India. In A Companion to the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Volume 1, ed. Bruno Jacobs and Robert Rollinger. Malden (MA): Blackwell: 711â715.
-
Safaee, Yazdan. (forthcoming). Persian Female Weavers in the Persepolis Economy.
-
Samuels, Troy J. 2016. A Camel Driver in the Achaemenid Persian Empire: Social Network Analysis of a Non-Elite Professional and the Persepolis Fortification Archive. Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 59/2: 1â23.
-
Schmitt, Rüdiger. 2009. Die altpersischen Inschriften der Achaimeniden. Editio minor mit deutscher Ãbersetzung. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag.
-
Schütze, Alexander. 2021. The Aramaic Texts from Arachosia Reconsidered. In Taxation in the Achaemenid Empire, ed. Kristin Kleber. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 405â424.
-
Schwarz, Florian. 2022. Land behind Bukhara. Materials for a Landscape History of the Bukhara Oasis in the Long First Millennium. In The Oasis of Bukhara. Volume 2: An Archaeological, Sociological and Historical Study, ed. Rocco Rante, Florian Schwarz, and Luigi Tronca. Leiden: Brill: 60â144.
-
Scott, James C. 2009. The Art of Not Being Governed. An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven (CN): Yale University Press.
-
Sdykov, Murat N. and Iana A. Lukpanova. 2014. The early nomads of West Kazakhstan: (by the example of the Taksai I mound complex). Uralâsk: Poligrafservis.
-
Seland, Eivind H. 2014. The organization of the Palmyrene caravan trade. Ancient West & East 13: 197â211.
-
Shablavina, Ekaterina. 2021. Secrets of Achaemenid production of personal ornaments and vessels In Masters of the Steppe: the Impact of the Scythians and Later Nomads Societies of Eurasia, ed. Svetlana V. Pankova and St J. Simpson. Oxford: Archaeopress: 509â519.
-
Skaff, Jonathan K. 2017. Tang Chinaâs Horse Power: the Borderland Breeding Ranch System. In Eurasian Empires in Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Contact and Exchange between the Graeco-Roman World, Inner Asia and China, ed. Hyun-Jin Kim, Frederik J. Vervaet, and Selim F. Adalı. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 34â59.
-
Sneath, David. 2006. The Headless State. Aristocratic Orders, Kinship Society, and Misrepresentations of Nomadic Inner Asia. New York (NY): Columbia University Press.
-
Squitieri, Andrea. 2020. Towards an understanding of the Assyrian Empireâs defense strategies in the east. A case study from the Peshdar Plain (Dinka Settlement Complex and Gawr Miran). In The Reach of the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires. Case Studies in Eastern and Western Peripheries, ed. Shuichi Hasegawa and Karen Radner. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 111â136.
-
StanÄo, Ladislav. 2021. In the shadow of the Wall. Hellenistic Settlement in the Baysun and Kugitang piedmonts. Studia Hercynia 25/2: 64â95.
-
Stark, Sören. 2020. Central Asia and the Steppe. In The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek World, ed. Rachel R. Mairs. London: Routledge: 78â105.
-
Stark, Sören. forthcoming. Between desert and oasis: Border markets and their place in economic networks in southwestern Central Asia. In Economies of the edge: Frontier zone processes at regional, imperial, and global scales (300 BCEâ300 CE), ed. Mamta Dwivedi, Lara Fabian, Kathrin Leese-Messing, Lauren Morris, and Eli J. S. Weaverdyck. Heidelberg: Heidelberg University Press.
-
Stoneman, Richard. 2019. The Greek Experience of India. From Alexander to the Indo-Greeks. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
-
Sutiagina, Natalia A., and Daria A. Kukina. 2021. Finds from the Noin-Ula kurgans at an exhibition in Berlin in 1929 (based on materials from the archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of the History of Material Culture). In Masters of the Steppe: the Impact of the Scythians and Later Nomads Societies of Eurasia, ed. Svetlana V. Pankova and St J. Simpson. Oxford: Archaeopress: 605â615.
-
Tallet, Pierre. 2020. Egyptâs Old Kingdom in Contact with the World. In The Oxford History of the Ancient Near East. Volume I. From the Beginnings to Old Kingdom Egypt and the Dynasty of Akkad, ed. Karen Radner, Nadine Moeller, and Daniel T. Potts. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 397â458.
-
Tavernier, Jan. 2017. Religious Aspects in the Aramaic Texts from Bactria. In Persian Religion in the Achaemenid Period / La religion perse à lâépoque achéménide, ed. Wouter F. M. Henkelman and Céline Redard. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 97â124.
-
Thomas, Louisa. 2021. Der âreiche Orientâ: Imagination und Faszination. Darstellungen des asiatischen Wohlstandes in griechischen Quellen des 5. Und 4. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
-
Treister, Mikhail Iu. 2015. A Hoard of Silver Rhyta of the Achaemenid Circle from Erebuni. Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 21: 23â119.
-
Trudnovskaia, Sofâia A. 1979. Rannie pogrebeniia iugo-zapadnoi kurgannoi gruppy mogilânika Tuz-gyr. In Kochevniki na granitsakh Khorezma (Trudy Khorezmskoi Arkheologo-Etnograficheskoi Ekspeditsii Tom. 11), ed. Sergei P. Tolstov. Moscow: Izdatelâstvo Nauka: 101â110.
-
Tuplin, Christopher J. 2017. Serving the Satrap. Lower-rank officials viewed through Greek and Aramaic sources. In The Administration in the Achaemenid EmpireâDie Verwaltung im Achämenidenreich. Imperiale Muster und Strukturen, ed. Bruno Jacobs, Wouter F. M. Henkelman, and M. W. Stolper. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 613â677.
-
Tuplin, Christopher J. 2020. Sigillography and soldiers: cataloguing military activity on Achaemenid period seals. In The Art of Empire in Achaemenid Persia. Studies in honour of Margaret Cool Root, ed. Elspeth R. M. Dusinberre, Mark B. Garrison, and Wouter F. M. Henkelman. Leuven: Peeters: 329â459.
-
Tuplin, Christopher J. and John Ma., ed. 2020. ArÅ¡Äma and His World. The Bodleian Letters in Context. Volume I. The Bodleian Letters. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Versluys, Miguel John. forthcoming. Network Power. Intensification and Innovation in Western Afro-Eurasia during the Hellenistic-Roman Era. In Economies of the edge: Frontier zone processes at regional, imperial, and global scales (300 BCEâ300 CE), ed. Mamta Dwivedi, Lara Fabian, Kathrin Leese-Messing, Lauren Morris, and Eli J. S. Weaverdyck.
-
Vinogradov, Andrei V., Sergei V. Lopatin, and Eduard D. Mamedov. 1965. Kyzylkymskaia Biriuza (iz istorii dobychi i obrabotki). Sovetskaia Etnografiia 2: 114â134.
-
von Reden, Sitta. 2021. Local, Regional, And Imperial Economies. In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies. Volume II: Local, Regional, and Imperial Economies, ed. Sitta von Reden. Berlin: De Gruyter: 29â57.
-
Waters, Matthew. 2020. Ctesiasâ Persica and its Near Eastern Context. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
-
Weaverdyck, Eli J. S. 2021. Introduction to part II: Tools. In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies. Volume II: Local, Regional, and Imperial Economies, ed. Sitta von Reden. Berlin: De Gruyter: 339â340.
-
Weaverdyck, Eli J. S., L. Fabian, L. Morris, M. Dwivedi, K. Leese-Messing. 2021. Constituting Local and Imperial Landscapes. In Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies. Volume II: Local, Regional, and Imperial Economies, ed. Sitta von Reden. Berlin: De Gruyter: 301â333.
-
Weaverdyck, Eli J. S. and Lara Fabian. 2021. Tools of Economic Activity in the Hellenistic and Roman Worlds: Empires and Coordination. In Handbook of Ancient Afro- Eurasian Economies. Volume II: Local, Regional, and Imperial Economies, ed. Sitta von Reden. Berlin: De Gruyter: 341â422.
-
Wiesehöfer, Josef, Robert Rollinger, and Giovan Battista Lanfranchi, ed. 2011. Ktesiaâs WeltâCtesiaâs World. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
-
Wu, Xin. 2005. Central Asia in the context of the Achaemenid Persian Empire (6th to 4th centuries B.C.). Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania.
-
Wu, Xin. 2007. Persian and Central Asian Elements in the Social Landscape of the Early Nomads at Pazyryk, Southern Siberia. In: Laura M. Popova, Charler W. Hartley, and Adam T. Smith (eds.). Social Orders and Social Landscapes. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishing: 120â150.
-
Wu, Xin. 2010. Enemies of Empire: A Historical Reconstruction of Political Conflicts between Central Asia and the Persian Empire. In The World of Achaemenid Persia. History, Art and Society in Iran and the Ancient Near East, ed. John Curtis and St John Simpson. London â New York: I. B. Tauris: 545â563.
-
Wu, Xin. 2014. âO Young Man ⦠Make Known of What Kind You Areâ: Warfare, History and Elite Ideology of the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Iranica Antiqua 49: 209â299.
-
Wu, Xin. 2017. Land of the Unrule-ables: Bactria in the Achaemenid Period. In Fitful Histories and Unruly Publics. Rethinking Temporality and Community in Eurasian Archaeology, ed. Kathryn O. Weber, Emma Hite, Lori Khatchadourian, and Adam T. Smith. Leiden: Brill: 258â291.
-
Wu, Xin. 2018. Exploiting the Virgin Land. Kyzyltepa and the Effects of the Achaemenid Persian Empire on its Central Asian Frontier. In A Millennium of History. The Iron Age in southern Central Asia (2nd and 1st Millennia BC). Proceedings of the conference held in Berlin (June 23â25, 2014). Dedicated to the memory of Viktor Ivanovich Sarianidi, ed. Johanna Lhuillier and N. B. Boroffka. Berlin: Reimer Verlag: 189â215.
-
Wu, Xin. 2020. Central Asia in the Achaemenid Period. In The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek World, ed. Rachel R. Mairs. London: Routledge: 595â618.
-
Wu, Xin, Naomi F. Miller, and Pam Crabtree. 2015. Agro-Pastoral Strategies and Food Production on the Achaemenid Frontier in Central Asia: a Case Study of Kyzyltepa in Southern Uzbekistan. Iran 53: 93â117.
-
Wu, Xin, Leonid M. Sverchkov, and Nikolaus B. Boroffka. 2017. The 2010â2011 Seasons of Excavations at Kyzyltepa (VIâIV Centuries BCE), Southern Uzbekistan. Iranica Antiqua 52: 283â362.
-
Yablonskii, Leonid T. and Mikhail Iu. Treister. 2019. New Archaeological Data on Achaemenid Influences in the Southern Urals. Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 25: 79â161.
-
Yamada, Shigeo. 2020. The Conquest and Reorganization of the Land of Zamua / Mazamua in the Assyrian Empire. In The Reach of the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires. Case Studies in Eastern and Western Peripheries, ed. Shuichi Hasegawa and Karen Radner. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz: 167â187.
| å ¨é¨æé´ | è¿å»ä¸å¹´ | è¿å»30天 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| æè¦æµè§æ¬¡æ° | 723 | 231 | 20 |
| å ¨ææµè§æ¬¡æ° | 179 | 16 | 1 |
| PDFä¸è½½æ¬¡æ° | 358 | 49 | 3 |
âThe Turquoise Was Brought From Chorasmiaâ Mining, Empire, and the People of the Steppes across the Achaemenid Northeastern Borderlands
äºJournal of the Economic and Social History of the OrientUniversität Augsburg, Historisch-Philosophische Fakultät Augsburg Germany
Search for other papers by Marco Ferrario in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Two main scholarly trends dominate the study of the relations between the Northeastern frontier zone(s) of the Achaemenid Empire and the steppes: the assessment of the military strategies to control the Saka and the development of artistic currents within and beyond the Empire through diplomatic relations and gift-giving. This paper makes the case for a more complex and dynamic scenario, in which the Central Asian borderlands transpire to have been a fertile ground for experimentation and innovation (not only of strife and rebellion), while local actors are given back their agency. In doing so, it first of all focuses on the extraction and working of precious stones. Secondly, recent research on Achaemenid archival materials shall be discussed which suggest the importance of trade in these and similar items for both imperial agents and local elites. Thirdly, and finally, the paper considers material evidence originating from the Empire but found beyond its Northeastern territories as far as China.
| å ¨é¨æé´ | è¿å»ä¸å¹´ | è¿å»30天 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| æè¦æµè§æ¬¡æ° | 723 | 231 | 20 |
| å ¨ææµè§æ¬¡æ° | 179 | 16 | 1 |
| PDFä¸è½½æ¬¡æ° | 358 | 49 | 3 |
