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Otrar
Otrar or Otyrar ( ; ), also called Farab, is a Central Asian ghost town that was a city located along the Silk Road in Kazakhstan. Otrar was an important town in the history of Central Asia, situated on the borders of settled and agricultural civilizations. It was the center of a great oasis and political district, commanding a key point connecting Kazakhstan with China, Europe, Near and Middle East, Siberia and Ural. Names The first known state in the region was known to Chinese scholars as '' Kangju'', which was centered on the Syr Darya (also known as the Kang River). Kangju existed from the 1st century BC until the 5th century AD. Its capital was reportedly at or near Bityan. After being subject to several different waves of invaders, Kangju collapsed into several independent states situated mainly in the Syr Darya valley and its tributaries of Keles and Atysi. Its people appear to have Turkified, becoming known as the Kangars. There are records that portray the determin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Al-Farabi
file:A21-133 grande.webp, thumbnail, 200px, Postage stamp of the USSR, issued on the 1100th anniversary of the birth of Al-Farabi (1975) Abu Nasr Muhammad al-Farabi (; – 14 December 950–12 January 951), known in the Greek East and Latin West, Latin West as Alpharabius, was an Early Islamic philosophy#Farabism, early Islamic philosopher and music theorist. He has been designated as "Father of Platonism in Islamic philosophy, Islamic Neoplatonism", and the "Founder of Islamic philosophy#Political philosophy, Islamic Political Philosophy". Al-Farabi's fields of philosophical interest included—but not limited to, Islamic philosophy#Social philosophy, philosophy of society and Islamic philosophy#Philosophy of religion, religion; philosophy of language and Logic in Islamic philosophy#Aristotelian logic, logic; Psychology in the medieval Islamic world, psychology and Islamic philosophy#Epistemology, epistemology; Islamic metaphysics, metaphysics, Islamic philosophy#Political philo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kangju
Kangju (; Eastern Han Chinese: ''kʰɑŋ-kɨɑ'' standard Chinese ''Kāngjū''), proposes that it was an Iranian word meaning "stone", and compares it to Pashto ''kā́ṇay'' "stone". Joseph Marquart, Omeljan Pritsak and Peter B. Golden have noted phonetic similarities between Kangju and Kengeres mentioned in the Orkhon inscriptions, the Kangarâyê in Transcaucasia, the city of Kengü Tarban, and the three Pecheneg tribes collectively known as Kangar mentioned by Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus. Nevertheless, all those connections remain hypothetical. Archaeological evidence suggests that the Kangju spoke an Eastern Iranian language, which was probably identical to Sogdian, or derived from it. History According to 2nd century BCE Chinese sources, Kangju lay north of the Dayuan and west of the Wusun, bordering the Yuezhi in the south. Their territory covered the region of the Ferghana Valley and the area between the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers, with the co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syr Darya
The Syr Darya ( ),; ; ; ; ; /. historically known as the Jaxartes ( , ), is a river in Central Asia. The name, which is Persian language, Persian, literally means ''Syr Sea'' or ''Syr River''. It originates in the Tian Shan, Tian Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan and eastern Uzbekistan and flows for west and north-west through Uzbekistan, Sughd province of Tajikistan, and southern Kazakhstan to the North Aral Sea, northern remnants of the Aral Sea. It is the northern and eastern of the two main rivers in the endorheic basin of the Aral Sea, the other being the Amu Darya. In the Soviet Union, Soviet era, extensive irrigation projects were constructed around both rivers, diverting their water into farmland and causing, during the post-Soviet era, the virtual disappearance of the Aral Sea, once the world's fourth-largest lake. The point at which the river flows from Tajikistan into Uzbekistan is, at above sea level, the lowest elevation in Tajikistan. Name The second part of the nam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sogd
Sogdia () or Sogdiana was an ancient Iranian civilization between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, and in present-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Sogdiana was also a province of the Achaemenid Empire, and listed on the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great. Sogdiana was first conquered by Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, and then was annexed by the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great in 328 BC. It would continue to change hands under the Seleucid Empire, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, the Kushan Empire, the Sasanian Empire, the Hephthalite Empire, the Western Turkic Khaganate, and the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana. The Sogdian city-states, although never politically united, were centered on the city of Samarkand. Sogdian, an Eastern Iranian language, is no longer spoken. However, a descendant of one of its dialects, Yaghnobi, is still spoken by the Yaghnobis of Tajikistan. It was widely spoken in Central Asia as a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shash
Tashkent (), also known as Toshkent, is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uzbekistan, largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of more than 3 million people as of April 1, 2024. It is located in northeastern Uzbekistan, near the border with Kazakhstan. Before the influence of Islam in the mid-8th century AD, Sogdian people, Sogdian and Turkic people, Turkic culture was predominant. After Genghis Khan destroyed the city in 1219, it was rebuilt and profited from its location on the Silk Road. From the 18th to the 19th centuries, the city became an Tashkent (1784), independent city-state, before being re-conquered by the Khanate of Kokand. In 1865, Tashkent fell to the Russian Empire; as a result, it became the capital of Russian Turkestan. In Soviet Union, Soviet times, it witnessed major growth and demographic changes due to Population transfer in the Soviet Union, forced deportations from throughout the Soviet Unio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xinjiang
Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC), located in the Northwest China, northwest of the country at the crossroads of Central Asia and East Asia. Being the List of Chinese administrative divisions by area, largest province-level division of China by area and the List of the largest country subdivisions by area, 8th-largest country subdivision in the world, Xinjiang spans over and has about 25 million inhabitants. Xinjiang Borders of China, borders the countries of Afghanistan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Russia, and Tajikistan. The rugged Karakoram, Kunlun Mountains, Kunlun and Tian Shan mountain ranges occupy much of Xinjiang's borders, as well as its western and southern regions. The Aksai Chin and Trans-Karakoram Tract regions ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Balasagun
Balasagun ( or ''Balasagyn''; ) was an ancient Sogdian city in modern-day Kyrgyzstan, located in the Chüy Valley between Bishkek and the Issyk-Kul lake. Located along the Silk Road, the ruins of the city were inscribed in 2014 on the UNESCO World Heritage List as part of the Silk Roads: the Routes Network of Chang'an-Tianshan Corridor World Heritage Site. Balasagun was founded by the Sogdians, a people of Iranian origin and the Sogdian language was still in use in this town until the 11th century. It was the capital of the Kara-Khanid Khanate from the 10th century until it was taken by the Qara Khitai (Western Liao dynasty) in 1134. It was then captured by the Mongols in 1218. The Mongols called it Gobalik "Pretty City". It should not be confused with Karabalghasun, now Ordu-Baliq in Mongolia, which was the capital of the Uyghur Khaganate. Founded by the Kara-Khanid Khanate in the ninth century, Balasagun soon supplanted Suyab as the main political and economical centr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taraz
Taraz ( ; also historically known as Talas) is a city and the administrative center of Jambyl Region in Kazakhstan, located on the Talas (river), Talas (Taraz) River in the south of the country near the border with Kyrgyzstan. It had a population of 330,100 as of the 1999 census, up 9% from 1989, making it one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, after Astana and Turkistan (city), Turkistan. The current population of Taraz is 428,000 (April 2023). One of the oldest cities in Kazakhstan and in Transoxania, built and populated by the ancient Sogdians, Taraz celebrated its official 2,000th anniversary (recognized by UNESCO) in 2001, dating from a fortress built in the area by a Xiongnu Chanyu named Zhizhi, and was a site of the Battle of Zhizhi in 36 BCE. The city was first recorded under the name "Talas" in 568 CE by Menander Protector. The medieval city of Talas was a major trade center along the Silk Road. It was later described by the Buddhist monk and travelerXuanzang, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Karatau Mountains
The Karatau or Qaratau (, ) is a mountain range located in southern Kazakhstan. The mountains have deposits of phosphorite, lead, and zinc. Name () is Kazakh for the "Black Mountain" or "Mountain Range". The English name derives from accounts of Russian exploration of the area. Geography The range extends for about in a roughly NW/SE direction just north of the Syr Darya. The Muyunkum Desert lies to the north of the range. The Karatau is the westernmost prolongation of the Tian Shan. The summits of the mountains are smooth and the slopes are cut by snow-fed rivers. The Shabakty, Kyrshabakty, Ushbas, Bugun and Asa, are among the rivers having their sources in the range. World Heritage Status There are numerous ancient archaeological sites in the range that display the stages of cultural evolution from the early Paleolithic Age (1 million BP) to the Neolithic Age (6500 BP). This site was added to the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List on September 24, 1998 in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jetisu
Jetisu ( ) or Semirechye ( rus, Семиречье, p=sʲɪmʲɪˈrʲetɕje) or Heptopotamia is a historical region in Central Asia corresponding to the southeastern part of modern Kazakhstan. Name Jetisu is also transcribed Jeti-Suu (, ), Zhetisu, Jetisuw, Jetysu, Jeti-su or Jity-su, The name comes from "seven rivers" in Kazakh but meant "abounding in water", in contrast to the dry steppes of the eastern Balkhash area. It owes its name to the rivers that flow from the southeast into Lake Balkhash. Jetisu primarily falls into today's Jetisu Region and Almaty Region and other South-Eastern parts of Kazakhstan and some parts of Northern Kyrgyzstan. Geography The lands of the 19th-century Semirechye Oblast included the steppes south of Lake Balkhash and parts of the Tian Shan Mountains around Lake Issyk Kul. The province had an area of 147,300 km², and was bounded by the province of Semipalatinsk on the north, by China (Xinjiang) on the east and south, and by the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Day's Journey
A day's journey in pre-modern literature, including the Bible and ancient geographers and ethnographers such as Herodotus, is a measurement of distance. In the Bible, it is not as precisely defined as other Biblical measurements of distance; the distance has been estimated from . Judges 19 records a party of three people and two mules who traveled from Bethlehem to Gibeah, a distance of about 10 miles, in an afternoon. Porter notes that a mule can travel about 3 miles per hour, covering 24 miles in an eight-hour day. Another citation comes from Priscus (fr. 8 in Müller's '' Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum'') and is translated thus by J. B. Bury: ''We set out with the barbarians, and arrived at Sardica, which is thirteen days for a fast traveller from Constantinople.'' From Constantinople (Istanbul) to Sofia Sofia is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Bulgaria, largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samanids ...
People Samanid Samanid Samanid The Samanid Empire () was a Persianate society, Persianate Sunni Islam, Sunni Muslim empire, ruled by a dynasty of Iranian peoples, Iranian ''dehqan'' origin. The empire was centred in Greater Khorasan, Khorasan and Transoxiana, at its greatest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
