Sanjan is an ancient city on the southern edge of the Kara-kum Desert, in the vicinity of the historically eminent oasis-city of

Merv Merv (, ', ; ), also known as the Merve Oasis, was a major Iranian peoples, Iranian city in Central Asia, on the historical Silk Road, near today's Mary, Turkmenistan. Human settlements on the site of Merv existed from the 3rd millennium& ...

. Topographically, Sanjan is located in the

Greater Khorasan KhorasanDabeersiaghi, Commentary on Safarnâma-e Nâsir Khusraw, 6th Ed. Tehran, Zavvâr: 1375 (Solar Hijri Calendar) 235–236 (; , ) is a historical eastern region in the Iranian Plateau in West Asia, West and Central Asia that encompasses wes ...

region of

Central Asia Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Pers ...

. Politically, Sanjan is in the present-day Mary Province of

Turkmenistan Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest and the Caspian Sea to the west. Ash ...

. Together with

, Sanjan was an important stopping place and center of trade on the southern route of the

Silk Road The Silk Road was a network of Asian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over , it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the ...

. Sanjan gained further importance following the Seleucid establishment of Merv as the principal city of the Margiana province, a status it also held during the subsequent

Parthia Parthia ( ''Parθava''; ''Parθaw''; ''Pahlaw'') is a historical region located in northeastern Greater Iran. It was conquered and subjugated by the empire of the Medes during the 7th century BC, was incorporated into the subsequent Achaemeni ...

n (250 BCE–226 CE) and

Sassanid The Sasanian Empire (), officially Eranshahr ( , "Empire of the Iranian peoples, Iranians"), was an List of monarchs of Iran, Iranian empire that was founded and ruled by the House of Sasan from 224 to 651. Enduring for over four centuries, th ...

(226-651 CE) eras. As a site in the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex, Sanjan is subject to the hypothesis that the

Indo-Iranians The Indo-Iranian peoples, also known as Ā́rya or Aryans from their self-designation, were a group of Indo-European speaking peoples who brought the Indo-Iranian languages to parts of Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia in waves from the f ...

, a major branch that split off from the

Proto-Indo-Europeans The Proto-Indo-Europeans are a hypothetical prehistoric ethnolinguistic group of Eurasia who spoke Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Knowledge of them comes chiefly from t ...

, originated there. (see also: BMAC:Indo-Iranian hypothesis) According to the '' Qissa-i Sanjan'', an epic poem from around 1600, the Zoroastrians who fled to the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a physiographic region of Asia below the Himalayas which projects into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal to the east and the Arabian Sea to the west. It is now divided between Bangladesh, India, and Pakista ...

in the 8th or 9th century, to escape religious persecution from Islamic invaders, established the settlement of Sanjan (Gujarat). These Zoroastrians, who were at first called ''Sanjana''s or ''Khorasani''s (today, the descendants of these and later Zoroastrian emigrants are collectively known as the Parsis), are thought to have named the Indian west-coast settlement after the city of their origin. ''Sanjan'' must not be confused with the phonetically similar Iranian province Zanjan, or its capital, the city of Zanjan.

References

Populated places along the Silk Road Former populated places in Turkmenistan {{Turkmenistan-geo-stub