Yemshi Tepe, also Emchi-Tepe or Imshik, is an ancient circular fortress in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the Durand Line, east and south, Iran to the Afghanistan–Iran borde ...

, 5 kilometers to the northeast of the city of

Sheberghan Sheberghān or Shaburghān or shāhpurgān ( Uzbek, Pashto, ), also spelled ''Shebirghan'' and ''Shibarghan'', is the capital city of the Jowzjan Province in northern Afghanistan. The city of Sheberghan has a population of 175,599. It has four ...

.It is about 100 kilometers west of

Balkh Balkh is a town in the Balkh Province of Afghanistan. It is located approximately to the northwest of the provincial capital city Mazar-i-Sharif and approximately to the south of the Amu Darya and the Afghanistan–Uzbekistan border. In 2021 ...

, the capital of ancient

Bactria Bactria (; Bactrian language, Bactrian: , ), or Bactriana, was an ancient Iranian peoples, Iranian civilization in Central Asia based in the area south of the Oxus River (modern Amu Darya) and north of the mountains of the Hindu Kush, an area ...

. The city occupies around 20 hectares, and was built probably by a

Hellenistic period In classical antiquity, the Hellenistic period covers the time in Greek history after Classical Greece, between the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BC and the death of Cleopatra VII in 30 BC, which was followed by the ascendancy of the R ...

foundation at the time of the

Kushan Empire The Kushan Empire (– CE) was a Syncretism, syncretic empire formed by the Yuezhi in the Bactrian territories in the early 1st century. It spread to encompass much of what is now Afghanistan, Eastern Iran, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbe ...

in the first centuries after the birth of

Christ Jesus ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ, Jesus of Nazareth, and many other names and titles, was a 1st-century Jewish preacher and religious leader. He is the Jesus in Christianity, central figure of Christianity, the M ...

. It was deceased in the Sassanid period, therefore its ancient name is unknown. The shape of the city was round, about 500 meters in diameter, and had walls with several gates. In the north of the city there was a kind of a castle and next to it a luxurious building that probably served the local rulers. At the end of the 1960s, Afghan-Soviet excavations took place in the city, and a Greek ostracon and various statues were found among other things. According to the Soviet archaeologist Sarianidi in 1985: The circular fortification has a circumference of 1.5 km, and a surface of 18 ha."In the west near Shibergan we find the core of the Kushan town of Emchi Tepe ( 18 ha , ramparts with a circumference of 1 . 5 km )" in The round shape of the settlement is rather typical of the structure of Bactrian fortifications of the 1st millennium BCE, such as the fortresses 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& ...

. Yemshi Tepe is in close proximity (about 500 metres) to the archaeological burial site of

Tillya Tepe Tillya tepe, Tillia tepe or Tillā tapa (, literally "Golden Hill" or "Golden Mound") is an archaeological site in the northern Afghanistan province of Jowzjan near Sheberghan, excavated in 1978 by a Soviet-Afghan team led by the Soviet archaeolo ...

, dated to 50 BCE-50 CE: it is thought that the rulers of Yemshi Tepe were a branch of the

Kushans The Kushan Empire (– CE) was a syncretic empire formed by the Yuezhi in the Bactrian territories in the early 1st century. It spread to encompass much of what is now Afghanistan, Eastern Iran, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Kus ...

who were buried in the nearby Tillya Tepe

tumuli A tumulus (: tumuli) is a mound of Soil, earth and Rock (geology), stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, mounds, howes, or in Siberia and Central Asia as ''kurgans'', and may be found through ...

. Yemshi Tepe is generally described as "a Kushan town"."The Kushan town of Emchi Tepe..." in Yemshi Tepe Tillya Tepe map

Literature

* VI Sarianidi : Bactrian Gold. From the Excavations of the Tillya-Tepe Necropolis in Northern Afghanistan. Aurora, Leningrad 1985, p. 7. *Warwick Ball: Archaeological Gazetteer of Afghanistan. = Catalog des sites archéologiques d'Afghanistan. Éditions Recherche sur les Civilizations, Paris 1982, p. 96 (Synthèse 8).

References

{{Central Asian history Central Asia Bactria Archaeological sites in Afghanistan Former populated places in Afghanistan Kushan Empire