5 Central Asia and the Silk Road Étienne de la Vaissière École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris Central Asia is known mainly through such images as the “Silk Road,” a term invented by a German geographer in 1877 and reinvigorated recently by the development of mass travel. Another image is the path of Buddhism from India to China, exemplified by the art of the Buddhist grottoes, and it is certainly well known for its nomadic world empires, particularly that of the Mongols. But its precise history, especially during Late Antiquity, is mostly unknown to the Western reader.1 A brief introduction in English is thus sorely needed and complementary to the global spectrum of this book.2 Climatic, Geographical, and Cultural Milieux Central Asia may be described as the region situated north of the Sasanian empire and the Hindu-Kush range, west of the area settled by ethnic Han Chinese (that is, west of the Gansu corridor in China), east of the Caspian Sea, and south of the Altay Mountains. See figure 5.1. Four main natural environments dominate this enormous region of Asia: (1) the steppe in the north; (2) the mountains (Tianshan, Pamir, Kunlun), which divide Central Asia into western, eastern, and northern sections; (3) the deserts (Gobi, Taklamakan, Kyzil Kum, Kara Kum); and (4) the oases along the tributaries of the main rivers. The climate is hypercontinental, but the combination of winter rains and high mountains provide water in the rivers from melted snow during the vegetative period. The whole period from the fifth century to the ninth might be a milder episode between two periods of high aridity.3 Two main economies were created to deal with these formidable climatic and geographical conditions. First, a pastoral economy dominates in the steppe, on the numerous plateaus of the mountains, and on the periphery of deserts. The second, an agricultural system, has always been confined to the alluvial fans of rivers among the foothills and along the smaller rivers. With the exception of the terminal delta of the Amu Darya (i.e., the region of Khorezm),4 the main rivers—Amu Darya, Syr Darya, and Tarim—are too powerful to be of use for irrigated agriculture.5 No north-south divide between pastoralism and agriculture can be drawn, since the nomadic and settled populations were interspersed, given that the nomads grazed their flocks on the peripheries of the oases and circulated into the semideserts of western Central Asia.6 [Insert figure 5-1 vertically at the first page break] Two main linguistic groups (Middle-Iranian and Turkish) and several smaller ones can be delineated: in the western part of Central Asia (i.e., the territories of the former USSR) and also on the other side of the Pamir range, as far as the oasis of Khotan (i.e., in the south of the Taklamakan desert of present-day China), Middle-Iranian languages prevailed. There were four main linguistic subgroups in this region: (1) Khorezmian, quite isolated in the delta of the Amu Darya,7 and (2) Sogdian, between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, both written with scripts derived from Aramaic;8 (3) Bactrian, written with the Greek alphabet (inherited from Alexander’s conquests), in Northern Afghanistan and along the upper course of the Amu Darya;9 and (4) Khotanese, in the Tarim basin, written in an Indian script (Brahmi).10 In the north, but also in eastern Afghanistan and in the oases to the north of the Taklamakan, the process of “Turkicization” of the nomadic peoples went on throughout our period.11 Some groups are not reducible to these two main cultural-linguistic groups, such as the Tokharians of the oases to the north of the Taklamakan (Kucha, Qarashahr, Turfan). These speakers of an Indo-European language that had separated itself from the common Indo-European long before the others wrote in another variant of Brahmi.12 Additionally, speakers of Tibeto-Birman languages were found on the vast stretches of the Tibetan plateau. Finally, the Chinese were mostly confined to the three main oases of the far east: Turfan, Hami, and Dunhuang. Each oasis can be described as having its own history and culture, alongside these wide-ranging linguistic provinces. From a religious point of view, the principal belief systems were Buddhism, at home in northern Afghanistan and in the oases of the Tarim basin;13 a Central Asian polytheistic form of Zoroastrianism, which dominated the settled land of western Central Asia;14 and the Sky and Earth cult of the Turks, badly known from contemporary sources.15 The Great Invasion Western Central Asia opens directly on the steppe belt and its nomadic empires, while eastern Central Asia is protected by the Tianshan mountains and the deserts. Thus the Hunnic invasion that marked the beginning of our period was an important factor only in western Central Asian history. Several independent but corroborating texts show the arrival of a wave of northeastern invaders in western Central Asia in about 350. Some climatic reasons might be adduced to explain this migration: paleoclimatology has proven that the climate of the Altay range changed dramatically in the middle of the fourth century, driving the nomads away from their mountain grazing grounds.16 In addition to Chinese texts mentioning the death of the king of Samarkand in the face of Xiongnu invaders, Ammianus Marcellinus describes how in 356 Shāpūr II fought against the Chionites in the East and subsequently formed an alliance with them, evidenced by the fact that the king of the Chionites, Grumbates, participated in the siege of Amida (Diyarbakir) at the side of Shāpūr II in 359. The Armenian sources next show that between 368 and 379, the Sasanians were routed in the east on several occasions by a “king of the Kushans” reigning at Balkh.17 No wars between Sasanians and nomads are known for the following period, from approximately 375 to 425. Several sources attest to significant wars around Merv, or launched from there, during the second part of the reign of Vahrām V (420–438). Many drachms were then struck at Merv, a fact that testifies to the role played by the city in the Sasanian policy of defense.18 These drachms could have been specifically used to pay the troops. The Arabic and Persian texts on Vahrām Ghor attribute the presence and activity of the king at Merv to a great attack by the “Qagan of the Türks,” an anachronistic figure behind whom we must understand a nomadic power from the east or north. A third period of war began with the defeat of the Kidarites by the Sasanian emperor Pērōz in 468 and his subsequent death in 484 in the face of the emerging dynasty of the Ephthalites (first mentioned by Chinese sources in 457).19 Pērōz’s successor, Kawād I (484, 488–497, 499–531) was their protégé. Until the beginning of the reign of Khusrō Anōshervān (531–579), the Sasanians paid a colossal tribute to the Ephthalites.20 The Ephthalites then controlled the whole of Central Asia, including the Tarim Basin, which had been untouched by the Chionites or Kidarites. This was before the Ephthalites were defeated by the alliance between a new Altaic power, in the form of the Turks, and the Sasanians in 560.21 This period is certainly one of the most obscure of Central Asian history, and in this regard, the contrast with the following period, from the middle of the sixth century to the middle of the eighth, is stark. Along with the Byzantine and Chinese texts, numismatic evidence is our other main source. Hundreds of different coins created by these nomadic dynasties have been discovered in Afghanistan.22 The chronology established by the numismatists is sometimes at odds with that derived from textual sources: for instance, while all the Byzantine and Chinese texts are in agreement, situating the Kidarites during and after the 420s, the numismatists would place them in the 380s because of some rare gold coins discovered near Kabul, with a blurred Bactrian legend that can be read, among other possibilities, as κιδορο.23 Nevertheless, there have been great recent advances in our understanding of this period. Some 150 new documents from a notarial archive originating in Bactria and dating from the third to the eighth century have been published and offer much new data about the daily life of the small mountainous kingdoms of the Hindu-Kush.24 It seems that the reign of Ardashir, the creator of the Sasanian empire, serves to date these Bactrian documents—from then up to the Abbassids—because of the conquest of Bactria by the Sasanians under Ardashir’s reign. The ebb and flow of the nomadic kingdoms in Bactria is reflected via the titles and the taxes mentioned in these texts. The modern archaeological pillaging of Afghanistan brings to the art market a constant flow of new coins and documents. There have also been other improvements to our historical understanding of this long period of nomadic turmoil. For instance, the very old question of the ethnic and political identity of the invaders has been solved, after defying historians for a quarter of a millennium, that is, since De Guignes in the middle of the eighteenth century proposed identifying the invading Huns with the old foes of Ancient China, the Xiongnu. By a combination of textual and archaeological sources, this De Guignes’s theory has been confirmed. First, a letter by a Central Asian merchant, sent in 313 to Samarkand and describing the Xiongnu pillages of northern China, calls them “Huns.” Next, a Bactrian monk’s translation (found from at Dunhuang) of a Buddhist sutra into Chinese renders the Indic work “Huna” by the Chinese “Xiongnu” at the end of the third century. As for archaeological evidence, the huge Xiongnu cauldrons from Mongolia are virtually identical to the Hunnic ones from Hungary; what is more, they were found in similar locales (i.e., on the banks of rivers), thus proving continuity in ritual as well. Therefore, it is now possible to demonstrate conclusively that the invaders were under Xiongnu/Hunnic leadership and left the Altay mountains in the middle of the fourth century, some of them heading south to western Central Asia, and some of them heading west and reaching the Volga River. The Huns are beyond doubt the political and ethnic inheritors of the old Xiongnu empire.25 It has also been demonstrated that there was a single wave of invasions in Central Asia and not several waves, as previously thought. Formerly, at least three waves were contemplated, due to the multiplicity of nomadic ethnic and dynastic names in Central Asia from about 350 to about 460: a Chionite one in the middle of the fourth century, a Kidarite one from 380 or 420 onward, and then an Ephthalite one in the middle of the fifth century. We now know that all these dynasties and ethnic groups were part of a single episode of massive migration in about 350–360. A well-informed Chinese source mentions the Ephthalites—previously thought to be the latest group—as among the earliest invaders of about 350–360.26 These invaders were thus the origins of the nobility that would control all of Central Asia during Late Antiquity. Though this is well known for Bactria from coins and seals, the same has also been demonstrated recently for Sogdiana. For instance, a recently published seal gives the title of a fifth-century lord of Samarkand as “king of the Oglar Huns.”27 In Bactria, the name of the king of the Chionites at Amida, Grumbates, is also known as the name of a local noble in 470. Furthermore, the old titles inherited from antiquity, such as “King of the Kushans” in Bactria, were abandoned after the formation of the Kidarite dynasty. The Postinvasion Economic Shift This great invasion had a profound impact on the economy.28 Southern Central Asia—that is, Bactria—was devastated during the wars between the nomads and the Sasanians. Northern Central Asia—that is, Sogdiana—fell easily under the yoke of the invaders and was quickly reconstructed. Archaeology testifies to the divergent fates of these two regions: all of the available data support the idea of a sharp decline in Bactria from the second half of the fourth century to the sixth. In the valley of the Wakhsh River, for example, the irrigation network was partially abandoned. Layers of burning are visible at most of the sites of the region of Kunduz. At Chaqalaq-tepe, a fortified village eleven kilometers south-southeast of Kunduz, three layers of burning can be seen in the middle level (end of the fourth century and first half of the fifth century), despite the simultaneous construction of a double rampart.29 At Balkh, excavations at Tepe Zargaran show significant barren layers separating two series of Sasanian layers.30 Farther to the west, at Dil’beržin tepe and Emshi tepe, the sites were abandoned after the middle of the fifth century.31 At Termez and Dal’verzintepe, necropolises appeared in large numbers over the old urban area in the fourth and fifth centuries, while the Buddhist monasteries around Termez (Karatepe) were pillaged by the troops of Shāpūr II and later abandoned and filled with sepulchres. A comprehensive study of eastern Bactrian ceramics reveals the desertion of traditionally populated areas in this period (the plain of Taluqan and plain of Kunduz).32 Up to the sixth century, the low valleys of the tributaries north of the Amu Darya seem to have been sparsely populated. The plain of Bactra, as well as the central Amu Darya, seems to have undergone a decline that was much more significant than that suffered by the regions farther east. Bactra (i.e., Balkh in the Arabic sources), although often claimed as a capital by the various political powers, became once again an important town in the region only much later, during the Muslim period. The contrast is strong with Sogdiana: for sure, the ancient cohabitation of sedentary peoples and local nomads, established on the immediate frontier of the oases, seems to have been swept away. The nomad kurgans at the peripheries of the oases have disappeared and, with them, an economic osmosis attested by the abundance of sedentary ceramics found in the tombs.33 The development of ceramic forms is particularly instructive, for parallel to the local forms that continued to be produced, a molded ceramic appears in the archaeological layers of this period, notably in the oases of Bukhara and the Kashka Darya. During the preceding period, this new form of ceramic, molded and not turned, was characteristic of the region of the Syr Darya. It is as if populations arriving from the Syr Darya had to take refuge in Sogdiana due to Hunnic pressure or, bringing their ceramics with them, came to return to cultivation lands that a stricken population had partially abandoned. Conversely, the sites of the Džety-asar culture in the delta of the Syr Daria were widely abandoned, and on the middle course of the Syr Darya, the town of Kanka diminished to a third of its initial surface area. The people arriving from the north added to the local population, which did not disappear. Sogdiana, separated from the steppe by a fragile agricultural zone along the Syr Darya, reaped the benefits of the withdrawal of these populations to the south and the experienced labor these populations had contributed, despite whatever ravages were caused by the invasions in Sogdiana itself. Sogdiana indisputably experienced a great agricultural expansion in the fifth and sixth centuries. The population markedly increased. Detailed archaeological surveys have proven that on the margins of all the Sogdian oases, new lands were reclaimed from desert and irrigated. For instance, to the west of Bukhara, after the advance of the desert in the first centuries c.e., the oasis of Bukhara was extended twenty-two kilometers by irrigation in the sixth century. The Sogdian countryside also benefited from the construction of gigantic walls, intended to fight against nomadic raids as much as against the advance of desert sands. The landscape was dotted with the castles of the settled nomadic aristocracy. The towns of Sogdiana entered a remarkable period of growth as well. The urban network was profoundly modified by the creation of new towns in the Zarafshan Valley, which were often built on older sites. Bukhara, Paykent, and Panjikent developed rapidly on plans of the Hippodamian type (i.e., rectangular walls, an orthogonal network of streets), examples of which are also found in eastern Sasanian Iran.34 The economic and demographic dynamism of Sogdiana after the great invasion is thus an established fact. Sogdiana under its nomadic elites became the principal center of agricultural wealth and population in Central Asia. The Shift of the Trade Routes Following the decline of Bactria—one of the major points along the Silk Road in antiquity—the principal roads of international trade shifted north. The term “Silk Road” up to the third century could describe a mainly Sino-Indian trade route through the Pamir and Bactria, due to the wealth of the Kushan empire, which controlled northern India and southern Central Asia from the first to the third century c.e.35 However, the new Silk Road that emerged from the nomadic invasion in the fifth century went through eastern Central Asia and the steppe to Sogdiana, and from there to the Sasanian empire and Byzantium. It linked the main centers of wealth and population, bypassing a half-deserted Bactra. This shift to the north explains the domination of the Sogdian traders on the Silk Road from the fifth century to the eighth. Moreover, with this dynamism in Sogdiana, these traders controlled in their homeland the main market of Central Asia. But the history of Sogdian international trade has deep roots in antiquity. Even from the very foundations of the Silk Road by Indian and Bactrian traders in the first century b.c.e., Sogdian traders have been mentioned. It seems that during antiquity, they were the apprentices of the wealthier merchants from Bactra or Taxila. The Sogdian vocabulary of trade is a testimony to this phase, as it is replete with Bactrian and Indian loanwords.36 The Buddhist sources that mention Sogdian traders becoming monks describe them as emigrants, trading and converting in India.37 However, it seems that already in the third century, before the great invasion, Sogdian trade had progressed enough to be on a par with Bactrian trade: in 227, during the troubled period following the fall of the Han dynasty, the heads of the Bactrian and Sogdian communities of Liangzhou, in the middle of Gansu, were in charge of negotiations with advancing armies.38 The Hunnic invasion and the Sasanian counteroffensives in Bactria cleared the ground for the Sogdian traders. This is well demonstrated with the help of a Byzantine text of the middle of the sixth century, the Christian Topography of Cosmas Indicopleustes. An Alexandrian spice merchant who had retired to a monastery in the Sinai, Cosmas was accurately informed about the commerce of the Indian Ocean. He mentions silk and states: For the country in question deflects considerably to the left, so that the loads of silk passing by land through one nation after another, reach Persia in a comparatively short time; whilst the route by sea to Persia is vastly greater. For just as great a distance as the Persian Gulf runs up into Persia, so great a distance and even a greater has one to run, who, being bound for Tzinitza (China), sails eastward from Taprobane (Sri Lanka); while besides, the distances from the mouth of the Persian Gulf to Taprobane; and the parts beyond through the whole width of the Indian sea are very considerable. He then who comes by land from Tzinitza to Persia shortens very considerably the length of the journey. This is why there is always to be found a great quantity of silk in Persia.39 Cosmas very precisely distinguishes two routes by which silk was traded: the Central Asian caravan route and the maritime route via Ceylon (Taprobane/Sri Lanka). But above all, he posits a hierarchical relationship between them: for silk, the Central Asian caravan route was primary. The Persians procured silk in two very distinct locations: on the one hand, the peoples of Central Asia brought it to them, and on the other, they went to buy it in Ceylon. The merchants of northwestern India and Bactria were no longer capable of adequately supplying the main Indian ports with silk from distant sources: according to another part of the text, Sind (Pakistan) obtained its silk from Ceylon, not from Bactra.40 The main road in antiquity—through Bactria, northern India, and then by sea—had become divided into two quite distinct routes, one of which, the most important for silk, was in the hands of the Sogdians in Central Asia. This text is corroborated by epigraphic evidence from the high passes on the Upper Indus, where caravaneers left graffiti while waiting to cross the river. There are hundreds of Indian and Sogdian graffiti, but only a few Bactrian are known, a fact indicating that even on this mountainous road linking India with Bactria, the Bactrian traders had been superseded by the Sogdian ones.41 The Silk Road, the Turks, and the Chinese This shift to the north of the economic and demographic landscape of Central Asia was reinforced by the close links established between Central Asia and the Turks. The Turkish tribes, under the sacred clan of the Ashinas, took power by revolting against the Rouran in the Altay and the Mongolian steppe in 552 and had established power over all of Central Asia by 560.42 At its greatest extent, their empire would include the entire steppe belt from Crimea in the west, where its armies besieged Byzantine towns, to Manchuria in the east. This first Turkish empire, although divided into western and eastern parts after 580, would last until 630 (East) or 659 (West) and later, after a period of disunion and submission to the Chinese, would be reborn from 681 to 744, comprising, however, a reduced Mongolian territory (without most of Central Asia). Central Asian peoples, especially the Sogdians and the Tokharians, played an enormous role in the administration, social life, and economy of the empire: the Turks made use of Sogdian as their diplomatic and administrative language, and their first known inscriptions are in Sogdian.43 Tokharian Buddhism made inroads in the steppe under their protection.44 The Ashinas emperors themselves arose out of the ethnically mixed milieu of western China, and the names of the two founding brothers of the empire, Bumın and Istämi, cannot be Turkish.45 A military-commercial symbiosis was created: the Turkish military integrated itself through marriages and military occupation among the elites of the various oases of Central Asia, whereas the Sogdians were in charge of diplomatic and commercial exchanges in the empire.46 The Turkish rule was indirect, exacting tribute while keeping the local princes on their thrones. Sogdiana thrived during this period. Its culture expanded to the north in a movement of agricultural colonization, along the foothills of the Tianshan Mountains.47 We have a very good idea of the social life in the various subregions due to the numerous Soviet excavations of towns and villages all over Central Asia. The life of the nobility is especially well known. The transfer of the agricultural wealth to the towns has thus been analyzed precisely. Numerous mural paintings, rich in information, have also been uncovered, notably at Panjikent near Samarkand. An aristocratic culture clearly prevails in the iconography: scenes of legendary combats, the epic of Rostam, armored heroes on horseback, persons carrying long swords (even during banquets). But some depictions of Indian tales (Pañcatantra) are also known. Religious iconography pervades western Central Asia: with its characteristic Indian features—gods with numerous arms or heads—it reflects the dominant polytheistic kind of Zoroastrianism. For instance, the image of the goddess Nana, with her four arms holding the sun and the moon and seated on a lion, is known from Khorezm to Bactria, as well as in Panjikent.48 Numerous written sources describe the region, including some eyewitness accounts: for example, Xuanzang, the most famous Chinese pilgrim, went to India in search of Buddhist texts and traveled through Central Asia in 629–630.49 Chinese diplomatic sources are especially valuable.50 We also have two sets of local archives, one Bactrian, and another Sogdian, the latter of which is political and economic and dated 708–722.51 It was compiled during the reign of a king of Panjikent who fought against the Arabs. The Turkish qaghans described their empire in the Orkhon inscriptions of 720–735.52 Some Byzantine embassies to the Turks have left reports as well.53 Moreover, all these data can be checked against the Arabic texts describing the conquests of Islam. Thus, western Central Asia, especially Sogdiana, is certainly better known in the seventh and early eighth centuries than many regions of Europe or the Near East. The same can be said of eastern Central Asia, except for the more limited documentation of Khotan and Kucha. In Turfan, more than 27,000 fragments of Chinese documents, used to cut clothes hats, shoes and belts of paper for the dead, were found in the Astana cemetery, dating mainly from the sixth to eighth century. These documents are to be added to the 40,000 manuscripts discovered at the beginning of the twentieth century in a grotto in Dunhuang, dating mainly from the eighth to the tenth century, a discovery that has become the starting point for much of our knowledge of the history and languages of Central Asia. Mostly in Chinese (and in Tibetan at Dunhuang), these documents testify to the “Sinicization” of the eastern end of Central Asia and reflect the Chinese conquest of the region from 640 on. The Tang superseded the Ashinas Turks as protectors of the small kingdoms of the Silk Road. They organized a western protectorate, theoretically integrating the local nobility into the ranks of the Mandarin hierarchy. Militarily speaking, the Tang occupied most of Central Asia, except for Sogdiana, Bactria, and Khorezm. The recently created Tibetan empire, however, also tried to control the oases of the Tarim basin.54 This period saw intense movements of population: Turkish mercenaries, Indian and Chinese Buddhist monks, and Sogdian traders. Some are more surprising than others, such as the hundreds of Sogdian peasants mentioned in the sources of Turfan or Dunhuang, more than 2,000 kilometers east of Sogdiana.55 The world religions did not miss this opportunity to expand. Buddhism probably had been established in southern Central Asia at least since the first century b.c.e., and during this period, it expanded among the Turks.56 Two western religions already present in Central Asia expanded to China: Syriac Christianity and Manichaeism.57 The Church of the East (aka Nestorianism) was at Merv as early as 424 and arrived in Sogdiana in the fifth or sixth century. It arrived in China as early as 635.58 However, many mistakes have marred our understanding of the Syriac churches in China: the latest interpretations of the famous Nestorian Stele of Xi’an, inscribed in 781, suggest that the Church of the East in China was limited to a small community of foreigners, possibly even without many Chinese converts.59 It is in northern Central Asia that it took deeper roots, reinforced during the Muslim period, up to its flourishing in the Mongol empire.60 Sogdian was one of its liturgical languages up to the fourteenth century. Manichaeism, which arrived in China earlier than Christianity, had been chased out of Iran by the persecutions at the end of the third century.61 It spread to China as early as the second half of the sixth century, as demonstrated by the recent discovery in Xi’an of the funerary bed of a Sogdian immigrant dated to 579, which displays Mani and the Manichaean judgment of the soul (but also Zoroastrian and Buddhist motifs) among its carved reliefs.62 Central Asia during this period can certainly be regarded as united by the movements of populations and ideas, and the elites saw themselves at the center of the known world. A fascinating illustration of this idea can be seen on the four painted walls of the reception room of a Sogdian noble’s house discovered in Samarkand: here are depicted, on the left, the Iranian world, with the Persian nobility attending a religious ceremony during the Nowruz (Iranian new year festival); on the right, the Chinese civilization, with the emperor shown hunting while the empress and her suite are riding on a dragon-head boat; on the back wall, the Indian world with its astrologers and its dwarfs fighting cranes, reflecting a surprisingly Hellenistic image of India; and on the front wall, painted at the very period during which the balance of power switched from the Turks to the Chinese, embassies from all other Asian territories rendering homage to an unknown figure now destroyed, but who probably was the Turkish qaghan because Turkish soldiers are guiding the embassies and surrounding the missing top figure.63 The old idea of the four empires of the world is here geographical and not chronological. Central Asia was indeed in touch with the entire known world through its trade and its emigration. The Apogee of the Silk Road”: The Chinese Section Late Antiquity was the heyday of the Silk Road. A single commercial network organized the long-range exchanges along the caravan roads. Proofs of its existence are to be found in all the regions of Asia, but curiously, very few come from Central Asia itself. The Sogdian Ancient Letters are the first important documents in this regard: left in 313 amid the ruins of a Han watchtower ninety kilometers west of Dunhuang, they had been sent by some Sogdian traders from Gansu to the West (one of them to Samarkand). They describe the ruin of the Sogdian trading network in these towns: The last emperor, so they say, fled from Luoyang because of the famine and fire was set to his palace and to the city, and the palace was burnt and the city [destroyed]. Luoyang is no more, Ye is no more! . . . And, sirs, if I were to write to you about how China has fared, it would be beyond grief: there is no profit for you to gain from it . . . [in] Luoyang . . . the Indians and the Sogdians there had all died of starvation.64 However, the Sogdian network was well established in Gansu, and, one century later, it was still there. A Chinese text explains how: “Merchants of that country [Sogdiana] used to come in great number to the district Liang [the present Wuwei in Gansu] to trade. When Guzang [i.e., Wuwei] was conquered [by the Wei in 439] all of them were captured. In the beginning of the reign of Gaozong [452–465] the king [of Sogdiana] sent embassies to ask for their ransom.”65 We have few other direct testimonies of the existence of long-distance trade in Central Asia. Among the 27,000 fragments of Astana, there is a list of taxes paid on caravan trade in the Gaochang kingdom (Turfan) in the 620s. The text is not complete but gives a fairly good idea of the identity of the main traders in Turfan: out of thirty-five commercial operations in this text, twenty-nine involved a Sogdian trader, and in thirteen instances, both the seller and the buyer were Sogdians.66 In Astana, more than 800 Sogdian names can be found in the Chinese documents. By contrast, only a handful of Bactrians are named.67 Though the documents pertaining directly to the Silk Road are most infrequent in Central Asia itself, it is nevertheless certain that long-distance trade was very much active from the fifth century on. Chinese art is familiar with forms deriving from Mediterranean models. Products, ideas, and images circulated.68 The Sogdian traders were familiar figures in the main towns all over northern China. In the tombs of the elites, Sogdians, depicted in a stereotyped way with prominent noses and beards—on camels, playing the lute, or presenting horses—are common figures among the various small statues of daily life that were usually placed in the tombs. Poetry, narrative texts, and fables depict these foreigners in the markets of the big towns.69 Their ubiquitous presence can be socially analyzed, thanks to numerous texts and funerary epitaphs of Sogdian families in China that describe how an ancestor came to China during the Wei period as Sabao (i.e., chief caravaneer) before climbing the social ladder. Sabao is a transcription of the Sogdian word sartapao, itself a Sogdian transcription of the Middle-Indic sârthavâha, chief caravaneer, through a Bactrian intermediary.70 In India, the sârthavâha was not only the chief caravaneer but also the head of the traders guild. But Sabao was also the title of the head of the Sogdian communities in China. This double meaning demonstrates that the Sogdian communities in China were deeply rooted in the caravan trade. These families established themselves first in Gansu. The next generation entered into the main Chinese towns, and subsequently, some Sogdians even managed to reach the court. The Sogdian community in the main towns of northern China during the sixth and seventh centuries was headed by a Sabao, who received a Mandarin rank in the official hierarchy, at least from the Northern Qi dynasty to the Tang.71 Some discoveries from Guyuan in the Chinese province of Ningxia (Southern Ordos) provide a very good example of such Sogdian families.72 Six graves of one Sogdian family were excavated there. They probably originated from the Sogdian town of Kesh (Shahr-i Sabz, in Uzbekistan), and indeed the texts of the funerary epitaphs describe how the family migrated from the western countries. The archaeological content of these tombs confirms these western links, in that some Byzantine and Sasanian coins, a seal stone inscribed in Pahlavi, and a Zoroastrian symbol were found there. While the ancestors were Sabao, a member of the fourth generation in China, Shi Shewu, was the great man of the family, and through his work for the Chinese army, the family was integrated into Chinese society. He died in 610, and his grave and funerary epitaph are Chinese. His sons and grandsons were translators or soldiers or in charge of horse-breeding farms for the Chinese dynasties.73 Some of the names are plain transcriptions of Sogdian names: Shewu is the honorific personal name, but the public name was Pantuo. By reuniting both names, we have Zhimatvande, a well-known Sogdian name meaning “servant of Demeter” and one that was inherited from the period of Alexander the Great in Central Asia. This name was divided in two halves only for the sake of interpretatio sinica. The elder branch kept Sogdian names, while the other ones were Sinicized. After five generations in China, some of the members of the families still married within the Sogdian milieu: for example, Shi Hedan, who married one “Kang” (the Chinese surname of the natives of Samarkand), and Shi Suoyan, who married one “An” (from Bukhara). These data are fascinating because we can follow closely how one Sogdian family in China evolved socially and became integrated.74 Some other recent archaeological discoveries have uncovered the tombs of the heads of the Sogdian communities in the capital. These nouveaux riches had expensive funerary beds carved for them on which they displayed both their Sogdian culture and their integration into Chinese society—in a sense, this was the iconographical counterpart of the epitaphs of the Shi family. One of the most interesting tombs was discovered a few years ago near Taiyuan by a team of the Shanxi Archaeological Institute. The tomb of Yu Hong, who died in 593 at age fifty-eight, contained a funerary bed in the shape of a Chinese house, adorned with fifty-three carved panels of marble, originally painted and gilded. Yu Hong had traveled extensively, acting as an ambassador for the Ruanruan in Persia, Bactria, and Gandhara (Yuezhi) and among the Tuyuhun tribes near Lake Qinghai. He later served the Northern Qi and Zhou and the Sui. He became Sabao in 580, and then nominal governor of a town, as indicated by the funerary epitaphs of Yu Hong and his wife that were discovered in the tomb. The iconography fits very well with the geography of the texts: on the panels, we see Yu Hong hunting with nomads on horses, hunting on an Indian elephant, and banqueting with his wife. Zoroastrian symbols are clearly displayed: two priests, half-bird and half-human, wearing the traditional padam (a piece of cloth in front of the mouth), along with Mithra and his sacrificial horse.75 The conquest of Central Asia by Chinese armies from 640 on changed the economic conditions within which the Sogdian merchants operated. To finance their expansion and pay their troops, the Tang empire sent more than 10 percent of its fiscal receipts to the West, for the most part in the form of silk and hemp rolls, from which the Sogdians benefited as the main intermediaries of this long-distance trade.76 Sogdian trade was firmly integrated into the Chinese military expansion in less than one century, even in regions far removed from Central Asia: on its northeastern frontier, the Tang placed Sogdian traders in its garrison towns to ease the economic situation there.77 The same period saw an evolution in the official position of the Sogdian communities. It seems that the Tang transformed independent and autonomous Sogdian communities—which had been loosely integrated in the Mandarin hierarchy—into villages that were more closely controlled and lacking a Sogdian hierarchy. The Sabao disappear from the epigraphical and textual sources after the middle of the seventh century. But this period, up to the middle of the eighth century, was certainly the climax of Iranian influence on Chinese civilization. Although the communities were suppressed, the families and individuals who were formerly inclined to stay within the Sogdian communities now became more thoroughly integrated into Chinese society. We can see people with typical Sogdian surnames getting involved in all the fields of Tang social life.78 Many of these Sogdians remained merchants: around the main markets of the capitals, Chang’an and Luoyang, Sogdian temples, Sogdian taverns, and Sogdian shops flourished. They sold to the Tang elite the western goods that were then à la mode. Many young nobles and drunken poets celebrated the charms of the Sogdian girls. However, other Sogdians were not merchants: soldiers, monks, and high or low officials were also of Sogdian descent. Likewise, not all the foreign traders were Sogdian: some of them were Indian, Bactrian, or Khotanese. These, however, were more specialized traders: for instance, the Khotanese traded in precious stones, since jade came from boulders of the Khotan River.79 Nevertheless, even these foreigners merged into the dominant immigrant group, the Sogdians: a tomb of an Indian discovered in the capital was modeled on the Sogdian ones. In southern China, by contrast, the sea trade brought numerous Persian traders to the ports in a very different context. The Apogee of the Silk Road: The Western Section Information on the links between Central Asia and the West, be it the Sasanian empire or the Byzantine empire, is much more limited. But it is quite certain that the Sogdians moved from their position of merchants and ambassadors in the Turkish empire to a much more long-distance commercial role. The best textual source for this transition is a depiction by a Byzantine author, Menander the Guardsman, of Turkish embassies sent to the two empires in the 570s: As the power of the Turks increased, the Sogdians, who were formerly subjects of the Ephthalites and now of the Turks, asked their king to send an embassy to the Persians, to request that the Sogdians be allowed to travel there and sell raw silk to the Medes. Sizabul agreed and dispatched Sogdian envoys, whose leader was Maniakh. . . . When they reached the king of the Persians, they asked that they be given permission to sell the raw silk there without any hindrance. The Persian king, who was not at all pleased by their request, and was reluctant to grant to these men henceforth free access to the territory of Persia [ . . . was advised] not to return the silk, but to buy it, paying the fair price for it, and to burn it on a fire before the eyes of the envoys, so that he would not be held to have committed an injustice but that it would be clear that he did not wish to use raw silk from the Turks. So the silk was burned, and the Sogdians returned to their homeland not at all pleased with what had happened. . . . Maniakh, the leader of the Sogdians, took this opportunity and advised Sizabul that it would be better for the Turks to cultivate the friendship of the Romans and send their raw silk for sale to them because they made more use of it than other people.80 Several embassies were then exchanged between the Turks and the Byzantine empire, taking a road from the Aral Sea to the north of the Caspian Sea and then through the Caucasus Mountains or via the Crimea. In the Caucasus, tombs have been discovered along the high passes leading to Byzantium that do indeed contain some remains of silk fabrics, and at least one of them has provided archaeologists with Chinese documents.81 During the great Armenian revolt of 571, Vardam Mamikonian, while on an embassy to Constantinople, brought with him a great quantity of silk thread via the Caucasus. The seventh-century Geography, attributed to the Armenian author Ananias of Širak, notes the precious products that could be found in each of the lands he describes and mentions “the Chorasmians [who are] merchants [dwelling] towards the northeast.” It states additionally that “the Sogdians are wealthy and industrious merchants who live between the regions of Turkestan and Aria.” To the north and northeast of Armenia, these were the only merchants Ananias knew. A commercial town was founded in the Crimea, the other major access point to Byzantine territories, at the end of the seventh century. Seals of the imperial warehouse of Constantinople have been discovered there, as well as eighth-century seals of Byzantine commerciarii, officials who dealt with luxury goods. It is by no mere chance that this town was named Sogdaia. Some Sogdian ostrakaostraca have been found nearby, near the strait of Kertch, and religious legends seem to recall the existence of a Sogdian population on the northern coast of the Black Sea. This region, with the rich and proximate Byzantine market, had everything necessary to attract the Sogdian merchants—as the text of Menander the Guardsman already demonstrates. Although a chronological hiatus exists between the attempt mentioned by Menander and the first archaeological traces of Sogdaia, it is nonetheless tempting to postulate the continuity of the Sogdian presence in the region. Sogdaia was a frontier market, like those found in the Ordos at the other end of the steppe, where Sogdo-Turks and Chinese met.82 The Sogdians thus settled in Turk territory, at that time controlled by the Khazars—the successors of the Turks in the western steppe from the seventh century on—within range of substantial commerce, but without being subject to strict Byzantine control over the silk trade. Some goods that were traded at one stage or another by Central Asian merchants made their way even further west, to the Latin world: the bones and relics of saints were often wrapped in luxury fabrics produced in Central Asia. Some fabrics discovered in the Dunhuang grotto are very similar to those kept in the treasuries of western cathedrals. In both cultures, these were used to wrap their most precious objects, whether the bones of Christian saints or Buddhist sutras. One of the extant textiles still retains a short Sogdian inscription written in ink.83 No literary text, however, describes this trade. The situation is similar in the north: in the Russian forest belt, dozens of silver plates originating from the Iranian world—be it the Sasanian empire itself or Iranian-speaking Central Asia—have been discovered, without any source describing this trade. But we know for sure that they arrived in the forest zone through Central Asian hands, because their weights are inscribed in Sogdian or Khorezmian. During the eighth century, 75 percent of these plates were traded via Central Asia. Some Central Asian coins have also been discovered in Russia. These northern areas, in the ninth and tenth centuries, are described by the Muslim texts as exporters of furs, honey, amber, and slaves. We can suppose that this was also the case in the preceding periods. Eighth-century Baltic amber has been found in Samarkand and in Panjikent, and even in the Shoshoin repository of Nara, Japan.84 On the western roads, Sogdian traders might have been in direct competition with Khorezmian traders. In addition to the text of Ananias quoted previously, a Chinese text states: “Among all of the Central Asian peoples, this people [the Khorezmians] is the only one which [yokes] oxen [to] wagons. The merchants ride [in these vehicles] in order to travel to various kingdoms.” But the Chinese knew very little about Khorezm and its commerce. Khorezmian commerce, without doubt important in the western steppe, never possessed the eastern counterpart of the Sogdian commercial network. The silver Khorezmian coins of the middle of the eighth century begin to bear legends in Sogdian, as if they had been included lately in the Sogdian commercial sphere. However, the pre-Islamic long-distance trade network had already ended by this point. Later, when east-west trade resumed in the western steppe in the tenth century—after a gap in the ninth century dominated by north-south trans-Caucasian trade—the Khorezmian traders superseded their Sogdian rivals.85 The End of the Network The end of Central Asian long-distance trade came abruptly in the middle of the eighth century for several reasons. The first is the Arab conquest that took place during two different periods. The fall of the Sasanian empire and the death of its last emperor, Yazdegerd III, near Merv (in present-day Turkmenistan) brought the Arab armies to southern Central Asia as early as 651. For the regions situated to the north of the Amu Darya, however, the conquest begins only in the eighth century. Bukhara was conquered in 705, Khorezm (with a systematic murder of the elites) and Samarkand in 712.86 Shortly thereafter, a general uprising of the nobility was crushed in 722.87 But the war went on: all these painful conquests were lost by the Arabs during the 730s in the face of an alliance of the Sogdians with the Türgesh, a Turkish confederation of tribes who occupied the steppe north of western Central Asia. A peace was established under the last Umayyad governor of Central Asia, Naṣr b. Sayyar (from 740 on), but it lasted only a few years.88 After the Abbasid revolution, which began in Merv in 747, Central Asia beyond the Amu Darya was forced to submit once more to Abū Muslim, who decimated its elites. It is only after this event that the whole of western Central Asia can be regarded as firmly integrated (militarily speaking) into the political commonwealth of Islam.89 By then, the power and economy of China had been destroyed by a rebellion. In China, the end of the network came at Sogdian hands. An Lushan was the main military governor of northeastern China, on the frontier of Korea and the Kitans. His father was a Sogdian installed in the Turkish empire, and his mother was Turk. As a young boy, he established himself in northeastern China, acted as a translator in the markets there, became a soldier, and climbed from the rank and file to the top of the army. His rebellion in 755 narrowly destroyed the Tang dynasty and put an end to one of China’s golden ages.90 Many texts describe it as a Sogdian rebellion and state that numerous Sogdian traders supported An Lushan. Some new discoveries demonstrate conclusively that this characterization of the rebellion is not due to a xenophobic bias in the Chinese accounts but is in a way something claimed by the rebels themselves. Shi Seming, himself a Sogdian and the second successor of An Lushan, put the Sogdian royal title of Jamuk (“Jewel,” transcribed Zhaowu in Chinese) on a par with Huangdi (“Emperor”) on his recently discovered ceremonial jades.91 The troops of the rebels bore the Sogdian name of Zhejie, a fair transcription of the Sogdian Châkar, “professional soldier.”92 The Sogdian milieu was torn apart by the rebellion, since many Sogdians in China sided with the Tang. The rebellion was quelled only in 763 with the help of the Uighur nomads. To fight against the rebels, the Tang emperors had to call back all their troops from Central Asia. It would take a millennium for the Chinese to return, with the Qing conquest in the eighteenth century. Eastern Central Asia entered into a continuous period of war between the Uighurs, the Tibetan empire in the south, local kingdoms, and a few isolated Chinese garrisons.93 The end of the Chinese presence marked the conclusion of the enormous amount of silk spent for the colonial empire, as well as the peace maintained along the trade roads. The international trade was thus completely disrupted in the second half of the eighth century and reconstituted on a very low level (if at all) during the ninth century, and only then with the help of the Uighur empire (though under strong Sogdian influence).94 But in China, the western communities and religions dwindled. When Manichaeism, Zoroastrianism, and Nestorianism were forbidden in 845—coincident with the persecution of Buddhism—a Chinese official wrote that “the monasteries of these three foreign religions throughout the whole empire are not equal in number to our Buddhist monasteries in one small city.”95 The Nestorian Stele of 781 can be seen, therefore, as a last remnant of this vanishing world, and these religions survived thereafter only mainly in Central Asia. Chinese economic centers shifted to the south and the coasts, and no inland Silk Road reemerged before the advent of the Mongol empire. Notes 1 The bibliography and notes focus on works in western languages, mainly English, German, and French. However, tools for making use of the bibliography in eastern languages (Chinese and Japanese) and Russian are provided. 2 There are few global introductions to the history of Central Asia. The UNESCO volumes are of disparate quality, although the third one, devoted to Late Antiquity (Litvinsky 1996), is quite good, if slightly outdated. On economy and trade, see la Vaissière 2005a, of which this chapter is more or less an updated abstract. 3 Much paleoclimatic research is currently underway. No global synthesis has been published yet, and this qualification of the late antique climate in Central Asia as milder should be regarded as provisional. 4 There is no synthesis on Central Asian irrigation. For an earlier period, see Francfort and Leconte 2002–2003 and the bibliography given there, especially the works of Andrjanov on Khorezm. On Bactria: Gentelle 1989. 5 Example of Ferghana: Gorbunova 1986. 6 On the sedentary-nomadic interaction: Khazanov 1984. During the Turkish period in Central Asia: Stark 2008, part 3 and 4. 7 Khorezmian is mainly known from texts of the Islamic period: Durkin-Meisterernst 2008. 8 Yoshida forthcoming; Gharib 1995. On material life: Litvinskij 1998. 9 Sims-Williams 1996; 2000b; 2007. 10 Skjærvø 2002 gives a state of the art of Khotanese studies in his introduction. See also Emmerick 1992. Of the numerous philological studies of Bailey, see especially Bailey 1982 for daily life in Khotan. 11 Linguistics: Sims-Williams and Hamilton 1990; Yoshida 2009. Politics and daily life: la Vaissière 2007, 41–44, Stark 2008. 12 Recent bibliography and translated texts in Pinault 2008. See also on Tokharian Buddhism: Pinault 1994. On economic life: Pinault 1998. Translation of the Chinese texts on Kucha in Liu 1969. 13 There are numerous studies on Buddhism in Central Asia. For the results of Soviet archaeology, see Stavisky 1993–1994; in eastern Central Asia: Zürcher 1990; Brough 1965. Art: Rhie 2002. 14 No synthesis but numerous archaeological and art studies: Grenet 1984; 1994; 1995–1996; 2000; Grenet and Marshak 1998; Marshak 2002b; Marshak and Raspopova 1987; 1990b; 1991; 1994; Sims-Williams 1991a; 2000a; Shkoda 1996. Toward China: Zhang Guangda 1994; 2000; Marshak 2002a; Riboud 2005. 15 On the religion of the Turks: Roux 1984; Golden 1992, 149–151, 174–176. 16 Schlütz and Lehmkuhl 2007. 17 Weishu 102.2270; Ammianus Marcellinus 16.3.1, 16.9.3–4, 17.5.1, 19.1.7. Faustus of Byzantium, 5.7 and 5.37. 18 Loginov and Nikitin 1993, 271. 19 Some Chinese texts on the Ephthalites translated in la Vaissière 2007b. 20 Christensen 1944, 293–296. 21 Grignaschi 1984. See also on the Ephthalites: Kuwayama 1989. 22 Göbl 1967 is still the main work on Hunnic numismatics. However, its chronology should be revised according to the new coins and historical analysis. M. Alram is preparing an updated version of this monumental catalogue. 23 Enoki 1969; Grenet 2002, 205–209. 24 Sims-Williams 1996; 2000b; 2007. 25 la Vaissière 2005b. 26 la Vaissière 2007b. 27 ur-Rahman, Grenet, and Sims-Williams 2006. 28 This part is an abstract of la Vaissière 2005a, chapter 4, in which more precise references and analysis are provided. 29 Higuchi and Kuwayama 1970, 26. 30 Gardin 1957, 95. 31 See Rtveladze 1989, 54, 63; Grenet 1996, 371. 32 Lyonnet 1997, 268–284. 33 Marshak and Raspopova 1990a, 181. 34 Grenet 1996; Shishkina 1994; la Vaissière 2005a, chapter 4. 35 la Vaissière 2005a, part 1 is devoted to this question of transcontinental Central Asian trade in Antiquity. 36 Sims-Williams 1983. 37 la Vaissière 2005a, 77–79. 38 Sanguo zhi 4.895. See Rong 2000, 134. 39 Christian Topography 2.46, McCrindle’s translation 1887, 138. 40 Christian Topography 11.15, McCrindle’s translation 1887, 366. 41 Sims-Williams 1997. 42 Excellent synthesis on the Turkish empires in Golden 1992. Translation of the Chinese texts in Chavannes 1903; Liu 1958. 43 Kljaštornyj and Livšic 1972. 44 Moriyasu 1990. 45 Golden 1992, 121. 46 la Vaissière 2005a, chapter 7; la Vaissière 2007a, chapter 3; Stark 2008, third and fourth parts. 47 la Vaissière 2005a, 112–117. 48 Azarpay 1981; Marshak 2002b. In Khotan: Mode 1991–1992. On silverware: Marschak 1986. 49 Texts of Xuanzang and other pilgrims are translated in Beal 1884. 50 See especially Chavannes 1903. 51 Corpus translated only in Russian, but see for the political documents, Grenet and la Vaissière 2002. 52 There is no reliable translation of these inscriptions. See, however, Tekin 1968. Regarding the other Turkish inscriptions, see Moriyasu and Ochir 1999. 53 Menander the Guardsman: trans. Blockley 1984. Theophylact Simocatta: transl. Whitby and Whitby 1986. 54 Beckwith 1987. 55 la Vaissière and Trombert 2004. 56 Laut 1986; Moriyasu 1990; Tremblay 2007. 57 Texts gathered in Leslie 1981–1983. 58 Pelliot 1973; Colless 198673.. 59 Tardieu 2008; Gernet 2008. 60 Klein 2000. 61 Lieu 1985. Tremblay 2001 is a good bibliographical tool but is unreliable with respect to historical analysis. 62 la Vaissière 2005c; Grenet, Riboud, and Yang 2004. 63 Articles on its interpretation gathered in Compareti and la Vaissière 2006. Also Mode 1993. 64 Sims-Williams 2001. Commentary in la Vaissière 2005a, chapter 2. See also Grenet, Sims-Williams, and la Vaissière 1998. 65 Weishu 102.2270. 66 Skaff 1998; la Vaissière 2005a, 133–135. 67 Hansen 2005. 68 Laufer 1919; Schafer 1963; Trombert 1996; 2000; Trombert and la Vaissière 2007. On coins: Thierry 1993; Thierry and Morrisson 1994. 69 Schafer 1963 on the Tang exotics. 70 On sabao, see Dien 1962; la Vaissière 2005a, 151–152. 71 la Vaissière and Trombert 2004, 944–949. 72 Sogdian colonies in the Ordos: Pulleyblank 1952. 73 Luo Feng 2001. 74 Several other examples in la Vaissière and Trombert 2004. 75 Marshak 2002a; Riboud 2005. 76 Trombert 2000. 77 Pulleyblank 1955, 80, 159 n. 6. 78 la Vaissière and Trombert 2004. 79 Schafer 1963, 223–227. 80 Menander, ed. Blockley 1985, 111–115. 81 Ierusalimskaja 1996. 82 la Vaissière 2006. 83 Shepherd and Henning 1959; Shepherd 1980. 84 la Vaissière 2000. 85 Noonan 1982; 1985; la Vaissière 2005a, 292–299. 86 Gibb 1923. See also Barthold 1968. 87 Grenet and la Vaissière 2002. 88 la Vaissière 2007a, 44–54. 89 Karev 2002; la Vaissière 2007a, 55–58, 115–120. 90 Pulleyblank 1955. 91 Rong 2000, 150. 92 la Vaissière 2007a, 77–82. 93 On the Tibetan empire, see Beckwith 1987; on the Uighurs: Mackerras 1972. On their wars: Moriyasu 1981; Yoshida 2009. 94 la Vaissière 2005a, 306–322. 95 Leslie 1981–1983. Bibliography Bibliographic tools for Russian, Japanese, and Chinese It is beyond the aim of this volume to provide a bibliography in non-Western languages. However, some bibliographic tools are available that might help to find references in the numerous bibliographies in Russian, Japanese, and Chinese, of foremost importance. For Russian, the journal Abstracta Iranica annually (from 1977) provides abstracts in French and English of most of the publications in Russian on Central Asia. Abstracts regarding pre-Islamic Central Asia published from 1977 to 1986 have been gathered in Grenet 1988. See also the Bulletin of the Asia Institute 8. For Japanese, some Japanese scholars have published annotated bibliographies on Central Asia in English in the journal Acta Asiatica: 78 (2000), 94 (2007). For Chinese historiography, see China Art and Archaeology Digest 4 (2000). Primary Sources Quoted Ammianus Marcellinus: Rolfe, J. C. 1939. Ammianus Marcellinus, with an English Translation. Loeb Classical Library. London. Ananias of Širak: Hewsen, R. H. 1992. The Geography of Ananias of Širak (AŠXARHAC’OYC’): The Long and the Short Recensions. Beihefte zum Tübinger Atlas des Vorderen Orients, Reihe B (Geisteswissenschaften), 77. Wiesbaden. Cosmas Indicopleustes: McCrindle, J. W. 1887. The Christian Topography of Cosmas, an Egyptian Monk. New York. Faustus of Byzantium: Garsoïan, N. 1989. The Epic Histories Attributed to P’awstos Buzand (Buzandaran Patmut’iwnk). Cambridge, MA. Menander: Blockley, R. C. 1985. The History of Menander the Guardsman. ARCA, 17. Liverpool. Sanguo zhi: Chen Shou. 1962. Sanguo zhi. Beijing. Theophylactes Simocatta: Whitby, Michael, and Whitby, Mary. 1986. The History of Theophylact Simocatta: An English Translation with Introduction and Notes. Oxford. Weishu: Wei Shou. 1974. Weishu. Beijing. Xuanzang: Beal, S. 1884. Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World. Translated from the Chinese of Hiuen Tsiang, AD 629. London. Works Cited Azarpay, Guitty. 1981. Sogdian Painting. The Pictorial Epic in Oriental Art. Berkeley: University of California Press. Bailey, Harold. 1982. The Culture of the Sakas of Ancient Iranian Khotan. Delmar, NY: Caravan. Barthold, Wilhem. 1968. Turkestan down to the Mongol Invasion. Trans. T. Minorsky. London: Luzac. Beckwith, Christopher. 1987. The Tibetan Empire in Central Asia: A History of the Struggle for Great Power among Tibetans, Turks, Arabs, and Chinese during the Early Middle Ages. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Brough, John. 1965. “Comments on Third-Century Shan-Shan and the History of Buddhism,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 28.3: 582–612. Chavannes, Édouard. 1903. Documents sur les Toukiue (Turcs) occidentaux. Sankt Petersburg: Commissionnaires de l’Académie impériale des sciences. Christensen, Arthur. 1944. L’Iran sous les Sassanides, Annales du Musée Guimet, 1948. Copenhaguen. Colless, B. E. 1986. “The Nestorian Province of Samarqand,” Abr-Nahrain 24: 51–57. Compareti, Matteo, and Étienne de la Vaissière, eds. 2006. Royal Nawruz in Samarkand: Proceedings of the Conference Held in Venice on the Pre-Islamic Painting at Afrasiab. Supplemento n°1 alla Rivista degli Studi Orientali 78. Pisa-Roma: Instituto Editoriali e Poligrafici Internazionali. Dien, Albert. 1962. “The Sa-pao Problem Re-Examined,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 82–83: 335–346. Durkin-Meisterernst, Desmond. 2008. “Khwarezmian in the Islamic period.” In Islamisation de l’Asie centrale. Processus locaux d’acculturation, ed. Étienne de la Vaissière, Cahier de Studia Iranica 39, 199–213. Paris-Leuven: Peeters. Emmerick, Ronald. 1992. A Guide to the Literature of Khotan. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies. Enoki, Kazuo. 1969. “On the Date of the Kidarites (I),” Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko 27: 1–26. Francfort, Henri-Paul, and Olivier Leconte. 2002–2003. “Irrigation et société en Asie centrale des origines à l’époque achéménide,” Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales 57: 625–663. Gardin, Jean-Claude. 1957. Céramiques de Bactres, Mémoires de la Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan, XV. Paris: Klincksieck. Gentelle, Pierre. 1989. Prospections archéologiques en Bactriane orientale (1974–1978), 1, Données paléogéographiques et fondements de l’irrigation, Mémoires de la MAFAC-III. Paris: Éditions Recherches sur les civilisations. Gernet, Jacques. 2008. “Remarques sur le contexte chinois de l’inscription de la stèle nestorienne de Xi’an.” In Controverses des chrétiens dans l’Iran sassanide, ed. Christelle Jullien, Cahier de Studia Iranica 36, 227–243. Paris-Leuven: Association pour l’avancement des études iraniennes and Peeters. Gharib, B. 1995. 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