Drangiana

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Drangiana as a Persian satrapy in the east of the empire.

Drangiana ( old Persian Zranka , "water country") was a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire and today belongs to the countries Afghanistan , Pakistan and Iran . The core areas were Lake Hamun and the Helmand River . Thus, the geographic location of Drangiana roughly corresponds to the Sistan region in the Islamic Middle Ages and to the north of the present-day Iranian province of Sistan and Balochistan as well as the neighboring Pakistan and southwestern Afghanistan. The earliest mention of Drangiana can be found in the Behistun inscription from the 5th / 6th centuries. Century BC However, the meaning of the word is not certain. Many scientists translate it as “water land”. Georg Morgenstierne, on the other hand, prefers “mountain peaks” and thus refers to the mountain Kuh-e Khwaja , which dominates the area.

The area was inhabited by an Iranian tribe, referred to by the Greeks as Sarangians or Drangians , who gave the country its old Persian name Zaranka . It was under the legendary kingdom of Ninos .

First it was subjugated by the Medes , then by Cyrus II (550 BC). Herodotus reports that Cyrus the King of Anjan formed a new coalition from his own Persian tribe, the Pasargadae, the Persian tribes of the Maraphii and Maspii, the powerful tribes (of unknown origin) the Panthialaei, Derusiaei and Germanii as well as the nomadic tribes of the Dahae (also Dai called), Mardi (Meder), Dropici and Sagarti (Asagarti). Presumably these are strains from Drangiana.

Later Darius I divided the previously loosely organized empire into several tax districts. According to Herodotus , during the reign of Darius I, the Drangians were settled in the same district as the Utians, Thamanaeans, Myci and Sagarti, and were also abducted to the Persian Gulf . Except for the Thamaneaens and the Mycis, these tribes are also found in Central Asia .

The Persian capital of the Drangians was called Phrada and may be identical to today's Farah or to the Achaemenid castle in Dahan-e-ye Gholman near today's Zabol . 330 BC The region was conquered by Alexander the Great .

From the second half of the second century BC, the name "Drangiana" was out of use and was replaced by the name Sakastan , which in its modern form Sistan is still the name of the area today. The name change is seen as a result of an incursion of nomadic peoples from Central Asia into Parthia and Bactria in this period, which the ancient writers Strabo and Pompey Trogus mention and in which the Saks were involved.

See also

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rüdiger Schmitt: Drangiana . In: The Circle of Ancient Iranian Studies .
  2. ↑ Herodotus Histories 1.101 & 125
  3. ↑ Drangiana, Livius.org
  4. ↑ : David Bivar : The nomadic empires and the spread of Buddhism in: Gavin Hambly (Hrsg.): Fischer World History Volume 16: Central Asia. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1966, p. 46 ff., 51