Kafirkala
Kafirkala ( Tajik Кафиркала , Kāfer Qalʿa , "pagan castle"), also Kafyrkala, Kafyr-Kala , was an early medieval fortified city on the lower reaches of the Wachsch in southern Central Asia . On the outskirts of today's city of Kolkhozobod in southern Tajikistan , the remains of a square settlement area with residential houses, a citadel and a small Buddhist temple made of adobe bricks were uncovered from 1954 with interruptions until 1981 . This layer dates from the 6th century to the middle of the 7th century (layer KF II). The oldest period of Kafirkala (KF III) with few objects found is dated to the 2nd to 3rd century, the youngest (KF I), which is mainly known in the city for coins and ceramics, to the 7th to 8th centuries when the city was destroyed in the course of the Arab conquest. Kafirkala was the largest city on the lower Wachsch and, according to the description of the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang, the capital of the small kingdom Wachsch ( Chinese U-Scha). The early medieval name of the city was probably Chelawerd (Khelaverd).
Historical environment
Coordinates: 37 ° 35 ′ 19.9 ″ N , 68 ° 38 ′ 47.2 ″ E
Kafirkala was located in the historical Bactria landscape , which has had a Hellenistic influence on art and architecture since the conquest of Alexander the Great . In ancient times the landscape north of the Oxus (now Amudarja ) was called Transoxania . Until the 3rd century, the area belonged to the sphere of influence of the Kushana . During this time, a route of the Silk Road led from Hotan through the Wachsch Valley south to Balkh and on to Mesopotamia. From the beginning of the 5th century to around 560, the Hephthalites ruled a large part of south-central Asia and made a considerable profit from trade via the Silk Road. Around 570 the Turkic peoples conquered the former Hephthalite territory and penetrated into Afghanistan, which was controlled by the Sassanids . At the end of the 6th and beginning of the 7th centuries there were troubled times for the small principalities that emerged from the succession of the Hephthalites and were between the Turkic peoples and the Sassanids. In the middle of the 7th century the Muslim Umayyads began to advance north of the Amu Darya, in 654 they reached Sogdia for the first time , a little later they conquered the region on the lower Wachsch and in 681 the first Arab general wintered with his army north of the Amu Darya.
Arab authors called the area of what is now northern Afghanistan, south-east Uzbekistan and south-west Tajikistan, Tocharistan . In the early Middle Ages, after the end of the Kushana period, the Wachsch rulership of the Tocharistan region existed in the Wachsch Valley (Chinese U-Sha, Usha, Hu-sha), the capital of which was recognized as Kafirkala. To the north of Kafirkala, the Wachsch Valley seems to have run a border between a northern and a southern domain. This border, on which the fortress Urta-Boz was located, probably existed until the second half of the 6th century. The lower Wachsch Valley formed one of 27 small empires in Tocharistan, about which and about the capital of which the Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang, 603–664) reported, who was traveling from China between 633 and 645 in Central Asia and India . He stated the size of Wachsch as 500 Li (equivalent to 200 kilometers) in length and 300 Li (120 kilometers) in width. As a result, the domain included much more than the Wachsch Valley, which was only 25 kilometers wide.
The lower Wachsch valley is since the 5th / 4th Century BC Opened up for agricultural use by irrigation canals. According to Chinese sources from the 7th century, grain, rice and fruits were grown in the valley. Horses, mules and camels and the many Buddhist buildings are praised. Irrigated agriculture enabled and still enables the establishment of settlements. On the basis of the ancient irrigation canals, modern irrigation systems were built in the middle of the 20th century for large-scale cotton cultivation in the valley floor. Significant settlements from the Greco-Bactrian times in the area were Kuchna-Kala on the left bank of the Wachsch south of Kafirkala with a surrounding wall of 250 × 125 meters and the fortified settlement of Kei-Kobad-Schach near Kubodijon, which is 383 × 285 meters larger . From the end of the 5th century to the middle of the 8th century, Kalai-Kafirnigan (on the border with Uzbekistan , 80 kilometers southwest of Dushanbe ) was a fortified city with a separate citadel. In the last construction phase a Buddhist temple ( vihara ) was built there. The remains of the Buddhist complex of Adschina-Teppa, northwest of Kafirkala (near Qurghonteppa ) date from this period (7th / 8th century ).
In the 5th century, the transition from late antiquity to the early Middle Ages, there were considerable changes in the areas of society, economy, craftsmanship and construction in southern Central Asia. In addition to the previous large settlements surrounded by a rectangular wall, smaller fortified settlements and fortified palaces such as Chilchudschra (4th to 8th centuries) in the historical region of Usrushana were built until the Arab conquest . Settlements from the early Middle Ages have been found throughout Tocharistan. The settlements with construction activity in the vicinity of Kafirkala in the 5th century include Garavkala (near the town of Jowon, west of Norak ), where over the 300 × 200 meter fortified city from the Kushana period to the first half of the 5th century Century adobe buildings were built, and Munchak-Tepe. This settlement with a square enclosure wall of 100 meters side length was excavated in the Kubodijon oasis on the right bank of the Kofarnihon (near Schahritus ) and was inhabited from the Kushana period to the early Middle Ages. Aktepe II, west of Shahritus in the valley of Beschkent (near Tschilu- chor Tschaschma ) was a 130 × 100 meter large, densely built-up settlement, surrounded by a seven meter high wall. Other settlements in the northern Beschkent Valley that are known to consist of a citadel and a separate housing estate were Changaza and Bezymjannoje. The poorly preserved, square Sangtepe Castle near Termiz (Uzbekistan) from the beginning of the 5th century was located in the northwest corner of a settlement. Balalyk-Tepe, 15 kilometers south of Termiz, was 30 meters square, a small fortress that stood on a six-meter high pedestal. Wall paintings showing people at a banquet have been preserved from the ballroom.
The 900 × 640 meter fortified city of Soli-Sard, twelve kilometers northwest of Kafirkala, dates from the 10th to 12th centuries. It was also called Chelawerd (Khelaverd), later Lagman, and is not identical to the smaller, also called Soli-Sard, fortified settlement near the present-day village of Kores . The coin finds from Soli-Sard show the continued importance of the lower Wachsch valley in the later Middle Ages. Litvinsky believes that the largest city in the lower Wachsch valley in the 10th to 12th centuries, Chelawerd, took this name from the formerly largest city of Chelawerd, i.e. Kafirkala, which was destroyed by the Arab conquest.
Research history and dating
The first reports of the ruins in the Wachsch Valley in more recent times came from Russian travelers, officers and officials from the 1870s. Among them were NA Majev (1876), I. Minajev (1879), the geographer PE Kosjakov (1884) and the geographer Dimitrii Nikolaevich Logofet (1909, 1913). The Tajik Archaeological Expedition, led by Aleksandr Belenickij, examined and mapped the most important sites including Kafirkala in 1947. This was followed by the first systematic explorations and excavations by the Tajik Academy of Sciences under Boris A. Litvinskij from 1951. From 1973 Litvinsky led the South Tajik Archaeological Expedition, in which several institutes and the State Hermitage in Saint Petersburg worked together. In the Wachsch Valley, the early medieval irrigation system and many settlements from this period were exposed.
Kafirkala is the largest early medieval site in the Wachsch Valley. Here Tamara Ivanovna Zejmal began 1956–1957 in the area of the residential city ( Sharistan ) with examinations on an area of 150 square meters. Zejmal recognized three cultural layers (KF I – III), which she dated between the 2nd and 8th centuries. A monumental hall building was largely uncovered from the KF II layer, the building structures of the other two layers could not be determined. In 1965, new construction work caused damage to the northern enclosure wall and the citadel. The north-eastern tower of the citadel was discovered by chance. This was the basis for further excavations, which took place on a larger scale in 1968, mainly in the area of the citadel. From 1969 to 1981 (with the exception of 1972 and 1979), under the direction of Boris A. Litvinskij, excavations were carried out annually on a smaller scale. VS Solovjev was the site manager for up to a year.
The dating of the three layers is mainly based on coin finds. Several coins from the Kushana period are used to determine the earliest layer (KF III). A copper coin from the palace, which shows a four-armed Vishnu on the reverse , is attributed to King Kanishka (ruled around 100 - around 126). In addition, two unassigned Kushana coins were found in the palace and one coin in the town house from the time of King Vima Takto (ruled around 80 - around 90). Kushana coins were still in circulation after the end of this empire. In connection with some ceramic finds from the late Kushana period, the earliest settlement of Kafirkala is the 2nd / 3rd century. Century assumed.
The dating of the second layer (KF II) is based on a Hephthalite coin from the middle of the 7th century that was found in a residential building. There were no objects in the citadel that could be dated. The pottery allows KF II to be narrowed down to the second half of the 6th and first half of the 7th century.
The vast majority of coin finds can be assigned to the youngest layer (KF I). They come from the citadel, the residential town and from a noble seat in the outer suburb ( rabad ). In most cases it is anepigraphic (unlabeled) bronze coins with a raised square around a hole in the middle from which curved "hairs" emerge at two corners, on the front and with a smooth back. The representation is a Tocharian seal (symbol of power, tamgha ). It seems to be a coin type that is only widespread regionally on the left bank of the Wachsch and was issued by one of the Tocharian small empires (wax). To date the coins, finds shared with other coins are used. The coin type was found together with dirhams from the 730s in a room of the Buddhist monastery Adschina-Teppa. This type of anepigraphic Tocharian coins was in circulation from the second half of the 7th to the first half of the 8th century. Another eight bronze coins that occurred regionally have a Sogdian inscription on the obverse and four illegible Chinese characters on the reverse. They were in circulation from roughly the 730s to the first half of the 8th century. Four coins, named after their first place of discovery, Munchak-Tepe, have a raised ring around the central opening and a hephthalitic inscription. The coins, which are smooth on the reverse, can only roughly be dated to the same time, as can the other found objects (ceramics, weapons and jewelry). It is possible that parts of the site were still inhabited in the 9th century. Individual ceramic finds show a presence of people until the 16th / 17th centuries. Century.
investment
The basic plan of Kafirkala is a classic example of an early medieval city in south central Asia, which is divided into three separate areas and represents an early stage of the high medieval cities. The three areas are the citadel ( Persian kuhendiz , Arabic equivalent qala ), walled residential city ( Sharistan , Arabic madīna ) and the suburbs , which are often also surrounded by a wall ( called rabad, rabaḍ from the Islamic period ). The settlement hill visible today was surrounded on all sides by a suburb, but little is known about its development and scope. Only the mud brick wall remains of a homestead in the suburbs were preserved in a two meter high mound of earth with a diameter of about 27 meters 100 meters south of the fortified city between modern buildings. The suburbs of Old Punjakent (near Punjakent ), Bundschikat in Usruschana (7th to 9th centuries), Khujand (there) and Taras in the south of Kazakhstan were at least partially explored . Citadel and residential town were newly laid out in Kafirkala at the same time, while other Central Asian cities, for example in Khorezmia, emerged from ancient foundations. In addition, there is a cemetery east of the suburb for Kafirkala, which is now overbuilt by modern houses. The extent of the entire city is not known; Compared to other cities in the region, Kafirkala is likely to have been of medium size, at least significantly smaller than Balch , Merw or Afrasiab . Even if the description of Xuanzang is obviously exaggerated - he gives the circumference of the capital of U-Sha as 16 to 17 Li, the identification of Kafirkala with the capital seems to be certain because it is the largest settlement and one which is particularly important because of its fortification was in the Wachsch valley.
In the tradition of the local population, Kafirkala - as Litvinskij learned in 1956 - is connected with the hero Zāl of Iranian mythology . His daughter is said to have lived here and he himself was held in the prison ( zendān ) of the citadel, from which his son Rostam freed him.
Attachment
The city and citadel formed a square with a side length of 360 meters oriented towards the cardinal points. The citadel took up an area of 70 × 70 meters in the northeast corner. The flat terrain required artificial fortifications that could withstand extended sieges. The settlement hill on the western outskirts of Kolkhozobod is now surrounded on all four sides by a moat and is only accessible via a footbridge from the east side. At that time, the 5 to 10 meter wide enclosing wall was surrounded by a 50 to 60 meter wide and 5 meter deep trench that could be filled with water in the event of an attack. It is not known whether the suburb was also surrounded by a wall.
Between the moat and the walling of the citadel and the city were forward defensive walls (proteichisms), which were built on ramps made of loess . In the area of the citadel, these ramps were 11 to 14 meters long and 4.5 to 6 meters high. The front walls were almost 3 meters parallel to the main wall. The thickness of a studied proteichism was one meter with a obtained height of 3.8 meters. In the city area, the porches were built on the ground at a distance of 2 meters from the tower behind and 4.8 meters in front of the main wall. Their height was about 2.5 meters. The narrow space between the front and main wall was supposed to represent a trap for the attackers advancing on foot; the walls were too weak for pile drivers. There were comparable front walls in northern Bactria in Kej-Kobad-Schach (Kubodijon) and in Karabag Tepe (near Denov , Uzbekistan). In Central Asia, proteichisms can be found from the 5th century.
The weir walls of the citadel were on a four meters strong base made of rammed earth ( pachsa built) and consisted mainly of about 0.8 x 0.8 x 1.6 meter Stampflehmblöcken, partly made of clay bricks. Rows of adobe bricks were laid between the blocks. The corner towers were rectangular. The corner tower in the southeast protruded 3.4 meters, the larger tower in the northwest 7 meters over the defensive wall. In the middle of the north and east sides, a 1.9 meter wide semicircular protrusion protruded 0.6 meters from the wall. In the wall fields between the corner towers and round projections, there were two niches about 3.7 meters high with indicated vertical arrow slits, as they were distributed over the wall surfaces at intervals of 1.5 to 1.7 meters. The loopholes were 1.5 to 1.6 meters high and about 12 centimeters wide. In addition to their decorative function, they served as expansion joints to prevent cracks from forming. They are in the tradition of the real arrow-like loopholes, as they are known from ancient fortresses, such as the late Kushana period construction of Termiz. The upper edge of the walls was formed by a parapet made of bricks about 0.5 meters thick , possibly with battlements.
The city's defensive walls were reinforced by six towers at intervals of 50 to 60 meters. A tower examined had a footprint of 10.7 × 3.2 meters. The towers were also equipped with fake loopholes. Inside, a spiral staircase led up to the platform, which was secured on the outside by a parapet. The location of the towers can still be seen in part from the slightly elevated rampart, which today surrounds the complex in a width of 5 to 10 meters.
city
The city ( Sharistan ) was explored through six separate excavations. Accordingly, the city area consisted of two roughly equal areas in the north and south, which were separated by a straight road between the two city gates in the east and west walls. From the main street branched lanes in both directions led to the residential areas, the remnants of which form settlement hills rising up to eight meters high over an area of about twelve hectares. A separate living area was located within the east wall between the moat that separated the citadel from the city and the main street. The approximately rectangular area of the northern part of the city measured 70 meters on the west side and 60 meters on the east side with an east-west extension of 110 meters. The settlement hills in the southern area are a little more recognizable.
In the northern part, an investigation area was excavated to a depth of five meters. The remains of the wall on the bottom layer did not reveal any clear house floor plans. From the middle layer (KF II), a 17 × 7 meter large hall made of rammed earth and adobe bricks emerged, the walls of which were covered with an earthen plaster reinforced with straw. A second floor made of a layer of rammed earth was 10 to 15 centimeters higher above one floor. A niche with a 50 centimeter higher floor level in the western narrow side belonged to the first construction phase. The entrance was opposite on the east side. Fragments of a round column base made of clay lay near it. The pillars that have not been preserved were probably made of wood. The hall building was erected in the 6th century, a Hephthalitic silver coin suitable for dating was found in a wall niche.
Smaller utility areas were exposed to the south. The walls of the largest exposed adjoining room in the south, made of rammed earth, plastered and whitewashed, were preserved up to a height of two meters. The finds in this room included clay pots up to one meter high, biconical hand spindles , a lamp and an iron knife. Above the middle built-up layer was a 0.8 to 1.3 meter thick intermediate layer in which perforated bronze coins and other small objects were found. Again, the structure of the building layer above could not be determined.
The previous individual excavations did not provide a sufficiently precise overall picture of the urban settlement and no overview of the existing house floor plans. Larger houses had a large hall in their center - similar to that in Old Punjakent and Bundschikat - which was surrounded by utility rooms. The presumed floor plans of simple houses, which consisted of a few small rooms, can only be revealed from the excavations in Kalai-Kafirnigan. The urban residential buildings and the citadel were built over a settlement from the 2nd / 3rd centuries. Century erected. At the citadel, the older settlement remains were covered with a six-meter-high layer of loess as a base. In contrast, the buildings in the urban area mostly had no foundations. As with the surrounding walls, the walls of the residential buildings consisted of a combination of roughly one meter wide rammed earth blocks with adobe bricks. Most of the bricks are 50–52 × 25–26 × 8–10 centimeters in size, a long, rectangular format with an aspect ratio of 1: 2, as was typical for southern Central Asia. Burned bricks were used for some floors and low seats ( sufa, Arabic ṣuffa , see sofa ) along the walls. The 1–1.45 meter wide and 0.4–0.5 meter high Sufas were predominantly made of adobe bricks and covered with a layer of plaster.
citadel
Time period KF II
The 70 × 70 meter citadel ( kuhendiz ) protruded twelve meters above the residential area and was separated from it by a deep moat. A protrusion at the edge of the moat in the southwest corner of the citadel indicates that there was a bridge here that provided access from the city. By 1975, the archaeologists exposed two thirds (3600 of the 4900 square meters) of the citadel. The three layers of settlement in the residential city were also determined in the area of the citadel. In the middle layer (KF II) the area of the citadel was completely built over. The palace floor plan within the citadel was only partially explored for this layer and completely for the younger layer (KF I), when the palace was still inhabited.
In the center of the palace was a 200 square meter hall (room III) during KF II, to which smaller rooms adjoined. The hall was entered through a 1.2 meter wide entrance from a long corridor (room XVII) parallel to the northern wall on the northeast corner. Little is known about the equipment of the hall. The circular walkway ended in the east a few meters before the north-eastern corner tower. This was five meters high and had a 3.6 × 3.5 meter room inside (Room I), the domed ceiling of which the excavators found almost completely intact. The access to the tower was bricked up shortly after its completion.
Immediately south of the tower, a passage (room II) connected the large inner courtyard with the area between the fortress wall and the front wall. The outer passage of the 2.75 by 2.15 meter room was walled up. Room II was covered with a barrel vault that rested on a support of three rows of mud bricks protruding 7–8 centimeters each . A fireplace on the floor explains why the clay plaster on the walls was covered with a black layer of soot. Here one found pot shards, bones, pieces of coal and a coin from the Kushana period.
A brick-vaulted passage in the west wall of the large hall led to the 8.2 × 8.2 meter room IV, which in turn was connected to the adjoining room V in the west. When the hall was later rebuilt, both entrances were walled up. Along the east wall, room IV had 1.1 meters wide and 16 centimeters high sufas, which were enlarged to 1.4 meters wide and 46 centimeters high during the renovation.
Room V was square on the outside with a side length of 10 meters and circular on the inside with a diameter of 8 meters. When uncovered, the walls were preserved up to a height of 2.4 meters (in places up to over 3 meters). The arch approach of the dome was like the inner wall 90 centimeters thick. The collapse of the dome left a meter-high layer of adobe on the ground. The only entrance on the east side was three feet wide. Along the entire wall there was a 0.35 meter high sufa that only left a small rectangle of the floor exposed in the middle. The room was domed circular. Two layers of clay plaster, each a good 2 centimeters thick, were colored green.
The area of a small Buddhist temple in the southeast corner of the citadel is referred to by Litvinskij as room X to room XV. The 3.4 × 3.4 meter chapel in the center (room X) had a walkway and an entrance on the west side, which led into a courtyard via an ivan . This structure is taken from the ancient Iranian temple architecture. In an earlier construction phase, there was an entrance in the north side instead of or for a transitional period together with the west entrance. For example, there were two entrances (in the east and south) to a small square sanctuary in the Kushana-temporal Surkh Kotal . The mud brick walls (50 × 25 × 10 centimeters) were preserved up to a height of 1.8 meters. Sufas were present in the chapel along the south and east walls.
Time period KF I
The walled-up passages were the smallest changes in the later reconstructions that affected the entire citadel. Some buildings were almost completely demolished and some others were reduced in size. Unstable walls of preserved rooms were given retaining walls for reinforcement. The passageways on the northern and eastern fortress walls (room XVIII) were divided by opposing pillars, so that a line of several rooms was created (room 15 to 19), which now served as living space and storage for food. The round room V in the north-west and the Buddhist temple in the south-east remained essentially unchanged from KF II; the courtyard to the west of the temple was, as before, free of buildings.
The palace hall (room 3) of this period to the east of the older palace hall from KF II (room III) measured 19 × 10 meters, its rammed earth walls were preserved up to 1.5 meters high. It could have served as an audience hall. In the middle of the longitudinal walls there were, in addition to the Sufas, on all walls, raised platforms made of plastered adobe bricks. There was a fireplace on the eastern dais. As in most of the rooms in the palace, the ceiling was flat with wooden beams, branches and a layer of clay and straw above it. Room 4 and Room 14 formed a corridor to the south and west around the palace hall. From there an entrance led into the adjoining room 13 to the west, which measured 15.2 × 6.3 meters. Its walls made of plastered mud bricks were preserved about two meters high. A four meter long passage connected this room in the northwest corner with room 11 (7.4 × 8.2 meters), which Sufas had on all walls. The unusual wall thickness of four meters between these two rooms is attributed to multiple conversions. Room 5, also large in the south, with a 14.5 × 11.2 meter area, was preserved up to a height of 1.5 meters. Sufas were built in front of the walls, and in front of the north wall there was an additional 2.4 meter wide and 60 centimeter high platform (called a “stage”). The other rooms were smaller.
Obviously the representative rooms and the living area of the ruling family were in the north and the economic rooms were in the northeast in the former passageways. According to Litvinskij, the round room (room V or room 20) was possibly used for cults. Baimatowa, on the other hand, suspects that the domed room served as the ruler's throne room and was originally free-standing. In their opinion, this is indicated by the plastering on the outside of the wall and the foundation that is separate from the outbuildings.
Towards the end of this period the palace fell into disrepair. After ceilings collapsed, there must have been a fire in the palace. Then some rooms were rebuilt in a simpler way on the rubble and inhabited for a short time.
In addition to the most important Buddhist complex in southern Tajikistan, Adschina-Teppa, the late construction phase of the massively secured citadel of Kafirkala shows the spread of Buddhism and the established power of the local ruling dynasty of Wachsch in the early Middle Ages. Besides Buddhism, Manichaeism , Christianity and regional old Iranian beliefs ( Zoroastrianism ) were widespread in pre-Islamic times . Litvinsky accordingly interprets the existence of a fireplace in the palace hall (room 3) as a connection between Buddhism and a traditional fire cult that the local population may not have found incompatible with Buddhism.
Finds
Fifty tiny fragments of manuscripts written in black ink on birch bark belonged to a Buddhist text. The writing was preserved as an imprint on the clay at the place of discovery. According to investigations, there are two or three sheets of horizontal Brahmi script written by a professional scribe in the 7th / 8th centuries. Century were made. A relationship with a Sanskrit manuscript made of birch bark in the fortress Sangtepe (Zang-tepe, built in the 5th century, 30 kilometers north of Termiz) could be established, even if mostly only single letters and parts of words could be read. The paleographer MI Vorobeva-Desjatovskaja (1963) concluded from the fragments that Buddhist monks could also have lived in the citadel. Since birch bark was not in use as a writing material in the region , the manuscripts probably came from northern India or the Himalayas. Birch bark manuscripts are best known through Aurel Stein , who found well-preserved manuscripts written in Sanskrit from the 5th to 7th centuries in a stupa near Gilgit in 1931 .
The only wall paintings in the palace rooms of the citadel were found on the walls and on the dome of the Buddhist temple. In contrast to the lavishly decorated halls in the palaces of Old Pandschikent, Warachscha (west of Bukhara ), Bundschikat , Balalyk-Tepe, Dilberdschin (near Balch ) and in the Buddhist Adschina-Teppa monastery, these were missing here, presumably because the walls with it Carpets were hung. With the exception of Balalyk-Tepe, the wall paintings were generally of a religious nature. Room 24 in the citadel and the hall building in the city, from which fragments with bright red patterns on a white-green background were preserved, also had wall paintings.
Only a fragment of a Buddha head from the temple can be recognized to some extent by figurative motifs. The head is surrounded by a pink nimbus with a black frame. The left eye is well preserved, the center of the forehead is emphasized by a red dot. Another fragment belongs to a group of seated Buddhas in orange robes. A Buddha's head is surrounded by a yellow nimbus with a red border. Further painting fragments show a schematic lotus flower with pink petals against a blue background, two human hands and an animal with one front paw and two hind paws recognizable.
Most of the dinnerware was made with a spinning potter's wheel , while the larger clay pots were hand sculpted for food storage. Some dinnerware is engobed in different shades of brown or black . From the middle of the 7th century, the engobe was replaced by ocher or the clay material was sprayed with water before firing in order to obtain a whitish sintered layer on the surface. The later pottery from KF I was consistently of poorer quality than that from KF II. Obviously, as in the rest of the former Kushana area, the old pottery tradition had been lost. In the case of the pottery, some of which were now manufactured at home instead of in professional workshops, everyday use was more important than aesthetic design. The pottery from Kafirkala is typologically similar to the simultaneous pottery from Old Punjakent in Sogdia and that of the Tocharian town of Kalai-Kafirnigan, which is located in the direction of Al-Punjakent, although the pottery of the areas of Tocharistan and Sogdia is otherwise clearly different. The Sogdian cultural influence, recognizable in Tocharistan for the 7th and 8th centuries, did not reach Khoresmia or Usrushana.
A total of 80 coins come from the residential town and the citadel; In addition, there is a rich individual find from the manor in the suburbs. The oldest coin finds from Kafirkala and other places in the Wachsch Valley date back to the Kuschana period. In the 5th century, the Kushana coinage was replaced by local imitations. From the end of the 4th century to the first half of the 6th century, no coins have survived from the entire lower Wachsch valley. For the following century, as the lower Wachsch valley gradually became more densely populated, coins from local production are still missing. However, according to Litvinsky, this is not an indication of political unrest and devastation during this period. He contradicts earlier assumptions. A coin find near Kafirkala consists of 245 cast copper coins with a center hole and a script-like ornament. According to V. A. Livschic (1979), these are imitations of Chinese bronze coins, which presumably date from the end of the 7th or the beginning of the 8th century. Another group of coins from Kafirkala, Adschina-Teppa and localities in the Kubodijon oasis show a Bactrian italic script and were probably only in circulation in this region.
literature
- Nasiba Baimatowa: The Art of Arching in Central Asia. Mud brick vault (4th - 3rd millennium BC - 8th century AD). Dissertation, Freie Universität Berlin, 2002 ( full text ), Chapter 34: Kafyr-Kala (Tocharistan), pp. 119–125
- Boris A. Litvinskij, VS Solovjev: Kafyrkala. Early medieval town in the Vachš Valley, southern Tadžikistan. (Materials for General and Comparative Archeology, Volume 28) CH Beck, Munich 1985
- Boris A. Litvinsky: Kafir Kala. In: Encyclopædia Iranica
- Boris A. Litvinsky (Ed.): History of Civilizations of Central Asia. The crossroads of civilizations: AD 250-750. Volume III. (Multiple History Series) UNESCO Publishing, Paris 1996
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Hans Wilhelm Haussig : The history of Central Asia and the Silk Road in pre-Islamic times. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1983, p. 80.
- ^ J. Harmatta: History of the Regions. In: Boris A. Litvinsky (Ed.): History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Vol. III, pp. 360f
- ↑ Étienne de La Vaissière : Sogdian Traders. A history . ( Handbook of Oriental Studies . 8th section: Central Asia , Volume 10) Brill, Leiden / Boston 2005, pp. 265f
- ^ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala, p. 87
- ^ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala , p. 7
- ↑ Lazar Israelowitsch Albaum, Burchard Brentjes : Guardian of Gold. On the history and culture of Central Asian peoples before Islam . VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1972, p. 81
- ^ Boris A. Litvinsky: Kalai-Kafirnigan Problems in the Religion and Art of Early Mediaeval Tokharistan. In: East and West, Vol. 31, No. 1/4, December 1981, pp. 35-66, here p. 54
- ^ Grégoire Frumkin: Archeology in Soviet Central Asia. ( Handbuch der Orientalistik, 7th section: Art and Archeology , 3rd volume: Innerasien, 1st section) EJ Brill, Leiden / Cologne 1970, p. 62f
- ↑ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala, pp. 28–31
- ↑ Aleksandr Belenickij: Central Asia. (The great cultures of the world. Archaeologia Mundi) Heyne, Munich 1978, p. 133
- ^ Boris A. Litvinsky: Kafir Kala. In: Encyclopædia Iranica
- ^ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala, pp. 13, 38f
- ^ Boris A. Litvinsky: The Hephthalite Empire . In the S. (Ed.): History of Civilizations of Central Asia. The crossroads of civilizations: AD 250-750. Volume III, p. 153
- ^ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala , pp. 88f
- ↑ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala, pp. 40–43
- ↑ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala , pp. 14-17
- ^ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala , pp. 45, 48
- ↑ To make a distinction, Litvinskij designates the rooms of the time period KF II with Roman numerals and the rooms of time period KF I with Arabic numbers .
- ↑ Nasiba Baimatowa: The art of curling in Central Asia , p 121
- ↑ Klaus Fischer : Creations of Indian Art . DuMont, Cologne 1959, p. 130 (with basic plan)
- ^ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala , pp. 18-22
- ^ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala , p. 28
- ↑ Nasiba Baimatowa: The art of curling in Central Asia, p 122
- ↑ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala , pp. 23-29
- ^ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala, pp. 79f
- ↑ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala , pp. 78–80
- ^ J. Harmatta, BA Litvinsky: Tokharistan and Gandhara under Western Türk Rule (650-750) . In: Boris A. Litvinsky (Ed.): History of Civilizations of Central Asia, p. 380
- ↑ Aydogdy Kurbanov: Some information related to the art history of the Hephthalite time (4th-6th centuries AD) in Central Asia and in Neighboring countries. In: Isimu 16 , 2013, pp. 99–112, here pp. 104f
- ↑ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala, pp. 60–62
- ↑ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala, pp. 64–67
- ^ Litvinskij, Solovjev: Kafyrkala, pp. 75f