From Kesar the Kābulšāh and Cenral Asia (original) (raw)
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The iconic minaret of Djām stands in a remote mountain valley in central Afghanistan, the finest surviving monument of the enigmatic Ghūrid dynasty. The seasonally nomadic Ghūrids rose to prominence ca 545 / 1150-1 when they devastated the capitals of the neighbouring Ghaznawid dynasty. Over the next sixty-five years, the Ghūrids expanded their polity into Khurāsān and the northern Indian sub-continent, before succumbing to the Khwārazm-Shāh and then the Mongols. Their summer capital of Fīrūzkūh, which is thought to be modern Djām, was abandoned and never re-occupied. The re-discovery of the minaret half a century ago prompted renewed interest in the Ghūrids, and this has intensified since Djām became Afghanistan’s first World Heritage site in 2002. The few studies that have been published, however, have largely been historical or architectural; relatively little archaeological data has been collected from Ghūrid sites and Djām has suffered extensive looting in recent years. Two seasons of archaeological fieldwork at Djām, the detailed analysis of satellite images and the innovative use of Google Earth as a cultural heritage management tool have resulted in a wealth of new information about known Ghūrid sites, and the identification of hundreds of previously undocumented archaeological sites across Afghanistan. Drawing inspiration from the Annales School and Adam T. Smith’s concept of an ‘archipelagic landscape’, I have used these data to re-assess the Ghūrids and generate a more nuanced understanding of this significant medieval polity. In addition to complementing the événements which form the focus of the urban-based historical sources, the new archaeological data have enabled me to reconsider the urban characteristics of the Ghūrids’ summer capital and explore the issues of Ghūrid identity, ideology and the sustainability of their polity. The use of Google Earth, in particular, represents an advance in archaeological methodology applicable to semi-arid landscapes throughout the region.
Limits of Empire in Ancient Afghanistan: Rule and Resistance in the Hindu Kush, 600 BCE-600 CE
In the first millennia BCE and CE, successive empires sought to incorporate the archipelago of territories in and around the Hindu Kush and to install their structures of rule. The Achaemenians, Seleucids, and Sasanians endeavored -- and sometimes pretended -- to rule regions of Afghanistan from their courts located in the Near Eastern core, upward of 2500 km distant. The Kushans, for their part, made Bactra and Begram the bases of an empire that extended far beyond into India and Central Asia. Apart from distance, these empires confronted a political geography in the Hindu Kush that was -- like the Caucasus -- uniquely unfavorable to imperial governance, as well as populations with disparate cultures, social structures, and political traditions. Afghanistan thus provides a test of the capacities of ancient imperial regimes to overcome distance, verticality, and difference to integrate territories into their trans-regional and trans-cultural orders. As even a passing familiarity with the history of the region suggests, efforts at empire failed at least as often as they succeeded in a geographical and cultural landscape highly conducive what James Scott calls the “art[s] of not being governed.” The conference aims to focus on the limits of empire in Afghanistan, as a means of better comprehending the workings of the regimes that laid claim to its territories and the responses of its populations. The conference convenes archaeologists, art historians, historians, philologists, and numismatists to debate current research in the context of ongoing theoretical debates concerning the formation, endurance, and limits of imperial systems within a highland political ecology.
The ebb and flow of empires – Afghanistan and neighbouring lands in the twelfth-thirteenth centuries
The little-known Ghaznavid and Ghúrid empires extended across large tracts of south-central Asia in the twelfth-thirteenth centuries, before the invasions of nomadic peoples re-drew the geo-political map of the region. Most previous studies, relying heavily on flawed historical sources rather than the archaeological record, have focussed primarily on court intrigues and military campaigns, and paid little attention to the day-today lives of ordinary people. This paper seeks to demonstrate the potential for integrating theoretical approaches to empires, colonialism, nomads and history, with the archaeological data and the historical sources. Using the results of recent fieldwork at the Ghúrid summer capital of Fírúzkúh / modern Jâm in central Afghanistan, I will attempt to illustrate some of the ways in which this approach can enlighten our understanding of medieval empires.
The dynamics of interrelations Bukhara and Yarkand khanates: inter and external factors
Thi s paper addresses historical interrela tion s b\'t ween two parts o r Central Asia that later beca me separated from each other, one becom ing part of Ru ss ia and the ot her part of China . Therefore I argue that the hi story of relations between th ese two Central As ian Khanates -the Bukhara and Yarka ncl Kh anates (prese nt Xinjia ng) --shou ld be exa minccl1n the co ntext of their importance to the hi story of th e Central Asian reg ion as a whole . In ana lyz in g politica l and eco nomic re lation s of both Kh anates, we have to pay attention to the dynami cs of these processes and the ro le or internal and/or ex tern al facto rs. This paper draws partl y on publi shed so urces. and part ly on my stud y of Persian and Chaghatay manu scripts housed 111 the acadern ic libraries o f Uzbekistan.