Alans Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Yatsenko S.A., Avizova А.К, Torgoev A.I., Saipov A., Kulish A.V., Kitov E.P., Rogozhinskii A.E., Smagulov E.A., Erzhigitova A.A., Torezhanova N.Zh., Tur S.S., Ivanov S.S. Archaeology and History of Cangju State / Ed. by Sergey A.... more

You can also DOWNLOAD the book in my post box: https://cloud.mail.ru/publc/45au/37gyXDKV6 , ca 48 mbt.

SUMMARY:
by the editor
The collective book is the first big special international study devoted to the little-studied Kangju / Kanga /康居"nomadic empire". Its heyday was in the 80 – 230 CE and the center located in the Middle Syr Darya Basin. That time Kangju was the most powerful state in the West of the Central Asia. The heyday of Kangju coincided with the great time of antiquity – with the simultaneous heyday of the Roman Empire, the Han Dynasty China, the Parthian Iran and the Kushan Empire. The role of Kangju was crucial in the emergence of the "Northern Road" from 20 BCE - an important route of the newly emerged Silk Road. At the same time, Kangju was the only state in the western part of Central Asia that consistently opposed China. It was a long-lived state with almost 5-century history (ca 130 BCE – 350 CE). The history of this state is closely related to the early fate of the famous peoples of the past – the Alans and the southern Huns (Chionites). The history of Kangju is an important part of the history of peoples in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, the Russian Steppe zone to the east from Volga, some parts of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
The Kangju early state emerged as a socio-cultural synthesis of nomads and settled farmers, groups that migrated from the East and descendants of the ancient population of Transoxiana. The Kangju peoples were the first to create a series of fortified settlements on vast territories in the northernmost oases of the Syr Darya Basin and Northern Tien Shan Mountains, including several cities, and laid roads here. Kangju successfully manipulated by the certain groups of nomadic Sarmatians, Alans, Wusun, and Xiongnu to increase its power.
However, paradoxically, today we know much less about the Kangju state than, for example, about the Saka of Semirechye / Jetytu, the tribes of the Pazyryk Culture, the Eastern groups of Sarmatians and other ancient inhabitants of Kazakhstan in antiquity. Different aspects of the life of this ancient state have not yet been practically studied. This is why our book looks to the future in many ways. We did not try to create a solid generalizing work on Kangju. Such generalizations have been made several times in the past on very limited material and have not been very successful.
The book was prepared as the part of Kazakhstan President scientific programm BR05233709 “The History and Culture of the the Great Steppe”. The main idea of this collection of papers was proposed in February 2020 by Prof. Sergey A. Yatsenko (the editor, RSUH, Moscow) and Dr. Asan I. Torgoev (Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg). The chapters of the book present new, unpublished materials, give new interpretations of already known facts, or summarize the materials of field research of previous years. The opinions expressed in various chapters reflect the positions of thier 12 authors. This collection was devoted to one of the co-authors who died in October 2019 – Erbulat A. Smagulov (Almaty).