THE BACTRIAN LANGUAGE AND ITS GREEK SCRIPT

Bactrian was a language which was spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria (in present-day Afghanistan,Pakistan and Tajikistan) and used as the official language of the Kushan and the Hephthalite empires.


Bactrian was written predominantly in an alphabet which is essentially the Greek Alphabet, apart from some minor changes. The script was known natively  as Greco-Bactrian, Kushan or Kushano-Bactrian.The Bactrian language and its script are known from inscriptions, coins, seals, manuscripts, and other documents.

The Bactrian alphabet was a lightly modified version of the Greek alphabet used for the  Bactrian language. It seems that this writing system was in use from about 120-900 AD.

The Bactrian alphabet was very similar to Greek, containing 22 Greek-based letters and one additional letter. It was written left to right. I was considering not giving this script a post and lumping it in with the Greek scripts, but I had such a hard time recognizing it on the following coins that I think it's different enough to be called its own writing system.

Following the conquest of Bactria by Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, Greek was the administrative language of his Hellenistic successors for about two centuries- meaning the Seleucid and the Greco-Bactrian Kingdoms. Eastern Scythian tribes (the Saka, or Sacaraucae of Greek sources) invaded the territory around 140 BCE, and at some time after 124 BCE, Bactria was overrun by a confederation of tribes belonging to the Great Yuezhi and Tokhari. In the 1st century CE, the Kushana – one of the Yuezhi tribes – founded the ruling dynasty of the Kushan Empire.Under Kushan rule, Bactria became known as Tukhara or Tokhara, and later as Tokharistan. 

The Kushan Empire initially retained the Greek language for administrative purposes, but soon began to use Bactrian. The Bactrian Rabatak inscription (discovered in 1993 and deciphered in 2000) records that the Kushan king Kanishka (c. 127 CE)
discarded Greek (Ionian) as the language of administration and adopted Bactrian .

 The Greek language accordingly vanished from official use and only Bactrian was later attested. The Greek script, however, remained and was used to write Bactrian.The Bactrian language and its Greek Alphabet was also used by the Xionites, a Chinese tribe, who transmitted it to China.

The Rabatak Inscription

The territorial expansion of the Kushans helped propagate Bactrian in other parts of Central Asia and North India.

In the 3rd century, the Kushan territories west of the Indus river fell to the Sasanians, and Bactrian began to be influenced by Middle Persian. Next to Pahlavi script and (occasionally) Brahmi script, some coinage of this period is still in Greco-Bactrian script. Beginning in the mid-4th century, Bactria and northwestern India yielded to the Hephthalite tribes. The Hephthalite period is marked by linguistic diversity. The Hephthalites ruled their territories until the 7th century when they were overrun by the Arabs, after which the official use of Bactrian ceased. Although Bactrian briefly survived in other usage, that too eventually ceased, and the latest known examples of the Bactrian script, found in the Tochi Valley in Pakistan, date to the end of the 9th century.

Letter (ink on leather) in the Bactrian language from "Meyam, King of the people of Kadag, the governor of the famous and prosperous King of Kings Peroz". (© Nicolas Sims-Williams)The letter is dated to the year 461/62 CE and comes from the archive of the kingdom of Rob in Bactria (North Afghanistan). Meyam calls himself the King of Kadagstan (located in Bactria, northeast of Rob, in the region Baghlan) and is subordinate to the Sasanian king Peroz (457–484 CE).

 The use of the Greek script is unique to Bactrian. Although ambiguities remain, some of the disadvantages were overcome by using heta (Ͱ, ͱ) for /h/ and by introducing sho (Ϸ, ϸ) to represent /ʃ/. Xi (Ξ, ξ) and psi (Ψ, ψ) were not used for writing Bactrian as the ks and ps sequences do not occur in Bactrian. They were however probably used to represent numbers (just as other Greek letters were).

 Bactrian document,which relates to Mir son of Bek (Mir ibn Bek) and his brother Bab, both of whom are mentioned in a number of the Arabic documents from Khurasan in the Khalili Collection.

Sites at which Bactrian language inscriptions have been found are (in North-South order) Afrasiyab in Uzbekistan; Kara-Tepe, Airtam, Delbarjin, Balkh, Kunduz, Baglan, Ratabak/Surkh Kotal, Oruzgan, Kabul, Dasht-e Navur, Ghazni, Jagatu in Afghanistan; and Islamabad, Shatial Bridge and Tochi Valley in Pakistan.  Of eight known manuscript fragments in Greco-Bactrian script, one is from Lou-lan and seven from Toyoq, where they were discovered by the second and third Turpan expeditions under Albert von Le Coq. One of these may be a Buddhist text. One other manuscript, in Manichaean script, was found at Qočo by Mary Boyce in 1958.

Sources: Wikipedia, The Schoyen Collection ,The Countenance of the Other , The Khalili Collections 

THE HELLENISTIC FORTRESS UZUNDARA IN UZBEKISTAN

The Uzundara Fortress was built at a small site surrounded by steep granite cliffs of the Kara-Kamar mountain area and the Uzun-dara gorge, atop of waterless Suzistag Mountain. It became one of major elements in the borderline system of fortifications built on the borders between Sogdia and Bactria not later than the early 3rd century BC. From the top of the towers, the military garrison could get an unobstructed view of a huge countryside around the fortress and overlook the roads and mountain passes within the range of dozens of kilometers.

The fortress is lozenge-shaped in plan, with a number of wall sections protruding outward from the fortress to the north-west and a citadel subtriangular in plan abutting to it from the south-east. The fortress walls are more than 900 m in length and 3.5 m in thickness. The walls are made from stone with the use of a technology that combined stonework (with clay-based mortar), which was up to one meter thick from the outer and inner faces, with compactly placed stone and pebble filling and clay between them. The closest analogy to this stonework is the Darband borderline wall located 7 km north of Uzundara, which crosses the valley between Suzistag Mountain and Sarymas Mountain.

In addition to the citadel and the line of walls outside the fortress, the fortress has 10 rectangular or subsquare towers of different size located 25–170 m from each other. The 11th tower is located outside the fortress wall some 125 m north of the south-western corner of the fortress. This tower was used as an observation post to overlook the bottom of the Uzun-dara gorge within the range of several kilometers to the south-east towards the Khodjibulgan pass, but mostly it controlled access to the fortress from the Uzun-dara gorge where the relief is flat.

The Uzundara Fortress was discovered in 1991 by E.V. Rtveladze who suggested that it was, probably, one of the so called Sogdian Rocks or Rocks of Ariamazes, which Alexander the Great tried to capture and which are mentioned by classical written sources. The fortress (refuge) built on the rock, most likely, belonged to a Bactrian baron named Oxyartes, whose daughter Roxana renowned for her beauty became the wife of Alexander the Great.

In spring of 2013 the expedition of the Institute launched archaeological excavations at the Uzundara Fortress. Three excavation trenches were dug, i.e. at the citadel, on the west fortress wall and near the likely place of the fortress gate.

The excavations of the rock ensemble at the citadel revealed a unique feature measuring 10 by 10 m, up to 4 m deep, which was cut out in the rock formation. The bottom of the structure has a gradient of 0.5 m. A square cavity, i.e. a water collection chamber with four postholes, is located in its lower southern part. The entire bottom and the walls of the structure have a special system of ducts cut out at varied depth in the rock. Remains of wooden constructions were discovered in situ in the ducts, they were overlaid by lead plates on a bituminous layer also placed in situ, which were attached to the wood by bronze nails. A great number of lead plates with bronze nails suggest that the entire structure was clad with such plates. A large volume of the structure with a good hydroinsulation and a special system of water condensate collection implies that, probably, it was used as strategic storage of food reserves.

The archaeological data, the instrumental topographic plan and the cycle of geo-radar surveys were used to prepare a 3D-model of the site preliminary reconstruction.

The suggestion that the fortress belonged to Oxyartes is validated by its geography and description of the rock in the writings of Greek and Roman sources of classical antiquity; chance finds of arrowheads of the Achaemenid type, pottery of the Yaz III type, including finds in the occupation layer. The site may be generally characterized as an archaeological ensemble with the occupation layer and fortification of the Early Hellenistic period.

N.D. Dvurechenskaya

https://www.academia.

THE GREEK COMMUNITY OF UZBEKISTAN

Greeks have been in Central Asia since Alexander and his armies marched through in the 3rd century BCΕ. Indeed many blue-eyed people you meet in the region will claim their ancestry from his soldiers.

However, it was in the 15th century, following the fall of Constantinople and the marriage of Greek Princess Sophia to Tsar Ivan III of Russia, that a steady migration of Greeks to Russia began. The religious and cultural ties were strong.

After Catherine the Great's armies reached the Black Sea and founded the city of Odessa, many Greeks settled there; before the Russian Revolution there were over 500,000 Greeks living in Tsarist Russia.

Prior to WWII about 30,000 Greeks lived in Uzbekistan, most forcibly sent there by Stalin. Another 11,000 settled in Tashkent as political refugees following the Greek Civil War (1946 - 1949). Many Greeks worked on the Golodnaya Steppe (also known as the Hungry Steppe). Begun in 1956, this was a Soviet agricultural project on a grand scale, to cultivate the naturally saline virgin lands, an area of 10,000 square kilometres in Eastern Uzbekistan, about 160 kilometres from Tashkent.
By 1960 there were 12 Greek neighbourhoods in Tashkent and two in Chirchiq. Greek was taught in local schools and a cultural centre established to preserve traditions, customs and language. They played a significant role in Tashkent's cultural, economic and political life.

The Soviet Union actively supported the Greek Communist Party within its borders and performers such as composer and musician Mikis Theodorakis regularly visited Tashkent.


In 1982 the Greek government passed an Amnesty Law permitting the return and repatriation of the political refugees who had left Greece during the civil war. Many returned to their homeland. Others, however, had married and created a life for themselves in Uzbekistan and elected to stay. After Uzbekistan became an independent nation, further repatriations followed.
Today there are about 6,000 Greeks in Uzbekistan. The Greek Cultural Association organises Greek classes, dancing and other traditional activities. Supported by the Greek Government, each summer it sends around 30 school children to Greece for a one-month stay and a small group of Uzbek-Greek pensioners visit their homeland.

The Greek Cultural Association is located at 30 A Yusuf-Hos-Hodgib Street 100031, Tashkent. Telephone: 998 971 256-28-03. It is not far from the Applied Arts Museum
Source ~ http://www.uzbekjourneys.com/

UZBEKISTAN ~ TASHKENT ~ GREEK CULTURE ASSOCIATION

The ancient history of the Greeks in Uzbekistan is associated with the occurrence of Alexander the Great in the East. But with the entry of southern regions of the country in the state of the Seleucids, Greco-Bactrian and the Kushan Empire, a new artistic culture arose—the Eastern Hellenism, the synthesis of Hellenistic and local traditions.

However, the history of the Greeks living in Uzbekistan is stipulated by the events of the Second World War and first post-war years. The sons of ancient Hellas arrived in Uzbekistan and fought against fascism for the freedom of its people, and in 1964 in they created the Tashkent City Association of Greek Political Refugees. By the decision of Diaspora on March 4, 1997 it was reorganized to the Tashkent City Association of Greek Culture. Since then and until now—as the testament of fathers and grandfathers—within the bounds of the association of culture, the relay race on preservation of native language and traditions is continued.
Today, in the building of the Cultural Center, built in the 1960s by the collective method of khashar, one can find different clubs:the club of Greek language, which is popular among people of different nationalities and of all ages; the club of  bouzouki and guitar; the club of traditional Greek cuisine; the club of drawing. Moreover. there is also the dancing ensemble 'Sirtaki',with the support of the master of painting of Uzbekistan Janis Salpinkidi and his pupils. Its repertoire includes both many Greek folk dances—sirtaki, Kalamantianos, kochari, zeimbekiko, as well as dances from other countries, including  Uzbekistan; dances from all the regions of the country are taught here. International team “Sirtaki”, the laureate of the republican festival of friendship and culture “Uzbekistan is our common home”, is the indispensable participant of all state and national holidays.

The traditions of the association include joint celebration of Independence Day of Uzbekistan and Greece, the Day of “Okhi!”—Greek “No!” to fascism, the orthodox Easter and Christmas with other national cultural centers.
Regular meetings with the elders of the Diaspora have become a  special event. They share the memories of their glorious past labor: the development of the Hungry steppe, the construction of the stadium “Pahtakor”, housing estate Chilanzar, and other objects. The Greeks of the Diaspora are proud of the high appreciation shown for their creative work by the Uzbek people, and they are thankful for the hospitality and brotherly help.



The inspired work of the Tashkent Greek Culture Association, popularly called as the Club of fiery hearts of the descendants of the Hellenes, the heart and soul of all the Uzbekistan Greeks is a good example of careful conservation of cultural heritage of the diaspora in Uzbekistan.
Source ~ http://interkomitet.uz