The Silk Road: A New History (53 page)

11.
Frantz Grenet, “Old Samarkand: Nexus of the Ancient World,”
Archaeology Odyssey
6, no. 5 (2003): 26–37.

12.
Nicholas Sims-Williams and Frantz Grenet, “The Sogdian Inscriptions of Kultobe,”
Shygys
2006, no. 1: 95–111.

13.
Ruins of both the house and tower appear in M. Aurel Stein,
Ruins of Desert Cathay: Personal Narrative of Explorations in Central Asia and Westernmost China
(London: Macmillan, 1912; repr., New York: Dover, 1987), figure 177.

14.
Aurel Stein,
Ruins of Desert Cathay
, 2:113.

15.
For the circumstances of discovery, see Stein,
Serindia
, 669–77, and map 74. For a general overview of the letters, see Vaissière,
Sogdian Traders
, 43–70. (The original book, in French, appeared in 2002, but I cite the English for the convenience of the reader.) See also Nicholas Sims-Williams and Frantz Grenet, “The Historical Context of the Sogdian Ancient Letters,” in
Transition Periods in Iranian History, Actes du symposium de Fribourg-en-Brisgau (22–24 Mai 1985)
(Leuven, Belgium: E. Peeters, 1987), 101–22.

Nicholas Sims-Williams has posted translations of letters 1–3 and 5 on the Internet:
http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/sogdlet.html
.

The most recent and up-to-date translations of individual letters are as follows:

Letter 1: Nicholas Sims-Williams, “Towards a New Edition of the Sogdian Ancient Letters: Ancient Letter 1,” in Vaissière and Trombert,
Les Sogdiens en Chine
, 181–93. Letter 2: Nicholas Sims-Williams, “The Sogdian Ancient Letter II,” in
Philologica et Linguistica: Historia, Pluralitas, Universitas; Festschrift für Helmut Humbach zum 80. Geburtstag am 4. Dezember 2001
, ed. Maria Gabriela Schmidt and Walter Bisang (Trier, Germany: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2001), 267–80; Nicholas Sims-Williams, “Sogdian Ancient Letter 2,” in
Monks and Merchants: Silk Road Treasures from Northwest China
, ed. Annette L. Juliano and Judith A. Lerner (New York: Harry N. Abrams with the Asia Society, 2001), 47–49. A summary of letter 3 can be found in Nicholas Sims-Williams, “A Fourth-Century Abandoned Wife,” in Whitfield and Ursula Sims-Williams,
Silk Road
, 248–49. Letter 5: Frantz Grenet, Nicholas Sims-Williams, and Étienne de la Vaissière, “The Sogdian Ancient Letter V,”
Bulletin of the Asia Institute
12 (1998): 91–104.

16.
Nicholas Sims-Williams, “Sogdian Ancient Letter II,” 261.

17.
Either letters 3–5 were written between May 11, 313, and April 21, 314, or between June to December 313. Grenet et al., “Sogdian Ancient Letter V,” 102; see also Vaissière,
Sogdian Traders
, 45n5.

18.
Etienne de la Vaissière, “Xiongnu,” in
Encyclopædia Iranica
Online Edition, November 15, 2006, available at
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/xiongnu
.

19.
Pénélope Riboud, “Réflexions sur les pratiques religieuses designees sous le nom de
xian
,” in Vaissière and Trombert,
Les Sogdiens en Chine
, 73–91.

20.
Nicholas Sims-Williams, “Fourth-Century Abandoned Wife,” 249.

21.
This assumes that a vesicule has a value of 25 grams. Vaissière,
Sogdian Traders
, 53–55. For a general study of weights, see Boris I. Marshak and Valentina Raspopova,
Sogdiiskie giri iz Pendzhikenta/Sogdian Weights from Panjikent
(St. Petersburg: The Hermitage, 2005).

22.
Nicholas Sims-Williams, “Ancient Letter 1,” 182.

23.
Grenet et al., “Sogdian Ancient Letter V,” 100; Vaissière,
Sogdian Traders
, 53–54.

24.
Grenet et al., “Sogdian Ancient Letter V,” 101.

25.
Étienne de la Vaissière, “Is There a ‘Nationality’ of the Hephthalites?”
Bulletin of the Asia Institute
17 (2007): 119–32.

26.
Frantz Grenet, “Regional Interaction in Central Asia and Northwest India in the Kidarite and Hephthalite Periods,” in
Indo-Iranian Languages and Peoples: Proceedings of the British Academy
, ed. Nicholas Sims-Williams (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 220–21.

27.
Vaissière,
Sogdian Traders
, 112–17.

28.
For the most important publications about the site, see Boris I. Marshak and Valentina Raspopova, “Wall Paintings from a House with a Granary, Panjikent, 1st Quarter of the 8th Century A.D.,”
Silk Road Art and Archaeology
1 (1990): 123–76, especially 173n3. The current director of the excavations is Pavel Lur’e, head of the Oriental Department at the Hermitage Museum.

29.
A. M. Belenitski and B. I. Marshak, “L’art de Piandjikent à la lumière des dernières fouilles (1958–1968),”
Arts Asiatiques
23 (1971): 3–39.

30.
Frantz Grenet and Étienne de la Vaissière, “The Last Days of Panjikent,”
Silk Road Art and Archaeology
8 (2002): 155–196, especially 176; Marshak and Raspopova, “Wall Paintings from a House with a Granary,” 125.

31.
Vaissière,
Sogdian Traders
, 190–94.

32.
Vaissière,
Sogdian Traders
, 191.

33.
Valentina Raspopova, “Gold Coins and Bracteates from Pendjikent,” in
Coins, Art and Chronology: Essays on the Pre-Islamic History of the Indo-Iranian Borderlands
, ed. Michael Alram and Deborah E. Klimburg-Salter (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1999), 453–60.

34.
Boris Marshak, personal communication, February 7, 2002.

35.
Raspopova, “Gold Coins and Bracteates from Pendjikent,” 453–60.

36.
G. A. Pugachenkova, “The Form and Style of Sogdian Ossuaries,”
Bulletin of the Asia Institute
8 (1994): 227–43; L. A. Pavchinskaia, “Sogdian Ossuaries,”
Bulletin of the
Asia Institute
8 (1994): 209–25; Frantz Grenet, “L’art zoroastrien en Sogdiane: Études d’iconographie funéraire,”
Mesopotamia
21 (1986): 97–131.

37.
Boris I. Marshak, “On the Iconography of Ossuaries from Biya-Naiman,”
Silk Road Art and Archaeology
4 (1995–96): 299–321.

38.
Raspopova, “Gold Coins and Bracteates,” 453–60.

39.
Boris I. Marshak and Valentina Raspopova, “Cultes communautaires et cultes privés en Sogdiane,” in Bernard and Grenet,
Histoire et cultes de l’Asie préislamique
, 187–95, esp. 192.

40.
Boris A. Litvinskij,
La civilisation de l’Asie centrale antique
, trans. Louis Vaysse (Rahden, Germany: Verlag Marie Leidorf, 1998), 182.

41.
A. M. Belenitskii and B. I. Marshak, “The Paintings of Sogdiana,” in
Sogdian Painting: The Pictorial Epic in Oriental Art
, by Guitty Azarpay (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981), 11–77, esp. 20–23.

42.
Marshak and Raspopova, “Cultes communautaires et cultes privés,” 187–93.

43.
Vaissière,
Sogdian Traders
, 163; Marshak and Raspopova, “Wall Paintings from a House with a Granary,” 140–42, identify the deity as the God of Victory, but Frantz Grenet sees Farn, the deity of fortune, instead. “Vaiśravaṇa in Sogdiana: About the Origins of Bishamon-Ten,”
Silk Road Art and Archaeology
4 (1995–96): 277–97, esp. 279.

44.
Marshak and Raspopova, “Wall Paintings from a House with a Granary,” 150–53, figure 24 on 151.

45.
Boris Marshak,
Legends, Tales, and Fables in the Art of Sogdiana
(New York: Bibliotheca Persica, 2002).

46.
Vaissière,
Sogdian Traders
, 162, plate 5, illustration 1.

47.
Varkhuman’s name was transcribed in Chinese as Fuhuman. Liu,
Jiu Tang shu
, 221b:6244; Chavannes,
Documents sur les Tou-Kiue
, 135.

48.
For a general introduction to the paintings, see Matteo Compareti and Étienne de la Vaissière, eds.,
Royal Naurūz in Samarkand: Proceedings of the Conference Held in Venice on the Pre-Islamic Painting at Afrasiab
(Rome: Instituto Editoriali e Poligrafici Inter-nazionali, 2006), 59–74. The essays in this volume present the most up-to-date analysis of the Afrasiab paintings. See also L. I. Al’baum,
Zhivopis’ Afrasiaba
[Paintings from Afrosiab] (Tashkent, USSR: FAN, 1975); Boris I. Marshak, “Le programme iconographique des peintures de la ‘Salle des ambassadeurs’ à Afrasiab (Samarkand),”
Arts Asiatiques
49 (1994): 5–20; “The Self-Image of the Sogdians,” in Vaissière and Trombert,
Les Sogdiens en Chine
, 123–40; Matteo Compareti, “Afrāsiāb ii. Wall Paintings,” in
Encyclopædia Iranica
Online Edition, April 14, 2009, available at
http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/afrasiab-ii-wall-paintings-2
.

49.
Grenet, “Self-Image of the Sogdians.”

50.
Frantz Grenet, “What was the Afrasiab Painting About,” in Compareti and Vaissière,
Royal Naurūz in Samarkand
, 43–58, esp. 44–47 about the eastern wall.

51.
Frantz Grenet, “The 7th-Century AD ‘Ambassadors’ Painting’ at Samarkand,” in
Mural Paintings of the Silk Road: Cultural Exchanges between East and West
, ed. Kuzuya Yamauchi (Tokyo: Archetype, 2007), 16; Vladimir Livšic, “The Sogdian Wall Inscriptions on the Site of Afrasiab,” in Compareti and Vaissière,
Royal Naurūz in Samarkand
, 59–74.

52.
Anazawa Wakō and Manome Junichi, “Afurashiyabu tojōshi shutsudo no hekiga ni mirareru Chōsen jin shisetsu ni tsuite” [Korean envoys on the mural painting from ancient Samarkand],
Chōsen Gakuhō
80 (1976): 1–36.

53.
Etsuko Kageyama, “A Chinese Way of Depicting Foreign Delegates Discerned in the Paintings of Afrasiab,”
Cahiers de Studia Iranica
25 (2002): 313–27.

54.
One reconstruction of the missing top section of the wall, by the head of the Oriental Department of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Boris Marshak, places the deity Nana, the supreme goddess of the Sogdians, in the throne above all the emissaries. See his “Sogudo no bijutsu” [Sogdian Art], in
Sekai bijutsu daizenshū: Chūō Ajia
[New history of world art: Central Asia], ed. Tanabe Katsumi and Maeda Kōsaku (Tokyo: Shūgakkan, 1999), 156–79. In contrast, Grenet, “Self-Image of the Sogdians,” suggests that the throned Varkhuman occupied the same position, while Étienne de la Vaissière, “Les Turcs, rois du monde à Samarcande,” 147–62, in Compareti and Vaissière,
Royal Naurūz in Samarkand
, proposes that the kaghan of the Western Turks was there.

55.
The northern wall is illustrated in Compareti and Vaissière,
Royal Naurūz in Samarkand
, Plate 5, 27.

56.
Marshak, “Le programme iconographique des peintures;” Grenet, “Self-Image of the Sogdians.”

57.
al-Bīrūnī,
The Chronology of Ancient Nations
, trans. C. Edward Sachau (Frankfurt: Institute for the History of Arabic Islamic Science at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, 1998; reprint of 1879 original), 201–4, 222.

58.
Grenet, “Self-Image of the Sogdians,” 132.

59.
Grenet and Vaissière, “Last Days of Panjikent,” 155.

60.
The Mount Mugh documents have been published in three volumes: A. A. Freiman,
Opisanie, publikatsii, i issledovanie dokumentov s gory Mug: Sogdiiskie dokumenty s gory Mug 1
[Description, publications, and studies of the documents from Mount Mugh: Sogdian Documents from Mount Mugh 1] (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Vostochnoi Literatury, 1962); Vladimir A. Livshits,
Iuridicheskie dokumenty i pis’ma: Sogdiiskie dokumenty s gory Mug 2
[Legal documents and letters: Sogdian documents from Mount Mugh 2] (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Vostochnoi Literatury, 1962); M. N. Bogoliubov and O. I. Smirnova,
Khoziaistvennye dokumenty: Dokumenty s gory Mug 3
[Economic documents from Mount Mugh 3] (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Vostochnoi Literatury, 1963). Recently, V. A. Livshits published a new edition of these documents:
Sogdiiskaia epigrafika Srednei Azii i Semirech’ia
(St. Petersburg: Filologicheskii Fakul’tet Sankt-Peterburgskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, 2008).

61.
Ilya Yakubovich reports that the villagers mistook the Sogdian script for Arabic and believed that the document gave instructions for finding an ancient treasure. See his “Mugh 1.I Revisited,”
Studia Iranica
31, no. 2 (2002): 231–52.

62.
This account is based on a conversation I had with Boris Marshak on March 25, 2000, at the University of Pennsylvania. Prof. Marshak knew Puloti personally, and Puloti told him this story. Livshits,
Sogdiiskie dokumenty s gory Mug 2
, gives a shorter version on 108–9 and reproduces a photograph of document 1.I facing 112.

63.
Yakubovich, “Mugh 1.I Revisited.”

64.
This is the total number of documents as given in O. I. Smirnova,
Ocherki iz istorii Sogda
[Essays on the history of Sogdiana] (Moscow: Nauk, 1970), 14. The Mount Mugh documents are numbered according to the time at which they were found: document 1.1 was found in the spring of 1932; those documents with the Cyrillic letter B (= the English letter V) were excavated by Puloti in May 1933; A documents were excavated by A. Vasil’ev in the summer of 1933; those with the letter Б (= English letter B) were found in November 1933 by the Freiman expedition; and the Nov. (“New”) documents were given by Puloti in 1934. After the excavation had ended and the Freiman team returned to Leningrad, Puloti was pressured into handing over a group of documents that he had been given before Freiman’s arrival: an upside-down basket that held six leather documents, including the longest documents found at Mount Mugh, a marriage contract, and the accompanying “bride’s script.”