Among Zoroastrian burial items, there is a camel-shaped zoomorphic OSTADON lying there. It was found…
When visiting Uzbekistan, tourists are sure to visit majestic Samarkand and Bukhara, and the walled city of Khiva. However, more and more people are seeking out the amazing antiquities of other historical regions of Uzbekistan, including Kashkadarya, Surkhandarya, Tashkent, and Fergana. But one of the richest and least studied centers of ancient culture in Uzbekistan, Khorezm, deserves special attention. A thorough understanding of the Khorezmian civilization must be an integral component of any modern effort to reclaim Uzbekistan’s rich cultural heritage.
Yes, Khiva was the capital of Khorezm, and the Uzbek government restored its fortifications and major monuments. From the 16th to the 20th centuries, the Khanate of Khiva was indeed the capital of what was often called Urgench or Khorezm. Before that, Khiva belonged to the Turko-Persian Khorezm Empire, beginning in 1077. The cultural achievements of this medieval empire were modest, but from its capital at Kunya-Urgench, its rulers ruled much of Central Asia and extended their power far into Afghanistan .
However, the Khorezm Empire arose from the ruins of the other two powers as early as 305 CE. At that time, Khorezm declared its independence from Sassanid Iran and founded a multicultural state known to history as the Afrighids, who were Persian in ethnicity and Zoroastrian in religion. In fields as diverse as architecture, art, literature, mathematics, and religion, the Afrighids proved to be first-rate innovators. They flourished until the Arab conquest in the late 600s. A century later, the Muslim shahs of Khwarezm arose in the same area and moved their capital to Kath, near the present-day city of Beruni. Kath was a prosperous and cosmopolitan center of trade and culture until the entire city was swallowed up by the swollen waters of the Amu Darya.
The new rulers laid claim to the cultural glory of the Afrighids, and their capital at Kunya Urgench briefly became home to two of the world's greatest thinkers, the mathematician Al-Khwarezmi and the philosopher Biruni. Indeed, few men, before or since, have contributed as much to the understanding of the world and the universe as these two. Together, they represent one of the most glorious moments in the culture of all of Central Asia and the world. Al-Khwarizmi reinvented the field of algebra, measured a degree of longitude to within two kilometers, and convinced the world that the Indian system of numeration, which we mistakenly called Arabic, was superior to all others. Today, when we use the word “algorithm,” we pay tribute to the great scientist, since it is only a corruption of Al-Khwarizmi’s name.
As for Biruni, among his many achievements, he measured the Earth and the Moon more accurately than anyone until the seventeenth century, and hypothesized the existence of North and South America as inhabited continents. Biruni is especially important to our investigation today because it was he who researched and wrote a detailed history of Khwarezm until the fourth century. It is a great tragedy that no copy of Biruni’s great history has survived. However, in his other works, the scholar claimed that the Afrigids had developed a truly remarkable culture. He speaks of entire libraries of their poetry and other literary works, their scientific research and philosophical discourses, all of which were destroyed in the fires of the Arab conquest. He wrote that the Muslim general Qutayba bin Muslim “killed everyone who wrote in the Khwarezmian language and knew about the Khwarezmian heritage, history and culture.” He then destroyed the Zoroastrian priests and their books. Thus the history of the region was forgotten. In addition to Beruni’s chilling conclusion, Qutayba bin Muslim’s destruction was so thorough that today we know only a few hundred words of the old Khwarezmian language.
So what do we really know about the glory days of Khwarezm? Two scholars, one Russian and one English, have attempted to reconstruct this lost golden age. From 1937 to 1969, Sergei Pavlovich Tolstov led the Khwarezmian Expedition, which cataloged some fifty Khwarezmian cities and fortresses. His archeology was, by today's standards, extremely primitive. But he still managed to put ancient Khorezm on the map, revealing formidable fortresses, temples, frescoes with scenes from Indian mythology, and even a throne room. Tolstov presented his findings in two books that should be the starting point for any new research.
The second was the English scholar Clifford Edmund Bosworth, who carefully studied the surviving literary sources of all eras and presented his findings in a series of brilliant studies, correcting Biruni on several points. So what do we not know about the civilization that reached its climax under Al-Khwarizmi and Biruni? Unfortunately, so much was destroyed that the list is endless. It would be interesting to learn more about the community that surrounded the fortress or Ark at Toprak-Kale, the fortresses of Ayaz-Kale, or to see a virtual reconstruction of the colonnaded structure at Akchahan-Kala.
From the information about Bukhara, Samarkand and other centres, we should expect to find outer walls far beyond the fortresses themselves, protecting vast areas where the population lived and worked. It should be noted that the distinguishing feature of Biruni's seminal work on algebra was that he explained the science in terms of practical problems rather than abstract principles. Many of the problems he chose arose in the field of irrigation, in which the Khwarazmians were masters. It is worth noting that the frescoes found in several fortresses show clear evidence of extensive contacts not only with Indian religion and art, but also with Indian mathematics, so important to the work of Al-Khwarizmi.
These and countless other questions about the lost civilization of ancient Khwarazm have yet to be answered. In most cases, they have not even been asked. The world is still in the early stages of this research.
Starr believes that the search is worth pursuing for at least three reasons:
