Oxus

Water has been of much importance for human life specifically in the deserted and dried areas like Iranian plateau. Human beings always would gather around water to establish great civilizations along the river banks. Oxus is an important animating river of Asia where the ancient Aryan civilization has come into being on its two sides by developing the great cultural cities like Balkh, Marv, Bukhara, Khwarizm, Gorganj and Khiveh. Various names as Aab, Rood Amu, Darya, daryaye Panj, Oxus etc have been given to this river in historical sources specially shahnameh being regarded as the natural border of Iran and Turan and the boundary Khorasan and Transoxiana in most of the historic sources like Shahnameh where numerous events have taken place on both the sides. In this article, by searching into the name, oldness and the impact of this river on the historic and prehistoric incidents, its multidimensional mythical, historical and literary functions as the natural boundary has been discussed. It became clear that its role in the development of the events of shahnameh has been extraordinary .

The old capital of Chorasmia, situated by the Oxus/Āmu Daryā river. Kāṯ owes both its glory and demise to the Oxus, an unending source of sustenance as well as destruction in human history.

Borjian, Habib. 2012. “Kāṯ” (ancient capital of Choresmia, in Central Asia), Encyclopaedia Iranica, vol. 16, fasc. 2, 2012, pp. 119-121.

ANABASIS
Studia Classica et Orientalia

2 (2011)



REVIEWED BY
Prof. Jacek Rzepka (Warsaw University)



EDITOR
Marek Jan Olbrycht
email: saena7@gmail.com

EDITORIAL BOARD
Daryoush Akbarzadeh (Iran, National Museum, Tehran)
Agustí Alemany (Spain, Autonomous University of Barcelona)
Touraj Daryaee (USA, Irvine University, California)
Jangar Ilyasov (Uzbekistan, Academy of Sciences of the Republic Uzbekistan)
Ryszard Kulesza (Poland, University of Warsaw)
Jeffrey D. Lerner (USA, Wake Forest University)
Sabine Müller (Germany, University of Kiel)
Ruslan Muradov (Turkmenistan, National Department for Protection, Research and Restoration, Ashgabad)
Valery P. Nikonorov (Russian Federation, Russian Academy of Sciences, Sankt-Petersburg)
Tomasz Polański (Poland, Jan Kochanowski University)
Karolina Rakowiecka (Poland, Jagiellonian University)
Eduard V. Rtveladze (Uzbekistan, Academy of Sciences of the Republic Uzbekistan)
Martin Schottky (Germany)


ISSN 2082-8993




CONTENTS

Malcolm Davies, Sabine Müller
Deioces the Mede - Rhetoric and Reality in Herodotus 1.99

Ryszard Kulesza
Marathon and Thermopylae in the mémoire collective

Sabine Müller
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Marek Jan Olbrycht
First Iranian military units in the army of Alexander the Great

Franca Landucci Gattinoni
Diodorus 18. 39.1-7 and Antipatros’s Settlement at Triparadeisos

Jeffrey D. Lerner
A Reappraisal of the Economic Inscriptions and Coin Finds from Aï Khanoum

Eduard V. Rtveladze
Parthians in the Oxus Valley. Struggle for the Great Indian Road

Michał Marciak
Seleucid-Parthian Adiabene in the Light of Ancient Geographical and Ethnographical Texts

Leonardo Gregoratti
A Parthian port on the Persian Gulf: Characene and its trade

Martin Schottky
Sanatruk von Armenien

Tomasz Polański
A Collection of Orientalist Paintings in the Imperial Private Gallery  in Naples

Massimiliano Vitiello
The “Light, Lamps, and Eyes” of the Persian Empire and the Gothic Kingdom in Justinian’s Time: A Note on Peter the Patrician and Cassiodorus


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ABBREVIATIONS

This is a compendium of texts on the topic of Yuezhi/Greater Yuezhi/Kushan and related studies.
The texts are quotes from monographs and journal articles ranging from 1738 to 2000.
They are confined to Western languages.
Although the collection is far from complete, most Western authors who contributed to our knowledge of Central and South Asian history from 300 BCE to 300 CE have been brought together here.
More texts will be added in due time.

This paper aims to examine the epigraphical evidences found in Hellenistic Bactria, crossroad of people and cultures, which has been a meeting place between cultures and population of different origin from pre-Achaemenid time, with respect to the cult of the local deity of the waters, the Oxus God, who is named after the river which crosses Bactria, the modern Amu-darya. The Oxus God is one of the most important deities of Bactria and can be compared to the deity of water, rain and fertility of the Iranian pantheon Arəduuī Sūrā Anhiātā. The evidences object to analysis are three Greek inscriptions, which consist of dedications to the Oxus God, found at Takht‑i Sangin, in Tajikistan,
during the excavations at the Temple of the Oxus.