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oasis - the ruins of an ancient fortress with castle, located on the southeastern
extremity of Nakhsheb.”
According to Kabanov the site consists of three concentric terraces “gradually
rising to the centre.”
8
The width of the outer rampart was 30 m and its height 7 m.
Its exterior side was steep, but sloping toward the interior. Kalai Zakhoki Maron was
shaped into a square with 400 m long sides (Fig. 4). Kabanov assumed the presence
of only two ramparts, while another scholar, M. E. Masson described a third wall on
an even greater scale. This third rampart had the same quadratic plan, but with
sides of a length of 1.5 km
9
. Subsequent archaeological investigations of this site did
in fact confirm the presence of the third wall (rampart). The archaeological context
suggests that Kalai Zakhoki Maron was built in the 2
nd
-1
st
century BCE. Although
dwellings were traced on the parts adjoining the ramparts (walls I and II), they have
been dated to a later period
10
.
One of the remarkable characteristics of this city site is the absence of any
foundations that would indicate interior constructions in the wide areas between
the citadel and the fortification walls. This peculiarity gains even more weight if we
take into account the huge area surrounded by the third city wall. If we accept its
existence in the structure of the site (and archaeological digs do not contradict our
hypothesis), the enormous dimensions of Kalai Zakhoki Maron (1.5 km by 1.5 km)
make it to the largest site of the region, surpassing even the gigantic site at Afrasiab
(located in the territory of modern Samarkand, Samarkand Reion).
11
The similar
elements of Kalai Zakhoki Maron’s plan we can find in Shakhrivayron site in the
Bukhara region and Janbaskala in Khorezm
12
. So, Kalai Zakhoki Maron shows us a
enormous vast space that was occupied by the yurts (tents) of nomads and at the
same time it gives us one of the least understood aspects of nomadic migration
period of transition from the nomadism to a sedentary mode of life. The latter
means the development of urban culture, the establishing of the city and the
formation of a state, such as the Kushan state. This process is not reflected in literary
sources and has left only weak traces in archaeological sites. The mobile
construction of their dwellings allowed the nomads to move easily over short or
long distances, while seeking comfortable pasture and a place to stay. This usual
pattern of migration, dictated by their mode of life, is known to some extent from
ethnological data. But what did a nomadic city actually look like? This question has
never been posed in the scholarly literature and archaeological investigations
provide no clues. However, Kalai Zakhoki Maron site as we observed above gives us
certain possibility to restore an evolution from a kind of a nomad city-site into
8
S. K. Kabanov, Nahsheb na rubezhe drevnosti i srednevekov'ya (III-VII vv.), Izd-vo “Fan” Uzbekskoi SSR
,Tashkent 1977, 47.
9
M. E. Masson, Stolichnie goroda v oblasti nisov'ev Kashkadar'i s drevneyshih vremen, Iz rabot Keshskoi
arkheol.-topogr. Ekspeditsii TashGU: 1965-1966 gg, Fan, Tashkent 1973, 20-30.
10
M. Turebekov, Oboronitel'nye sooruzhenia drevnikh poselenij i gorodov Sogda (VII-VI vv. do n. e. – VII
v. n.e.), (Avtoreferat kandidatskoy dissertatsii), Moscow 1981,. 9-10.
11
Sarianidi, Koshelenko, “Fergana, Chustskaya kultura”, 278.
12
S. P. Tolstov, Drevnij Khorezm, Moskva 1948, fig. 29, 29 a.; Turebekov, Oborontel’nye,. 10.
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normal city. It should be interesting to trace any information about Western Lands
in the Chinese chronicles.
Chinese sources single out the capital of the Heavenly Empire as city [as
what?], calling it Gin Shih, which, according to I. Bichurin, means 'mountain army', or
'people'. This is due to the fact that originally in China there was one military estate,
and they chose the high banks of the Yellow River for the residence of the head of
the Empire. However, for the name Gin Shih only implied their proper capital. They
referred to capitals of other states by the name 'du', which means a residence
(Bichurin, vol. II, p. 149, note 4).
All three Chinese sources (Shih-chi, Ch'ien Han-shu, Hou Han-shu) mention
also a third type of city (capital), with the ending 'ch'eng added: for example, Ch'ien-
shi ch'eng or Lan-shi ch'eng, meaning 'surrounded by walls'. The first to call
attention to this detail was Professor K. Enoki, whose translation was used by A. K.
Narain
13
. However, the question about the interior structure of this kind of city was
left unanswered. Nevertheless, such definition of a city, identified by its
surrounding walls, is of foremost importance. The fact that the cities mentioned in
the sources of the Han epoch belonged to nomad states is especially intriguing. As
noted above, the ending 'ch'eng' is applied to Ch'ien-shi and to Lan-shi that mean
that these cities had city walls. Yet in the same source of Ch'ien Han-shu
14
, when he
enumerates the capitals of the five principalities (Hsi-hou), formed by the
population of numerous tribes on the territory of Central Asia, the term 'ch'eng' is
not used
15
. It could mean that the capitals (cities) indicated in the source had not
fortification walls.
Although literary sources of antiquity and Chinese chronicles provide some
information about traditional cities in Central Asia, they contain no clues about the
fate of ephemeral migrating cities, appearing and disappearing like a mirage on the
endless steppe expanse, far from the flourishing agricultural oases. We find hints to
migrating cities in other contemporary sources, such as the fragmentary
descriptions by European travelers who undertook the long voyage to the court of a
nomad king--for instance to the Tataro-Mongol Horde. Guillaume de Rubrouck, for
example, gives us certain information in his colorful description of the court of the
Mongol King Batu gives about the organization of that court:
16
“When I saw the ordu
of Batu, I was astonished, for it seemed like a great city stretched out about his
dwelling, with people scattered all about for three or four leagues. And as among the
people of Israel, where each one knew in which quarter from the tabernacle he had
to pitch his tent, so these know on which side of the ordu they must place
themselves when they set down their dwellings. A court (curia) is orda in their
13
A. K. Narain, The Indo-Greeks, Clarendon Press, Oxford 1957, 129, note 7.
14
Narain, The Indo-Greeks, 130.
15
Narain, The Indo-Greeks,130
16
W. van Ruysbroeck, Voyage..., chap. XIX, 213 (p. 117). Puteshestviya v Vostochnye strany/ Plano
Karpini i Gil'oma de Rubruka, (Ed. G. I. Patlina; Trans. A. I. Malein), Gylym, Almaty 1993, 103-104.
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