The Sogdians originated in the Zeravshan River valley in Central Asia, in the northern part of present-day Tajikistan and the southern part of Uzbekistan. The Sogdians failed to form an independent state in the early history, and in the 5th ~ 4th century BC, the Sogdians were under the rule of the Ahmenid dynasty of ancient Persia, and there were Sogdian tribute envoys on the reliefs of the 28 national tribute envoys in the Persepolis royal palace. In the middle of the 4th century BC, the Greek lord Alexander conquered Central Asia, and the Sogdians submitted to the Greek colonists. Since then, the Sogdians have been ruled by the northern nomadic peoples such as Kangju, Jidoro, Shada, and Western Turks, and are famous for their ability to do business.
1. The Sogdian city-state under Kangju's rule
The Sogdians lived in the Zeravshan River valley in Central Asia, and the Han Dynasty was under the rule of the Kangju state on the north bank of the Syr Darya, so the Chinese history books initially called "Sogdia" "Kangju", and the history of Sogdia was submerged in the Chinese historical books about the Kangju state. The name "Sogdian" was first seen in the Wei and Jin dynasties, and the "Book of the Later Han Dynasty: The Biography of the Western Regions" was written as "Su Yi", which was a subject of Kangju along with Yan Guo and Xian Cai Guo (called "Alan" in Western historical sources).
The Kangju royal family was a Scythian nomad, living in pursuit of water and grass, without a palace or city. However, the Kangju country has a vast territory, from the middle reaches of the Syr Darya River in the west to the Talas River in the east, so the people of Kangju have both nomadic and agricultural people. For example, on the north bank of the Syr Darya River, the ochre (Tang Dynasty Shiguo) was an agrarian people of the Kangju country, settled in the Tashkent oasis, centered on the city of Khotan (the ancient city of Kangka, 50 kilometers southwest of Tashkent City).
"Hanshu Western Regions Biography" records: "Kangju country, Wang Dongzhi Leyue hid (now Kazakhstan False Answer). to the city of Khotan (now the ancient city of Khangka). Go to Chang'an 12,300 miles. It does not belong to the capital. To (Le) to the hidden place of the horse for seven days, to Wang Xia lived in Fannei (now 54 kilometers west of Shymkent City, Kazakhstan) 9,114 li. 120,000 households, 600,000 mouths, and 120,000 victorious soldiers. 5,550 miles to the east of the capital protection office. Same as the Otsuki clan. The Huns in the east. The Sogdians of the Zeravshan River valley were different in that they were agrarian peoples who settled in desert oasis city-states. According to the Hanshu Western Regions Biography, there were five little kings in the Kangju Kingdom, referring to the Sogdian vassal kings under the rule of the Kangju Kingdom. The five Sogdian city-states later developed into nine city-states, with Tang Dynasty documents referring to the "Zhaowu Nine Surnames" and the Sogdians as the "Nine Surnames Hu".
In 1968, Soviet archaeologist A.G. Maximova Maksimova excavated a number of partial chamber tombs in the Chadara necropolis on the south bank of the Syr Darya River, 103 km southwest of the city of Tashkent. The burial objects are quite nomadic cultural characteristics, including long and short iron swords, Scythian bronze swords, iron horsebits and various types of pottery, dating from the 1st ~ 4th centuries. Historically, many ancient nomadic tribes were active here, so the excavators could not determine whether this cemetery belonged to the Kangju people, the Huns, or the Dayue people.
In 2001, a French archaeological team excavated a partial cave tomb in Kok-tepe, a surgical suburb of Samarkan in Uzbekistan, with the same shape and burial goods as the Chadara cemetery on the north bank of the Syr Darya River. The ancient tomb of Kokotape unearthed four breasts and four mirrors, popular from the late Western Han Dynasty to the Wang Mang period, about the 1st century BC. French archaeologist C. Robin Rapin) believes that the owner of the tomb was the prince of La princesse saka-sarmate in the Central Asian steppe. It is incorrect to say that the owner of the tomb is a nobleman of Kangju, the ruler of the Sogdian city-state.
In 2004, Kazakh archaeologist A. Podoshkin N. Podushkin discovered a nomadic cemetery in Kultobe, 54 km northwest of the city of Shymkent. One of the partial cave chamber tombs is well preserved, the bottom of the tomb is rectangular (3 meters long, 2 meters wide, 1.3 meters deep), and the owner of the tomb is 2 meters high. The burial goods included long and short iron swords, Scythian bows and arrows, and various types of pottery. This cemetery also found the Western Han Dynasty arc pattern mirror bronze mirror, indicating that the cemetery can be traced back to the Kangju period (2nd ~ 1st century BC). As Podushkin points out, the owner of the tomb is the "Kangju people" recorded in the Chinese history books.
Among the 36 states of the Western Regions of the Han Dynasty, the first to do business in China were the Sogdians of Kangju. Long before the opening of the Silk Road, the Sogdians began to play the role of intermediaries between the economic and cultural exchanges between the East and the West. Because the Sogdian city-states of the Han Dynasty were under the rule of the Kangju state, the Sogdian merchants and Hus were regarded as "Kangju people".
The economic and cultural exchanges along the Silk Road were initially carried out through the medium of Sogdian merchants. In the first year of Emperor Yuanguang of the Han Dynasty (134 years ago), "Dong Zhongshu's countermeasures" said: "Yelang, Kangju, and Shufang are thousands of miles, saying that virtue returns to friendship, and this peace is also caused." In the fifth year of Yuanguang (130 years ago), Sima Xiangru said in "Yu Ba Shu Minzhu": "Kangju in the Western Regions, retranslate and invite the court, and the chief will come to enjoy." Therefore, before Zhang Qian passed through the Western Regions, the Sogdian merchant Hu went to Bashu (now Chengdu, Sichuan) and even Chang'an (now Xi'an, Shaanxi) to do business. Ancient Sogdian letters unearthed from the site of the Great Wall of the Han Dynasty in Dunhuang refer to China as CYN (Qin) and Chang'an as Khumdan (Xianyang). As pointed out by the Japanese scholar Tokio Takada and the French scholar Étienne de la Vaissière, the name Khumdan was translated from Xianyang, the capital of the Qin Dynasty, and was changed to Chang'an after the Han Dynasty established Chang'an. Then, at least in the Qin Dynasty (221~206 BC), Scythian or Sogdian merchants came to Xianyang to do business. After Zhang Qian returned from his mission to the Western Regions, he reported to Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty:
When the minister was in Bactria (129 BC), he saw the bamboo cane and Shu cloth, and asked Ande? The people of Bactria (present-day Mazar-i-Sharif in northwestern Afghanistan) said: "The Wuja people went to the city to poison the country (Indo-Scythian kingdom, present-day Indus Valley). The poison country is thousands of miles southeast of Great Xia. Its indigenous, the same as the Great Xia, but the damp and hot summer. Its people are fighting on elephants, and their country is on the verge of great floods. "In terms of Qian, Daxia went to Han Wan for 2,000 miles, living in the southwest. Now the body is poisonous and lives thousands of miles southeast of Daxia, there are Shu things, and it is not far from Shu. Now make Great Xia, from the Qiang, dangerous, Qiang people evil; Shaobei, it is obtained by the Xiongnu; From Shu, it is advisable to path, and there is no Kou.
The Indo-Scythian Kingdom (2nd century BC ~ 1st century AD) is located in the Indus Valley of present-day Pakistan. At the end of the first century B.C., Sogdian merchants frequently traveled to the southern provinces of the Tarim Basin and the Hexi Corridor in Gansu. Hudun Shun, the capital of the Western Regions, sent a letter to Emperor Cheng of the Han Dynasty (32~7 BC) saying: "It is good to want Jia City, and it is also a deception to resign...... Dunhuang, Jiuquan Xiaojun and the eight countries of Nandao gave the envoys and horses and donkeys and camels to eat, all of which were bitter. "Chinese products such as bamboo canes and Shu cloth bought by Bactria merchants in the Scythian Kingdom of India (present-day Indus Valley in Pakistan) were immediately trafficked to the Indus Valley from Chengdu, Sichuan, through Qinghai (or the Hexi Corridor) and the southern Tarim Basin.
With regard to international trade in the Indian Ocean in the mid-first century C.E., section 39 of the Voyage to the Sea of Eritrea records that "goods imported from Egypt and Arabia under the Roman Empire to the market of Barbaricum (near present-day Karachi at the mouth of the Indus River) were: a large quantity of light clothing and a small number of fakes, jacquard linens, topaz, coral, Storax, frankincense, glassware, gold and silver plates, wine. The items exported from this include costus, bdellium, lycium, nard, turquoise, lapis lazuli, seric skins, cotton cloth, silk yarn, and indigo. The so-called "jacquard linen" is a specialty of the Middle East, and Shu cloth can occupy a place in the international market of body poison, and the weaving technology is no less than the production of jacquard linen in the Middle East. Seris animal skin, probably referring to the Han Dynasty tabby tapestry. Tomb No. 8 (M8) of the Eastern Han Tomb of Niya has unearthed a fragment of tabby brocade and a tabby brocade bag.
Niya unearthed tabby brocade bags and silk fish
In 2012~2013, the Chengdu Cultural Relics and Archaeology Team and the Jingzhou Cultural Relics Protection Center formed a joint archaeological team to carry out rescue excavations in a Western Han Dynasty cemetery in Tianhui Town, Jinniu District, Chengdu, and excavated a total of 4 Western Han Dynasty wooden coffin tombs, and unearthed a large number of lacquered woodware, pottery, and a small amount of bronze and iron ware. What is particularly striking is that four Western Han looms were unearthed from the Han Tomb of Laoguanshan. At present, researchers mostly think that they are Shu brocade jacquard machines, which are not necessarily correct. During the Warring States Period, China's silk and lacquerware production center was in Yingdu (now Jingzhou, Hubei) in the Chu State, and the products were exported to Bazerek, at the northern foot of the Altai Mountains. In the twenty-first year of King Xiang of Qin (278 BC), the Qin generals were completely destroyed, and Ying, the capital of Chu, was completely destroyed. Qu Yuan was extremely sad and angry, and threw himself into the Miluo River and died.
The Chu-Han War caused great damage to the handicraft industry in Guanzhong, so the Chinese lacquerware production center of the Western Han Dynasty was transferred to Chengdu, Sichuan, and the silk production center was transferred to Linzi, Shandong. "Hanshu Gongyu Biography" recorded: "Therefore, the three officials of Qi lost only ten yuan, and the three officials of Qi today worked thousands of people, and the cost of one year was tens of thousands. "Shu brocade was founded later, not earlier than the Three Kingdoms period. Zhuge Liang's "Book with Lu Xun" said: "Today's people are poor and the country is empty, and the only way to defeat the enemy is to rely on Jin'er." Therefore, the Western Han loom unearthed from the Han tomb of Laoguanshan may be a Shubu jacquard machine. Long before Zhang Qian's passage to the Western Regions, Shu cloth made from this loom was trafficked by Sogdian merchants to the poisonous kingdom (the Scythian kingdom of India, present-day the Indus Valley of Pakistan) and even Bactria (present-day Mazar-i-Sharif in northwestern Afghanistan).
2. Zhizhi City on the banks of the Talas River
The Talas River, known as "Dulai Water" in ancient times. In the third year of Emperor Jianzhao of the Han Yuan Dynasty (36 years ago), the Han generals Gan Yanshou and Chen Tang went on an expedition to Central Asia, and the battle of Zhizhi Zhishan Yu took place on the Talas River. In the fourth year of Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty (58 years ago), the Xiongnu had civil strife, and the five orders were disputed. In the second year of Wufeng (56 years ago), Hutu Wusi established himself as Zhizhi Shan Yu, and had a fierce conflict with his younger brother Hu Han Evil Shan Yu, and went to the east and west. Hu Han evil moved south to return to Han, and Zhi Zhi led his troops to move north, "because of the northern attack on Wujie (now the southern foot of the Altai Mountains), Wujie surrendered." Send its troops to the west to break through Jiankun (now the Yenisei River Valley), descend to Dingling (now Transbaikal) in the north, and the Three Kingdoms", build a royal court in Jiankun, known as the "Northern Xiongnu" in history.
In the first year of Yongguang (43 BC), Zhizhidan formed an alliance with the Kangju state on the north bank of the Syr Darya River to unite against Wusun on the upper reaches of the Ili River. Unexpectedly, the Northern Xiongnu encountered a cold snap on the way westward, and most of the accompanying subordinates froze to death, and finally only 3,000 people arrived in the east of Kangju (now on the north bank of the Syr Darya). "Hanshu Chen Tang Biography" records: Gan Yanshou and Chen Tang Zheng Xiongnu Zhi Zhishan Yu, "on the same day to lead the army branch, not to the six schools, three of which from the south of the road through Dawan (now Fergana Basin), the three schools are to protect their own generals, send Wen Suguo, from the north road into the Red Valley, through Wusun, Shikang Jujie, to the west of Khotan Chi (now Issyk-Kul Lake). "It can be seen that the eastern boundary of Kangju is on the western shore of Lake Issyk-Kul in Kyrgyzstan.
The area between Lake Issyk-Kul and the Talas River was originally the former place of the Uzen shogunate. According to our research, the archaeological culture of Wuchanmu is the Tasmola Culture (800~92 BC) in the Kazakh steppe, which uses bearded tombs (Fig. 4). In the second year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (92 BC), the Wuchan Shogunate defected to the Xiongnu and moved from the Talas River to the eastern part of the Tianshan Mountains, becoming the new force of the Xiongnu ruling the Tarim Basin. For the next half century, the Talas River basin was occupied by the Kangju tribes in the middle reaches of the Syr Darya River.
In 1890, the Finnish archaeologist H. Heckele J. Heikel led a Finno-Ugric expedition to the Mongolian Plateau to investigate the Orkhon inscriptions, and conducted large-scale archaeological investigations and excavations in the Talas River basin, and found many ancient nomadic tombs and Turkic Runi inscriptions on the banks of the Talas River, which are now called "Talas tablets". According to the archaeological report, there are many partial cave tombs among the ancient nomadic tombs excavated by Hekhal on the banks of the Talas River. The shape and burial objects of these tombs (numbered Kujan Tuhaj M12-7 Tsjung Tipa M18) are identical to those of the Kangju tombs in the middle reaches of the Syr Darya River. This shows that after the Wuchan Curtain moved eastward to the eastern part of the Tianshan Mountains, the Kangju people occupied the Talas River Valley. "Hanshu Chen Tang Biography" records: Zhi Zhishan Yu "knew that he was negative Han, and when he heard that Han was evil and strong, he went west to live in Kangju." King Kangju took his daughter's wife Zhizhi, and Zhizhi also gave his daughter to King Kangju. Kangju respected Zhizhi very much and wanted to rely on his authority to coerce the countries. Zhi Zhishu borrowed troops to attack Wusun, went deep into Chigu City, killed the people, drove the livestock, Wusun did not dare to chase, the west was empty, and those who did not live were thousands of miles." This place of "no dwellers and thousands of miles" is the original hometown of the Wuzen curtain.
Recently. Soon after the Northern Xiongnu moved westward to Central Asia, they clashed fiercely with Kangju. Zhizhi Shan Yu raised troops to defeat the king of Kangju, killed hundreds of people, and forced the Kangju people to build a city for him on the banks of the Talas River, which was called "Zhizhi City". "Hanshu Chen Tang Biography" records:
Zhi Zhishan thought that he was a great country, respected his prestige, and took advantage of his victory, and did not pay tribute to the king of Kangju, and angrily killed hundreds of Kangju princesses and nobles and people, or threw himself into the Dulai Water (now Talas River). He made a city for the people, and he made five hundred people a day, and he was two years old. He also sent an envoy to blame the Su and Dawan countries, and they did not dare to refuse. Han sent three generations to Kangju to beg Gu Ji to die, but Zhizhi trapped and humiliated the envoy and refused to obey the edict.
In 36 B.C., the Western Regions Commander Gan Yanshou and Deputy Captain Chen Tang made an expedition to Central Asia and attacked the city of Zhizhi on the banks of the Talas River. The ancient city is built with a civil structure, and there are three castle walls, including a wooden castle, an earth castle, and a palace castle, and there is a promising building in the middle of the castle. After the Han army captured Zhizhi City, they killed Zhizhi Shan Yu and sent his head to Chang'an City, "It is advisable to hang between the barbarian mansions on the street to show thousands of miles". According to the relevant experts of UNESCO, the ancient battlefield of Zhizhi City and the Battle of Zhizhi is in Taraz, Kazakhstan. To this end, in 2001 the city of Taraz held a large-scale commemoration of the 2000th anniversary of the founding of the city.
In 1940, the Soviet archaeologist A. Bernstein N. Bernshtam excavated a Han Dynasty cemetery on the banks of the Kenkol River, an upper tributary of the Talas River, with two types of burials: rectangular pit pit and partial cavern. The former is a typical Xiongnu tomb, the deceased is placed in a wooden coffin, with the burial of silk fragments, cloud and thunder arc mirrors, iron swords, pottery, and bone bows in the Xiongnu art style. In 1956~1963, Soviet archaeologists carried out archaeological excavations in the cemetery many times, and a total of more than 60 ancient tombs were cleaned, and the age was interrupted in the 1~4th century. The ruins of the Sogdian city-states in Central Asia have unearthed many cloud-thunder arc mirrors. According to the excavation data of the Han tomb in Chang'an, this kind of Yunlei arc pattern mirror was popular in the late Western Han Dynasty, especially in the Xinmang period. The Yunlei arc pattern mirror unearthed from the tomb of Kenkel Xiongnu belongs to the Zhizhishan period, that is, the late Western Han Dynasty.
3. The creation of Sogdian coins
In the fifth year of Emperor Yuanguang of the Han Dynasty (130 BC), Wusun and the Xiongnu united to conquer the Dayue clan in the west and occupied the Ili River and Chu River basins. The Dayue clan moved west to the south bank of the Amu Darya River and lived in Great Xia. In the following year (129 BC), Zhang Qian was freed from the Xiongnu and traveled west to Dawan, Kangju and Dayue. About the coins of the ancient countries of Central Asia. "Historical Records: The Biography of Dawan Lie" records: "Rest in peace in the west of the Dayue clan can be thousands of miles. Its custom aborigines, ploughing fields, rice and wheat, Pu Tao wine. The city is like a great wan. It is a small and large hundreds of cities, thousands of miles away, and is the largest country. Linfei water, there is a city, people and businessmen use cars and boats, travel next to the country or thousands of miles. Take silver as money, money is like the face of the king, and the king dies to change the money, and serve the king's face. Painting the leather side line as the secretary. Its west is a branch, and there are Xiangcai and Li Xuan in the north. ”
The ancient capital of Anxi, known as the "Parthian Empire" in Western historical sources, was in the ancient city of Nissa, a western suburb of Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. Parthia issued two currencies, silver and copper. The ancient city of Nissa has unearthed not only silver coins of rest, but also Greco-Bactrian silver coins, Seleucid silver coins of the Black Sea, and other silver coins, but not Parthia's own copper coins. Both Parthian coins have the king's head on the obverse and the royal archers on the reverse. Early Parthian coins have Greek characters, which gradually become distorted over time. From the 1st century AD, Parthian numismatic inscriptions began to be written in Brahman.
The Sogdian city-states in the Zerafshan River Valley in Central Asia, the Sogdian city-states of the Han Dynasty were under the rule of the Kangju State, and there were five small kings. The history is called "Zhaowu Nine Surnames", which are An, Kang, Shi, Cao, Mi, Bi, Zheshi, etc. The Book of Han and the Legend of the Western Regions records:
Kangju has five small kings: one is called the king of Su Xu, governing Su Xue City, going to protect 5,776 li, and going to Yangguan 8,25 li; Second, it is said that the king of Mo is attached, and the city of Mo is attached, and he goes to the capital for 5,767 li, and goes to Yangguan for 8,25 li; The third is called the hidden king, governing the hidden city, going to the capital to protect 5,266 li, and going to Yangguan 7,525 li; Fourth, the king of Zong, governing the city, went to Duhu for 6,296 li, and went to Yangguan for 8,555 li; The fifth is called the king of Oku, governing the city of Oku, going to Duhu for 6,906 li, and going to Yangguan for 8,355 li. All the five kings belong to Kangju.
Suxue City is the Sogdian city, the Tang Dynasty Zhaowu nine surnames of the "Kang State", or Sa Mo Jian (sm'rknδc), in the ancient city of Afrasiab near the city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Fumo City is another name for Bukhara City in Uzbekistan, and "Anguo" of the nine surnames of Zhaowu in the Tang Dynasty. At the end of the 10th century, the Arabic writer Narshakhi's History of Bukhara was called bumičkath, 40 kilometers west of the city of Bukhara, covering an area of about 9 square kilometers, and is now known as the ancient city of "varakhsha". The city of Kuzang is the ancient city of Shahrisabiz near the city of Karshi, Uzbekistan. The city of Kedud / Kaptutana, the "He Kingdom" of the nine surnames of Zhaowu in the Tang Dynasty, is 12 kilometers east of Samarkand. The city of Okumen is in the ancient jade dragon of Turkmenistan, the "fire search" of the nine surnames of Zhaowu in the Tang Dynasty, in the city of Urgench in the lower reaches of the Amu Darya River.
During the Han and Wei dynasties, there were many Sogdians among the Jiahu and monks in the Western Regions. The edict of the later lord Liu Chan Jianxing in March of the fifth year contained in the "Zhuge Liang Collection" mentioned that during Zhuge Liang's first Northern Expedition (227), "the kings of Liangzhou each sent more than 20 people, including Yuezhi, Kangju, Huhou Zhifu, and Kangzhi, to receive the festival." If during the Western Han Dynasty, the Sogdians' business scope was limited to the Tarim Basin to the Hexi Corridor, then after the Eastern Han Dynasty, they penetrated deep into Chinese mainland. The analogy of "General Fubo's class like Jiahu stops in one place" in the Book of the Later Han Dynasty helps to illustrate this point.
As early as Zhang Qian's time, some Sogdian city-states, such as Bukhara and Samarkand, began to issue coins. Therefore, "Historical Records: The Biography of Dawan" said: "From the west of Dawan to the rest, although the country is quite different, it is the same and knows each other. His people are deep-eyed, multi-faceted, good at the city, and compete for baht. The Sogdian silver coins issued by the Sogdian lords of Angola belong to this period, imitating the Greco-Bactrian king Euthydemus I (230~200 BC) drachmai money. On the obverse is the head of the king, and on the back is the archer. The early type has Greek and Sogdian bilingual inscriptions, which are of sufficient color and were popular in the 2nd century BC; The late type is less colored, only a quarter of the original. The Greek inscriptions were distorted or disappeared altogether, and the inscriptions were only in Sogdian, circulating around the 1st century BC or later. The Oasis of Bukhara also unearthed a Sogdian silver coin, imitating the Seleucid king Antioch, with the king's head on the obverse; The back is a horse's head, with Greek inscriptions on the front and back sides, popular in the 2nd century BC.
In the 2nd century BCE, the Sogdian lords of Kang began to craft silver coins, which could be divided into two forms. One is a replica of the Seleucid King Antiochus, with the king's head on the obverse and a horse's head on the reverse. This type of Sogdian coin is similar to the second Sogdian silver coin excavated from Bukhara, except that there is no writing on both sides; The other has the head of the king (or no head) on the front with Sogdian inscriptions on the periphery, and Hercules, the Greek god Hercules and son of Zeus, on the back with Greek inscriptions.
4. Sogdian merchants on the Eurasian steppe route
The Book of the Later Han Dynasty and the Biography of the Western Regions records: "In the ninth year of Emperor Yongyuan, Duhuban sent Gan Ying to envoy Daqin (referring to the Roman Empire) to Tiaozhi [the city of Antiochia or Charax Spasinu in the Persian Gulf]. Near the sea, the people who want to spend their time in the west are said to be in peace: 'The sea is vast, and those who come and go are allowed to pass in March with a good wind, and if there is a late wind, there are also two-year-olds, so those who enter the sea are all three-year-olds. The good in the sea makes people think of the land, and there are many dead. 'Nothing is enough. "Gan Ying was afraid of the sea and returned from the Persian Gulf in vain. Soon, however, Chinese merchants arrived at the Italian Roman court.
罗马帝国时代作家福罗鲁斯（Lucius Annaeus Florus，约74～130年）在公元1世纪末成书的《罗马史纲要》中说：“克拉苏军团所使 用的军旗就是丝绸织物”，并提到有中国使者出访罗马。 他在该书第二章《帕提亚人的和平与奥古斯都的加冕礼》（II.34）写道：“Even the rest of the nations of the world whichwere not subject to the imperial sway were sensible of its grandeur, and lookedwith reverence to the Roman people, the great conqueror of nations. Thus evenScythians and Sarmatians sent envoys to seek the friendship of Rome. Nay, theSeres came likewise, and the Indians who dwelt beneath the vertical sun,bringing presents of precious stones and pearls and elephants, but thinking allof less moment than the vastness of the journey which they had undertaken, andwhich they said had occupied four years. In truth it needed but to look attheir complexion to see that they were people of another world than ours.”
It means: "The other peoples who are not yet under the rule of the empire also know the greatness of Rome and are in awe of its conquest of the world." Therefore, we saw that both the Scythians and the Sarmatians had sent envoys to make peace with us. Not only that, but the sun-drenched Seris and Indians also came. Among the gifts they brought were gems, pearls and elephants, but it felt like a long journey, taking them four years to get there. Indeed, just by the color of these people's skin, it can be seen that they are from another world. The Byzantine writer Menander's "Fragments of Greek History" refers to the Konju, Sogdian, Turkic and other Central Asian peoples as the "Scythians", and the so-called "Scythians" by Florus should refer to the Sogdians. These Seris were not emissaries sent by the Chinese government, but Chinese merchants who had traveled to Rome with a Sogdian merchant group.
At the beginning of the 20th century, fragments of rhombic Hanqi were found in the ancient tomb of Kerch on the Crimean peninsula. Similar Han Qi fragments have been found in the Eastern Han Tomb (95M7) in Yingpan, on the banks of the Peacock River in Xinjiang. All this indicates that the Chinese merchants arrived at the Roman court with Sogdian caravans via the Crimean peninsula via the Eurasian steppe route.
The Eastern Han Dynasty tomb in Yingpan, Xinjiang unearthed a rhombic pattern
In recent years, a tomb of a lady from the first century A.D. has been discovered 50 kilometers north of Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula, along with scarab-shaped gemstones from ancient Egypt, ancient Roman clay pots from Italy and France, and a pile of fragments of Chinese lacquer boxes. Later, under the sponsorship of the Japanese Sumitomo Foundation, it took three years to restore this Western Han lacquer box. Apparently, this Han lacquer box came to the Crimea via the "Eurasian steppe road". The lacquer box was once loaned by the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and is now part of the collection of the Crimean Museum.
Han Dynasty lacquer box excavated from the tomb of a noblewoman in the 1st century AD on the west coast of the Crimean peninsula
Based on the discussion of the whole text, we may be able to draw the following understandings:
First, the Sogdian city-states of the desert oasis in the Transoxiana region, which were ruled by the northern nomadic Kangju during the Han Dynasty. The Kangju merchants on the Silk Road in the Han Dynasty were mainly Sogdian merchants. Long before Zhang Qian's journey to the Western Regions, they trafficked Shu cloth produced in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, to the Gandhara region (present-day Indus Valley in Pakistan). In recent years, the Western Han loom unearthed from the Han Tomb of Laoguanshan in Chengdu is not a silk jacquard machine, but a Shu cloth loom.
Second, the Talas River in Central Asia was originally the original hometown of the Wuzen Shogun, and the bearded tomb was adopted. In the second year of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty (92 BC), the Wuchan shogunate defected to the Xiongnu, moved from the Talas River to the eastern part of the Tianshan Mountains, and later moved east to the Mongolian Plateau. For the next half century, the Talas River basin was occupied by the Kangju tribes in the middle reaches of the Syr Darya River. The ancient partial cave chamber tomb found in the Talas River should be the Kangju tomb. In the first year of Yongguang (43 years ago), the Northern Xiongnu Zhizhi moved west to the Talas River Valley, which was called "Dulai Shui" at that time. In 36 B.C., Chen Tang and Gan Yanshou attacked the city of Zhizhi on the Talas River, and destroyed the Northern Xiongnu here.
Third, in the 2nd century BCE, the lords of Bukhara and Samarkan in the desert oases of the Transoxiana region began to issue silver coins, mainly imitating Seleucid and Greek Bactrian silver coins, and adopting Sogdian on the coins. The ochre kingdom on the north bank of the Syr Darya River was not a Sogdian city-state, but an agrarian people among the Kangju peoples. In the middle of the 4th century, the state of ochre began to issue copper coins, but later came to the top, and the circulation was very large, apparently in the field of commercial circulation.
Fourth, in order to break the monopoly of the Sabbatical Empire on the Silk Road, the Sogdians opened the Eurasian steppe route and transported silk to the Roman Empire via the Crimean Peninsula. At the end of the first century AD, Chinese merchants may have traveled from the Eurasian steppe route through the Crimean peninsula to the Roman court with Sogdian caravans.
This article is excerpted by Sun Li and Wang Linwei from "The Sogdians on the Silk Road in the Han Dynasty" in "Archaeology of Northern Nationalities (Volume 3)" edited by the Institute of Archaeology of Northern Nationalities of Chinese University and the Department of Archaeology and Literature of the School of History of Renmin University of Chinese. The content has been slightly abridged and adjusted.