Penjikent murals | |
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![]() Penjikent mural in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg. | |
Created | 5th century - 722 CE |
Discovered | Panjakent, Tajikistan 39°29′12″N67°37′14″E / 39.486792°N 67.620477°E |
Present location | Hermitage Museum, National Museum of Antiquities of Tajikistan |
Culture | Sogdian |
The murals of Penjikent are among the most famous murals of the pre-Islamic period in Panjakent, ancient Sogdiana, in Tajikistan. Numerous murals were recovered from the site, and many of them are now on display in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, and in the National Museum of Antiquities of Tajikistan in Dushanbe. The murals reveal the cosmopolitan nature of the Penjikent society that was mainly composed of Sogdian and Turkic elites and likely other foreign merchant groups of heterogeneous origin. [1] Significant similarities with Old Turkic clothing, weapon items, hairstyles and ritual cups are noted by comparative research. [2]
The murals of Penjikent are the earliest known Sogdian murals, starting from the late 5th to early 6th century CE, and are preceded by the Hepthalite murals of Tukharistan as seen in Balalyk Tepe, from which they received iconographical and stylistic influence. [3] Also visible is a great variety of Hellenistic influences of Greek decorative styles along with local Zoroastrian, Christian, Buddhist and Indic cults.[ citation needed ]
The production of paintings started in the end of the 5th century CE and stopped in 722 CE with the invasion of the Abbasid Caliphate, in the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana, and many works of art were damaged or destroyed at that time. [4] [5] [6]
There are three known rulers of Penjikent:
All rulers had no reported dynasties, the first ruler had a Chionite-Hephthalite and the second ruler had a Turkic name. [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] There is no conclusive evidence that "Queen Nana" was involved in the minting of the Penjikent coins. [4] There is conflicting information about the father of Čekin Čur Bilgä, known as Pyčwtt, who ruled Penjikent at the beginning of the 7th century and around 658 AD. [4]
Scenes of festivities abound in the murals. [4] [5] [6] The men sitting in oriental manner are dressed in Turkic long coats with lapels similar to garments found in the Altai. [2] Lapels were not common in Parthian, Kushan, or Sasanian caftans, however they do appear in the art of Hepthalite, Sogdian and Buddhist sites. Images of both sexes in single- and double-lapelled outfits appear in large sites like Samarkand, Pendjikent and Xinjiang. Knauer suggests that the political ascendance of the Western Turks resulted in the adoption of lapels through a diffusion of nomadic Turkic tribes which later became assimilated. [12]
It is thought that the narrative of the Iranian Shahnameh and the epic cycle of Rostam is mirrored in a series of murals of the "Blue Hall" ("Rustemiada") at Penjikent dating to the first half of the 8th century. They are mainly hosted in the Hermitage Museum, Hall 49, [4] [5] [6] [13] and are believed to be of Sogdian, Turkic or Kushan-Hephthalite origin. [11]
The protagonist Rostam, a mythical king of Zabulistan is thought to be shown in numerous activities and battles, both against human and mythical opponents, and is shown with an elongated skull, narrow skulls, V-shaped eyebrows, a hooked nose and heavy jaw (of Hephthalite prototype) and thus reminding some portraits of Khingila on coins, perhaps even having close identity with him. [11] This choice follows from the emblematic look of the Alchon Huns, who ruled in that same area until the 7th century CE. [9] [14] [15]
The religious affiliation of the Penjikent population is uncertain. The local cults are thought to be a mix of Christian, Buddhist, Zoroastrian Iranian and Indian deities. [4] [5] [6]
Sogdia or Sogdiana was an ancient Iranian civilization between the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya, and in present-day Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan. Sogdiana was also a province of the Achaemenid Empire, and listed on the Behistun Inscription of Darius the Great. Sogdiana was first conquered by Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Achaemenid Empire, and then was annexed by the Macedonian ruler Alexander the Great in 328 BC. It would continue to change hands under the Seleucid Empire, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, the Kushan Empire, the Sasanian Empire, the Hephthalite Empire, the Western Turkic Khaganate and the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana.
The Hephthalites, sometimes called the White Huns, were a people who lived in Central Asia during the 5th to 8th centuries CE, part of the larger group of the Iranian Huns. They formed an empire, the Imperial Hephthalites, and were militarily important from 450 CE, when they defeated the Kidarites, to 560 CE, when combined forces from the First Turkic Khaganate and the Sasanian Empire defeated them. After 560 CE, they established "principalities" in the area of Tokharistan, under the suzerainty of the Western Turks and of the Sasanian Empire, before the Tokhara Yabghus took over in 625.
Panjakent, or Penjikent is a city in the Sughd province of Tajikistan on the river Zeravshan, with a population of 52,500. It was once an ancient town in Sogdiana. The ruins of the old town are on the outskirts of the modern city. The Sarazm Important Bird Area lies downstream of the city on the tugay-vegetated floodplain of the river.
Xionites, Chionites, or Chionitae were a nomadic people in the Central Asian regions of Transoxiana and Bactria.
Tokharistan is an ancient Early Middle Ages name given to the area which was known as Bactria in Ancient Greek sources.
The Western Turkic Khaganate or Onoq Khaganate was a Turkic khaganate in Eurasia, formed as a result of the wars in the beginning of the 7th century after the split of the First Turkic Khaganate, into a western and an eastern Khaganate.
Boris Ilich Marshak was an archeologist who spent more than fifty years excavating the Sogdian ruins at Panjakent, Tajikistan.
The Afrasiab murals, also called the Paintings of the Ambassadors, is a rare example of Sogdian art. It was discovered in 1965 when the local authorities decided to construct a road in the middle of Afrāsiāb mound, the old site of pre-Mongol Samarkand. It is now preserved in a special museum on the Afrāsiāb mound.
The ancient archaeological site of Bunjikat, also named Shahriston, is located near the town of Bunjikat, in the Shahristan Pass at the entrance of the Ferghana Valley, in Sughd Province of western Tajikistan, just west of the town of Kairma.
Dilberjin Tepe, also Dilberjin or Delbarjin, is the modern name for the remains of an ancient town in modern (northern) Afghanistan. The town was perhaps founded in the time of the Achaemenid Empire. Under the Kushan Empire it became a major local centre. After the Kushano-Sassanids the town was abandoned.
Central Asian art is visual art created in Central Asia, in areas corresponding to modern Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and parts of modern Mongolia, China and Russia. The art of ancient and medieval Central Asia reflects the rich history of this vast area, home to a huge variety of peoples, religions and ways of life. The artistic remains of the region show a remarkable combinations of influences that exemplify the multicultural nature of Central Asian society. The Silk Road transmission of art, Scythian art, Greco-Buddhist art, Serindian art and more recently Persianate culture, are all part of this complicated history.
Divashtich, was a medieval Sogdian ruler in Transoxiana during the period of the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana. He was the ruler of Panjikant and its surroundings from ca. 706 until his downfall and execution in the autumn of 722.
The Alchon Huns, also known as the Alkhan, Alchono, Alxon, Alkhon, Alakhana, and Walxon, were a nomadic people who established states in Central Asia and South Asia during the 4th and 6th centuries CE. They were first mentioned as being located in Paropamisus, and later expanded south-east, into the Punjab and Central India, as far as Eran and Kausambi. The Alchon invasion of the Indian subcontinent eradicated the Kidarite Huns who had preceded them by about a century, and contributed to the fall of the Gupta Empire, in a sense bringing an end to Classical India.
Sogdian art refers to art produced by the Sogdians, an Iranian people living mainly in ancient Sogdia, present-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan, who also had a large diaspora living in China. Its apex was between the 5th and 9th centuries, and it consists of a rich body of pre-Muslim Central Asian visual arts. New finds recovered in the past decades allowed scholars to achieve a better understanding of Sogdian art.
Balalyk tepe, in former Bactria, modern Uzbekistan, is a Central Asian archaeological site with many mural paintings. It was the site of a small fortified manor belonging to a princely Hephthalite clan. It is generally dated a bit later than the painting at Dilberjin, from the late 5th century to the early 7th century CE, or from the end of the 6th century to the early 7th century CE. The paintings of Balalyk Tepe are part of a "Tokharistan school", which also includes Adzhina-tepe and Kafyr-kala. They are succeeded chronologically by the Sogdian art of Penjikent.
Kafir-kala is an ancient fortress 12 kilometers south of the city center of Samarkand in Uzbekistan, protecting the southern border of the Samarkand oasis. It consists in a central citadel built in mud-bricks and measuring 75 × 75 meters at its base has six towers and is surrounded by a moat, still visible today. Living quarters were located outside the citadel.
The Hephthalite silver bowl is a bowl discovered in the Swat region of Gandhara, Pakistan, and now in the British Museum. It dates from 460 to 479 CE, and the images represent two different Huna tribes, suggesting a period of peaceful coexistence between the Kidarites and the Alchons.
The Tajikistan National Museum of Antiquities is a museum in Dushanbe, Tajikistan. It is particularly famous for its murals from Penjikent.
The Seal of Khingila is an historical seal from the region of Bactria, on southern Central Asia. The seal was published recently by Pierfrancesco Callieri and Nicholas Sims-Williams. It is now in the private collection of Mr. A. Saeedi (London). Kurbanov considers it as a significant Hephthalite seal. It has also been considered as intermediate between the Kidarites and the Hephthalites.
The Chilek silver bowl is a silver bowl found in the area of Samarkand, and considered as the "best known specimen of Hephthalite art". More specifically, the bowl seems to belong to the Alchon Huns, south of the Hindu-Kush, during the last third of the 5th century CE. The Alchons have long been considered as a part or a sub-division of the Hephthalites, or as their eastern branch, but now tend to be considered as a separate entity.
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