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.
The Kidarites, or Kidara Huns, were a dynasty that ruled Bactria and adjoining parts of Central Asia and South Asia in the 4th and 5th centuries. The Kidarites belonged to a complex of peoples known collectively in India as the Huna, and in Europe as the Chionites, and may even be considered as identical to the Chionites. The 5th century Byzantine historian Priscus called them Kidarite Huns, or "Huns who are Kidarites". The Huna/Xionite tribes are often linked, albeit controversially, to the Huns who invaded Eastern Europe during a similar period. They are entirely different from the Hephthalites, who replaced them about a century later.
Zhou, known in historiography as the Northern Zhou, was a Xianbei-led dynasty of China that lasted from 557 to 581. One of the Northern dynasties of China's Northern and Southern dynasties period, it succeeded the Western Wei dynasty and was eventually overthrown by the Sui dynasty.
The kingdom of Tushara, according to ancient Indian literature, such as the epic Mahabharata, was a land located beyond north-west India. In the Mahabharata, its inhabitants, known as the Tusharas, are depicted as mlechchas ("barbarians") and fierce warriors.
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.
Ajina Tepe is a Buddhist monastery cluster located 12 kilometers east of the city of Bokhtar, Tajikistan.
Zunbil, also written as Zhunbil, or Rutbils of Zabulistan, was a royal dynasty south of the Hindu Kush in present southern Afghanistan region. They ruled from circa 680 AD until the Saffarid conquest in 870 AD. The Zunbil dynasty was founded by Rutbil, the elder brother of the Turk Shahi ruler, who ruled over Hephthalite kingdom from his capital in Kabul. The Zunbils are described as having Turkish troops in their service by Arabic sources like Tarikh al-Tabari and Tarikh-i Sistan.
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, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, 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.
The Principality of Ushrusana was a local dynasty ruling the Ushrusana region, in the northern area of modern Tajikistan, from an unknown date to 892 CE. Ushrusana, just like Ferghana, did not belong to Sogdia proper, but its inhabitants wrote in Sogdian, and may have spoken the Sogdian language as well. The rulers of the principality were known by their title of Afshin.
Qubodiyon, also Qubadiyan, ancient Kobadiyan is a town in the Khatlon Region of Tajikistan. It is the capital of Qubodiyon District. The population of the town is 12,200.
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.
The Turk Shahis or Kabul Shahis were a dynasty of Western Turk, or mixed Turko-Hephthalite, or a group of Hephthalites origin, that ruled from Kabul and Kapisa to Gandhara in the 7th to 9th centuries AD. They may have been of Khalaj ethnicity. The Gandhara territory may have been bordering the Kashmir kingdom and the Kannauj kingdom to the east. From the 560s, the Western Turks had gradually expanded southeasterward from Transoxonia, and occupied Bactria and the Hindu-Kush region, forming largely independent polities. The Turk Shahis may have been a political extension of the neighbouring Western Turk Yabghus of Tokharistan. In the Hindu-Kush region, they replaced the Nezak Huns – the last dynasty of Bactrian rulers with origins among the Xwn (Xionite) and/or Huna peoples.
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.
Tavka Kurgan is an ancient fortress and archaeological site near Shirabad, Uzbekistan. It is especially famous for some frescoes dated to the 5th-6th century CE, several of them located in the Archaeological Museum of Termez. One of these paintings, the so-called "Princess of Tokharistan", is actually thought to represent a hunter.
Kafir-kala is an ancient fortress in the Vakhsh valley in Tajikistan.
The Tokhara Yabghus or Yabghus of Tokharistan were a dynasty of Western Turk–Hephtalite sub-kings with the title "Yabghus", who ruled from 625 CE in the area of Tokharistan north and south of the Oxus River, with some smaller remnants surviving in the area of Badakhshan until 758 CE. Their legacy extended to the southeast where it came into contact with the Turk Shahis and the Zunbils until the 9th century CE.
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. Significant similarities with Old Turkic clothing, weapon items, hairstyles and ritual cups are noted by comparative research.
Zhulād of Gōzgān was a ruler of the mid-7th century CE, in the region of Guzgan in northern Afghanistan, then part of Tokharistan. His name "Zhulad" suggests Iranian ethnicity, but his territory was nominally under the control of the Western Turks until 657 CE, after which the Western Turks submitted to the Chinese Tang dynasty, letting their territories become protectorates of the Chinese. Administratively and militarily, Zhulād of Gōzgān was a vassal of the Turk Yabghus of Tokharistan, themselves a nominal protectorate of Tang China.
Kalai Kafirnigan, also Kala-i Kafirnigan was a Buddhist temple in the region of Tokharistan, dated to the 7th-8th century CE. Buddhism in Tokharistan is said to have enjoyed a revival under the Western Turks. Several monasteries of Tokharistan dated to the 7th-8th centuries display beautiful Buddhist works of art, such as Kalai Kafirnigan, Ajina Tepe, Khisht Tepe or Kafyr Kala, around which Turkic nobility and populations followed Hinayana Buddhism.
