The Uzbeks are a Turkic ethnic group native to the wider Central Asian region, being among the largest Turkic ethnic group in the area. They comprise the majority population of Uzbekistan, next to Kazakh and Karakalpak minorities, and are also minority groups in Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Russia, and China. Uzbek diaspora communities also exist in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United States, Ukraine, and other countries.
Samarkand or Samarqand is a city in southeastern Uzbekistan and among the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central Asia. Samarqand is the capital of Samarqand Region and a district-level city, that includes the urban-type settlements Kimyogarlar, Farhod and Khishrav. With 551,700 inhabitants (2021), it is the third-largest city of Uzbekistan. 60% of the population of Samarkand speak Samarqandi as their first mother tongue, which is a dialect of Persian.⠀
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 "White Huns", also known as the White Hunas, in Iranian as the Spet Xyon, and in Sanskrit as the Sveta-huna, were a subgroup of the Huna and/or Xionites. The White Huns are sometimes regarded as synonymous with the Hephthalites but may have included other tribes as well. They are known for their historical conquest and occupation of North India, particularly the Punjab region.
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.
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.
Afrasiyab ,(Persian: افراسيابafrāsiyāb) is an ancient site in Northern Samarkand, present day Uzbekistan, that was occupied from c. 500 BC to 1220 AD prior to the Mongol invasion in the 13th century. The oldest layers date from the middle of the first millennium BC. Today, it is a hilly grass mound located near the Bibi Khanaum Mosque. Excavations uncovered the now famous Afrasiab frescoes exposed in the Afrasiab Museum of Samarkand, located next to the archaeological site.
The Pamirid race, also Pamir-Fergana race, is the most Eastern subrace of the Europid race, a racial category is now considered to be obsolete. It was said to be common in Central Asia, represented mostly by the Pamiris, Tajiks, Uyghurs and Uzbeks. Characterized by brachycephalic skull, dark hair, white skin, narrow protruding nose and fairly strong development of the tertiary hair cover.
The Muslim conquest of Transoxiana or Arab conquest of Transoxiana were the 7th and 8th century early Muslim conquests by the Umayyad and Abbasid Caliphates of of Transoxiana, the land between the Amu Darya or Oxus and the Syr Darya or Jaxartes, a part of Central Asia that today includes all or parts of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
Alex Battler, known in Russia under the pen name Oleg Alekseyevich Arin, is a Soviet-born Russian-Canadian scholar and political writer. He is a member of the organization «Defend Science» (US).
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.
Qormusta Tengri (Cyrillic: Хурмаста, Хормуста-тенгри, Хан-Хурмаста; from the Sogdian Хурмазта/Khurmazta; also transliterated as Qormusata (Tngri), Khormusta (Tngri), Hormusta (Tngri), and Qormusda (Tngri)) is a god in Tengrism and shamanism, described as the chief god of the 99 tngri and leader of the 33 gods. Hormusta is the counterpart of the Turkic and Mongol deities, Hürmüz and Kormos Khan.
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 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.
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.
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.
Tūrgār, also Thurgar was a medieval Sogdian ruler in Transoxiana and successor to his father Ghurak during the period of the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana. He was the last ruler of Samarkand and its surroundings from ca. 738 until no later than 755/57, until the Arabs took full control of the region. He was an Ikhshid, a princely title of the Iranian rulers of Soghdia and the Ferghana Valley in Transoxiana during the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods.
The Ikhshids of Sogdia, or Ikhshids of Samarkand, were a series of rulers of Soghdia in Transoxiana, with their capital at Samarkand, during the pre-Islamic and early Islamic periods.
