The ancient history of Afghanistan, also referred to as the pre-Islamic period of Afghanistan, dates back to the prehistoric era and the Helmand civilization around 3300–2350 BCE. Archaeological exploration began in Afghanistan in earnest after World War II and proceeded until the late 1970s during the Soviet–Afghan War. Archaeologists and historians suggest that humans were living in Afghanistan at least 50,000 years ago, and that farming communities of the region were among the earliest in the world. Urbanized culture has existed in the land from between 3000 and 2000 BC. Artifacts typical of the Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze, and Iron ages have been found inside Afghanistan.
Bactria, or Bactriana, was an ancient Iranian(Afghan) civilization in Central Asia primarily focused south of the Oxus river in Northern Afghanistan which also consisted most of today's modern-day Afghanistan, and including parts of southwestern Tajikistan and southeastern Uzbekistan. Bactria was strategically located south of the Oxus river which was south of Sogdia, and extended to the mountains of the Hindu Kush towards the south mainly situated between the Oxus river and the Hindu Kush ranges, with the southwestern part of the Pamir ranges largely approaching towards the northeast of the Oxus river. The extensive mountain ranges especially towards the north and east acted as protective mountain "walls" on three sides with the Pamir on the north and the Hindukush on the south adjoining each other and forming a junction with the Karakoram ranges towards the east.
The Kushan Empire was a syncretic empire formed by the Yuezhi in the Bactrian territories in the early 1st century. It spread to encompass much of what is now Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Northern India, at least as far as Saketa and Sarnath, near Varanasi, where inscriptions have been found dating to the era of the Kushan emperor Kanishka the Great.
Balkh is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the north of the country. It is divided into 15 districts and has a population of about 1,509,183, which is multi-ethnic and mostly a Persian-speaking society. The city of Mazar-i-Sharif serves as the capital of the province. The Mazar-i-Sharif International Airport and Camp Marmal sit on the eastern edge of Mazar-i-Sharif.
The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC) is the modern archaeological designation for a particular Middle Bronze Age civilization of southern Central Asia also known as the Oxus Civilization. The civilization's urban phase or Integration Era, was dated in 2010 by Sandro Salvatori to c. 2400–1950 BC, but a different view is held by Nadezhda A. Duvoba and Bertille Lyonnet, c. 2250–1700 BC.
Vāsudeva I was a Kushan emperor, last of the "Great Kushans." Named inscriptions dating from year 64 to 98 of Kanishka's era suggest his reign extended from at least 191 to 232 CE. He ruled in Northern India and Central Asia, where he minted coins in the city of Balkh (Bactria). He probably had to deal with the rise of the Sasanians and the first incursions of the Kushano-Sasanians in the northwest of his territory.
Sapadbizes (Σαπαδβιζης), also Sapalbizes or Sapaleizis, was a ruler of western Bactria, sometimes linked to the Yuezhi. He is known only from his coins, which are rather rare, and are dated to circa 20 BC - 20 AD. Two clues provide an approximate date for this ruler. He is believed to have overstruck the coins of Phraates IV of Parthia, secondly his coins are of good silver. This places him after Phraates IV and before the debasement of coinage in Northwest India. He is not the only ruler of his dynasty known. Several other coins imply that Sapadbizes was preceded by at least one, and possibly two other rulers. It is likely that Sapadbizes and these other rulers were descendants of tribes who had invaded Bactria and imitated the coins of the last Greco-Bactrian kings. Though it is clear from the coins, and the evidence of Chinese chroniclers that at this time Sapadbizes was an ally or dependent of Parthia, nothing is known of the succession after Sapadbizes. However, scholars surmise that his kingdom was conquered by Kujula Kadphises, during the latter's war with Parthia, and absorbed into the Kushan Empire, probably about the year 30 AD.
Bactrian is an extinct Eastern Iranian language formerly spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria and used as the official language of the Kushan and the Hephthalite empires.
Sheberghān or Shaburghān, also spelled Shebirghan and Shibarghan, is the capital city of the Jowzjan Province in northern Afghanistan.
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.
Kushano-Sasanian Kingdom was a polity established by Sasanian Persians in Bactria during the 3rd and 4th centuries CE. The Sasanian Empire captured the provinces of Sogdiana, Bactria and Gandhara from the declining Kushan Empire following a series of warsin 225 CE. The local Sasanian governors then went on to take the title of Kushanshah or "King of the Kushans", and to mint their own coins. They are sometimes considered as forming a "sub-kingdom" inside the Sasanian Empire. This administration continued until 360-370 CE, when the Kushano-Sasanians lost much of their domains to the invading Kidarite Huns, whilst the rest was incorporated into the imperial Sasanian Empire. Later, the Kidarites were in turn displaced by the Hephthalites. The Sasanians were able to re-establish some authority after they destroyed the Hephthalites with the help of the Turks in 565, but their rule collapsed under Arab attacks in the mid 7th century.
Buddhism, a religion founded by Gautama Buddha, first arrived in modern-day Afghanistan through the conquests of Ashoka, the third emperor of the Maurya Empire. Among the earliest notable sites of Buddhist influence in the country is a bilingual mountainside inscription in Greek and Aramaic that dates back to 260 BCE and was found on the rocky outcrop of Chil Zena near Kandahar.
The Yaz culture was an early Iron Age culture of Margiana, Bactria and Sogdia. It emerges at the top of late Bronze Age sites (BMAC), sometimes as mud-brick platforms and sizeable houses associated with irrigation systems. Ceramics were mostly hand-made, but there was increasing use of wheel-thrown ware. There have been found bronze or iron arrowheads, also iron sickles or carpet knives among other artifacts.
Viktor Ivanovich Sarianidi or Victor Sarigiannides was a Soviet archaeologist. He discovered the remains of a Bronze Age culture in the Karakum Desert in 1976. The culture came to be known as the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex.
Tillya tepe, Tillia tepe or Tillā tapa is an archaeological site in the northern Afghanistan province of Jowzjan near Sheberghan, excavated in 1978 by a Soviet-Afghan team led by the Soviet archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi. The hoard found there is often known as the Bactrian gold.
Gonur Depe is an archaeological site, dated from 2400 to 1600 BCE, and located about 60 km north of Mary, Turkmenistan consisting of a large early Bronze Age settlement. It is the "capital" or major settlement of the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC).
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 South Turkmenistan Complex Archaeological Expedition (STACE), also called the South Turkmenistan Archaeological Inter-disciplinary Expedition of the Academy of Sciences of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (YuTAKE) was endorsed by the Turkmenistan Academy of Sciences. It was initially organized by the orientalist Mikhail Evgenievich Masson in 1946. The expedition had several excavations or "Brigades", based on sites and periods, and were spread over many years.
Kidara I fl. 350-390 CE) was the first major ruler of the Kidarite Kingdom, which replaced the Indo-Sasanians in northwestern India, in the areas of Kushanshahr, Gandhara, Kashmir and Punjab.
Galina Anatolyevna Pugachenkova was a Soviet archaeologist and art historian, regarded as a founder of Uzbek archaeology and central to the progression of archaeology and art history under Soviet regimes. Her work has contributed greatly to the register of surviving buildings in Central Asia and in many cases was the first register of traditional surviving buildings. Pugachenkova directed a branch of the archaeological expedition of southern Turkmenistan from 1946 to 1961, and of the Uzbek historical-artistic expedition from 1959 to 1984.
