The Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage Project 
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Research

Glass object from Balkh (Kushan era). Photo by Arezou Azad.Glass object from Balkh (Kushan era). Photo by Arezou Azad.Research Rationale and Strategies

Revised 3 May 2013

  1. The history of the cities of Central Asia in the early Islamic period (7th to 13th centuries) has an interest and importance which goes far beyond area itself. There are two reasons for this. The first is that modern discussion on the histories of the cities of the early Islamic world has been dominated by the evidence from Greater Syria. The eastern Islamic world from Iraq to Central Asia has been largely neglected. This was a major part of the territories which comprised the early caliphate. It has very different patterns of urbanism and very different technologies of building from the western half of the Islamic world. The most fundamental feature of these is the use of mud-brick in its various forms as the main building material which generates a very different archaeology and material evidence from that of the largely stone built cities of greater Syria. The second reason for concentrating on this area is simply practical. The study of the urbanism of the eastern half of the Muslim world has been hampered by the virtual impossibility of international projects in either Iran or Iraq, leaving only Central Asia as a potential window into this world.

  2. Balkh is of particular interest in this discussion. The history of most of the other large cities of this area is known, at least in the most general terms. Bukhara has been continuously inhabited on its ancient site and its history reconstructed from texts and the surviving structures. Pre-Mongol Merv and pre-Mongol Samarqand, both deserted since the early thirteenth century, are being investigated by international archaeological teams. Smaller cities like Paykent and Dehistan are also being investigated. Of the four major urban centres of Islamic central Asia, it is only Balkh where the broad outlines of city development are uncertain. The site is made more interesting because it is the only one of the great cities which was dominated by a Buddhist (rather than Zoroastrian) culture before the coming of Islamic rule and substantial remains of the Buddhist temples are still visible.

 

  • Brief Timeline
  • Project Milestones
  • The BACH Project
  • Recent Articles

[ دری ]

Bactra—the Greek name under which pre-Islamic Balkh was known—encapsulated Bronze Age settlements around 2,000 BC when its ancient water systems were built.

It was a province of the Achaemenid Empire (sixth century BC), the capital of the Hellenistic kingdom of Bactria and a part of the Kushan Empire that flourished in the first to the third centuries AD.

The first surviving textual mention of ancient Bactria is in the Vendidad section of the Avesta, the Zoroastrian Holy Book. Bactria (Baxtri) is mentioned in the trilingual inscription of the Emperor Darius I (r. 522-486 BC) at Bisutun and Persepolis as one of the Achaemenid satrapies (provinces). According to varying traditions, Balkh was founded by the mythical Iranian kings Gusthasp, his father Luhrasp, or the first man, Gayumarth. The Zoroastrian Prophet Zoroaster is rumoured to have died in Balkh.

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September 2011 - Launch of the BACH project

5-6 January 2012 - First BACH workshop in Oxford. Participants on the first day were limited to team members and special advisors to discuss the parameters of the BACH project, its training agenda, and practicalities, logistics and context. Day 2 included a wider audience of key experts on Afghan art, archaeology, documentary and narrative history of Balkh and comparable cities. Participants included Philippe Marquis, Roland Besenval, Edmund Bosworth, Nicholas Sims-Wiliams, Geoffrey Khan, Deborah Klimburg-Salter, James Howard-Johnston, Étienne de la Vaissière, Frantz Grenet, and Chahriyar Adle (by video link). Presentations were made on the basic topography of Balkh, the Nuh Gunbad (Hajji Piyada) site, and Zadiyan in the northern confines of the Balkh oasis, on coins, and Chinese and Arabic sources on historical Balkh. Comparanda from cities like Samarqand and Dehistan (Turkmenistan) were also considered.

April 2012 - First visit by BACH Oxford to Kabul conducted by Michael Jackson Bonner, aimed principally at working out the key elements and modalities for BACH cooperation on the ground, together with the Ministry of Information and Culture and the Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan (DAFA).

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The Balkh Art and Cultural Heritage project (BACH) is funded by the Leverhulme Trust and is housed at the Oriental Insititute, University of Oxford.

This project focuses on the site of Balkh in the north of Afghanistan, south of the Oxus (Amu Darya) River. It analyses a selection of archaeological artefacts and unexplored texts against which hypotheses concerning the development of early Islamic cities can be tested. Balkh was in existence (as 'Bactra') since at least the fifth century BC, becoming a major economic centre and flourishing from the third century BC before being significantly reduced (but not abandoned) in the thirteenth century through the Mongol invasions.

The BACH project is not just about research. An essential element concerns training. Each of BACH's scholarly experts acts as a mentor and trainer to an Afghan trainee to analyse the material culture from, or textual finds on, Balkh. Trainees obtain daily on-the-job training during focussed visits to Kabul by BACH team members. The training follows a pre-determined curriculum, and includes reading lists of books and articles to be discussed during training. Trainees obtain stipends, and have the opportunity to engage with an international network through their mentors.

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Journal articles

Shaked, Shaul, "Early Persian Documents from Khorasan" Journal of Persianate Studies 6 (2013): pp 153-162

Azad, Arezou, "The Faḍāʾil-i Balkh and its place in Islamic historiography" IRAN – Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies 50 (2012): pp 79-102

Azad, Arezou, "Female Mystics in Mediaeval Islam: the quiet legacy", Journal of Economic and Social History of the Orient 56 (2013): pp 53-88

Siméon P., 2012."Hulbuk: Architecture and Material Culture of the Capital of the Banijurids in Central Asia (ninth–eleventh centuries)", Muqarnas, An Annual on the Visual Cultures of the Islamic World, vol. 29, pp. 385-421.

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Banner Image: Tepe Rustam of Balkh, thought to be the old Buddhist temple site of Naw Bahar. Photo by Arezou Azad

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