This year's lecture will focus on : 1) Non-Buddhist temples in Bactria and Sogdiana (continuation and conclusion), 2) New archaeological data on the oases of Bactria and Sogdiana.
1) Non-Buddhist temples in Bactria and Sogdiana (continued)
Following on from last year's lecture on the two great temples founded in Greek times (Aï Khanoum and Takht-i Sangin), we are now attempting to systematize the information available on those founded in later periods, up to the Arab conquest. Their status, the nature of their settlements, offer extreme contrasts, from imperial foundations (Surkh Kotal) and civic temples (Dil'berdzhin, Punjikent) to the small peri-urban temples of Sogdiana (Kurgantepe, Kuldortepe) and the rocky hunting sanctuary of Ghulbyān lost in the Afghan mountains. The nature of the cults is almost always a problem, as very little ritual material has been collected in situ. The titular divinities are rarely known from epigraphy, more from iconography, which even in temples where Zoroastrian rituals are proven seems rather to refer to a polytheism where the syncretic figures of Wēsh (Vayu-Shiva) and Nana (heir to both Ishtar and Anāhitā) emerge at the top.
2) New archaeological data on Sogdian oases
Based on recent publications (the three volumes of the Mission archéologique franco-ouzbèke dans l'oasis de Boukhara) or those in preparation (Samarkand et l'eau, by the Mission archéologique franco-ouzbèke de Sogdiane), we will report on new findings concerning the stages and methods of occupation of space in these oases from the Achaemenid period to the Islamic period.