The urban phenomenon in pre-Islamic Central Asia : diachronic and synchronic approaches (continued) (5)

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The only sites that really show a Greek Bactrian influence are on the southern border. Elkharas (dating from the late^5th or ^4th c. B.C. according to excavator L.M. Levina, which is impossible; from the ^2nd c. according to Minardi) is a completely unique ensemble that largely escapes interpretation. It is a river site on the Amu-darya, surrounded by an outer wall that is not a rampart. Its state of preservation is exceptional, right down to the vaulting, which is a novelty in that it is made of inclined slabs - a technique known in Achaemenid architecture but unknown in Khorezm before this period - covering an axial corridor 3.6 m wide. The western section is a parade building, with two symmetrical complexes with walls featuring numerous niches that have yielded Hellenistic sculptures in painted unbaked clay, including a bust of a nude woman of the "Aphrodite pudica" type. There is probably a bathing installation. The other group consists of six identical apartments, each with four rooms.

G.M. Bongard-Levin and G.A. Koshelenko have put forward a sensational interpretation [1], claiming that this was an advanced fort established by the Seleucid Empire on the Khorezm frontier - making it the northernmost point reached by Greek colonization in Central Asia. The origins of this architecture are to be found directly in Greek Bactria.

According to Minardi, on the contrary, the site has no military character whatsoever. In this case, it could be a sanctuary to a local version of Aphrodite (a view also held by Levina and an idea he personally put to me; the apartments to the east could have housed sacred prostitutes visited by river sailors. But what could a "local version of Aphrodite" be? Anāhitā, although identified with Aphrodite by Herodotus and Berossus, is a virgin (as such she is more often identified with Athena or Artemis). Ashi is matronly, but although she may have been called the "Iranian Aphrodite" by Eric Pirart, it is doubtful that she could have been depicted naked.

Digression: the idea that sacred prostitutes could have existed in Iran runs counter to all Zoroastrian literature, and can only be based on a single, peripheral testimony, Strabo XI.14.16, about a temple of "Anaïtis" in Acilisene (south-west Armenia): the girls were from good families and chose the men with whom they had relations from their social milieu; later, they married honorably. This is not very different from what happens in our modern Western societies. The name "Anaïtis" may have been applied by Armenians to High Mesopotamian goddesses distinct from the Zoroastrian Anāhitā. In Iran itself, the only documented case (Plutarch, Artaxerxes 27.4) goes in the opposite direction: Artaxerxes ii obtained from his father a royal concubine coveted by his brother Cyrus; he appointed her priestess of the temple of "Artemis Anaïtis" at Ecbatane "so that she would remain chaste for the rest of her life".

Returning to Elkharas, the apartments appear too large to be simple barracks as found elsewhere, notably at Kampyr-tepe. Minardi's hypothesis is conceivable; otherwise, one might think of a customs post, with a commander of the place displaying Hellenizing tastes under the influence of the great empires of the South.

In this "ancient 2" period, a capital appears for the first time, or at least a site that clearly concentrated ceremonial functions linked to royalty: Akchakhan-kala, in a central position, not far north of Kath, the capital of the early Middle Ages. But before we come to Akchakhan-kala, we must pay tribute to another major fortified site: Koj-krylgan-kala (fig. 2), a little behind the south-eastern border, discovered in 1938 and excavated in 1950-1957. This was the site that kept the mission most busy. It was published in 1967 under the names of Tolstov and Vajnberg [2], although Tolstov, although still alive, could no longer participate directly in the work, and it's not clear whether he would have endorsed it. The state of preservation was remarkable at the time of excavation: 8 m at the central enclosure, right up to the start of the second level, but today the site has been practically destroyed by the re-watering of the plain. Three phases can be distinguished: in the publication, phase 1 is dated to the early ^4th century, i.e. to the Achaemenid period, but today, on the basis of the ceramics, it is generally agreed that it dates to the late ^3rd or even ^2nd century, which places the monument in the context of the "Ancient 1" period. This initial phase lasted until the ^1st century BC, after which there was a hiatus followed by two reoccupations (phases 2 and 3) until the ^3rd or ^4th century.

It comprises two circular fortified enclosures, each with two storeys and considered militarily functional. The outer enclosure is 90 m long, the inner 42 m. Between the two, dwellings did not appear immediately, but were already present in the ^1st phase.

From the outset, excavators considered the site to be an inhabited royal mausoleum, reused as a fortified village in phases 2 and 3. Everyone agrees on the second point, but the first is not self-evident. Several apparently solid arguments are put forward in favor of a funerary destination:

The general layout, which develops the "inscribed cross" pattern attested in the mausoleums of Lower Syr-darya from the Early Iron Age to the period in question. This pattern can be applied in a number of ways, the most complex being at Koj-Krylgan-kala, where the back walls of the chambers are even rounded to fit more closely into the circle, giving rise to the recognition of a solar symbolism.
Facilities: on the lower floor of the central section, there are zones of increasing isolation: the western half, initially separated from the other half, with its access staircase hidden behind the wall of the walkway; within this, the last room, which has no skylight and is blocked by a secondary partition and a well.
In the ^1st phase, a violent fire broke out on the upper floor, leading to partial collapse of the first floor vaults, followed by complete looting.

Rapoport proposes the following scenario: the first deceased was in the western half, which he believes was dedicated to Anāhitā, and would therefore have been the queen; a little later, the king was laid to rest in the eastern half, properly speaking "solar"; immediately after his funeral, a sacrificial pyre was lit on the upper floor (there are analogies in certain Syr-darya mausoleums, but from the early Iron Age). But according to other co-authors of the publication, this floor was the funerary temple-terrace; the fire would be later and accidental, or military. A refinement introduced in one of the publication's chapters is that this floor would have been used for astronomical observations (but the hypothesis, presented by only two of the excavators assisted by an astronomer, is based only on a fragment of a supposed stone astrolabe and does not seem to be endorsed by the other authors).

I myself once accepted the funerary interpretation [3]. Doubts then arose in conversations with Central Asian colleagues, but only one, S. Khmel'nitskij, published (after emigrating) his refutation of the funerary interpretation [4].

The latter thesis does indeed run up against several objections. I've already mentioned the contradictions in the excavation team's interpretation of the upper floor, which leads Khmel'nitskij to assume a partially wooden residential building. Minardi is tempted to link the fire to the siege of Akchakhan-kala, around the middle of the ^1st century BC, a siege carried out by an enemy familiar with the use of catapults (the Parthians?). Furthermore, even assuming that the funerary furnishings had been looted, it would be unusual for not a single small precious object to have survived. What was found was not specifically cult-related. Some of the subjects on the ceramic "gourds" are aristocratic or exotic, with influences from the south (a scene with reclining bankers, possibly reminiscent of the Nisa banquets; a grylle, a commonplace subject in the Hellenistic world at the time).

References

[1] "The puzzle of Elkharas" East and West, 55, 2005, pp. 41-53.

[2] S.P. Tolstov, B.I. Vajnberg (ed.), Koj-Krylgan-kala, Moscow, 1967.

[3] Grenet, op. cit. p. 59-63. Similarly, Henri-Paul Francfort recognized it as a hybrid monument, "a fusion of the cylindrical mausoleum from the north, with no military decoration, and the circular fortified enclosure from the south".

[4] "Koj-Krylgan-kala kak istochnik somnenij", Istorija material'noj kul'tury Uzbekistana, 34, 2004, p. 109-130.