Sughdian civilization is a unique phenomenon of internal self-evolution and international integration in world history and of bilateral interaction and territorially multilateral trend into the bargain.
The grounds of Sughdian civilization in Central Asia were laid in the archeological epochs of eneolite, bronze and early iron (4-1 millennia B. C.). Kairokkum, Chust (Chust Dilvarzin) and Bourgulyuk cultures are on the initial base of the first settled agricultural communities of Sarazm, and perhaps, of those ones similar to the latters, which were in the valleys and oases of the Zarafshon and the Syr-Darya reservoirs, and also of steppe cattle-breeding communities of the same basins (Zaminbobo, Youjaili, Chakka, Siab, Saigus, Muminobod); and later on, these cultures were founded by the bearers of the so called adjacent cultures of steppe and settled zones.
Sughdian civilization was formed in interaction with neighboring settled agricultural communities of low Murghob-Tenjen circle (Geoksyur, Kelledi, Gonur, Togolok oases) and lower reaches of the Amu-Darya (ancient Khorezmian archeological cultures-Kalmantar Tozabogob, in Russian science-Kelteminar Tazabagyab) and others.
This embryo period of the formation of Sughdian civilization was at the same time concretely regional evincing of the important social-historic stage of the development of the general Central Asian history.
In the first millenium B. C. termination of Sughdian civilization formation took place being, first of all, registered in written form in "Avesta" and called as a country ("Java, where Sughdians habituate") - (the second in the list of the countries, created by the first Deity-Akhura Mazda), in ancient Persian inscriptions and relieves, in ancient Greek written sources. In this time there are formed such civilization tokens as proper ethnical formation of the Sughdians, their territorially political consolidation, settled agricultural and urban modes of life, common ethnical cultural image with multilateral phenomena, strong guiding stream of the development of all outward integrative processes pertaining to all pointed trends of Sughdian ethnical and cultural, social-economic and statal-political formation being a part of old secular world empire formations of the Ahamanids, Alexander the Macedonian, the Selevkides with coming out on the ways of international change and mutual acquaintance.
Further on, in the first millenium A. D. We see already a unique Sughdian one-phenomenon of civilization in all brilliance of its inner development and sanguineous international cooperation. In this period the Sughdians not only carry their material and spiritual values from land to land along international trans-Eurasian ways, but also help young early Turk and Mongolian communities, tribes and political formations of Eurasia in their perception, especially in Central Asia, Siberia and the Far East, bringing out the achievements of the latters on the way of commercial and cultural exchange of the countries from China and India to Vizantium, near-eastern and Greek- Roman world.
Here, beyond doubts, there is not infrequently ignored OR deliberately disparaged civilizable role of Sughdians, their laboring habits, culture and high spiritual life, especially in the historiography of the ethnical culture of the young peoples of Northern and Eastern Asia. Requiting this talented and industrial people for all they deserved, Ellines and Phoenicians of the depths of the Asian continent, so to say, who did a lot for the progress of the young peoples of antiquity, especially along main tracts and impasse ramifications of the Great Silk Way, substantiated a suggestion of calling early Middle Ages of this trans-Eurasian way as Sughdian stage (1989).
It is that period of the efflorescence of international activity on this way when the most animated and resultative multilateral commercial-economic and cultural-cognitive relations were in full swing in certain parts of the road. Social-economic up-growth of progressing feudalism terminates with the formation of all potential ethnocultural forces of a number of ancient Central Asian nationalities, with shaping of integrative civilizations-Sasanidian, Sughdian, Bactrian-tokharistanian, Margian, Parfyanian, Khorezmian, Sokosughdian-Tiurcian.
As for the civilization values of Sughd, here one should refer, first of all, Sughdian language and written letters which not only became the developed means of intercourse of Sughd population itself in broad comprehension (embracing Sughd population Federation "From the Chu river up to the iron gates" in the Boisoon mountains), but the tongue of Chinese, Persian-Tojik and Arabic, comprising almost the entire stretch of the great Silk Way. We shall mark also that perception of Sughdian written letters by Uigurs, Manchurians, and in general, the creation of big scientific, imaginative, epistolary literature and bureaucratic clerical work is fixed in the findings of written monuments not only in Sughd itself, but far beyond it-in Sintzuan, Mongolia and other regions.
In the second, it is the formed and chiseled in nuances theory and practice of agriculture and irrigation, land and water usage with their most developed part on artificial irrigation, with such big and complex systems existing for thousands of years as Varagsar and Rudizar on the planes of Zarafshon Valley, subterranean-carise and overland-basin-percelling ones-in mountainous and submountainous zones of Panjakent Sughd, Ustrushan Sughd and Khujand Sughd.
In the third, it is a developed theory and practice of urbanization-key and advertising indications of Sughd civilization level. Sughd towns, their structure, form and face, their handicraft industry, commercial potential, proportional and complex topography and architecture, glaring interiors of monumental decoration (wall painting, carving of wooden and clay elements), rich tradition of plot themes-imaginative, mythological, epic-heroic, cult ones. All this is well-known to science and wide public thanks to the industrious excavation and publishing-analytical work of archeologists-sughdiologists (A. V. Yakubovsky, M. M. Dyakonov, A. M. Belenitsky, V. A. Shishkin, N. B. Nematov, V. L. Voronina, B. I. Marshak, B. G. Stavisky, Y. Yokubov, A. Isakov, L. I. Albaum, G. V. Shishkina, Y. K. Isomiddinov, R. K. Sulaimonov, V. I. Rapopova and others) and scientists-restorators (P. I. Kostrov, E. I. Sheinina, I. B. Bentovitsch, M. P. Vinokurova, E. V. Saiko, V. M. Sokolovsky, M. I. Stradomskaya, V. Vinogradova, M. N. Novikova and others). Now science knows glamorous images of ancient Sughdian towns-Panjakent, Bunjokat (Shahristan), Samarkand (Afrasiyab), Vorakhshi, Paikand and others. And in the museums and fund repositories of St. Petersburg, Dushanbe, Tashkent, Samarkand, Panjakent the world sees and feels really the excavated, restored and preserved the priceless monuments of wall painting, carved wood, stone, clay and ganch, the wares made of artistic metal, ceramics and other Sughdian artefacts. Creation of a big and worthy Museum of Sughdian antiquities in connection with the rebirth of the historical name of Sughd viloyat now becomes the most important prestigious task of Khujand City-as the chief modern of the Golden country of ancient and modern world, still enigmatical in many points.
In the fourth, there are ideological values of the Sughdians, if to judge by the extant monuments of written letters and especially by the analysis of archeological objects among which there are whole intellectual complexes of ancient Panjakent, Bunjikat, Samarkandian Afrasiyab, with their plot monuments of fine arts, and including also Sughdian terracotta, toretics, ceramics, monuments of burial rites. Sughd was a concentration of the richest spiritual culture including mazdeist-zoroastrian, mythological, epic-heroic themes. Education which since small age inscribed tuition on account, intellectual abilities which were firstly aimed at the practice of town-building, architecture, artistic handicraft and spiritual affairs, breeded life practicism, capacities and skills in every thing with Sughdians. It afforded them to implement the great culturist mission out of Sughd as well-among Turkish, Uigur, Mongolian and Khazar Khakans, people of elite and the whole population in the early Arabian khalifate.
In the conclusion we shall mark that a) if the 4-2 millennia B.C were a stage of collecting potential forces of Sughd culture; b) the fist half of the 1 millenium B.C was an immediate initiation of mass urbanization, qualitatively new agriculture on the base of irrigation with an application of metallic tools, growth of mining extraction and multiple handicrafts; c) the second half of the first millenium B.C and up to early Middle Ages inclusive is already a period of a durable versatile civilization flight of Sughd and its macrocivilization of the highest point to early Middle Ages. We shall mark also that it was the period of intensive ethnocultural formation (ethnogenesis) of the contemporary Tojik poeple, which I call "Tojik Ekhyo of 5-11 c.c." (Renaissance) and in which the Sughdian ethnocultural and social-economic complex occupied the leading place. The details are described in my book "Tojik Phenomena: History and Theory", Dushanbe 1997.