Throughout the millennia Sughdians elaborated the rich heathen pre-religious secular spirituality of their own. Its origin is traced back to the universal Aryan world of cognition of the surrounding nature in the epochs of the Neolithic, Eneolithic and Bronze Ages (VI-II millennia B.C)-that of the Aryan proto-motherland; Central Asian settled agricultural Aryana and steppe husbandry Aryan Vige-Erancedge upon the whole. The Aryan spirituality (just as the Aryan-Avestian language) already in antiquity spread all over Indo-European Eurasia and in the new time it acquires the world globalism of its own. As for the linguistic issue of this aspect we already touched upon it in connection with the extralinguistic characteristics of the Sughdian language and written letters ("Varorud" Bulletin, #7, 2001).
In the present "Sughdology" miniature we shall illustrate the globalism of the Sughdian spirituality taking a folklore plot of Sughdian archeology and art as an example.
I mean the sensational discovery of 1967-1969 done under the digs of the ruins of the city of Bunjikat-the capital of the state of Ustrushana-in the district center of Shakhristan, Sughd viloyat. It is the mural picteresque composition "Female wolf feeding two human babies" researched in details and published in the edition of the International learned Council of the USSR AS on the history of world culture (Н.Н. Негматов, В.М. Соколовский "Капитолийская волчица" в Таджикистане и легенды Евразии. - Памятники культуры. Новые открытия. Ежегодник, 1974. Москва: Наука, 1975, с.438-458 N.N. Negmatov, V.M. Sokolovsky of Eurasia". Monuments of Culture. New Discoveries. Annual edition. Moscow. Science, 1975. p.p. 438-458).
The discovered picturesque composition with the female wolf feeding two babies in the final scene is undoubtedly a reproduction of the well known plot of antiquity and mythology of numerous peoples canonized at last in old antique Rome.
In this composition there are personages who are repeated (a figure of a half-naked woman, a figure of a man in a blue raincoat), elements of landscape (river, plants), animals (female wolf, water creaturel, direct participants if the developing plot. Tense atmosphere is perceived in the composition where the following characters function: a governor sitting high on ottoman, a half naked woman with loose hair, the mother if the babies, and a man taking one of the babies and a man in a blue raincoat watching all this; to the right from the river a group including already the wolf, two babies and that same watching man who participates in the salvation of the kids.
Thus, we see a depiction of a big complex picturesque scene, six meters long upon the whole, including many figures. Herewith the monuments under analysis us chronologically the first known pictorial reproduction of the ancient Roman legend in the world art in which all the basic moments of the plot are presented distinctly and strictly consecutively.
According to the ancient Roman myth Aeneas, the son of Aphrodite, a goddess of beauty, and Anchises one of the main defenders of the Small Asian city Troy, in the period of the Troyan war (XII c. B.C) carried out of this destroyed and burning city the figures of the domestic gods-Penates, his old father and having gathered his alive co-citizens sailed off on the ship in order to found the new Troy in another place. Thus, Troyans with Aeneas at the head arrived in Italy, in Latium region, and became protoparents of Romans. Amully, Aeneas' descendant and a son of the tsar of the town of Albalonghi, desiring to remove the potential claimants for his father's throne, the two babies, the children of the god of war Mars and Reya Silvia and the descendants of the same legendary Aeneas, the twins Romul and Rem, threw them into the Tiber river. However, Romul and Rem saved themselves by miracle, were nourished by a female wolf and brought up by a tsar shepherd.
Having grown up and learned about their origin and the act perpetrated by their uncle they started taking revenge upon him and on the spot of their salvation, the "Capitolium" rock, they founded a city. But due to the quarrel sprung up between the brothers as to the name of the new city and the domination over it Romul killed Rem. Romul became a tsar of Rome and Romans and etc.
The myth about the deeds of Aeneas, legendary proto-father of the Romans, got an official acknowledgement in the very Rome in the III-d century B.C and became a theme of many literary productions belonging to ancient writers and poets, "Alneids" by Vergilius inclusive. They deem that the initial variant of the legend dealing with the foundation of Rome appeared in VI-V c.c. B.C with Middle Italian Etruskans. In it the founder of Rome is one person only, that is Romul, and in the further official elaboration in the III-d c. B.C the personality of the founder of Rome bisects. The Roman historical tradition explicates the inception of its history thus: the proto-father of the Romans is Aeneas and the founders of the city of Rome are his descendants Romul and Rem, herewith the very foundation of the city is pertained to 754 or 753 B.C. Though actually the settlements on the spot of Rome existed since the X-th century B.C.
The legend about the founders of Rome found a broad reflection in coinage and medalling art in the Eastern-Roman Empire up to the VI-th century A.D. In Middle Asia during the digs about ten imported gold bracteates and medallions with the depiction of a wolf feeding two babies were found (on the monuments of Penjikent, Shakhristan, the Guldurson gorge in the Ahangaron upper reaches). All of them are dated by the VI-th c. A.D.
The finding of the Ustrushan fresco in Bunjikat-Shakhristan evoked a number of questions on the genesis of this plot. Is the depiction of Rome emblem found in Middle Asia fortuitous? How could it have happened? Was there a definite mythology tradition with such a plot and to what extent was it spread in folklore?
The explorations showed that the Eastern Mediterranean region, Greece, Rome and Byzantium had had a close commercial-economic and cultural interaction due to the tracts of the Great Silk road and of more ancient ones-nephritic, lazurite and etc. Obligatory exchange of spiritual values took place in the course of personal communications between merchants, ambassadors, travelers, and missioners. The penetration of the plot in a canonized variant of the legend about the founders of Rome is quite real in the period of Middle Asian-Byzantine relations at the dawn of the Early Middle Ages. Such a thing might have happened somewhat earlier when once the frontiers of the Roman Empire had extended up to the Caspian Sea (II c. A.D). Professor M. Ye. Masson registered considerable quanta of the findings of Rome dynariums (I-III c.c. A.D) on the territory from the Zarafshan valley up to the Issyk-kool and numismatist Ye. V. Zeimal-that of Rome dynariums buried treasure (II-III c.c.) near Istaravshan and Shakhristan.
For us is also important the general issue concerned with the genesis of the ancient legendary tradition of a number of peoples about human foundlings bred by wolves and other animals. Such a mythology ground had been undoubtedly shaped and it existed for millennia in the Aryan Central Asian wored. One can judge about in under a close security of the Avesta, the ancientest Aryan-Iranian written vauet of the spiritual culture of the Iranian peoples. Such a legendary tradition existed about Kir-the founder of the ancient Iranian state. In oral tales, stories and songs widely spread among Persians Kir is presented now as a descendant of tsars, now as an adopted son of a shepherd. The formers echo in the compositions of antique authors. Justin expounding Trog's literary production brings out an ancienter version of the tale where the female wolf feeding Kir is present too (Justin I, IV, 8-12). The ancient Iranian epic tradition treated by Firdawsi informs about highborn foundlings fed by cow, lioness, Semurg-bird, tigress imputing to it their acquired Herculean force similar to that of Zal (Sam's son), Faridun, Rustam and others. There are many plots in the Tiurc tradition registered in ancient Chinese chronicles. According to one of the versions Geogyuians, Telisians and Uigurs originated from the daughter of a Hun shanyu and a wolf, by another version Tiurcs-tukyu came from a wolf and a boy aged ten from the clan of Huns. The banners with a wolf head were at Tiurc khakans of Hunnu's house; the squads of Turkish leaders were called "Fuli" (wolf). The main totem of oquzes-kypchaks in the X-XII-th c.c. was a gray wolf. Mongolians considered themselves being originated from a wolf that they took for their proto-parent. Popular beliefs and omens associated with a wolf retained almost with all Turkish-speaking tribes and clans, with the peoples of the North of Eurasia, northern American Indians, Russian, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Americans, Georgians, Abkhazians, Avars, Svans, Kurds. Ancient Germans dedicated a wolf to god Vuotan and Tsiu and etc. The major part of popular beliefs and omens pertaining to a wolf bore a zoolatrous character and was connected with the cute of animals in general. Upon the whole, reverence of beasts by different peoples is a big common sociological phenomenon of history.
Depictions of a wolf not infrequently occur on the monuments of the material culture of Eurasia. We shall mention a bronze statuette with two riders (man and child) moving on the back of the wolf (VI-VII c.c. from Bekabad).
So interweave into one tangle legends and tales, totemistic imaginations and superstitions and peoples Asia and Europe about male and female wolves as human pro-parents, patronizers, protectors of people from the evil and divers misfortunes, the legends about human foundlings saved and fed by them who became founders of clans, tribes and states afterwards.
As our analysis manifests (look in details the abovementioned work) the presence of these plots in the ancientiest period is directly or indirectly registered in ancient Iranian and antique Greco-Roman sources. The appearance of this tradition about the good relations between man and predatory animal should be referred to the pre-zoroastrian epoch of totemistic and primeval superstitions. Supposedly such plots penetrated into the steppe and mountainous spaces of Eurasia just from the Middle East, especially since the V-th century B. C. when the influence of the Akhemenide power permeated the barbarous world of Eurasia from the Danube up to the Hwang Ho (M. I. Artamanov). And further on during mass removals of this cattle-breeding Scythian-Sarmatian world they were brought into the environments of many other tribes of Eurasia, North America and even for Australia.
Now let us return to the genesis of the female wolf who fed the babies-Rome founders. The Roman tradition has two dates: VI-V c.c. and III c. B.C. The echoes of the Iranian tradition are traced back to the times of the formation of the Aryan-Avestian spirituality in Central Asia in the period of the IV-th -the beginning of the I-st millennia B.C. We should bear in mind that Acneas, the main hero of the Roman legend, also originates from Small Asia (Troy city) and as for ancient Persian tsar Kir in his young years (and it was the VI-th c. B.C.) he was nourished by a female wolf as it is informed by antique authors as well. We shall also note that it was the Villanovan culture, which flourished in Italy in the VIII-VI-th c.c. B.C. and of which acme refers to the VI-th century B.C.; herewith these were the Etruscans who turned into a leading culture-carrying force having come from the Small Asian province of Lydia. Here the inference inevitably rises in the mind that the Iranian version of the legend was brought to Rome by the Etruscans with Alneas at the head (according to Herodotus); the Etruscans as the biggest and the most civilized people broadly associated with Greece and the Eastern Mediterranean areas enjoyed a wide availability of familiarizing themselves with the spiritual culture of the Orient. Alongside with the Greeks the Etruscans were great civilizators of Italy (Jacque Ergon) acting as conductors of the exquisite Oriental art; the fact being frequently marked by scientific art critics. The outstanding creation of the Etruscan masters is the bronze statue "Capitolian Female Wolf" dated by the junction of the VI-V c.c. B.C.
Ancient Oriental and Greco-Etruscan-Roman civilizations enjoyed a good deal of favorable moments for a reciprocal acquaintance with the achievements of spiritual culture, the legendary tradition we are interested in inclusive. Now the periodization with the specific mutual influences is elaborated according to which the inception of the systematic contact between Central Asia and the Western culture is referred to the pre-Akhemenide and Akhemenide times (V.M. Masson).
Thus, in the epochs of antiquity and Early Middle Ages there was performed a historico-cultural round over the spaces of Eurasia on one of the disseminated mythological plots about the good mutual relations between man and predatory animal. This round had begun in Aryana and Aryan-Vedge (Central Asia upon the whole), from there is moved into the remote regions of Asia (folklore, the Mongolian stelae) embracing the numerous tribes of Siberia, the Far East, Eastern and Northern Europe (folklore, monuments of material culture); somewhat later through the Near East and the Mediterranean lands it went to antique Rome (the Etruscan culture) after what it returned through Byzantium (bracteates, medallion) to Iran (Sasanide gemmas) and Central Asia (Bunjikat fresco), but already in the precisely elaborated and canonized form. The time of this round is the periodical range comprising the two first millennia of both eras (I millennium B.C.-I millennium A.D.).
Thus, the Bunjikat pictorial composition and other materials reveal an interesting fact from the complex peripeteia of the history of the spiritual culture of the East and the West. One can find a lot of similar facts in Tajik and world Sughdology. And in this I see the globalism of Sughdian spirituality and a high place of the Sughdian civilization in the world history.