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Sughd achieves the greatest efflorescence
of economy, commerce and civilization in Early Middle Ages.
It was promoted, first of all, by the great Trans-Asian Silk
Road, which connected all the peoples and regions of the East
into unified knot socially-economically and culturally-anthropologically.
It is that ground which gave rise to a self-sufficient entry
into the international arena of many Sughd towns-rustaks with
their local afshins, maliks and dekhanas with common Sughdian
ikhshid at the head; the capital of that time being Samarkand.
One of such federative parts was Usturushana with tsars -afshins
at he top. Usturushana included a large region from the Syr-Darya
in the north. Up to the Hissar mountain range in the south.
The capital of Usturushana in the Early Middle
Ages was the town Bunjikat situated on the banks of the Shakhristan,
and the foothills adjoining it from the west. According to
the written sources the town was one of the biggest centers
of Middle Asia with the population counting about hundred
thousands of residents and consisted of three shaped urban
parts-khukhandiz (citadel), Shakhristan (proper town) and
rabid (new suburb). All the three parts had defensive camps
of their own and the outward wall comprised the entire urban
organism and provided general defence of the town from foes.
The archeological digs on the ruins of Bunjikat just as on
the contagious monuments of castle, civil, memorial-cultural
architecture which had being lasted in the course of nearly
twenty years outlined Bunjikat as a big handicraft, cultural
and political center of Middle Asia. The urban center had
sprung up here in the V-VI c.c. A.D. and in the VIII-XII c.c.
It converted into a tripartite town with intensively full-fledged
life moving to efflorescence. Bunjikat was shaping into the
capital of the self-sufficient Usturushana state.
The archeology digs gave a rich material for the judgments
about a high level of Usturushana economy and culture development.
Now a big series of findings on all kinds of artistic literature
are at our disposal; no few masterpieces being among them.
The most resultative excavations turned out to be those ones
of Kalai Khahkakha tiny towns I, II, II ruins on the area
of Shakhristan settlement, the adjacent castles of Chilkhujra,
Urtakurgan, Tirmizaktepa, Toshtemirtepa, the civil-cult-memorial
complex of Childukhtaron and the mountainous village of Khonyailov.
Among the discovered monuments of art a considerable number
is devoted to various epic-heroic tales, mythological, cult
and secular plots. They introduce us into the rich spiritual
world based on the synthesis of many common Oriental plots
accumulated in Usturushana Sughd at the junction of Central-Asian,
Indian and Near Eastern civilization.
In 1965-1972 the Northern Tajik archeological team of the
Institute of History under Tajikistan AS with the participation
of Leningrad State Hermitage restoration and conversation
Department were doing the excavations of the palace of afshins
(tsars) of Usturushana on Kalai Kahkakha I (in details see:
В. А. Воронин, Н. Н. Негматов. Открытие Устурушаны. -Наука
и человечество. Международный ежегодник. М, 1974. -Discovery
of Usturushana Science and mankind. International Annual.
Moscow (p.p 51-71) (in Russia)
The palace of the VII-IX centuries A.D. is huge by its dimensions,
magnificent by its architecture and splendid by internal interiors
of in-doors decoration. It has a vast, 230 square meters hall
of three tiers with a throne terrace, a minor hall of receptions
in 95 square meters, a sanctuary, residential rooms, a palatial
arsenal, a whole network of connecting corridors, kitchens
and bakeries in addition. The interiors of all the front rooms
corridors were embellished with monumental multicolored painting
of secular, battle, mythological and cult contents, wooden-girders,
panels and friezes with masterfully done multifarious carving
of vegetative and geometrical ornament, alto-relievo depiction
of people, animals, birds and a round sculpture of people
and birds. The facade walls of the Central donjohn were ornated
with the figures out of burnt casing bricks.
In the halls, rooms and corridors there are clayed sufas for
sitting and sleeping stretching along the walls; entrances
to sleeping-and living-rooms were provided with augers propping
up wooden screen-walls, opposite the entrance corridor and
the minor hall there are special sufas-estrades singling out.
The palace served simultaneously as storage of foodstuffs.
Along the both longitudinal walls of the entrance corridor,
the long sufa of the central corridor and the sufas of the
throne hall there were the rows of big khooms buried under
the floor and pittied with clay from above. In 1972 there
were discovered 47 of the latters. The volume of every khoom
is in the range of 158-295 l. the general volume of all khooms
is 10 000l., i.e. about 10 tons of food storage could be continued
in the palace simultaneously. In the special room ("arsenal")
there were discovered more than 5000 stones in the weight
range of 0.25-2-3 poods each and countless quanta of stone
balls in dimension of a fist for casting stone slings.
Judging by the findings of irakteat, early Usturushana coins
and by archeological-architectural observations the palace
had been built no later than in the VII-th c. A.D., it was
destroyed and burned, as it seems to us, in 893 under the
conquest of Usturushana by the Samanid troops and the liquidation
of the afshin dynasty ("Usturushana in the Ancient Time
and Early Middle Ages", p.p. 150-151. The First Coins
from Usturushana. Epigraphics of the Orient" p.p 59-64)
The ruins of the palace turned out to be a genuine treasury
of the monument of art. About 200 fragments of charred carved
wood were extracted from the obstructions. Among them we shall
mention several round sculptures of people and birds, numerous
friezes and panels with fabulous compositions where people,
animals, birds, sirens participate; friezes with the depictions
of human heads of various anthropological races and garments
under arches and a unique tympanum with the plot from the
ancient Iranian historical epos dwelling on the struggle between
the forces of the good and evil embodied in the images of
prince Faridoon, Smith Kova and tsar Zahhok, a murderer with
two serpents on the shoulders.
In the obstructions of the spaces of the palace there were
also discovered many pieces of frescos and tens of square
meters of pictorial scenes remains on the walls; among them:
1) the six meters composition with the Female-Wolf feeding
two babies (in details see the preceding issue of the "Varorud"
bulletin); 2) the pictorial panorama of the walls of the Minor
palatial hall with the depiction of the governing dynasty
of Usturushana and the deities taking their side-with the
forces of the evil-demons of all stripes. (See: "Reconstruction
and Fabulous Interpretation of the Frescos of the Minor Hallo
of the Afshins' Palace in Usturushana". In the book:
The Early Middle Ages Culture of Middle Asia and Kazakhstan.
p.p. 150-154).
Here we shall describe in particulars only one masterpiece-the
wooden tympanum of the entranced doors of the Major hall of
the palace covered with the finest carving of a complicated
plot. The tympanum is composed of three massive boards; it
has a fair semi-oval form (293 cm in width, 143 cm in length,
8-9 cm in thickness). Under the palace fire the tympanum had
been burnt round considerably and it fell down on the floor
with its face side at the entrance aperture between two sufas
but wasn't reduced to ashes owing to which we are able to
restore the general compositional construction, the character
and contents of the plots, to judge about the most delightful
mastership of an artist-carver and the idea of the client
who had ordered this work of art.
Compositionally the panel can be divided into two depictive-fabulous
fields. The internal field, smooth basically, with protruding
sculptural figures is contoured from the flanks and from above
with a wide three-striped external belt of a semi-oval form.
The both panel fields are strictly proportional and symmetrical
in the area occupied.
In the center of the low row of the middle field there is
a carved depiction of a fantastic creature with obviously
conveyed features of human body and head. From the right and
from the left two groups of horsemen (per four from each side)
are skipping towards this creature. The steeds are located
at an equal distance from one another being masterfully carved
with all the attributes inherent in them (mane, saddle, horse-cloth).
The remnants of the horsemen look out splendidly-they are
in becoming poses, with thin waists, in creased clothes tightly
fitting the body. The two front horses "press hard"
the body of the humanlike creature, the hoofs of the front
legs are laid on the belt and the horses' snouts-on his shoulders;
thus, the figure of the humanlike creature is squeezed between
the attacking horses and the horsemen.
The upper row of the middle field is occupied with the carved
depiction of much bigger dimensions singled out with stateliness
in the background of the two sculptural groups. Each group
consists of the depiction of a humanlike creature in the center
sitting majestically on the back of the fantastic double-headed
bird. The humanlike creature has long plaits sagging from
the head. The remains of one more sculptural belt hardly yielding
to a definition for the time being preserved between upper
and low rows.
The external oval belt of the panel is done in more petty
carving, especially thoroughly and in a rich manner. This
belt has three stripes. External and internal ones include
per two narrow bands of 13-15 cm in width, one of them is
with the thinnest scaly thread, another-with rhythmically
recurrent leaves of the acanthum facing the internal panel
field. Between them there is a meddle wider stripe occupied
with similar geometrical circles located along the oval of
the whole tympanum dug towards one another. There are 17 such
circles, their diameter is one and the same: 22 cm along an
outward edge. In every circle there are the scenes of the
battle, as a rule three personages participate in them-two
horsemen and one lying under or killed; all in all there begin
about fifty figures of warriors. In one case instead of a
lying warrior there is a carved winding serpent or a dragon.
The basic compositional position of the figures is one and
the same in all the circles. But there are some distinctions
in details, motion and poses of the figures, clothes and ammunition.
There are additional depictions in some of the circles; thus,
in the upper part of the left and right low circles there
are carved tiny flat discs with sockets and a stripe of thread
along the edge which may designate heavenly bodies.
Between the circles free subtriangle spaces are occupied by
over a scope and a half male figures in the most various poses
upholding the described circles with the hands. The height
of steeds and horsemen in the circles is 9-10 cm; that one
of the figures out of the formers being 6-7 cm. In spite of
tiny dimensions of the figures a carver managed to depict
the attributes referring to human bodies and steeds, divers
and clothes, weapon, harness very exquisitely. Human faces
are executed wonderfully. To put it short, we have the monument
of wood carving of the greatest historical-cultural importance.
The artist-carver executed the work with the highest skills.
As the analysis shows, the plot of the panel depictions finds
its explanation in the epic tradition of the ancient Iranian
peoples. By all appearances, it is an artistic incarnation
of the primal plot of the heroic epos-the struggle of the
forces of the good with those of the evil, the struggle of
the bearers of the good-epical Faridoon and people's guide,
smith Kova-with Zahhok, foreign tsar, murderer. Herewith it
is the primary ancientest variant of the plot in question,
which is mirrored in painting. Later on it was canonized in
Firdawsi's immortal poem "Shakh-Name" (Xc.). The
last monument of fight with Zahhok and his death in tortures
from the champions of the Good-Faridoon and Kova are carved
on the panel; the actions of the latters are governed by mythical
messengers from the heavenly heights in the image of Sorushes-humanlike
female creatures with plaits on double-headed birds in the
upper row of the panel field.
The carved panel of Bunjikat seems to be the primal masterpiece
out of the masterpieces of art of Sughd viloyat to the epoch
of the Samanids, it heads a whole series of wooden carved
monuments of Ferghana, Matcha, Falgara; the old mosque of
Khazratisho in Chorku, the mikhrab from Iskandar the columns
from Obburdon, Kurut, Urmitan, Rarza, Fatmev and a complex
of archeology findings in the small town of Gardani Khisor.
By the way, many of those mentioned and non-mentioned monuments
are beyond the boundaries of Tajikistan.
The Bunjikat carved panel-tympanum of the throne hall of tsar's
palace is devoted to the motives of the heroic epos, affirming
the inevitable victory of the forces of the good, just inception
and peaceful labor. It is just that idea to which the epic
hero Firdawsi, that of Faridoon, invokes:
O, valiant people, to You I invoke
Drop weapons, remember your family hearth
Forget hateful war, only peace be with us!
A warrior strives for a glory in battle
Quite different tasks has an artisan to settle.
When people confuse their jobs on the earth,-
For everyone will it be terribly worse.
The demon repugnant who frightened the people
Subverted is now from his fiendish, steeple.
Your hearts should be turned to the labor divine
Which will bring us wealth, both mine and thane
(Firdawsi. "Shakh-Name" Vol.I)
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