Yaz culture

Coordinates: 37°45′06″N 61°59′54″E / 37.7517°N 61.9984°E / 37.7517; 61.9984
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Yaz culture
1500–330 BC)
Type siteYaz-Tappe, Yaz Tepe, or Yaz Depe, near Baýramaly, Turkmenistan

The Yaz culture (named after the

BMAC), sometimes as mud-brick platforms and sizeable houses associated with irrigation systems. Ceramics were mostly hand-made, but there was increasing use of wheel-thrown ware. There have been found bronze or iron arrowheads, also iron sickles or carpet knives among other artifacts.[11][12][13]

With the farming citadels and absence of burials it has been regarded as a likely archaeological reflection of early

East Iranian culture as described in the Avesta.[14][15] So far, no burials related to the culture have been found, and this is taken as possible evidence of the Zoroastrian practice of exposure or sky burial.[2][16][17][18]

Overview

Yaz I

In the region of Southern

BMAC) was characteristic for irrigation and proto-state society based on long distance trade of raw materials and goods. However, it suddenly disappeared in the Late Bronze Age (c. 1900–1500 BC), and in its place emerged the Early Iron Age (c. 1500/1400 - 1000 BC)[9] Yaz I culture with rural settlements based around fortified structures, control of irrigation systems, with specific hand-made ceramic type, as well as the almost complete disappearance of graves, compared to thousands of kurgans in the north.[19] The ceramics, and spherical stone maces, show continuity and contemporaneity between Yaz Depe and Ulug Depe of the Early Iron Age and Tekkem Depe among others of the Namazga-Tepe VI period.[13]

Yaz I culture is argued to be related to the sedentarisation of the nomadic

Rgvedic tribes around 1500 BC, seen in the change of the Vedic river Sindhu into Avestan Hindu (Indus River), Sarasvati into Haraxhvaiti.[29]

Yaz II

It is dated circa 1100–700 or 1000–540 BC[9] in Middle Iron Age, however some recent research consider no accurate boundary between the Yaz I and Yaz II.[7] It moved to the north and northeast.[30] It is characterized by wheel-made pottery type (reappearance of the wheel like in Namazga-Tepe V[31]), iron metallurgy, large fortified sites, as well as the occupation of previous sites and the continuation of the funerary practices.[32][19]

The Yaz II complex seemingly correlates with the

better source needed
]

The ruins of the ancient city of Nad-i Ali (9th-8th century BC) which has been identified with the capital of the Kayanian dynasty kingdom which coincides with the Yaz II/A (10th-8th century BC), while date of the late Kayanian capital Balkh to Yaz II/B period (7th-6th century BC).[33]

At the end of Yaz II/B (8th-7th/6th century BC) the Murghab oasis (Yaz Depe, Aravali Depe, Takhirbay Depe) became deserted. It is probably explained by the bloody revolt of Frada (521 BC) mentioned in Behistun Inscription in which reportedly 55,243 Margians were killed and 6,972 taken as prisoners, and the conquest of Bactria.[35][36][37]

Yaz III

It is dated circa 700–400 BC, or second half of the 6th and end of the 4th century BC (c. 540–329 BC) in the Late Iron Age, part of the Achaemenid Empire period, but is still characterized by the same cultural and funerary continuity.[38][39][40] The beak-shaped rim is replaced in form of a flattened roller, vessels are cylindrical-conical,[41] and a bronze three-bladed arrow, iron axes and adzes were discovered.[42]

Research

The Yaz Tepe settlement was the central district in the then metropolitan part of

Gonur Tepe, Togoluk, Uch Tepe, Adam Basan, Taip, Garaoj Tepe, Takhirbaj Tepe.[2]

Kuchuk Tepe settlement in

Shirabad and Denov in Uzbekistan, show Yaz I (14th-11th century BC), Yaz II/A (10th-9th/8th century BC), Yaz II/B (8th-7th/6th century BC), and Yaz III (6th-4th century BC).[52]

Some Yaz I hand-made decorated pottery sites were investigated in southern Turkmenistan (previously northern Parthia). Some Yaz I strata was found in Parthia at Elken Depe, Ulug Depe and the northern mound at Anau, and all complexes overlie Namazga-Tepe VI type of Late Bronze Age strata. Unlike the Bronze Age centres, the Early Iron Age Yaz I settlements were much larger, in Elken Depe c. 12 ha, ringed with ramparts, while the citadel stood on a 6 m platform. At the site in Anau was found iron sickle from Yaz I period dated to the beginning of the 1st millennium BC.[53][13] Askarov argued that it cannot be excluded that the Elken Depe was then the capital of northern Parthia.[47]

There 20 Iron Age sites of Yaz I-III culture (1400–300 BC) in

Serakhs oasis, the sub delta of Tedjen River in southern Turkmenistan.[54][55] The sites follow the irrigation system, with average distance of 123 m between sites and rivers, however there is some scientific uncertainty about the irrigations in the Iron Age. The average distance between Yaz sites is 879 m. Most of them are dated to Yaz II-III periods, but once was found Yaz I decorated pottery. In the northern cluster of the sites mostly there is no trace of later occupation, indicating they were abandoned in the Iron Age.[56]

At the village Anaw east of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan are two mounds (kurgans), of which the south kurgan's Iron Age materials (Anaw IV) from ca. 900 to 650 BC, like ceramics and metals, are related to those of Yaz I.[44][57]

Regarding Turkmenistan, many notable archaeologist investigated Yaz ceramic assemblage; A. F. Ganialin and A. A. Maruschenko considered northern pastoralist influence, V. M. Masson it is connected to the Namazga-Tepe VI, but with a break of 100–150 years in-between, while V. Sarianidi that the Yaz I assemblage arrived from eastern Khorasan.[58][59] There three groups of hand-made ware in shape, color of sherd, and the admixture of crushed ceramics into the body of vessels.[58] Recent research confirmed of the three the Masson's thesis that the Yaz I type ceramics in the foothill of Kopet Dag mountain are a natural development of the Late Bronze Age assemblage from Namazga VI period, but without any time lapse and external influence.[60]

Burials

Several recent 2008–2012 discoveries of Early Iron Age burials on the sites of Dzharkutan in Surxondaryo Region of Uzbekistan, and Ulug Depe in Turkmenistan shown diverse funerary practices of the Iron Age in Central Asia.[61] It shows burials still existed, but were not numerous. They were primary, secondary, multiple burials, and silo tombs, divided on seasonal and permanent dwellings.[62] In the silos were buried mostly adult females, while in the others the head was mostly removed, indicating symbolic, cult or social reason.[63]

A lack of graves and

Gonur Tepe and Altyndepe, thus in could have persisted into Early Iron Age as a notion for the long process of formation of the Proto-Zoroastrianism and Avesta.[68][69][18]

Legacy

Some sites which had Yaz culture layers like the Yaz Depe, Takhirbaj Depe, Taip, Gonur, Togoluk are on the

World Heritage List of the State Historical and Cultural Park "Ancient Merv" (1999).[70][71]

See also

References

Citations

  1. ^ "Yaz Tepe". Brill Reference. Koninklijke Brill NV. October 2006. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Parpola 1995, p. 372.
  3. ^ Mallory & Adams 1997, p. 653.
  4. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 416–417, 426–428, 431, 157, 449–450:V. Sarianidi and G. Gutlyev in the 1970s and 1980s suggested a date at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. Elena Efimovna Kuzmina considered that some Yaz I sites belonged to the 10th-9th centuries BC, while the cultural synthesis at the border of the 2nd/1st millennium BC, circa 1000–800 BC. Vasily Abaev considered the nomads to be related to the Scythians or Saka, which relates to the Yasht 13.143 "the territory of Arya... Turya, Sairima, Daha".
  5. ^ a b Buławka 2009–2010, p. 121.
  6. ^ Raffaele Biscione; Ali Vahdati (2012). "The Iranian-Italian archaeological mission: Season 2012: The identification of cultural areas" (PDF). Studi Micenei ed Egeo-Anatolici. 54. Edizioni dell'Ateneo & Bizzari: 358.
  7. ^ a b Boroffka & Sverchkov 2013, p. 49.
  8. ^ Parpola 2015, p. 298.
  9. ^ a b c d Lhuillier, Johanna, (2018). "Central Asia During the Achaemenid Period in Archaeological Perspective", in Sébastien Gondet and Ernie Haerinck (eds.), Acta Iranica 58, L'Orient Est Son Jardin, Hommage á Rémy Boucharlat, Peeters, Leuven, Paris, Bristol, p. 258.
  10. ^ Bendezu Sarmiento, Julio, Philippe Marquis, Johanna Lhuillier, and Hervé Monchot, (2018). "A sepulchral pit from the Late Iron Age in Bactra: The site of Tepe Zargaran (Afghanistan)", in: Johanna Lhuillier and Nikolaus Boroffka (eds.), A Millennium of History, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Berlin, p. 319: "...In southern Central Asia, the Iron Age saw the almost-complete disappearance of burial (Sine Sepulchro period covering the Yaz I-III sequence, ca. 1500-330 BCE)..."
  11. ^ Mallory & Adams 1997, p. 653–654.
  12. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 430.
  13. ^ a b c Khlopina 2015, p. 55.
  14. ^ Mallory & Adams 1997, p. 310–311.
  15. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 444.
  16. ^ Mallory & Adams 1997, p. 311.
  17. ^ Bendezu-Sarmiento & Lhuillier 2013, p. 282.
  18. ^ a b Parpola 2015, p. 103, 106, 298.
  19. ^ a b Bendezu-Sarmiento & Lhuillier 2013, p. 281.
  20. ^ Lamberg-Karlovsky 2005, p. 162.
  21. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 425–432.
  22. ^ Kuzmina 2008, p. 74–75.
  23. ^ Boroffka & Sverchkov 2013, p. 69–70.
  24. ^ a b Parpola 2015, p. 299.
  25. ^ Buławka 2009–2010, p. 123–130.
  26. ^ Kuzmina 2008, p. 107.
  27. ^ Parpola 2012, p. 196.
  28. ^ Askarov 1999, p. 451.
  29. ^ Parpola & Carpelan 2005, p. 133.
  30. ^ Boroffka & Sverchkov 2013, p. 70.
  31. ^ Khlopina 2015, p. 52.
  32. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 419, 440.
  33. ^ a b Boroffka & Sverchkov 2013, p. 67.
  34. ^ Parpola 2015, p. 54, 149.
  35. ^ Diakonoff 1985, p. 130.
  36. ^ Boroffka & Sverchkov 2013, p. 65.
  37. ISBN 90-04-09172-6
  38. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 417, 419, 440.
  39. ^ Bendezu-Sarmiento & Lhuillier 2013, p. 281–282.
  40. ^ Boroffka & Sverchkov 2013, p. 49, 70.
  41. ^ Boroffka & Sverchkov 2013, p. 49, 64.
  42. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 417, 419.
  43. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 418.
  44. ^ a b c "Excavations III: In Central Asia: Early Iron Age". Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  45. ^ Askarov, A., 1999. "The Beginning of the Iron Age in Transoxania", in Ahmad Hasan Dani and Vadim Mikhailovich Masson (eds.), History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Volume I, The Dawn of Civilization: Earliest Times to 700 B. C., Motilal Banasidass Publisher, Delhi, p. 452.
  46. ^ Kuzmina 2008, p. 74.
  47. ^ a b Askarov 1999, p. 453.
  48. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 270–272, 288–290, 421–422, 428, 430.
  49. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 290, 420–423, 428.
  50. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 289.
  51. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 423.
  52. ^ Boroffka & Sverchkov 2013, p. 54–56, 59–63.
  53. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 425.
  54. ^ Buławka & Kaim 2015, p. 792–793.
  55. ^ Buławka 2017, p. 143–170.
  56. ^ Buławka & Kaim 2015, p. 793–794.
  57. ^ "Anaw". Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  58. ^ a b Khlopina 2015, p. 45.
  59. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 417.
  60. ^ Khlopina 2015, p. 45–51, 60.
  61. ^ Bendezu-Sarmiento & Lhuillier 2013, p. 282–283, 291.
  62. ^ Bendezu-Sarmiento & Lhuillier 2013, p. 304–305, 308.
  63. ^ Bendezu-Sarmiento & Lhuillier 2013, p. 307.
  64. ^ Diakonoff 1985, p. 141.
  65. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 161, 219, 301, 368, 417, 448–456.
  66. ^ Bendezu-Sarmiento & Lhuillier 2013, p. 449.
  67. ^ Parpola 2015, p. 106, 298.
  68. ^ Kuzmina 2007, p. 456.
  69. ^ Bendezu-Sarmiento & Lhuillier 2013, p. 309–310.
  70. ^ "State Historical and Cultural Park "Ancient Merv"" (PDF). UNESCO. 4 December 1999. Retrieved 1 October 2016.
  71. ^ "UNESCO Representative visits ancient city of Merv". UNESCO. 21 August 2016. Retrieved 1 October 2016.

Sources

37°45′06″N 61°59′54″E / 37.7517°N 61.9984°E / 37.7517; 61.9984

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