Joint Archaeology: Uncovering the Silk Road’s Lost Civilization
Today, we’ll talk about how Chinese archaeologists, along with their Central Asian counterparts, are exploring the Silk Road to unlock some of the greatest mysteries of ancient migrations and kingdoms.
Esteemed archaeologists Professor Bakyt Amanbayeva from Kyrgyzstan and Professor Ahmadali Askarovich Askarov from Uzbekistan have known each other since the 1980s, when both were citizens of the former Soviet Union. Thanks to an archaeological expedition held in late September in Fergana, Uzbekistan in 2023, in which researchers from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and China participated, the two old friends were able to hold their customary animated discussions about recent findings in Central Asia.
On the afternoon of September 24, 2023, the pair and their old friend, archaeologist Isomiddinov Muhammadjon from Uzbekistan, sat beneath a poplar tree in the Fergana countryside to reminisce. They told The Context they had been unable to meet for a long time, due to closed borders between the two countries. Professor Wang Jianxin, chief scientist of the Silk Road Archaeological Cooperation Research Center at Northwest University in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, also numbered among the joint expedition group. He said that joint investigations and academic exchanges conducted in Fergana among the four countries provided a welcome opportunity to reunite these old friends from Central Asia.
The Fergana Valley, in the border regions where eastern Uzbekistan, northern Tajikistan and southwestern Kyrgyzstan meet, is today one of the most densely populated regions in Central Asia. The ancient city of Akhsikent dates back to the second century BCE and was one of the largest cities of ancient Fergana in the state of Davan, and a major settlement along the Silk Road. The pride of Davan was thoroughbred horses, famed throughout Central Asia. Two of China’s most important historical figures, Han Dynasty explorer Zhang Qian, who died in 114 BCE, and Tang Dynasty monk and scholar Xuanzang who died in 664 visited the valley. Today, the abundance of archaeological sites attracts archaeologists from all over the world.
Despite the barriers caused by modern national borders, international archaeologists are now collaborating to uncover the rich archaeological past of Central Asia.
The many modern boundary disputes between Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan resulted in enclaves and boundary villages, which exacerbated jurisdiction challenges and caused long-term conflicts. Squabbles over natural resources caused 32 border conflicts between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in 2014 alone.
In 2011, a team of researchers led by China’s Northwest University planned to investigate sites in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, but found there was no cross-border transportation between the two. It was not until 2018 that the three neighbors opened their borders and granted visa-free access for their citizens. That year, academic cooperation started to flourish. Northwest University had by then established bilateral archaeological cooperation with all three countries. Professor Wang invited archaeologists from all three countries to Xi’an in a bid to increase international communication. Researchers from the four countries decided on the Fergana Valley as their first joint endeavor.
In 2019, Professor Bakyt Amanbayeva from Kyrgyzstan coordinated a joint research expedition between the four countries to survey Osh State in the Fergana Valley in Kyrgyzstan. There was a second multilateral research expedition program in September of 2023, as well as a two-day forum at Fergana State University in Fergana city, Uzbekistan.
The ancient Fergana Valley was a center of silk production. Archaeologists have unearthed rich findings, including Han Dynasty bronze coins and mirrors and silk, proof of the close connections between tribes in Central Asia and Han peoples.
On September 26, 2023, archaeologists from the four countries arrived at the ancient settlement of Mingtepa, some 30 kilometers from the city of Andijan in Uzbekistan. The 2,000-year-old fortress is surrounded by farmland. Villagers and a large herd of black goats passed by, stirring up a cloud of dust. The government has fenced off the main area of the site and designated it as a cultural preservation site.
Chinese archaeologists have been working with their Uzbek counterparts at Mingtepa since 2012. Major discoveries include the foundations of the outer-city walls and the remains of the inner city’s road system and workshops. The entrance is flanked by two huge mounds with a gap in the middle. According to Liu Tao, associate researcher of the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, it was the fortification’s west gate.
The Mingtepa site spreads over 270 hectares, four times the area of the Forbidden City in Beijing. Previously thought to have been just a garrison, it was discovered that it was also a city, the largest in the Fergana Valley at the time.
Wang, now 70, first visited Central Asia over a decade ago, just as a tourist. At that time, no Chinese archaeological team had ever conducted an international dig. In the years since, he visited most of the major sites in the region, in pursuit of his passion – proof of the fate of a loose tribe known as the Yuezhi, who lived in northwest China in the first millennium BCE.
The first recorded mentions of the Yuezhi come in the Records of the Grand Historian by Han historian Sima Qian, written around the late 2nd century BCE, and the Book of Han, finished in the year 111. The accounts place the Yuezhi around the Hexi Corridor, in today’s northwest Gansu Province.
In the 2nd century BCE, the Yuezhi were attacked and defeated by a nomadic tribe called the Xiongnu, living in what is roughly Mongolia today, and considered to be the forebears of the Mongolian people. Initially the stronger group, in 176 BCE the Yuezhi suffered a huge defeat at the hands of the Xiongnu. The survivors split into two groups and set off on a westward migration. The larger groups – the Greater Yuezhi went to Central Asia, and the Lesser Yuezhi trekked southwest to the edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Their arrival displaced existing tribes, especially in Central Asia, and changed the course of history.
In 139 BCE, the seventh Han Emperor Wudi, who lived from 156 BCE to 86 BCE, dispatched envoy Zhang Qian to search for the Greater Yuezhi in the west, hoping to unite with them against the Xiongnu. Returning to the Han capital of Chang An (now Xi’an) in 126 BCE, he reported that the Yuezhi were no longer interested in fighting the Xiongnu. Yet, his mission was not a failure. He went as far as Bactria, which had been part of the ancient Persian empire, located in northern Afghanistan and southern Uzbekistan. He brought back information on the new lands, and the impact of his trip echoed through the ages, initiating the emergence and formation of the Silk Road from China to the Mediterranean region.
The Greater Yuezhi settled in Central Asia and regained their strength, displacing already settled tribes. They continued to communicate with the Han. While 17 bamboo slips excavated in the 1990s from the Xuanquanzhi Ruins, an ancient posthouse in Gansu Province, mentioned the Greater Yuezhi, not much hard evidence of them or the route of the Greater Yuezhi Westward Migration has ever been found.
In the 2000s, Wang concentrated on investigating western China, pioneering research into ancient nomadic tribes and discovering hundreds of settlement sites, upending the notion that nomadic tribes were always on the move.
After the China-led Belt and Road Initiative kicked off in 2013 with an announcement by Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kazakhstan, funding for international digs became available to Wang. By the end of 2013, Wang was cooperating with the Institute of Archaeology at Uzbekistan’s Academy of Sciences and had established a joint Sino-Uzbek team to investigate sites in the Western Tianshan.
In 2015, his team finally found an ancient site they concluded belonged to the Kangju some 20 kilometers southwest of Samarkand in Uzbekistan. There they found six tombs and living sites. The nomadic Kangju tribe regarded as the second-most important after the Yuezhi, and the discovery, which was a sensation among international researchers, allowed archaeologists to shift the area of research to the south as the Kanju were thought to have lived north of the Yuezhi.
At the end of 2016, the Central Asian Archaeological Team were researching the Surkhan Darya area, the most southerly part of Uzbekistan. On the last day, Liang Yun, the excavation leader and a professor at Northwest University, noticed the gray ashy soil layer in the riverbed. Using his trowel, he sifted the soil, unearthing a human bone, which belonged to an ancient tomb. It was the Rabat site in Boysun city, Uzbekistan.
The Rabat site is located in the northern Bactria area between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, and the Greater Yuezhi were the dominant tribe there, lands that were formerly the Greco-Bactria Kingdom after Alexander the Great conquered it in 329 BCE.
Due to the work conducted by the Central Asian archaeological team, the ancient Central Asian territories that Zhang Qian visited were found and confirmed. Apart from these archaeological achievements, Chinese archaeologists have set up cooperative ties with their counterparts in Central Asian countries. The building up of mutual trust between and among the various sides in Central Asia promote joint archaeological efforts in a wider platform.
According to Mukhtarova Gulmira Railovna, director of the Issyk State Historical and Cultural Reserve-Museum of Kazakhstan, an archaeological cooperation project between Kazakhstan and China has been going on at an excavation site called Rahat at the northern foot of the Tianshan Mountains in Kazakhstan for seven years. Relics from the ancient site along the Silk Road date back from 2,400 to 1,400 years ago.
Railovna said: “When the Chinese archaeologists find something, they say in Russian, ‘stone, stone’! We can speak some simple Chinese too,” emphasizing that what is important is mutual reference of working methods and perspectives. He added that, “For example, Chinese archaeologists attach great importance to the strata, and they identified nine cultural layers of the Rahat site. Stratigraphy, a commonly adopted method in Chinese archaeology, has played an important role at Rahat so far.”
While Central Asia has an abundance of archaeological resources, researchers are in short supply. According to Amanbayeva, there are only 20 archaeologists in Kyrgyzstan, and only in the capital city of Bishkek can one major in archaeology at university. This is why so much research has been conducted by foreign archaeologists. France, Britain, Japan, South Korea, Russia and more have sent teams. In the Soviet Union period, archaeology in Central Asia was dominated by institutions from Moscow.
Amanbayeva said Russia’s interest in Central Asian archaeology has dwindled. She said: “We used to have close contact with Russian archaeologists, but then suddenly the contact stopped since they could not get funding. Instead, funding and projects from our country have increased significantly.” While cooperating with excavations in Central Asia, China is supporting the training of archaeologists.
According to Wang Jianxin, China’s archaeological cooperation is not about what to take away, but what to leave behind. Wang said: “From the second half of the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century, China suffered looting by foreign countries. Many other countries in Central Asia had similar experiences. When these countries work together in archaeological research, we will never forget the history. Our primary principle during the joint archaeological program is to respect the historical and cultural heritage of the country in which we conduct research,” adding that “Our work must be based on the source country itself, and our purpose is to fulfill academic studies based on sharing rather than robbing or disputing.”
Well, that’s the end of our podcast. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Ni Wei, translator Wang Yan, and copy editor JT. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.