6th century Eastern Sogdiana, Samarkand, AR scyphate obol .38gm 10mm c300-500 AD

  6th century AD Eastern Sogdiana, Samarkand, AR scyphate obol .38gm 10mm   c300-500 AD    Ref: MACW 350 Smirnova 1 535-52, graded VF per dealer, BEAUTIFUL STRIKE

OBV: artistic head facing left with large nose and right triangle eye,                             2 dots for lips  and  wildly somewhat curly hair or headdress                                          (a little artistic imagination helps)

REV: practically headless archer holding bow and arrow R with prominent legs below

I WILL SHIP OVERSEAS ONLY THROUGH THE GLOBAL SHIPPING PROGRAM

Samarkand was founded c700 BC by the Sogdians and is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world as well as serving as a main center of the Iranian civilization.  It was conquered by Alexander the Great who named it Maracanda and existed separate from Iran for many centuries before the Arab conquest.  The world’s 1st paper mill was built there after the secret of paper making was learned from 2 Chinese prisoners from the Battle of Talas in 751.  Control over Samarkand changed from the Western Turks to the Arabs, the Samanids, the Qarakhanisa, Seljuks and Mongols. Marco Polo called it a very large and splendid city in the late 13th century and in 1370 Tamerlane made it his new capital.  In 1429, Ulugh Beg finished the Samarkand Observatory, but that was destroyed by religious fanatics 20 years later.   In 1500 the Uzbeks took control with the Shaybanids as their leaders, and moved their capital to Bukhara which pushed Samarkand into decline.  Power over Samarkand passed to Russia in 1868 and in 1886 it became the capital of Russian Turkestan and then in 1925 became the capital of Uzbek SSR.

Sogdiana (Sogdia) was the ancient civilization of the Iranian people, but it is unclear when it was actually founded.  It was conquered by Cyrus the Great in 404 BC and became a province of the Achaemenid Empire under Darius.  It formed a protective border for the Persians from the nomadic Scythians, but it did not stop Alexander from taking it in 327 BC.  It became part of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom founded by Diodotus in 248 BC until it was overrun by the Scythians and Yuezhis in 150 BC.  The Sogdians established a trading network across the 1500 miles of Silk Road between itself and China that lasted 1000 years.  It appears that until the 15th century, some form of the Sogdian language was still spoken in the area, but Sogiana itself was seriously damaged by the Mongols and the remnants were assimilated into the Persian speaking Islamic world.  The area now lies in modern Southern Uzbekistan and Western Tajikstan.