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Zemarchus
Zemarchus ( el, Ζήμαρχος, fl. c. 569) was a Byzantine official, diplomat and traveller in the reign of Justin II. Biography In the middle of the 6th century, the Göktürks conquered the Sogdiana and thus gained control of the silk trade, which then passed through Central Asia into Sassanid Persia. The Persian king, Chosroes I, dreading the intrusion of Turkic influence, refused to allow the old commerce to continue. The Turks, after many rebuffs, consented to a suggestion made by their mercantile subjects of the Soghd, and in 568 sent an embassy to Constantinople to form an alliance with the Byzantines and commence the silk trade directly with them, bypassing the Persian middlemen. The offer was accepted by Justin II, and in August 569, Zemarchus the Cilician left Byzantium for Sogdiana. This cites: * Menander Protector, ''De Legationibus Romanorum ad Gentes'', pp. 295–302, 380-85, 397–404, Bonn edition (xix.), 1828 (=pp. 806–11, 883–87, 899–907, in Mig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Istämi
Istämi (or Dizabul or Ishtemi Sir Yabghu Khagan; ) was the ruler of the western part of the Göktürks, which became the Western Turkic Khaganate and dominated the Sogdians. He was the yabgu (vassal) of his brother Bumin Qaghan in 552 AD. He was posthumously referred to as khagan in Turkic sources. His son was Tardu. Activities During his rule Istami established diplomatic relations with the Persian and Byzantine Empires, defeated the Hepthalites, and acted as an elder statesman during the disintegration of the eastern half of the empire. We know a great deal about him from the diplomatic missions of the Byzantine Empire. Shortly after the smuggling of silkworm eggs into the Byzantine Empire from China by Nestorian Christian monks, the 6th-century Byzantine historian Menander Protector writes of how the Sogdians attempted to establish a direct trade of Chinese silk with the Byzantine Empire. After forming an alliance with the Sassanid ruler Khosrow I to defeat the Hephthalite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Taraz
Taraz ( kz, Тараз, تاراز, translit=Taraz ; known to Europeans as Talas) is a city and the administrative center of Jambyl Region in Kazakhstan, located on the Talas (river), Talas (Taraz) River in the south of the country near the border with Kyrgyzstan. It had a population of 330,100 as of the 1999 census, up 9% from 1989, making it one of the fastest-growing cities in the country, after Astana and Turkistan (city), Turkistan. One of the oldest cities in Kazakhstan and in Transoxania, built and populated by the ancient Sogdians, Taraz celebrated its official 2,000th anniversary (recognized by UNESCO) in 2001, dating from a fortress built in the area by a Xiongnu Chanyu named Zhizhi, and was a site of the Battle of Zhizhi in 36 BCE. The city was first recorded under the name "Talas" in 568 CE by Menander Protector. The medieval city of Talas was a major trade centre along the Silk Road. Talas was later described by Buddhist monk and traveller Xuanzang, who passed Talas i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. The terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" were coined after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire, and to themselves as Romans—a term which Greeks continued to use for themselves into Ottoman times. Although the Roman state continued and its traditions were maintained, modern historians prefer to differentiate the Byzantine Empire from Ancient Rome ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western Russia, from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the river Ural and northwestern Kazakhstan.Ural Mountains Encyclopædia Britannica on-line The mountain range forms part of the conventional boundary between the regions of and |
Emba River
The Emba ( kk, Ембі ''Embı'' or ''Jem'', russian: Эмба) in west Kazakhstan rises in the Mugodzhar Hills and flows into the Caspian Sea. It is long, and has a drainage basin of . It flows through the north of the Ust-Urt plateau, and reaches the Caspian by a series of shallow s, which were navigable in the 18th century. The lower course traverses an area of salt domes and the petroleum-rich Emba fields. It is sometimes regarded as a definition for the natural < ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Sea
The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Romania, Russia, Turkey, and Ukraine. The Black Sea is supplied by major rivers, principally the Danube, Dnieper, and Don. Consequently, while six countries have a coastline on the sea, its drainage basin includes parts of 24 countries in Europe. The Black Sea covers (not including the Sea of Azov), has a maximum depth of , and a volume of . Most of its coasts ascend rapidly. These rises are the Pontic Mountains to the south, bar the southwest-facing peninsulas, the Caucasus Mountains to the east, and the Crimean Mountains to the mid-north. In the west, the coast is generally small floodplains below foothills such as the Strandzha; Cape Emine, a dwindling of the east end of the Balkan Mountains; and the Dobruja Plateau considerably farth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aral Sea
The Aral Sea ( ; kk, Арал теңізі, Aral teñızı; uz, Орол денгизи, Orol dengizi; kaa, Арал теңизи, Aral teńizi; russian: Аральское море, Aral'skoye more) was an endorheic basin, endorheic lake lying between Kazakhstan (Aktobe Region, Aktobe and Kyzylorda Regions) in the north and Uzbekistan (Karakalpakstan autonomous region) in the south which began shrinking in the 1960s and had largely dried up by the 2010s. The name roughly translates as "Sea of Islands", referring to over 1,100 islands that had dotted its waters. In the Mongolic languages, Mongolic and Turkic languages, ''aral'' means "island, archipelago". The Aral Sea drainage basin encompasses Uzbekistan and parts of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan, and Iran. Formerly the fourth largest lake in the world with an area of , the Aral Sea began shrinking in the 1960s after the rivers that fed it were diverted by Soviet Union, Soviet irrigation proje ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syr Darya
The Syr Darya (, ),, , ; rus, Сырдарья́, Syrdarjja, p=sɨrdɐˈrʲja; fa, سيردريا, Sirdaryâ; tg, Сирдарё, Sirdaryo; tr, Seyhun, Siri Derya; ar, سيحون, Seyḥūn; uz, Sirdaryo, script-Latn/. historically known as the Jaxartes (, grc, Ἰαξάρτης), is a river in Central Asia. The name, which is Persian, literally means ''Syr Sea'' or ''Syr River''. It originates in the Tian Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan and eastern Uzbekistan and flows for west and north-west through Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan to the northern remnants of the Aral Sea. It is the northern and eastern of the two main rivers in the endorheic basin of the Aral Sea, the other being the Amu Darya (Jayhun). In the Soviet era, extensive irrigation projects were constructed around both rivers, diverting their water into farmland and causing, during the post-Soviet era, the virtual disappearance of the Aral Sea, once the world's fourth-largest lake. The point at which the r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Xuanzang
Xuanzang (, ; 602–664), born Chen Hui / Chen Yi (), also known as Hiuen Tsang, was a 7th-century Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making contributions to Chinese Buddhism, the travelogue of his journey to India in 629–645 CE, his efforts to bring over 657 Indian texts to China, and his translations of some of these texts.Li Rongxi (1996), ''The Great Tang Dynasty Record of the Western Regions'', Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai and Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, Berkeley, , pp. xiii-xiv Xuanzang was born on 6 April 602 in Chenliu, what is now Kaifeng municipality in Henan province. As a boy, he took to reading religious books, and studying the ideas therein with his father. Like his elder brother, he became a student of Buddhist studies at Jingtu monastery. Xuanzang was ordained as a ''śrāmaṇera'' (novice monk) at the age of thirteen. Due to the political and social unrest caused by the fall of the Sui dynasty ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Syr Daria
The Syr Darya (, ),, , ; rus, Сырдарья́, Syrdarjja, p=sɨrdɐˈrʲja; fa, سيردريا, Sirdaryâ; tg, Сирдарё, Sirdaryo; tr, Seyhun, Siri Derya; ar, سيحون, Seyḥūn; uz, Sirdaryo, script-Latn/. historically known as the Jaxartes (, grc, Ἰαξάρτης), is a river in Central Asia. The name, which is Persian, literally means ''Syr Sea'' or ''Syr River''. It originates in the Tian Shan Mountains in Kyrgyzstan and eastern Uzbekistan and flows for west and north-west through Uzbekistan and southern Kazakhstan to the northern remnants of the Aral Sea. It is the northern and eastern of the two main rivers in the endorheic basin of the Aral Sea, the other being the Amu Darya (Jayhun). In the Soviet era, extensive irrigation projects were constructed around both rivers, diverting their water into farmland and causing, during the post-Soviet era, the virtual disappearance of the Aral Sea, once the world's fourth-largest lake. The point at which the ri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hazrat-e Turkestan
Turkistan ( kz, Түркістан, ''Türkıstan'') is a city and the administrative center of Turkistan Region of Kazakhstan, near the Syr Darya river. It is situated north-west of Shymkent on the Trans-Aral Railway between Kyzylorda to the north and Tashkent to the south. Its population has increased within ten years from to Turkistan's most prominent historical and cultural asset is the Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The city is served by Hazrat Sultan International Airport. In 2021, Turkistan was proclaimed by the Organization of Turkic States as "Spiritual Capital of the Turkic World". In the same year, Turkistan was named as one of the top ten tourist destinations in Kazakhstan. History Turkistan is one of Kazakhstan's historic cities with an archaeological record dating back to the 4th century. It became a commercial centre after the final demise of Otrar, the medieval city whose ruins lie near the Syr Darya to the southeast. Throug ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
