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Nana (Kushan Goddess)
Nana was an ancient Eastern Iranian goddess worshiped by Bactrians, Sogdians and Chorasmians, as well as by non-Iranian Yuezhi, including Kushans, as the head of their respective pantheons. She was derived from the earlier Mesopotamian goddess Nanaya. Attempts to connect her with Inanna (Ishtar) instead depend on the erroneous notion that the latter was identical with Nanaya, which is considered outdated. She was regarded as an astral deity, and in Sogdian art was depicted with representations of the sun and moon. Kushan emperors additionally associated her with royal power. In Sogdia she might have also developed an otherwise unattested warlike aspect, as evidenced by murals showing her in battles against demons. She was seemingly associated with the Sogdian counterpart of Tishtrya, Tish, who might have been regarded as her spouse. There is no consensus regarding the date of Nana's introduction to Central Asia, though most researchers assume it occurred in the late first m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bunjikat (archeological Site)
The ancient archaeological site of Bunjikat ( ), also named Shahriston, is located near the town of Bunjikat, in the Shahristan Pass at the entrance of the Ferghana Valley, in Sughd Province of western Tajikistan, just west of the town of Kairma. Capital of Ustrushana Bunjikat was the former capital city of the Principality of Ushrusana between the 6th and 9th Centuries CE. It replaced the older capital of Kurukada. From the 5th to the 7th century CE, Ustushana was part of the territory of the Hephthalites, followed by the Western Turks after 560 CE. The Principality probably retained a certain level of autonomy throughout this period, and was ruled directly by the ''afshins'' of the Kavus dynasty. Bunjikat maintained its sovereignty until 893 CE. Ruins Several large buildings and fortresses are located in Bunjikat, such as Kalai Kahkaha I (a Palace) and Kalai Kahkaha II (a grand building on an elevated terrace), dated from the 6th to 8th century CE. File:Bunjikat,Kahkaha1- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Asia
Central Asia is a region of Asia consisting of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. The countries as a group are also colloquially referred to as the "-stans" as all have names ending with the Persian language, Persian suffix "-stan" (meaning ) in both respective native languages and most other languages. The region is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the southwest, European Russia to the northwest, China and Mongolia to the east, Afghanistan and Iran to the south, and Siberia to the north. Together, the five Central Asian countries have a total population of around million. In the pre-Islamic and early Islamic eras ( and earlier) Central Asia was inhabited predominantly by Iranian peoples, populated by Eastern Iranian-speaking Bactrians, Sogdians, Khwarezmian language, Chorasmians, and the semi-nomadic Scythians and Dahae. As the result of Turkic migration, Central Asia also became the homeland for the Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, Volga Tatars, Tatars, Turkmens, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gaoju
The Tiele ( zh, c=鐵勒, p=Tiělè),, Mongolian ''*Tegreg'' "[People of the] Carts" also transliterated as Chile ( zh, c=敕勒, links=no), Dili ( zh, c=狄歷, links=no), Zhile ( zh, c=直勒, links=no) and Tele ( zh, c=特勒, links=no), who were also known by the Chinese exonym Gaoche ( zh, c=高車, links=no) or Gaoju,, "High Carts" were a tribal confederation of Turkic peoples, Turkic ethnic origins living to the north of China proper and in Central Asia, emerging after the disintegration of the confederacy of the Xiongnu. Chinese sources associate them with the earlier Dingling. Chile and Gaoche The names "Chile" (敕勒) and "Gaoche" (wikt:高車, 高車) first appear in Chinese records during the campaigns of Former Yan and Dai (Sixteen Kingdoms), Dai in 357 and 363 respectively. However, the protagonists were also addressed as "Dingling" in the records of the Southern Dynasties. The name ''Gaoche'' ("high cart") was a nickname given by the Chinese.Pulleyblank, "Central ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Di (surname)
Dí is the pinyin romanization of the Chinese surname (''Dí''). It was listed 108th among the Song-era '' Hundred Family Surnames''. Romanization 狄 is often anglicized as " Dee". Distribution Di no longer appears among the 100 most common names in mainland China or on Taiwan. A 2013 study found it to be the 314th-most common name, being shared by 168,000 people or 0.013% of the population, with the province with the most being Jiangsu. It is also quite uncommon in the United States: there were fewer than 100 Dis during the 1990 census and while the number in the year 2000 surpassed that it was still ranked 54,296th among the 150,000 or so listed surnames.United States Census Bureau.Genealogy Data: Frequently Occurring Surnames from Census 2000. 27 Sept 2011. Accessed 29 Mar 2012. Origin 狄 is composed of the radicals for "animal" () and "fire" () and was used to describe barbarian tribes north of the original '' zhongguo''. Its Old Chinese Old Chinese, also ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Turpan
Turpan () or Turfan ( zh, s=吐鲁番) is a prefecture-level city located in the east of the Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of Xinjiang, China. It has an area of and a population of 693,988 (2020). The historical center of the prefectural area has shifted a number of times, from Jiaohe ruins, Yar-Khoto (Jiaohe, to the west of modern Turpan) to Qocho (Gaochang, to the southeast of Turpan) and to Turpan itself. Names Historically, many settlements in the Tarim Basin, being situated between Chinese, Turkic, Mongolian, and Persian language users, have a number of cognate names. Turpan or Turfan is one such example. The original name of the city is unknown. The form Turfan, while older than Turpan, was not used until the middle of the 2nd millennium CE and its use became widespread only in the post-Mongol period. History Turpan has long been the centre of a fertile oasis (with water provided by the ''Turpan water system, karez'' canal system) and an important tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Phonetic Transcription
Phonetic transcription (also known as Phonetic script or Phonetic notation) is the visual representation of speech sounds (or ''phonetics'') by means of symbols. The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, such as the International Phonetic Alphabet. Versus orthography The pronunciation of words in all languages changes over time. However, their written forms (orthography) are often not modified to take account of such changes, and do not accurately represent the pronunciation. Words borrowed from other languages may retain the spelling from the original language, which may have a different system of correspondences between written symbols and speech sounds. Pronunciation can also vary greatly among dialects of a language. Standard orthography in some languages, such as English language, English and Classical Tibetan, Tibetan, is often irregular and makes it difficult to predict pronunciation from spelling. For example, the words ''bough'', ''tough' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chinese Language
Chinese ( or ) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and List of ethnic groups in China, many minority ethnic groups in China, as well as by various communities of the Chinese diaspora. Approximately 1.39 billion people, or 17% of the global population, speak a variety of Chinese as their first language. Chinese languages form the Sinitic languages, Sinitic branch of the Sino-Tibetan language family. The spoken varieties of Chinese are usually considered by native speakers to be dialects of a single language. However, their lack of mutual intelligibility means they are sometimes considered to be separate languages in a Language family, family. Investigation of the historical relationships among the varieties of Chinese is ongoing. Currently, most classifications posit 7 to 13 main regional groups based on phonetic developments from Middle Chinese, of which the most spoken by far is Mandarin Chinese, Mandarin with 66%, or around 800&nb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sogdian Alphabet
The Sogdian alphabet was originally used for the Sogdian language, a language in the Iranian family used by the people of Sogdia. The alphabet is derived from Syriac, a descendant script of the Aramaic alphabet. The Sogdian alphabet is one of three scripts used to write the Sogdian language, the others being the Manichaean alphabet and the Syriac alphabet. It was used throughout Central Asia, from the edge of Iran in the west, to China in the east, from c. 100 to c. 1200 AD. Structure Like the writing systems from which it is descended, the Sogdian writing system can be described as an abjad, but it also displays tendencies towards an alphabet. The script consists of 17 consonants, many of which have alternative forms for initial, middle, and final position. As in the Aramaic alphabet, long vowels were commonly written with matres lectionis, the consonants ''aleph'', ''yodh'' and '' waw''. However, unlike Aramaic and most abjads, these consonant signs would also sometimes serv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bactrian Script
Bactrian (, , meaning "Iranian") was an Eastern Iranian language formerly spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria (present-day Afghanistan) and used as the official language of the Kushan and the Hephthalite empires. Name It was long thought that Avestan represented "Old Bactrian", but this notion had "rightly fallen into discredit by the end of the 19th century". Bactrian, which was written predominantly in an alphabet based on the Greek script, was known natively as (" Arya"; an endonym common amongst Indo-Iranian peoples). It has also been known by names such as Greco-Bactrian or Kushan or Kushano-Bactrian. Under Kushan rule, Bactria became known as ''Tukhara'' or ''Tokhara'', and later as ''Tokharistan''. When texts in two extinct and previously unknown Indo-European languages were discovered in the Tarim Basin of China, during the early 20th century, they were linked circumstantially to Tokharistan, and Bactrian was sometimes referred to as "Eteo-Tocharian" (i.e. " ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Greek Alphabet
The Greek alphabet has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early 8th century BC. It was derived from the earlier Phoenician alphabet, and is the earliest known alphabetic script to systematically write vowels as well as consonants. In Archaic Greece, Archaic and early Classical Greece, Classical times, the Greek alphabet existed in Archaic Greek alphabets, many local variants, but, by the end of the 4th century BC, the Ionia, Ionic-based Euclidean alphabet, with 24 letters, ordered from alpha to omega, had become standard throughout the Greek-speaking world and is the version that is still used for Greek writing today. The letter case, uppercase and lowercase forms of the 24 letters are: : , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , The Greek alphabet is the ancestor of several scripts, such as the Latin script, Latin, Gothic alphabet, Gothic, Coptic script, Coptic, and Cyrillic scripts. Throughout antiquity, Greek had only a single uppercas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kudurru Melishipak Louvre Sb23
A kudurru was a type of stone document used as a boundary stone and as a record of land grants to vassals by the Kassites and later dynasties in ancient Babylonia between the 16th and 7th centuries BC. The original kudurru would typically be stored in a temple while the person granted the land would be given a clay copy to use to confirm legal ownership. Kudurrus are often linked to what are usually called "ancient kudurrus", land grant stones from the third millennium (typically Sargonic and Ur III) which serve a similar purpose though the word kudurru did not emerge until the 2nd millennium (Middle Babylonian in fact). Background The objects are traditionally called kudurru which is Akkadian for "frontier" or "boundary". because early epigraphers frequently found that word in the text and assumed they were placed in agricultural setting, not the temples they actually were. While there is consensus on the main group of kudurru there are other "debatable kudurru" for which opinio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after India, representing 17.4% of the world population. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and Borders of China, borders fourteen countries by land across an area of nearly , making it the list of countries and dependencies by area, third-largest country by land area. The country is divided into 33 Province-level divisions of China, province-level divisions: 22 provinces of China, provinces, 5 autonomous regions of China, autonomous regions, 4 direct-administered municipalities of China, municipalities, and 2 semi-autonomous special administrative regions. Beijing is the country's capital, while Shanghai is List of cities in China by population, its most populous city by urban area and largest financial center. Considered one of six ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
