Territorial Barriers in Central Asia: Investigating the "long wall" of Bukhara (Uzbekistan)

Summary

Territorial barriers are a widespread phenomenon in many micro-regions of Western Central Asia where they specifically take the shape of large-scale oasis walls, surrounding the entirety or large parts of the agricultural hinterland of important urban centers vis-à-vis stretches of desert or desert-steppe in the region. Nonetheless, starting with their dating, our understanding of these sizable monuments is still very insufficient. The most monumental and best preserved one of these territorial barriers, the "long wall" of Bukhara--at least 250 miles long and complete with an impressive array of adjoining fortresses and watchtowers--, is since 2011 subject to comprehensive investigations carried out in the framework of an American-Uzbek field project. The results of four seasons of extensive field surveys and excavations (the latter including substantial works at a border fortress and the citadel of a border town) allow, for the first time, substantiated conclusions regarding the chronology of the barrier and provide important new insights into questions related to the purpose(s) of Bukhara's "long wall" system in the context of political and economic dynamics in Sogdiana during the first millennium CE.

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This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 80th Annual Meeting, San Francisco, CA (2015)   •
• The Dynamism of Contact and Exchange in Early Central and East Asia

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