Some Central Asian history from 1000-750BC

This post will look at the years 1000-750BC for the region of Central Asia. Central Asia is a little tricky to describe and for the purposes of this post it will include the Pontic Steppes (referred to in previous European posts), the boreal lands north of Siberia and all the steppe lands from the black soil of the Ukraine, the highlands of the Tibetan Plateau, to the northern steppes on the borders of China. I will also include the history of the Iranian Plateau here. It is not Central Asian, but it does link the northern steppes with the regions of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley.

The same caveats that I have mentioned before must be mentioned again. I am not a professional historian, merely someone who finds history interesting. So, all of my data should be questioned heavily.

This period predates much writing, certainly for the areas outside of the Iranian Plateau, so much of what we learn will come from archaeology, with some additional input from linguistics, genetics, biology and geology. Dendrochronology is of less use here than in Europe, but we have the great fortune to be close enough to written history to be able to use folklore and legend here in a way that we have not been able to do in the posts about prehistoric Europe. There will however be some writings, mainly from nearby Mesopotamia, which shed some light on the kingdoms of what is now Iran.

In the century of the 1000’s BC, towards the end of the millennium, the Dasht-e-Kavir had dried up. This had been a great lake that had survived since the end of the last Ice Age. However, it had become seasonal and relied upon the monsoons. When the monsoons had ceased to come to the region some centuries earlier, the Dasht-e-Kavir, which literally means The Great Salt Desert, dried out completely to become an arid wilderness of dunes. Occasional runoff of winter storms from nearby mountain ranges would occasionally make the desert bloom but the region would no longer support great cities easily.

Gold cup found at Hasanlu

I mentioned in a previous blog about the Yaz culture, on the eastern side of the Caspian Sea, being a potential precursor to Zoroastrian religion. It is possible that Zoroaster may have been active around this time. However I am unable to say much with certainty here. Zoroaster may never even have existed. The linguistic analysis of the Gathas are not of much help. Zoroaster’s dates could be as late as 550BC or as early as 1500BC. The truth may never be known unless more is discovered, which we may hope will be the case.

Around century of the 900’s BC the Shutrukid Dynasty in Elam came to an end and was replaced by what is sometimes known as the Humban-Tahrid Dynasty, but which is more often simply called the Neo-Elamite Period. The Elamite kings were murdered too often to speak of a single cohesive dynasty. Unfortunately we know very little of the Elamites at this time save the names of the kings and sometimes not even that.

Around 900BC the ancient city of Tepe Sialk was destroyed. This destruction was perhaps at the hands of migrating tribes speaking Iranian languages, the distant ancestors of what we would now call Farsi. The city was rebuilt and reoccupied, although it was clear that it no longer wielded any substantial power.

The wide-ranging Andronovo culture, which had spread across much of central Asia between the Caspian and the Himalayas, is generally held to have disappeared around this time, subsumed into the Karasuk culture in the Siberian region and the rising Scythian and Median cultures to the west and south of the Andronovo heartlands. Further to the west was the Novocherkassk culture that had its heartland on the Pontic Steppe, but which would itself merge into the Scythian culture.

The Mannaean kingdom, located to the east of Lake Urmia, in what would now be the north-west corner of the present-day country of Iran, was founded around this time. This was a kingdom whose rulers spoke Hurrian, and thus were culturally linked to the lands in the Khabur Triangle along the Euphrates floodplain. Very little of their kingdom survives, but we know the names of several of their kings and have some details of their wars from Assyrian documents.

Around the mid 800’s BC the kingdom of Urartu was founded near Lake Van. The Nairi tribes had been in the region for centuries before, and had been enemies of the Assyrians to the south. They are known not only from Assyrian inscriptions and occasional mentions in the Hebrew sacred writings, but also from their own inscriptions, which are imperfectly understood, but are well enough known to still be interpreted. The first known king of Urartu was Arame/Aramu who ruled in the mid-800’s BC.

Deer Stones of Mongolia

Perhaps around this time, although the dates are extremely uncertain, the Deer Stones of Mongolia were carved. These were carved upright standing stones on the steppe, carved with elaborate patterns using stone tools. Many, but not all, are carved with deer motifs. It is very unclear why these were carved, or who carved them, but they stand to this day, with their decorated sides facing eastwards towards the rising sun.

Around the year 800BC the ancient city of Tepe Sialk was destroyed for the final time. It had been a link to the most archaic past of the Iranian Plateau, but now it’s time had passed. The waters of the great lake that had once been nearby had dried away and a sandy desert was forming in its stead.

The city of Hasanlu, near the Mannaean kingdom, but not necessarily part of it, was attacked and destroyed around this time. The culprits were almost certainly the Urartians, who were expanding their power in the region. The destruction layer has preserved the city of Hasanlu remarkably well, allowing archaeologists to reconstruct the city with some accuracy. A number of artefacts have been found, including a remarkable gold cup, probably made some centuries before the destruction of the city, and a pair of skeletons seemingly locked in an embrace as death took them.

Ruins of Hasanlu

Around 750BC, under the reigns of Argishti I and Sarduri II, Urartu reached the zenith of its power, raiding the temporarily weakened Assyrian Empire nearly to the gates of Nineveh itself. The Urartian kings left inscriptions boasting of their greatness and strengthened their well-built citadel at Tushpa, near Lake Van.

Through the greatness of the God Ḫaldi, Argishti, son of Menua, built this canal. The land was uninhabited, no one was to be found here. By the grace of Ḫaldi Argishti made this canal. Argishti son of Menua, mighty King, great King, King of Bianiili, ruler of Tushpa
Urartian Inscription 

And thus the period draws to a close, with the Iranian migrations into the Plateau that would one day bear their name, the demise of the ancient cities on the plateau and the rise to power of a strong state in Urartu that could challenge even the strongest powers of Mesopotamia. I will continue the story in a later blog.

Luristan bronze bucket

Primary Sources:
Urartian Inscription 

Secondary Sources:
The Fall of Hasanlu in Archaeology.org

Related Blog Posts:
Some Central Asian history from 4000-3000BC
Some Central Asian history from 3000-2000BC
Some Central Asian history from 2000-1500BC
Some Central Asian history from 1500-1000BC
Some Central Asian history from 1000-750BC
Some Central Asian history from 750-500BC
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The 9th Century BC in the Near East: Part I
The 9th Century BC in the Near East: Part II
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