Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
of Khorezm is also explained as “Eastern Lands”, “Sunrise Lands,” and
“Fertile Lands” in different sources.
Another legend about Khorezm is dated to the Prophet Suleyman (So-
liman) period. Hz. Suleyman sent a fairy into exile with a giant compan-
ionship. In their flight, when they noticed Khorezm, they decided to live
there and got married and had many children., the Khorezmians (Galima
and Corayeff, 2001).
According to the historians' narratives, Khorezm was established by
the famous legendary Persian ruler Siyavush and served as his homeland.
Al-Makdisi reports that the ancient people of Khorezm were the children
of Persian men and Turkic women (Esin, 1997). It is widely believed that
Khorezmians were a Persian tribe exiled from the Balkhan Mountains by
their Persian or Turkic ruler in 1292 B.C. (Togan, 1951). In Islamic sourc-
es, it is written that Khorezmians, whose mothers were Turks, had good
morals and beautiful faces as Turks. Whatever legend is closest to reality,
Khorezm is the only place in Central Asia, which kept its name from the
beginning and its rulers' title until the 19th century (Munîs and Agahî,
1999).
Well-known Russian archaeologist and ethnologist Tolstov, who
worked extensively in Khorezm, Kazakhistan, and Turkmenistan, un-
earthed many old cities dating back to 3000 B.C. in Khorezm. Interesting-
ly, he discovered a large irrigation channel network making the research-
ers think of an industrial revolution and dated it nearly to the middle of the
first thousand years B.C. (Frumkin, 1970). According to Herodotos, Heca-
taeus from Miletus and Avestian texts, Khorezmians have established a
developed confederation well before Achaemenids ruled this region (Gor-
shenina and Rapin, 2008). Particularly, Herodotos reports that Khorezmi-
ans were the leading of the five tribes whose lands were irrigated by the
five channels taken from the Grand Axes (Amu Darya) where agriculture
was made (Togan, 1951).
Available heritage from the Kelteminar culture, created by fishers and
hunters at the end of 3rd-4th thousands B.C., corresponds to the Neolith-
ic period of Khorezm. Its most important example is Janbazkala IV. The
Bronze age, between mid of second thousand years B.C. and beginning
of first thousand B.C., is called Tazabagyab and presents many similari-
ties with the Andronovo Culture of Kazakhstan and South Siberia. That is
why Tolstov proposed that a considerable migration happened from Cen-
tral Asian steps to the south, towards Khorezm, Turkmenistan, Iran and
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