Life and Worldview of the Sogdians according to the Afrasyab Paintings

Abstract

This article focuses on the relations between Sogdiana and neighboring kingdoms during the second half of the seventh century CE as reflected in the Afrasyab paintings (Samarkand). In this unique painted program to be precisely dated to the period btween 650-675, Sogdian artists represented several foreigners such as Turks, Chinese, Indians, Koreans, and-possibly- Tibetans, Bactrians, and other Central Asians. All these groups gathered in Samarkand on a special occasion that scholars identified as the celebration of the New Year festival. Chinese written sources of the Sui-Tang period mentioned a royal pavilion in central Sogdiana where the local king was used to pray every day. Such an information seems to match well with the paintings preserved in Afrasyab. The present paper is divided in four parts, each one dedicated to one of the kingdoms mentioned in Chinese sources that present some parallels in the paintings.