L’evidenza archeologica dei grandi commerci in Sogdiana lungo le Vie della Seta

Sogdiana is a historical central Asian region laying between present southern
Uzbekistan and western Tadžikistan. It was crossed by the Silk Roads: the term was
coined by the German geographer ferdinand von Richthofen to indicate a network of
trade routes linking the eastern and western territories of the ancient world.
The first known commercial exchanges in central Asia on a regular base date back
to the second millennium Bc, but in the second century Bc the Silk Roads inaugurated
a new era in the trade throughout Eurasia. It is now accepted that a great number of
land and sea routes made this network, that was used by merchants for a longer time
than initially thought. Although the von Richthofen term is conventionally still employed
in modern studies, scholars agree that silk was only one of the several carried goods.
Sogdiana could acquire a peculiar role in the central Asian context, acting as a
leading cultural intermediary between the different worlds represented by goods and
people – merchants, artists, scientists, priests – that travelled along the Silk Roads.
from the mid-sixth century Bc, Sogdiana was part of the Achaemenid Empire and
was ruled nominally by the satrap of Bactria. After the fall of the empire and the death
of Alexander the Great, the region was included in the Greco-Bactrian domains and
passed through a period of great prosperity.