Afrasiab

Afrasiab

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Afrasiab

Afrasiab (afr?siy?b) (; ; Pahlavi: Fr?siy?v, Fr?siy?k and Freangr?sy?k), is the name of the mythical King and hero of Turan and an archenemy of Iran. It is also the name of a city, referred to Afrosiyob in Uzbek, in old Samarkand, the second-largest city of modern Uzbekistan.

The Mythical King and Hero
In Turkic literature
Archaeological site
References
External links

The Mythical King and Hero

According to Shahnameh ('Book of Kings') by the Persian epic-poet Ferdowsi, Afrasiab was the mythical King and hero of Turan and an archenemy of Iran. In Iranian mythology, Afrasiab is considered by far the most prominent of all mythical Turanian Kings; he is a formidable warrior, a skilful general, and an agent of Ahriman who is endowed with magical powers of deception to destroy the Iranian race.^[1]

According to Middle-Persian and Islamic sources, Afrasiab was a descendant of T?r (Avestan: T?riya-), one of the three sons of the Iranian mythical King Fereydun (the other two sons being Salm and ?raj). In Bundahishn he is named as the seventh grandson of T?r. In Avestan traditions, his common epithet mairya- (deceitful, villainous^[2]) can be interpreted as meaning 'an evil man'. He lived in a subterranean fortress made of metal, called Hanakana.

According to Avestan sources, Afrasiab was killed by Haoma near the ???hast (possibly either referring to Urmia Lake in Azarbaijan, or Lake Hamun in Sistan) and according to Shahnameh he met his death in a cave known as the Hang-e Afrasiab, or the dying place of Afrasiab, on a mountaintop in Azarbaijan; the fugitive Afrasiab having been repeatedly defeated by the armies of his adversary, the mythical King of Iran Kay Khosrow (who happened to be his own grandson, through his daughter Farangis), wandered wretchedly and fearfully around, and eventually took refuge in this cave and died.

In Turkic literature

According to Mahmud al-Kashgari, a Turkic scholar of the 11th century Qarakh?nid Kingdom of Kashgar, the Iranian Afr?s?y?b was identical to the legendary Turkic hero Alp Er Tunga^[3]

Archaeological site

Afrasiab (Afrosiyob) is the oldest part and the ruined site of the ancient and medieval city of Samarkand in modern Uzbekistan. The term Qal?a ye Afrasiab (Castle of Afrasiab) appeared in written sources only by the end of the 17th century.

The name is popularly connected with the mythical King Afrasiab, but scholars consider it a distortion and a corrupted form of the Tajik word Pars??b (from Sogdian Par?v?b), meaning "Beyond the black river", the river being S??h?b or S??b, which bounds the site to the North.^[1]. It is interesting to point out that Afr? is the poetic form of the Persian word Far? (itself a poetic word), which means Beyond, Further, and that S??h means Black and ?b, Water, River or Sea (depending on the context).

The area of Afrasiab covers 219 (by some accounts 222) hectares, and the thickness of the archaeological strata reaches 8-12 metres. Archaeological excavations have been carried out in Afrasiab since the end of the 19th century, and very actively during the 1960-70s. The habitation of the territories of Afrasiab began in the 7th-6th century BCE, as the centre of the Sogdian culture.^[4]