Bakhdhi is the fourth nation in the Avestan Vendidad's list of nations, Airyana Vaeja (homeland of the Aryans) being the first. As the Aryans moved west, in the middle period before they moved to present day Iran, the centre of the Iran of Ferdowsi's Shahnameh was a confederation of kingdoms called Airan. In the legendary period, Bakhdhi was the principle kingdom of Airan and the Kayanian dynasty, with Balkh as its capital.
Bakhdhi was bordered by the Hindu Kush to the south and southeast, the Pamirs to the east and northeast, Sugd to the north, Mouru (Merv) to the northwest and west, and Haroyu (Harirud) to the southwest. It had a varied landscape of fertile plains, deserts and rugged mountains.
Ancient Bakhdhi was renowned for it beauty, abundant crops, and a large variety of fruits. An excellent breed of sheep was raised in green Hindu Kush slopes. Bakhdhi was also famous for a breed of camels known today as the Bactrian camel.
It is thought that the Bactrian Camel was domesticated (independently from the dromedary) sometime before 2500 BC, probably in northern Iran, Northeast Afghanistan, or southwestern Turkestan. The dromedary is believed to have been domesticated between 4000 BCE and 2000 BCE in Arabia. The wild population of Bactrian Camels was first described by Nikolai Przhevalsky in the late 19th century. Bactrian Camels have been the focus of artwork throughout history. For example, western foreigners from the Tarim Basin and elsewhere were depicted in numerous ceramic figurines of the Chinese Tang Dynasty (618–907).
Globalization wasn’t always a dirty word: Indeed, for about 2,000 years–from the second century B.C. through the late-ninteenth century–the Silk Road, a 5,000-mile web of routes across land and sea, from Xi’an to Rome, was history’s grandest example of cross-cultural pollination. On it, West met (and learned from) East, and the other way around. China sent gunpowder to the Arab world and in turn received Islam; cotton and Buddhism traveled east from India, and paper and peonies went west from China. And until Marco Polo’s voyages, China and Rome remained largely ignorant of each other: The road was so long and so brutal that goods were handed off at various points from one trader to the next (in effect the world’s longest and most ambitious relay race). We’ve mapped some of the Silk Road’s most important cities–and where you can still see its effects today.
The legend is that Zarathustra appeared during the reign of Gustasap at"Bactra the beautiful, city of the high - streaming banner". Zarathustra's wife's family were very influential in the Royal court, that helped Zarathustra spread his religion. Hence, Bactria became the heart of the new creed. According to Firdousi. Zarathustra was killed by an invading Scythian party in front of his fire-altar, in Balkh.
Afghan workers are seen digging the baked earth on the heights of Cheshm-e-Shafa in the Balkh province. Centuries-old shards of pottery mingle with spent ammunition rounds on a wind-swept mountainside in northern Afghanistan where French archaeologists believe they have found a vast ancient city lost to historical record. CHESHM-E-SHAFA, Afghanistan - Centuries-old shards of pottery mingle with spent ammunition rounds on a wind-swept mountainside in northern Afghanistan where French archaeologists believe they have found a vast ancient city.
Surkh Kotal is an ancient archaeological site located in the southern part of the region of Bactria, in today's northern Afghanistan, near the city of Puli Khumri, the capital of the province Baghlan. It is the location of monumental constructions made during the rule of the Kushans. Huge temples, statues of Kushan rulers and the Surkh Kotal inscription, which revealed part of the chronology (another fragment of that chronology was found on the Rabatak inscription found nearby) of early Kushan emperors (also called Great Kushans) were all found there.
