Table Of ContentRoads and Kingdoms
Eastern Christian Studies
Volume 32
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ecs
Roads and Kingdoms
Two Encounters with the Nazarenes
beyond the River
By
Alexei Savchenko
LEIDEN | BOSTON
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isbn 978-90-04-52752-2 (hardback)
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Copyright 2023 by Alexei Savchenko. Published by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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To my wife Olga,
architect at the East Sogdian Archaeological Expedition,
and my companion on every road.
⸪
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost, The Road Not Taken
⸪
Contents
Preface ix
List of Figures and Tables x
Abbreviations xv
Note on Orthography xxi
1 The Monastery in Urgut
1 Res ipsa loquitur 1
1.1 First Landmark 4
1.2 Second Landmark 7
1.3 Urgut Obscured 9
1.4 Urgut Explained 12
2 Searching for Evidence 14
3 Closing the Books 24
3.1 The Rock 25
3.2 The Gorge 27
3.3 The Cross 27
3.4 The Scene 27
4 Hunting the Thimble 28
5 Urgut Unearthed 35
5.1 Monastic Compound 36
5.2 Hermits’ Caves 61
5.3 Reconstruction 61
5.4 Finds 69
6 The Timeline 86
6.1 Terminus post quem 86
6.2 Terminus ante quem 89
6.3 Cemetery 97
7 Whence and Whither 104
7.1 From al-ʿIrāq to Urgut 104
7.2 From Urgut to Panjikent 108
7.3 From Urgut to Samarkand 114
7.4 The Urgut Side 126
7.5 The Bukhara Side 135
7.6 Priest’s Daughter 141
viii Contents
2 The Village in Chach
1 Res ipsa loquitur 143
2 Sound and Sense 151
3 Closing the Books 158
4 Hunting the Thimble 159
5 The Environs 167
5.1 Chach and Ilaq 167
5.2 Ferghana 185
Appendix 189
Concordance of the Variant Readings Discussed in the Text 210
Works Cited 218
Index of Geographical Names 232
Preface
The subject of this research are two Christian enclaves in Central Asia,
described by Arab travellers and geographers who visited them in the tenth
century. One is a monastery in the mountains near Samarkand, the other—a
village on the bank of the Syr Darya in the Tashkent oasis.
Ironically, both places had been well-known to the academic community
long before the author started his investigations. They have figured in all stud-
ies dealing with the history of Christianity in Central Asia since the publica-
tion of the mediaeval chronicles late in the nineteenth century; however, their
exact location was never established.
My study has revealed that the place names identifying the location of each
site were corrupted as scribe after scribe copied the Arabic and Persian man-
uscripts. As soon as credible forms were distilled from the list of variant read-
ings, it became possible to narrow the search area to limited and surveyable
territory and to proceed to fieldwork.
Additional traces of the monastery’s existence were retrieved, scattered
among several museums and libraries in different countries and in the foothills
of the Northern Pamirs. After several reconnaissance surveys revealed traces
of human occupation and building remains, full archaeological investigations
brought to light a major Christian stronghold between Merv and Turfan.
While the mediaeval authors described the monastery in much detail, they
supplied no information about the village except its name; no additional mate-
rial has survived, either. Consequently, the result of the second enquiry is less
definite; still I hope it would save the future researcher from starting afresh.
My work had been envisaged as a solution to one specific problem of
Eastern Christian Studies. On closer scrutiny, that problem appeared to be a
tangle of discrete questions which had to be addressed alongside the main
matter. Gradually, the area under investigation grew from one valley in Urgut
to the southern part of the Samarkand province and from the few kilometres
between Chinaz and the Syr Darya to the Tashkent oasis and adjacent part
of Kazakhstan. Those spaces had to be studied with the same operational
resources allocated to the expedition at the outset. As a result, several ques-
tions that arose in the research process have remained unanswered, despite my
best efforts. That leaves me to reiterate this note to the reader by the founder of
Bibliotheca geographorum Arabicorum, whom I will invoke many more times
in the following pages: lectorem rogatum velim ut nusquam negligat conferre
addenda et emendanda.1
1 BGA, Praefatio to vol. IV, VIII.
Figures and Tables
Figures
1 Part of ‘Samarkand’ 1:250.000, U.S. Army Map Service, NJ 42–1 Series
№ 502, Washington, D.C. 1952 6
2 Stages of corruption of the transmitted text 8
3 Bronze censer from Urgut and its bottom. Photo by Nikolay Tikhomirov †,
ЛАФОКИ 15
4 Only this gravestone has survived, N-310, Ashkhabad National Museum
of History. Image courtesy of Mrs Nurgozel Beshimova, Head of the
Archaeology Department. Photo by V. Artemyev, architect at the Merv
International Project, upon my request 16
5 Leon Barszczewski with his collection in Samarkand. Photo from the
private archive of Igor Strojecki, Col. Barszczewski’s great-grandson and
biographer, to whom I convey my sincere thanks 18
6 Stone cross accidentally found in Urgut 20
7 Aleksey Kaplunov, director of the Historical Museum in Samarkand, with
a local guide near the Red Rock in Urgut. Photo by V.I. Kotovsky 1936,
negative courtesy of the Archive, the same Museum, contact print by
V. Grachenko 22
8 The Red Rock in Sufiyan, Upper Urgut, with a small grotto on top unno-
ticed in 1940 23
9 Syriac inscriptions in the grotto 24
10 Carved signs seen by M. Masson in 1929 on approach to the Red Rock,
now missing. From Массон, Происхождение, 51 27
11 Mr Jabbar Rashidov of Urgut, who was the first to see the cave inscrip-
tions in 1955 28
12 View of the Zarafshan Valley from Upper Urgut, facing north 29
13 Headwaters of the Urgut Say in April 30
14 Effects of a sel. Lower Urgut, spring 2004 31
15 A street in Upper Urgut 31
16 Aerial view of Sulayman Tepa and its environs facing south. Google Earth
Pro 7.3.2.5776, 39°22′37.64″ N, 67°14′29.86″ E, eye altitude 2.00 km, viewed
09.13.2019 33
17 The western face of Sulayman Tepa before the excavations 34
18 General view over the monastic and the parish churches,
facing east 37
