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Was Zoroastrian Art Invented in Chorasmia?

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Was Zoroastrian Art Invented in Chorasmia? Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 24 (2018) 68-86 brill.com/acss Was Zoroastrian Art Invented in Chorasmia? Frantz Grenet* Collège de France [email protected] Abstract Before the recent discoveries of the Karakalpak-Australian Expedition to Ancient Chorasmia (KAE) evidence for Zoroastrianism in Chorasmia was scant, coming only from the official use of the Zoroastrian calendar, the onomastics, and the archaeologi- cally documented funerary practices of the region, while the interpretation of remains of temples or fire chapels is subject to discussion. During the last seasons of work on the material of the KAE excavations at Akchakhan-kala, the royal seat of Chorasmia in the 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD, substantial fragments of wall paintings from the rear wall of the main columned hall of the “Ceremonial Complex” were cleaned and reassembled. It appeared at once that they belong to oversized standing figures, most probably deities. The best pre- served image has been identified as Srōsh, god of prayer and protector of the soul after death. The second figure is probably to be identified as a personification of the group of the Fravashis, pre-created souls of the ancestors and protectors of “Aryan people” in battles, also worshipped as deities. A third figure, very partly preserved, perhaps represents Zam-Spandarmad, goddess of the Earth. If these identifications are valid, these deities appear to have been chosen because of their association with the turn of the year. This would be consistent with the possibility that the already known “por- trait gallery” of Akchakhan-kala was related to the commemoration of royal and clanic ancestors at the end of the year. Notwithstanding much still needs to be elucidated, it appears already certain that these paintings, dating about the beginning of the 1st century AD, are the earliest documented attempt to create a Zoroastrian art directly inspired by the Avesta. The identification of some figures in the Toprak-kala “High Palace” (2nd-3rd centuries AD) can perhaps be reconsidered in the light of this new evidence. * Collège de France, 11 pl. Marcelin Berthelot, 75005 Paris, France. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi:10.1163/15700577-12341327Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:50:02AM via free access Was Zoroastrian Art Invented in Chorasmia? 69 Keywords Akchakhan-kala – Avesta – Srōsh – Fravashis – Toprak-kala – Zam-Spandarmad – Zoroastrianism 1 Chorasmia and Zoroastrianism The question relative to the importance or even exclusivity of the Zoroastrian religion in Chorasmia has raised keen interest among all scholars concerned with the history of this country, whether philologists or archaeologists. The earliest indisputable piece of evidence regarding Zoroastrianism in Chorasmia is found in the Avesta, the liturgical book of the Zoroastrians.1 The country appears only once, under its ancient name Xwārizma, at the very end of the list of “Aryan countries” beheld by the god Mithra when he surges at dawn over Mount Harā, the Bāmiyān region (Yasht 10.14). This position in the list is consistent with what is considered the most plausible etymology of Xwārizma: “Netherlands”, namely the lands at the lower end of the Oxus river.2 As for the “Aryan countries”, they designate countries where Zoroastrianism was preva- lent or present at the time of composition of this text. Another section of the Avesta, the chapter 1 of the Vidēvdād, gives a list of sixteen such countries, not mentioning Xwārizma by name. It was long supposed that Xwārizma cor- responded to the first and most eminent country, Aryanem Vaējah, an opinion which was shared by S.P. Tolstov, but the dominant opinion today is that the geographical reality of Aryanem Vaējah, if there was any, is instead to be found in the Hindu Kush or in the Pamirs. The Vidēvdād list is presumably pre-Achaemenid (the central and western parts of the Achaemenid empire are not mentioned)3 and the hymn to Mithra presumably Achaemenid, at least in its existing version (the figure of Mithra, never sleeping and informed by his “many spies”, seems influenced by the ideology of the Great King), so one could suggest that Xwārizma lay quite beyond the sphere of Eastern Iranian countries until the Achaemenid conquest when it was eventually integrated, an assumption which is not contradicted by archaeological evidence.4 1 There is to date no complete modern English translation of the Avesta, but a very reliable one has just appeared in French: Lecoq 2016. 2 MacKenzie 1983, 1244. 3 Grenet 2005, where different views by other authors are discussed. 4 Minardi 2015, 64-81. Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 24Downloaded (2018) 68-86 from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:50:02AM via free access 70 Grenet Whether it is so or not, the later Pahlavi literature shows a certain aware- ness that Chorasmia had been an ancient Zoroastrian country. The Iranian Bundahishn (18.6-7)5 claims that the Ādur Farnbag, the sacred Fire of the priests of all Iran, had in the early days of the faith stood on mount Khwarrahōmand in Chorasmia. As there is no other mountain range than Sultan-uiz-dag, undoubt- edly a sacred site judging from the concentration of funerary structures of all periods, this tradition might contain some element of truth.6 We are on more solid ground with the calendar and the onomastics. A proto-Chorasmian inscription on the Isakovka silver bowl7 has provided indis- putable evidence that the Zoroastrian religious calendar was in use as early as the late 3rd or 2nd century BC, which incidentally is also the date proposed for the foundation of Akchakhan-kala, the first capital; moreover, this epigraph alludes to the royal celebration of Nowruz, the New Year, for it records a “festive bowl” being presented to a king at that date. Subsequent documents down to the Arab conquest demonstrate the exclusive use of this calendar, as well as a significant proportion of personal names formed from Zoroastrian deities or Zoroastrian notions.8 However, until the last discoveries of paintings at Akchakhan-kala, to which I shall come soon, there was no straightforward archaeological evidence to sup- port the role of Zoroastrianism in Chorasmia. Much has been written by Tolstov and his successors about fire sanctuaries and fire chapels, but I must admit that in this respect I am rather on the sceptical side, as was my sadly missed teacher the late Paul Bernard. The existence in the core of the Akchakhan-kala “Ceremonial Complex” of a enthroned royal fire, a category mentioned once for the early Arsacid period at Asaak, the first capital (Parthian Stations § 11), and more substantially in the Sasanian period, is an exciting hypothesis recently put forward by Michele Minardi,9 but it still has to be discussed. The only self-standing monumental structure which appears to meet the require- ments for a fire temple is at Toprak-kala: a large rectangular enclosure to the east of the “High Palace” with a long access corridor from the lower town in the south. When first explored in 1938-1940 it was found full of ashes, but the walls were almost completely destroyed (fig. 1),10 and no trace subsisted when further excavations were conducted. The position of this structure in relation 5 Transcription-translation Anklesaria 1956. 6 Rapoport 1971, 68-69, 109; Minardi, forthcoming 2018. 7 Livshits 2003 (Inscription No. 1). 8 Livshits in Vaïnberg 2004, 190-191. 9 Minardi in Minardi & Khozhaniyazov 2015; a detailed study of A. Betts and F. Sinisi on the subject is forthcoming. 10 Tolstov 1948a, 123, fig. 62. Ancient Civilizations from Scythia toDownloaded Siberia from 24 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2018) 68-86 05:50:02AM via free access Was Zoroastrian Art Invented in Chorasmia? 71 figure 1 Plan of the site of Toprak-kala as in 1940, with the supposed fire temple still visible in the middle of the northern sector (after Tolstov 1948a, fig. 62). Ancient Civilizations from Scythia to Siberia 24Downloaded (2018) 68-86 from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:50:02AM via free access 72 Grenet to the palace can perhaps be compared with that of the still enigmatic “Central Monument” at Akchakhan-kala.11 Still at Toprak-kala, the temple occupying one of the residential blocks (besides a smaller one) in the lower town had several altars, but their use is not clear. The only cult object found there was a pair of horns of a mountain ram decorated with copper bands, possibly sym- bols of the gods Wahrām or Farn.12 Several small structures in various parts of the Akchakhan-kala Ceremonial Complex, as well as the so-called “burning doorways” in the neighbouring Tash-k’irman,13 appear also to indicate a ritual use of fire, but we are far from the accepted concept of the fire temple. No fire temple is known for the so-called “Afrighid” period contemporary with the Sasanian period, when the Zoroastrian impact can be assumed to have been maximal in Chorasmia. Perhaps then the fire cult was centralized in the capi- tal Kath, which has since disappeared in the Amu-Darya, in the same way as the excarnation process was centralized in the gigantic “Tower of Silence” at Chil’pÿk? Burial in ossuaries is in itself strong evidence of Zoroastrian orthopraxy, and ossuaries at Tok-kala belonging to the period just after the Arab conquest carry inscriptions with typical Zoroastrian formulas, but the initial period of the ossuary practice in Chorasmia is open to debate. The earliest firm evidence comes from the cemetery at Kalaly-gÿr, where the so-called “casket ossuaries” first appear, but the date proposed by the archaeologists, in the 3rd century AD, is perhaps too early.
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