Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T03:57:28.141Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Bahl Šahastan in the land of the K‘ušans: Medieval Armenian memories of Balkh as an Arsacid capital

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2021

Alison Vacca Open the ORCID record for Alison Vacca [Opens in a new window]
Alison Vacca*
Affiliation:
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA
*
avacca@utk.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper explores the medieval Armenian understanding of the city of Balkh as a capital of the Arsacid Empire. Medieval Armenian sources employ four strategies of remembrance: scriptural geography, genealogy, folk etymology, and origin stories. These strategies invest the city of Balkh as the source of power of both Armenian royalty and nobility, through their connections to the Great Arsacids. There are two main themes in the descriptions of Balkh. First, the Arsacids of Balkh consistently decimated Sasanian armies in ways that the Armenian Arsacids could not emulate. Second, Balkh emerges as a refuge for (usually Parthian) rebels against the Chinese and Persian Empires. This paper explores the significance of Balkh as a site of memory by placing Armenian constructions of the Great Arsacid past (with some potential echoes of Great Kushan and Kushano-Sasanian history) into dialogue with the history of the city as it appears in Arabic.

Keywords

BalkhArmeniaArsacidMemorySasanianParthianPahlav
Type
Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 84 , Issue 1 , February 2021 , pp. 19 - 45
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of SOAS University of London

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I would like to thank Sergio La Porta for reading through drafts of this article and offering very productive suggestions to improve. I would also like to thank Khodadad Rezakhani, whose questions about Arsacid territory in my book kick-started this project. I presented on my first inkling of the importance of Balkh at the “Armeno-Iranica” conference at UCLA, organized by Touraj Daryaee, Houri Berberian, and Sebouh Aslanian; I presented the final version of this article at “Re-presented pasts” at the University of Leiden, organized by Peter Webb. I would like to thank the organizers and participants (particularly Sarah Savant and Antoine Borrut) for their thoughts and encouragement. Both Gohar Grigoryan and Alexander Akopyan were kind enough to send me scans of relevant sources that were otherwise unavailable during the 2020 pandemic: such friendly overtures are not only incredibly helpful, but also uplifting in difficult times. Finally, I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. All mistakes remain entirely my own.

References

Agat‘angełos. 1976. History of the Armenians. Translated by Thomson, Robert. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Arewelc‘i, Vardan. 1862. Hawak‘umn patmut‘ean. Venetik: Surb Łazar.Google Scholar
Asatrian, Mushegh. 2006. “Iranian elements in Arabic: the state of research”, Iran and the Caucasus 10/1, 87–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Assmann, Aleida. 2010. “Canon and archive”, in Ell, Astrid and Nünning, Ansgar (eds), A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2010.Google Scholar
Azad, Arezou. 2013. Sacred Landscape in Medieval Afghanistan: Revisiting the Faḍāʾil-i Balkh. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bedrosian, Robert. 1981. “China and the Chinese according to 5–13th century Classical Armenian sources”, Armenian Review 34, 17–24.Google Scholar
Borrut, Antoine. 2011. Entre mémoire et pouvoir: l'espace syrien sous les derniers Omeyyades et les premiers Abbassides (v. 72–193/692–809). Leiden: Brill.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Buzandac‘i, P‘awstos. 1989. The Epic Histories (Buzandaran Patmut‘iwnk‘). Translated by Garsoïan, Nina. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Buzandac‘i, P‘awstos. 1987. Patmut‘iwn Hayoc‘. Erevan: Erevani hamalsarani hratarakč‘ut‘yun.Google Scholar
Carter, Martha. 1985. “A numismatic reconstruction of Kushano-Sasanian history”, Museum Notes (American Numismatic Society) 30, 215–81.Google Scholar
Cribb, Joe. 1990. “Numismatic evidence for Kushano-Sasanian chronology”, Studia Iranica 19/2, 151–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dasxuranc‘i, Movsēs. 1983. Patmut‘iwn Ałuanic‘ Ašxarhi. Erevan: Erevani hamalsarani hratarakč‘ut‘yun.Google Scholar
Dīnawarī, Abū Ḥanīfah Aḥmad b. Dāwūd. 1888. Kitāb al-akhbār al-ṭiwāl. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Drasxanakertc‘i, Yovhannēs. 1987. History of Armenia. Translated by Maksoudian, Krikor. Atlanta: Scholars Press.Google Scholar
Errington, Elizabeth and Curtis, Vesta Sarkhosh. From Persepolis to the Punjab: Exploring Ancient Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. London: British Museum Press.Google Scholar
Garsoïan, Nina. 2005. “The Mamikonean family”, Encyclopaedia Iranica, https://iranicaonline.org/articles/mamikoneanGoogle Scholar
Greenwood, Timothy. 2011. “A reassessment of the life and mathematical problems of Anania Širakac‘i”, Revue des Etudes Arméniennes 33, 131–86.Google Scholar
Hartmann, Angelika. 2003. “Rethinking memory and remaking history: methodological approaches to ‘Lieux de mémoire’ in Muslim societies”, in Pellitteri, Antonino (ed.), Mağāz: culture e contatti nell'area del Mediterraneo: il ruolo dell'islam, 51–61. Palermo: Università di Palermo, 2003.Google Scholar
Haug, Martin. 1870. Essay on the Pahlavi Language. Stuttgart: Grüninger.Google Scholar
Ḥudūd al-ʿālam min al-mashriq ilā l-maghrib. 1962. Tehran: Danishgah-i Tihran.Google Scholar
Ḥudūd al-ʿālam, the Regions of the World, a Persian Geography, 372ah / 982ad. 1982. Translated by Minorsky, Vladimir. Cambridge: EJW Gibb Memorial.Google Scholar
Ibn Ḥawqal, Muḥammad Abū l-Qāsim. 1939. Kitāb ṣurat al-ʿarḍ [al-masālik wa-l-mamālik]. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Ibn Khayyāṭ, Khalīfa. 1995. Taʾrīkh. Beirut: Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya.Google Scholar
La Porta, Sergio. 2018. “Sing, muse, for the sake of Armenia a new song: war and the forging of Armenian identities”, paper presented at University of Vienna, June 18 2018.Google Scholar
Markwart, Josef. 1901. Ērānšahr nach der Geographie des Ps. Moses Xorenac‘i: mit historisch-kritischen Kommentar und historischen und topographischen Excursen. Berlin: Weidmann.Google Scholar
Masʿūdī, Abū l-Ḥasan ʿAlī b. al-Ḥusayn. 1861–77. Les Prairies d'or: texte et traduction [Murūj al-dhahab wa-maʿādin al-jawāhir]. Paris: L'Imprimerie impériale.Google Scholar
Mlaker, K. 1932. “Die Herkunft der Mamikonier und der Titel Čenbakur”, Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes 39, 133–45.Google Scholar
Mottahedeh, Roy. 2013. “The eastern travels of Solomon: reimagining Persepolis and the Iranian past”, in Cook, Michael, Haider, Najam, Rabb, Intisar and Sayeed, Asma (eds), Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought: Studies in Honor of Professor Hossein Modarressi, 247–67. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muqaddasī, Shams al-Dīn Abī ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad. 1906. Kitāb aḥsan al-taqāsim fī maʿrifat al-aqālīm. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Olshausen, Justus. 1876. Parthava und Pahlav, Mâda und Mâh. Berlin: Saale Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt.Google Scholar
Pourshariati, Parvaneh. 2009. Decline and Fall of the Sasanian Empire: The Sasanian–Parthian Confederacy and the Arab Conquest of Iran. London: I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Preiser-Kapeller, Johannes. 2019. “From one edge of the (post)Sasanian world to the other. Mobility and migration between the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Persian Gulf in the 4th to 9th centuries CE”, in Asutay-Effenberger, Neslihan and Daim, Falko (eds), Sasanian Elements in Byzantine, Caucasian and Islamic Art and Culture. Mainz: Verlag des Römisch-Germanischen Zentralmuseums.Google Scholar
Rezakhani, Khodadad. 2017. Reorienting the Sasanians: East Iran in Late Antiquity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Savant, Sarah. 2013. New Muslims of Post-Conquest Iran: Tradition, Memory, and Conversion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sebēos, . 1999. The Armenian History attributed to Sebeos. Translated by Thomson, Robert, Howard-Johnston, James and Greenwood, Timothy. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press.Google Scholar
Sebēos, . 1979. Patmut‘iwn, edited by Abełyan, Gevorg. Erevan: Haykakan SH Gitut‘yunneri Akademiayi hratarakč‘ut‘yun.Google Scholar
Širakac‘i, Anania. 1944. “Ašxarhac‘oyc‘ [Short Recension]”, in Anania Širakac‘u matenagrut‘yunē, edited by Abrahamyan, Ašot Arseni. Erevan: Erevani hamalsarani hratarakč‘ut‘yun.Google Scholar
Širakac‘i, Anania. 1881. Ašxarhac‘oyc‘ Movsesi Xorenac‘woy [Long Recension]. Venetik: Tparani Mxit‘aneanc‘.Google Scholar
Širakac‘i, Anania. 1992. The Geography of Ananias of Širak: Ašxarhacʻoycʻ, the Long and the Short Recensions. Translated by Hewsen, Robert. Wiesbaden: Reichert.Google Scholar
Sköld, Hannès. 1925. “L'origine des Mamiconiens d'après Moïse de Khorène”, Revue des Etudes Arméniennes 5, 131–6.Google Scholar
Stone, Michael. 2019. Armenian Apocrypha Relating to Biblical Heroes. Atlanta: SBL Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Svazyan, H. 1976. “Čenk‘ ev Čenac‘ ašxarhə ǝst haykakan ałbyurnerə”, Patma-banasirakan Handes 4, no. 203–212.Google Scholar
Ṭabarī, Muḥammad b. Jarīr. 1893. Taʾrīkh al-rusul wa-l-mulūk. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Thaʿālibī, ʿAbd al-Malik b. Muḥammad. 1900. Ghurar akhbār mulūk al-Furs [Histoire des rois des Perses]. Paris: Imprimerie nationale.Google Scholar
Toumanoff, Cyril. 1963. Studies in Christian Caucasian History. Washington: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
Vacca, Alison. 2017. Non-Muslim Provinces under Early Islam: Islamic Rule and Iranian Legitimacy in Armenia and Caucasian Albania. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xorenac‘i, Movsēs. 1978. History of the Armenians. Translated by Thomson, Robert. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Xorenac‘i, Movsēs. 1981. Patmut‘iwn Hayoc‘. Erevan: Erevani hamalsarani hratarakč‘ut‘yun.Google Scholar
Yaʿqūbī, Aḥmad b. Abī Yaʿqūb b. Jaʿfar b. Wahb b. Wādiḥ. 1883. Taʾrīkh. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Yaʿqūbī, Aḥmad b. Abī Yaʿqūb b. Jaʿfar b. Wahb b. Wādiḥ. 2018. The Works of Ibn Wādiḥ al-Yaʿqūbī: An English Translation. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar