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Thursday, December 6, 2012

Central Asian Historical Timetable...45,000 BC - 100 AD

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45,000 BC....A Stone Age archaeological site on the banks of the river Don in southern Russia has been identified by scientists as the earliest known settlement of modern humans in Europe. The discovery has provided support for the idea that the first migration of modern humans out of sub-Saharan Africa occurred less than 50,000 years ago. Scientists have dated the artefacts from the Russian site to 45,000BC, which would make the inhabitants the earliest known ancestors of Europeans today.

40,000 years ago – Upper Paleolithic begins in Europe. An abundance of fossil evidence includes elaborate burials of the dead, Venus figurines and cave art. Venus figurines are thought to represent fertility goddesses. The cave paintings at Chauvet and Lascaux are believed to represent religious thought.

Cro-Magnon or early modern human skeletal remains with "Neanderthal traits" were found in Lagar Velho (Portugal), dated to 24,500 years ago...The youngest Neanderthals include the Vindija Cave fossils in Croatia, which are between 33,000 and 32,000 years old. No definite specimens younger than 30,000 years ago have been found, but evidence of fire by Neanderthals in Gibraltar indicate they may have survived there until 24,000 years ago.

Glacials, on the other hand, refer to colder phases within an ice age that separate interglacials. Thus, the end of the last glacial period is not the end of the last ice age. The end of the last glacial period was about 12,500 years ago....

8000 BCE......"we are looking at a part of the world, even though it had been forgotten by western scholars, which really takes its place as a partner in the development from the first farmers about 10,000 years ago up to early villagers when we see the beginning of our settlement in Anau at Turkmenistan 4,500 B. C., all the way through the development of these large cities that we are finding out in the deserts. And I am quite convinced that 5,000 years ago an ancient Sumerian would have some understanding of what a central Asian was, or what central Asian artifacts were and vice versa."....Fredrik Talmage Hiebert, Ph.D., Prof. of Anthropology, Univ. of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology and Assistant Curator of Near Eastern Archaeology, Philadelphpia, Pennsylvania

According to the Surya Siddhanta, Kali Yuga began in 3102 BCE.....The Surya Siddhanta is one of the earliest doctrine or tradition (siddhanta) in archeo-astronomy of the Hindus. Its original version is by an unknown author. It describes the archeo-astronomy theories, principles and methods of the ancient Hindus. This siddhanta is supposed to be the knowledge that the Sun god gave to an Asura called Maya. Asuras were enemies of the Deva, the Gods of Hindus. Asuras were believed to be residents of the nether worlds.

Lapis lazuli was being mined in the Badakhshan province of Afghanistan as early as the 3rd millennium BC, and there are sources that are found as far east as in the region around Lake Baikal in Siberia. Trade in the stone is ancient enough for lapis jewelry to have been found at Predynastic Egyptian and ancient Sumerian sites, and as lapis beads at neolithic burials in Mehrgarh, the Caucasus, and even as far from Afghanistan as Mauritania.....Lapis lazuli is found in limestone in the Kokcha River valley of Badakhshan province in northeastern Afghanistan, where the Sar-e-Sang mine deposits have been worked for more than 6,000 years. Afghanistan was the source of lapis for the ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations, as well as the later Greeks and Romans. During the height of the Indus valley civilization about 2000 BC, the Harappan colony now known as Shortugai was established near the lapis mines

"After 2400 BC, throughout Central Asia the growth of urban societies was severely challenged. Within a span of some three hundred years, none of the major centers that developed during the first half of the 3rd millennium were still occupied. The precise reasons for this "urban collapse" remain a mystery. Yet toward the end of 3rd millennium, across northern Afghanistan and southern Turkemenistan and Uzbekistan, a series of events fueled the rise of cities and settlements that was to have a major impact".....http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/afghanistan/history-pre.htm

2300 BC...The Anau Seal.... inscribed stamp seal dated to about 2,300 B. C. that clearly had symbols on it......A large sophisticated civilization equal to Sumeria and Mesopotamia and thriving at the same time at least 5,000 years ago was lost in the harsh desert sands of the Soviet Union near the Iran and Afghanistan borders......recent excavations in the Kara Kum desert of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on the Iran and Afghanistan borders......No American archaeologist had been there since 1904 when New Hampshire archaeologist and geologist, Raphael Pumpelly, discovered ancient ruins at Anau in southern Turkmenistan near Iran..... in 1988 after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Dr. Hiebert first received permission to travel to Anau. He has discovered it is about 2,000 years older than the Bactria and Margiana sites further to the east, going back nearly seven thousand years to at least 4,500 B. C., or the Bronze Age. Not only are the oldest shards from there of high craftsmanship, this past summer Dr. Hiebert also found a black rock carved with red-colored symbols that, to date, are unidentified but considered to be evidence of a literacy independent of Mesopotamia. The discovery is revolutionary to earlier academic thought that Sumeria was the first civilization with language.

Balkh was of the the largest and most grand of ancient cities. Balkh was at it height from 2700- 2000 BC but of great importance from 600 BC until 600 AD.....

2800 BC...For over three hundred years the rulers of the Roman Empire worshipped the god Mithras. Known throughout Europe and Asia by the names Mithra, Mitra, Meitros, Mihr, Mehr, and Meher, the veneration of this god began around 2800 years ago in Persia, where it was soon moved west and became imbedded with Babylonian doctrines. There is mention of Mithra or Mitra (et al) before 2800, but only as a minor diety and without much information. It appears to be after 2800 when Mithra is transformed and starts to play a major role among the gods.

2800 BC...Traditionally it was believed that the principles of the I Ching originated with the mythical Fu Xi (伏羲 Fú Xī).[7] In this respect he is seen as an early culture hero, one of the earliest legendary rulers of China (traditional dates 2800 BC-2737 BC), reputed to have had the 8 trigrams (八卦 bā guà) revealed to him supernaturally.

2600 BC .....Balkh is one of the oldest cities in the world...Since the Indo-Iranians built their first kingdom in Balkh (Bactria, Daxia, Bukhdi) some scholars believe that it was from this area that different waves of Indo-Iranians spread to north-east Iran and Seistan region...]The period between 26th-20th century BC was the most important period in the history of Balkh; it's in this relatively short period that a kingdom was established, then the population started to disperse and the kingdom started to shrink.

"The lapis lazuli that arrived from the Sar-i Sang mines in Afghanistan to the great cities at Ur about 2400 BC travelled along routes or exchange that had already been active for thousands of years. In the long march toward civilization, Mundigak (near modern-day Kandahar) provides evidence of a true city, perhaps a provincial capital of the Indus valley civilization, and evidence of the type of structures and objects that true cities produce: religious structures and carved or painted works of art. At Mundigak, archaeologists have discovered a large 3rd millennium BC pillared terrace structure with a doorway outlined in red, which probably had a religious purpose. At Deh Morasi Gundai, archaeologists found evidence of a shrine complex containing various ritual items such as goat horns, a goblet, a copper seal, hollow copper tubing, a small alabaster cup, and a carved and hand-molded pottery figurine of a mother goddess or fertility figure similar to figurines that were also found at Mundigak.Deh Morasi Gundai was eventually abandoned about 1500 BC, perhaps because of the westward shift of the river on which it was built. Mundigak continued another 500years. Two successive invasions by a nomadic tribe from the north forced the inhabitants to abandon the city after more than 2,000 years of continuous occupation.".....http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/afghanistan/history-pre.htm

13th Century BC....As the Aryan Indo-Europeans descended onto the Iranian plateau, they divided once again; one group migrated into the Indian subcontinent whilst the other progressed westwardly eventually caressing the borders of the Semitic lands. The eastern group is known to have settled in the Punjab between the Indus and Sarasvati during the Vedic era circa 13th century B.C.E. The literay and linguistic evolution of Sanskrit from its earliest instances in the Rig-Veda to the end of the Vedic era, circa 500 B.C.E.

2000 BC.....SANSKRIT...(Tibetan: legs sbyar gyi skad)....Sanskrit appears about 2000-1500 BC in India with the migration of the Indo-Aryan branch of speakers into northwest India. The nearest relative of Indo-Aryan is Persian. Their earliest literature is the Vedas, sacred hyms to the Aryan deities. The Mahabharata consists of 100,000 couplets. Close affinities with the Iranian Avesta. The Sanskrit dramatists had little regard for the three classical unities of space, time, and action..(Encyclopedia Britannica)....

c.1900–c.520 BC .... Indo-Aryan migrations. Ramayana legend says Lord Rama's brother Bharat ruled from Gandhara.

1857 BC...Birth of Shenrab in the 1st Wood Male Mouse Year, the son of King Gyal Tokar and Queen Zanga Ringum (Wangyal: 1993..pg 30)

c.1700-1100 BC: The Rigveda, one of the oldest known texts written in an Indo-European language, is composed in a region described as Sapta Sindhu....('land of seven great rivers')

Mithra......Much of the pre-Zoroastrian Iranian Mithra in terms of how he was worshipped by the Iranians is little known. It is known that Mithra boasted a considerable following; there are indications that he was attributed elements of a sky god - he was associated with the sun, altho not equated with it, and was termed the 'god of light' - and was often invoked with other high gods, such as Ahura, who at that time bore a prominent although non-universal position.

The 2nd millennium BC marks the transition from the Middle to the Late Bronze Age. Its first half is dominated by the Middle Kingdom of Egypt and Babylonia. The alphabet develops. Indo-Iranian migration onto the Iranian plateau and onto the Indian subcontinent propagates the use of the chariot. Chariot warfare and population movements lead to violent changes at the center of the millennium, and a new order emerges with Greek dominance of the Aegean and the rise of the Hittite Empire. The end of the millennium sees the transition to the Iron Age. World population begins to rise steadily, reaching some 50 million towards 1000 BC.

1st mellenium B.C.E. .....the Aryans had arrived on the Iranian plateau and the Indian subcontinent. Indeed, the term Iran is the result of the term Ariana (Airyana) meaning "the land of the Aryans." The Aryan group of languages had two principle divisions: Sanskrit and Old Iranian.

1700 BC....Rigveda. Ancient Indian hymns. Composed prior to the Indo-European migration into Persia and India

1627 BC: Beginning of a cooling of world climate lasting several years recorded in tree-rings all over the world....The last known population of woolly mammoth, preserved on Wrangel Island, goes extinct.

1500 BC....the weather change in Airyana Vaeja, that pollen and tree ring analysis indicates the Chang Tang plateau in Northern Tibet had a far more liveable environment than it has today - one that supported a primordial civilization - until the climate become colder and drier starting around 1500 BCE, a climate change that caused the population to migrate out of the northern plateau.

The Vedas are among the oldest sacred texts. The Samhitas date to roughly 1500–1000 BCE, and the "circum-Vedic" texts, as well as the redaction of the Samhitas, date to c. 1000-500 BCE, resulting in a Vedic period, spanning the mid 2nd to mid 1st millennium BCE, or the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age

c. 1350 BC: .....Migration of waves of Iranian tribes begin from the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex westwards to the Iranian plateau, western Afghanistan and western Iran. ...According to the Avesta (Vendidad 1.1-21), they are compelled to leave their homeland Airyana Vaēǰah because Aŋra Mainyu so altered the climate that the winter became ten months long and the summer only two. Along the way, they settle down near large rivers, such as Bāxδī, Harōiva, Haraxᵛaitī, etc.

c. 1100-550 BC: Zoroaster introduces a new religion at Bactra (Present-day Balkh) - Zoroastrianism - which spreads across Iranian plateau. He composes Older (i.e. 'Gathic') Avesta and later Younger Avesta is composed - at least - in Sīstān/Arachosia, Herāt, Merv and Bactria.

1000 BC........Bactria: semi mythical empire about 1000 BC....

At a very early date, Balkh was the rival of Ecbatana, Nineveh and Babylon. There is a long-standing tradition that an ancient shrine of Anahita was to be found here, a temple so rich it invited plunder.

-959 BC..... King Mu (Mu Wang),. West Chou king and the earliest reputed Silk Road traveller. His travel account Mu tianzi zhuan, written in the 5th-4th century BC, is the first known travel book on the Silk Road. It tells of his journey to the Tarim basin, the Pamir mountains and further into today's Iran region, where the legendary meeting with Xiwangmu was taken place. Returned via the Southern route. The book no longer exists but is referenced in Shan Hai Zin, Leizi: Mu Wang Zhuan, and Shiji.

900 BC....Walled Cities with central castles (kal'ah) existed in Bactria (Merv(Mary in Turkmenistan), Maracandra (Samarkand), Balkh)

700-600 BC...horses were domesticated in the Eurasian Steppes (Dereivka centered in Ukraine) during the Scythian period of the 6th and 7th centuries BC....Earlier dates of 4000 BC have recently come into question.

700 BC.....Median and Persian empires in 700 BC

6th Century BC....Balkh was regarded as the first place where Zoroaster first preached his religion, as well as the place where he died. Zoroastrianism, also called Mazdaism and Magianism, is a religion and philosophy based on the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster (also known as Zarathustra in Avestan) and was formerly among the world's largest religions. It was probably founded some time before the 6th century BCE in the eastern part of ancient Greater Iran (Persia)...."Balkh had been the birthplace of Zoroaster in about 600 BCE. It was the holy city of Zoroastrianism, the Iranian religion that grew from his teachings and which emphasized the veneration of fire. Kanishka followed the Graeco-Bactrian policy of religious tolerance. Thus, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism peacefully coexisted in Balkh, where they influenced each other's development. Cave monasteries from this period, for example, had wall paintings of Buddhas with auras of flames and in­scrip­tions calling them "Buddha-Mazda." This was an amal­gam of Buddha and Ahura Mazda, the supreme god of Zoroastrianism."....628-551 BC...Zarathustra launched his movement in Chorasmia (Persian Khorasan, Western Afghanistan, Turkmen Republic). (James: 1963..pg 79)...628 BC......"Zoroaster [Zarathushtra] (628-551 BC?) was probably a priest of the old Aryan religion, for he calls himself a zaotar (Indian hotar) in the Gatas (Yasna 33.6)....He also retained the old poetic form, for the meter of his Gathas is similar to that of the Vedas. He further exalted the concept of asha, 'truth', the rta of India, and further used words in the same sense as in the Vedas."

Laozi (Chinese: 老子; pinyin: Lǎozǐ; Wade–Giles: Lao Tzu; also romanized as Lao Tse, Lao Tu, Lao-Tsu, Laotze, Laosi, Laocius, and other variations) (fl. 6th century BCE) was a philosopher of ancient China, best known as the author of the Tao Te Ching

567-486 BC....Shakyamuni Buddha....The first two disciples of the Buddha were merchants from Balkh. Their stupas are still located in the area.

480 BC....these Upanisads are prior to the rise of Buddhism, which is derived logically from the system which they contain, and, as the date of the death of the Buddha may be placed with fair probability in or about the year 480 B. c., a lower terminus of 500 B. c. for the Upanisads is attained.

Trapusa and Bahalika from Balkh in Afghanistan, are attributed to be the first two lay disciples of the Buddha. In the vinaya section of the Tripiṭaka where they offer the Buddha his first meal after his enlightment, take refuge in the Buddha and Dharma, (the Sangha still not having been formed) and become the Buddha's first lay disciples.When Trapusa and Bahalika wished his leave to return home, they asked the Buddha for something by which they could remember and honour him in his absence. The Buddha gave them eight of his hairs as relics. They made golden caskets for the relics and took them to their own city (Balkh) where they enshrined them in a stupa by the city gate. Huang Tsang recounts that theirs was the first ever Buddhist Stupa to be made and that the Buddha had first to instruct them how to erect it by folding his three robes into squares piling them up and then topping them off with his inverted bowl....John S. Strong draws attention to the important tradition that brings together several firsts ; first lay disciples of the Buddha to take refuge in him and his teachings; first meritorious food offering to the Buddha after his enlightenment; first Buddhist's monk's bowl; first words of Dharma given by the blessed one; first relics of Gautama after his attainment of Buddhahood; the first Stupa of the Buddha here on earth. The remains of this stupa are still in Balkh.

Central Asia was inhabited by Iranian people from roughly 500 BCE onwards. This would include modern day Iran Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, as well as parts of North-West Pakistan and India....."The process whereby Iranians spread over Central Asia and the Iranian Plateau can be compared with the later expansion of the Turkic peoples... As in the Turkification of Anatolia, the Iranians gave their languages and practises to the aboriginal population" (Frye 1996). In the middle of the sixth century BCE, the Achaemanid clan of the Persians was headed by Cyrus, who ruled, under Median domination, as sub-king of Parsa, or Persis. In 553 BCE Cyrus led a revolt that resulted in the overthrow of the Median ruler and the rise to the power of the Achaemenids."

Roxana (Avestan: Raoxshna or Roshanak, "luminous beauty"; Persian: رخسانه‎ Rokhsāna; Pashto: روښانه‎ Rox̌āna), sometimes Roxanne, Roxandra and Roxane, was a Bactrian (Iran) princess and a wife of Alexander the Great. She was born earlier than the year 343 BC, though the precise date remains uncertain......Roxana was the daughter of a Bactrian named Oxyartes of Balkh in Bactria (around modern-day Balkh province of Afghanistan), and married Alexander at the age of 16 after he visited the fortress of Sogdian Rock. Balkh was the last of the Persian Empire's provinces to fall to Alexander. Ancient sources describe Alexander's professed love for Roxana. She accompanied him on his campaign in northern India in 326 BC......After Alexander's sudden death at Babylon in 323 BC, she bore him a posthumous son called Alexander IV Aegus. Also, after Alexander's death, Roxana murdered Alexander's other widow, Stateira II, as well as either Stateira's sister Drypteis[1] or Parysatis II (Alexander's third wife).

329 BC.....Alexander took Bactria in 329 B.C.E., and made it his base for conquest and amalgamation of the Greek and Iranian civilizations.....Balkh was old long before Alexander’s raid, and its history of 2500 years records more than a score of conquerors. The Arabs, impressed by Balkh’s wealth and antiquity, called it Umm-al-belad, the mother of cities. When the Silk Road was the chief artery of commerce between East and West, Balkh was second to none. But then came Ghengis Khan, and wreaked upon it the utter devastation that has made the Mongols’ name a byword for barbarism. Balkh never fully recovered, and eventually faded into a village; the seat of government shifted to scruffy but vigorous Mazar-e-Sharif. What the visitor comes to see in Balkh is chiefly the melting walls of the old city, enclosing a vast field of rubble and wreckage; it is a place of memories rather than monuments. But for those who savor the melancholy pleasure of ruins, there is no more evocative site between Xian and Trebizond.

Greco-Buddhism, sometimes spelled Graeco-Buddhism, refers to the cultural syncretism between Hellenistic culture and Buddhism, which developed between the 4th century BCE and the 5th century CE in the Indian sub-continent, especially in modern Afghanistan, Pakistan and north-western border regions of modern India. It was a cultural consequence of a long chain of interactions begun by Greek forays into India from the time of Alexander the Great, carried further by the establishment of Indo-Greek rule in the area for some centuries, and extended during flourishing of the Hellenized empire of the Kushans.Greco-Buddhism influenced the artistic, and perhaps the spiritual development of Buddhism, particularly Mahayana Buddhism

Following Alexander's death on June 10, 323 BCE, the Diadochoi (successors) founded their own kingdoms in Asia Minor and Central Asia. General Seleucus set up the Seleucid Kingdom, which extended as far as India. Later, the Eastern part of the Seleucid Kingdom broke away to form the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom (3rd–2nd century BCE), followed by the Indo-Greek Kingdom (2nd–1st century BCE), and later the Kushan Empire (1st–3rd century CE). The interaction of Greek and Buddhist cultures operated over several centuries until it ended in the 5th century CE with the invasions of the White Huns, and later the expansion of Islam.

Under the reign of King Ashoka of the Indian Maurya dynasty (324-187 BCE), Buddhism was helped to spread throughout the surrounding region. After his only conquest of Kalinga, Ashoka was so full of sorrow and remorse that he resolved to refrain from violence, took the vows of an upsaka (lay Buddha) and dedicated the rest of his life to helping spread Buddhism to distant parts of his Kingdom. A great number of Buddhist missionaries were sent to spread the teachings of Buddha, and rock edicts set up by Ashoka state that he sent some to his North-West territories....In 1958, edicts inscribed on rock pillars promulgating the ethical standards of Buddhist teaching were discovered in Qandahar, Afghanistan and in 1962 a long inscription entirely in Greek (later identified as parts of Ashokas edicts) was found in the surrounding area. During the first century Balkh was famous throughout the region for its Buddhist temples and the Greek scholar Alexander Polyhistor mentions Buddhism's relationship with Iran and refers to Balkh and its temples specifically. It is widely agreed that without Ashokas patronage of Buddhism, it would have remained another minor Hindu sect as opposed to the world religion it is today.

208 BC...The city was the capital of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and was besieged for three years by the Seleucid Empire (208-206 BC).

176 BC...Seven generations of kings after Suchandra, in 176 B.C.E., King Manjushri Yashas gathered the religious leaders of Shambhala, specifically the brahman wise men, to give them predictions and a warning. Eight hundred years in the future, namely in 624 C.E., a non-Indic religion will arise in Mecca. Because of a lack of unity among the brahmans?people and laxity in following correctly the injunctions of their Vedic scriptures, many will accept this religion when its leaders threaten an invasion. To prevent this danger, Manjushri Yashas united the people of Shambhala into a single "vajra-caste" by conferring upon them the Kalachakra empowerment. By his act, the king became the First Kalki ?the First Holder of the Caste.

-138-116 BC....... Zhang Qian (Chang Ch'ien). Chinese general and envoy credited with opening the Silk Road after his mission from the Han Emperor Wudi to recruit the Yueh-chih people to form an alliance against the Xiongnu. First trip (138-125) skirted the Taklamakan desert via the northern route, passed the Pamir, then reached Ferghana. Returned via the southern route. His second trip (119-115), a mission to seek alliance with Wu-sun people, took him to Dunhuang, Loulan, Kucha, then the capital of Wu-sun kingdom in the Ili river. His missions to the west led to the formalization of trade, especially the silk trade, between China and Persia.

129 BC....Bactria reappears with its annexation by the Kushans (129 B.C.E.), whose large and powerful empire stretched from Central Asia deep into India. This was a fortunate era, when the lands through which the caravan routes passed were divided among a few stable states which submerged their differences in the interests of trade; and Balkh flourished at the crossroads as a depot and trans-shipment point for the world’s luxuries. “ From the Roman Empire the caravans brought gold and silver vessels and wine; fom Central Asia and China rubies, furs, aromatic gums, drugs, raw silk and embroidered silks; from India spices, cosmetics, ivory and precious gems of infinite variety” (Dupree, p 71). With the merchants came monks preaching the new religion of Buddhism, and Balkh became a center of worship and learning, famous for its temples and monasteries.

Ancient Chinese sources do describe the existence of "white people with long hair" Very well preserved Tarim mummies with Europoid features (light hair and eyes) ...Museum and dated to the 3rd century BCE, were found at the ancient oasis on the Silk Road, Niya.....According to one theory, the Yuezhi were probably part of the large migration of Indo-European-speaking peoples who were settled in eastern Central Asia at that time. The nomadic people of the Ordos culture, who lived in northern China, east of the Yuezhi, are another example. Also, the Europoid mummies of Pazyryk, which were probably Scythian in origin, were found around 1,500 kilometers northwest of the Yuezhi and date to around the 3rd century BCE....From 130 BCE a nomadic people, the Yuezhi, started to invade Bactria from the north and we could assume that Heliocles was killed in battle during this invasion. Details from Chinese sources seem to indicate that the nomad invasion did not end civilisation in Bactria entirely. Hellenised cities continued to exist for some time, and the well-organised agricultural systems were not demolished. Even if this was the end of the original Greco-Bactrian kingdom, the Greeks continued to rule in northwestern India to the end of the 1st century BCE, under the Indo-Greek Kingdom.

According to Chinese textbooks Buddhism was spread by Parsi monks including An Shi Kao, An Huvan, Te Al and Fagin. Buddhism was influenced by mysticism and Manichaeism in Iran and before conversion to Islam the Barmakians who were one of the biggest family of scholars and statesmen in Iran followed that religion.

1 BC.......Indo-Greek Kingdom, Hermaios, c. 40 - 1 B.C.....Hermaios was the last Indo-Greek king of Bactria. With his defeat by the Kushan ruler Kujala Kadphises, the isolated Greek area in India, which had lasted three centuries, came to an end. Some biblical scholars believe he was one of the three kings to visit the baby Jesus....Scythian kingdom of Chorasmia, centered at Balkh. This scarce coin features a stylized portait of Hermaios on the obverse and a horse on the reverse.

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….December 2012

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