The Turks were a nomadic people from Mongolia, who established an empire on the borders of three of the great settled civilizations of the medieval world, namely, the Chinese

The Turks were a nomadic people from Mongolia, who established an empire on the borders of three of the great settled civilizations of the medieval world, namely, the Chinese

The two greatest powers in Central Asia in the early centuries of the Common Era were the Kushan and the Sasanian Empires, both of which dominated the macro-region and left a broad artistic and cultural legacy. The Kushan Empire was highly developed from the first to the third centuries AD, from which point Sasanid rulers in Iran started to extend their power, at the expense of the Kushans’ eastern border.

The fourth century saw the rise of the Kidarite tribe in Central Asia, a nomadic people ruled by their king, Kidara, after whom the tribe was named by contemporary writers. The kingdom did not last long, and there are few coins that attest to Kidarite government, but we have interesting documentary evidence that depicts the conquest of large areas of India and Pakistan by this tribe.   

The Hephthalites dominated Central Asia from the mid-fifth to the mid-sixth centuries, with a powerful army that apparently intimidated the Sasanian troops again whom they fought. They also had political ambition, sending ambassadors to the Chinese Emperor and gradually creating their own complex state from the lands they had conquered in western Asia and northern India. Their power was finally undermined by Turkish invasions from the north. 

The Gupta kingdom in India arose out of the ruins of the Kushan Empire, which had been in decline since the third century AD. Originally of obscure origins, this dynasty emerged in eastern India, and ultimately strove to unite the whole of India as one kingdom, a goal that was seriously challenged by invasions by tribes from the north. Nonetheless, art, architecture, literature and science all made great advances in this period, until the disintegration of Gupta power in the mid-sixth century.

From the mid-seventh century, Muslim Arab armies from Saudi Arabia began to travel north into Central Asia and west across Africa, invading the countries they passed. The Sasanian Empire, exhausted from many years of war with the Romans, was spectacularly defeated and Iran and Iraq were soon conquered. By the 680s, the Arab armies were able to continue into Tranoxania, and were eventually to reach as far as the borders of China, beginning a new era of Islamic rule over much of Central Asia.    

Sogdian merchants were essential components in the functioning of the Silk Route. From its earliest days, merchants from the region of Sughd, near Samarkand, had been involved in the transport of goods across the area and far beyond it. It became a highly advanced country in its own right between the third and eighth centuries AD, under the name of Sogdiana, and there is considerable evidence, in both the artistic legacy and the coinage of this region, that the culture of this kingdom was enriched by the foreign travels of many of its citizens.

The region of Khwarizm, in modern day Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, endured a turbulent period of change between the third and eighth centuries AD. The fall of the Kushan Empire left it exposed to political struggles, namely, rule by the Hephthalites and their subsequent conflicts with the Sasanians, until the area was conquered by Islamic Arab armies in the late seventh century. Its society and culture thus developed throughout this period in response to outside invasions and frequent social change.

The powerful Kushan Empire came to an end in the third century AD as a result of invasions by other tribal groups, and its collapse left western Central Asia in turmoil, as other powers competed to fill the vacuum.  New systems of administration and government were brought in by a variety of new rulers, and excavations of cities such as Taxila reveal that this was a time of unrest, during which trade and agriculture were disrupted.