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.
In the second century BC, western Central Asia was fought over by the Hsiung-Nu and the Han, both tribal groups who had migrated west from China. They were nomadic peoples whose economies were based on cattle-herding and supplemented by the agricultural produce of the settled oasis states scattered across Central Asia. After the establishment of a Han kingdom, new military and political structures were established, not only to control the region, but also to protect the valuable Silk Routes that ran across it.
The emergence of the vast Kushan Empire from the first century AD until its decline in the third century saw the political unification of much of Central Asia, from modern day India and Pakistan to the Iranian borders. It was a conglomeration of many different ethnic groups, languages and belief systems, ruled by the Kushan Emperor and administrated by a combination of central and regional governments.
Greek rulers became involved in the power struggle for Central Asia from the mid-third century BC. There remain few written records from this time, but archaeological excavations have revealed a fascinating legacy of Hellenistic artistic culture in Central Asia from this era. Sites such as Taxila were ancient centers of international cultural exchange from the times of the earliest Greek conquests, when the great east-west trade routes were controlled by the Greeks.
The northern Asian steppe lands continued to support pastoral nomadic tribes long after other communities had settled into agricultural sedentary groups on the southern lowlands. Artificial irrigation and the development of agricultural techniques were essential in this process, and once societies became settled, they began to turn to other occupations such as mining and manufacture. In this way, towns and cities emerged in north-western Central Asia by the start of the Christian Era.
The Parthian Empire (also known as the Arsacid Empire) emerged from the mid-third century BC, and lasted until 224 AD. Positioned on the routes between the Roman Empire and the Chinese Han Empire, Parthia was a strategically important area for all trade between east and west, and indeed produced commerce itself to be traded, especially carpets and artisanal textiles. Political instability in the empire however sometimes hindered the progress of cultural and economic development, as well as deterring traders from crossing the region.
