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107-671: Balkh is a town in the Balkh Province of Afghanistan . It is located approximately 20 kilometres (12 mi) to the northwest of the provincial capital city Mazar-i-Sharif and approximately 74 kilometres (46 mi) to the south of the Amu Darya and the Afghanistan–Uzbekistan border . In 2021–2022, the National Statistics and Information Authority reported that the town had 138,594 residents. Listed as

214-453: A malaria outbreak during the flood season, Balkh lost its administrative status to the neighbouring city of Mazar-i-Sharif ( Mazār-e Šarīf ), about 20 kilometres (12 mi) southeast of Balkh. In 1911 Balkh comprised a settlement of about 500 houses of Afghan settlers, a colony of Jews and a small bazaar set in the midst of a waste of ruins and acres of debris. Entering by the west ( Akcha ) gate, one passed under three arches, in which

321-543: A pitch accent . In Modern Greek, all vowels and consonants are short. Many vowels and diphthongs once pronounced distinctly are pronounced as /i/ ( iotacism ). Some of the stops and glides in diphthongs have become fricatives , and the pitch accent has changed to a stress accent . Many of the changes took place in the Koine Greek period. The writing system of Modern Greek, however, does not reflect all pronunciation changes. The examples below represent Attic Greek in

428-408: A border with Uzbekistan. Balkh Province is situated in the northern part of Afghanistan, bordering Turkmenistan in the north-west, bordering Uzbekistan in the north, Tajikistan in the north-east, Kunduz Province in the east, Samangan Province in the south-east, Sar-e Pol Province in the south-west and Jowzjan Province in the west. The province covers an area of 16,840 km2. Nearly half of

535-613: A firm hold over lands beyond the Oxus for the Arabs. He fought and killed Tarkhan Nizak in Tokharistan (Bactria) in 715. In the wake of Arab conquest, the resident monks of the Vihara were either killed or forced to abandon their faith. The Viharas were razed to the ground. Priceless treasures in the form of manuscripts in the libraries of monasteries were consigned to ashes. Presently, only

642-477: A lack of contemporaneous evidence. Several theories exist about what Hellenic dialect groups may have existed between the divergence of early Greek-like speech from the common Proto-Indo-European language and the Classical period. They have the same general outline but differ in some of the detail. The only attested dialect from this period is Mycenaean Greek , but its relationship to the historical dialects and

749-567: A large number of stupas and other religious monuments. Xuanzang also remarked that Buddhism was widely practiced by the Hunnish rulers of Balkh, who were descended from Indian royal stock. During the 8th century, the Korean monk and traveler Hyecho (704–787 CE) recorded that even after the Arab invasion, the residents of Balkh continued to practice Buddhism and followed a Buddhist king. He noted that

856-419: A lesser degree. Pamphylian Greek , spoken in a small area on the southwestern coast of Anatolia and little preserved in inscriptions, may be either a fifth major dialect group, or it is Mycenaean Greek overlaid by Doric, with a non-Greek native influence. Regarding the speech of the ancient Macedonians diverse theories have been put forward, but the epigraphic activity and the archaeological discoveries in

963-563: A part of various historical regions in history including Ariana and Greater Khorasan . The province serves today as Afghanistan 's second but main gateway to Central Asia , the other being Sherkhan Bandar in the Kunduz Province . Balkh Province borders Jowzjan , Sar-e Pol , Samangan and Kunduz provinces, and the Surxondaryo Region of Uzbekistan to the north; making it the only province of Afghanistan to share

1070-550: A prefix /e-/, called the augment . This was probably originally a separate word, meaning something like "then", added because tenses in PIE had primarily aspectual meaning. The augment is added to the indicative of the aorist, imperfect, and pluperfect, but not to any of the other forms of the aorist (no other forms of the imperfect and pluperfect exist). The two kinds of augment in Greek are syllabic and quantitative. The syllabic augment

1177-608: A separate historical stage, though its earliest form closely resembles Attic Greek , and its latest form approaches Medieval Greek . There were several regional dialects of Ancient Greek; Attic Greek developed into Koine. Ancient Greek was a pluricentric language , divided into many dialects. The main dialect groups are Attic and Ionic , Aeolic , Arcadocypriot , and Doric , many of them with several subdivisions. Some dialects are found in standardized literary forms in literature , while others are attested only in inscriptions. There are also several historical forms. Homeric Greek

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1284-529: A skilled birth attendant increased from 0% in 2005 to 20% in 2011. In 2018 Dr.Khalilullah Hekmati was appointed the Public Health Director which was followed by positive changes in the Health sector. The overall literacy rate (6+ years of age) increased from 12% in 2005 to 23% in 2011. The overall net enrolment rate (6–13 years of age) increased from 22% in 2005 to 46% in 2011. As of 2020,

1391-630: A standard subject of study in educational institutions of the Western world since the Renaissance . This article primarily contains information about the Epic and Classical periods of the language, which are the best-attested periods and considered most typical of Ancient Greek. From the Hellenistic period ( c.  300 BC ), Ancient Greek was followed by Koine Greek , which is regarded as

1498-473: A term for part of the city was Zariaspa ( Ancient Greek : Ζαρίασπα), which may derive from the important Zoroastrian fire temple Azar-i-Asp or from a Median name * Ζaryāspa- meaning "having gold-coloured horses". The nickname of Balkh is "the Mother of All Cities". Balkh was earlier considered to be the first city to which the ancient Iranic peoples moved from north of the Amu Darya (also known as

1605-736: A vassal of the Seljuks. The next year, he marched against rebellious Oghuz Turks from Khuttal and Tukharistan . But he was defeated twice and was captured after a second battle in Merv. The Oghuzs looted Khorasan after their victory. Balkh was nominally ruled by Mahmud Khan, the former khan of Western Karakhanids, but the real power was held by Muayyid al-Din Ay Aba, amir of Nishabur for three years. Sanjar finally escaped from captivity and returned to Merv through Termez . He died in 1157 and control of Balkh passed to Mahmud Khan until his death in 1162. It

1712-510: A vowel or /n s r/ ; final stops were lost, as in γάλα "milk", compared with γάλακτος "of milk" (genitive). Ancient Greek of the classical period also differed in both the inventory and distribution of original PIE phonemes due to numerous sound changes, notably the following: The pronunciation of Ancient Greek was very different from that of Modern Greek . Ancient Greek had long and short vowels ; many diphthongs ; double and single consonants; voiced, voiceless, and aspirated stops ; and

1819-399: A woman known only as the khatun (lady) of Davud, from 848 appointed governor of Balkh, had taken over from him with "particular responsibility for the city and people" while he was busy building himself an elaborate pleasure palace called Nawshǎd (New Joy). In 1220 Genghis Khan sacked Balkh, butchered its inhabitants and levelled all the buildings capable of defence – treatment to which it

1926-570: Is a literary form of Archaic Greek (derived primarily from Ionic and Aeolic) used in the epic poems , the Iliad and the Odyssey , and in later poems by other authors. Homeric Greek had significant differences in grammar and pronunciation from Classical Attic and other Classical-era dialects. The origins, early form and development of the Hellenic language family are not well understood because of

2033-418: Is added to stems beginning with consonants, and simply prefixes e (stems beginning with r , however, add er ). The quantitative augment is added to stems beginning with vowels, and involves lengthening the vowel: Some verbs augment irregularly; the most common variation is e → ei . The irregularity can be explained diachronically by the loss of s between vowels, or that of the letter w , which affected

2140-520: Is also a popular sport in the province. However, the most popular presently and for the last 50 years has been football , this was evident in the Balkh team Simorgh Alborz F.C. finishing runners up in the inaugural Afghan Premier League and in their contributions to the National Team. Ancient Greek Ancient Greek ( Ἑλληνῐκή , Hellēnikḗ ; [hellɛːnikɛ́ː] ) includes

2247-666: Is called 'East Greek'. Arcadocypriot apparently descended more closely from the Mycenaean Greek of the Bronze Age. Boeotian Greek had come under a strong Northwest Greek influence, and can in some respects be considered a transitional dialect, as exemplified in the poems of the Boeotian poet Pindar who wrote in Doric with a small Aeolic admixture. Thessalian likewise had come under Northwest Greek influence, though to

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2354-419: Is completely dilapidated and uninhabited, but anyone seeing it would think it to be inhabited because of the solidity of its construction (for it was a vast and important city), and its mosques and colleges preserve their outward appearance even now, with the inscriptions on their buildings incised with lapis-blue paints." It was not reconstructed until 1338. It was captured by Tamerlane in 1389 and its citadel

2461-448: Is considered by some linguists to have been closely related to Greek . Among Indo-European branches with living descendants, Greek is often argued to have the closest genetic ties with Armenian (see also Graeco-Armenian ) and Indo-Iranian languages (see Graeco-Aryan ). Ancient Greek differs from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) and other Indo-European languages in certain ways. In phonotactics , ancient Greek words could end only in

2568-412: Is found in the writings of the geographer Ibn Hawqal , an Arab traveler of the 10th century, who describes Balkh as built of clay, with ramparts and six gates, and extending for half a parasang . He also mentions a castle and a mosque. A large number of Sanskrit medical, pharmacological, and toxicological texts were translated into Arabic under the patronage of Khalid, the vizier of Al-Mansur. Khalid

2675-687: Is located at the north of the site and is oval in shape, having an area of around 1,500 by 1,000 m2 (c. 150 hectares) and to the south is the lower town. Another mound of the site, known as Tepe Zargaran, and the Northern Fortification Wall of Balkh, were occupied at a large extension in Achaemenid times ( Yaz III period, c. 540-330 BC). Since the Iranic people built one of their first kingdoms in Balkh, some scholars believe that it

2782-410: Is one of Afghanistan's ethnically diverse settlements, Tajiks account for a substantial portion of Balkh's populace and have continuously inhabited the site for millennia. The main language of the town is Dari , which is spoken by a significant majority. Balkh's surrounding region is particularly known for its archeological sites, which attest the presence of many different civilizations that influenced

2889-413: Is part of Bactria. Balkh is well known to Buddhists as the hometown of Trapusa and Bahalika , two merchants who, according to scripture, became Buddha 's first disciples. They were the first to offer Buddha food after he attained enlightenment, and in return Buddha gave them eight of his hairs to remember him by. According to some accounts, Trapusa and Bahalika returned to Balkh, and built two stupas in

2996-541: Is today Iran and into the north-western Indian Subcontinent (modern day Pakistan and India ) around 2500–2000 BCE. Later, it became the northern province of the Achaemenid Empire . It was in these regions, where the fertile soil of the mountainous country is surrounded by the Turanian desert, that the prophet Zoroaster (Zarathushtra) was said to have been born and gained his first adherents. Avestan ,

3103-456: Is written in the Avesta as Bāxδi ( Avestan : 𐬠𐬁𐬑𐬜𐬌‎ ) . From this came the intermediate form Bāxli , Sanskrit Bahlīka (also Balhika ) for "Bactrian", and by transposition the modern Persian Balx , i.e. Balkh , and Armenian Bahl . This same root entered the Greek language as Baktra ( Ancient Greek : Βάκτρα), often written in the form Bactra . An earlier name for Balkh or

3210-515: The Nava Vihara described by the Chinese traveller Xuanzang . There are the remains of many other topes (or stupas ) in the neighbourhood. The mounds of ruins on the road to Mazar-e Sharif probably represent the site of a city yet older than those on which stands the modern Balkh. Numerous places of interest are to be seen today aside from the ancient ruins and fortifications: The museum

3317-722: The Abbasids (next Sunni Caliphate dynasty) during the Abbasid Revolution . The city remained in Abbasid hands until 861 , when it was taken in 870 by the Saffarids captured it. In 870, Ya'qub ibn al-Layth al-Saffar rebelled against Abbasid rule and founded the Saffarid dynasty at Sistan . He captured present Afghanistan and most of present Iran . His successor Amr ibn al-Layth , tried to capture Transoxiana from

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3424-759: The Greek region of Macedonia during the last decades has brought to light documents, among which the first texts written in Macedonian , such as the Pella curse tablet , as Hatzopoulos and other scholars note. Based on the conclusions drawn by several studies and findings such as Pella curse tablet , Emilio Crespo and other scholars suggest that ancient Macedonian was a Northwest Doric dialect , which shares isoglosses with its neighboring Thessalian dialects spoken in northeastern Thessaly . Some have also suggested an Aeolic Greek classification. The Lesbian dialect

3531-733: The Kingdom of Israel during the Assyrian captivity . This account is discussed in the works of the Egyptian historian Al-Maqrizi , who wrote that the arrival and establishment of the Jews in Balkh had occurred in light of Sennacherib's campaign in the Levant . Additionally, a number of geographers from the Arab world attested the existence of a monument called Bāb al-Yahūd ( lit.   ' Gate of

3638-698: The Maimana Khanate . In 1751, Balkh was captured by Ahmad Shah Durrani of the Durrani Empire . The area of Balkh was governed by the Uzbek Qataghan dynasty, with its capital in Khulm , for the majority of the early nineteenth century, and only nominally acknowledged Kabul's suzerainty. During this time, the Qataghan dynasty also competed with Bukhara in interdynastic conflicts throughout

3745-593: The Proto-Indo-European root * bhag- 'to divide' (whence also Avestan bag- and Old Indic bháj- ). The Bactrian language name of the city was βαχλο, i.e. Bakhlo . In Middle Persian texts , it was named Baxl, i.e. Bakhl ( Middle Persian : 𐭡𐭠𐭧𐭫 ). The name of the province or country also appears in the Old Persian inscriptions (B.h.i 16; Dar Pers e.16; Nr. a.23) as Bāxtri , i.e. Bakhtri ( Old Persian : 𐎲𐎠𐎧𐎫𐎼𐎡𐏁 ). It

3852-865: The Qush Tepa Canal is completed, which "will irrigate 500,000 hectares of land in Balkh, Jawzjan and Faryab provinces." This will significantly increase Balkh's economy and population as many Afghans from other parts of the country will move to the province for employment purposes. On October 5, 2018, in Washington, D.C. , Afghan officials signed a 30-year contract involving a $ 56 million investment by investment group Centar and its operating company Afghan Gold and Minerals Co. for exploration of an area covering 500 square km for copper, with development of mining due to begin thereafter. The percentage of households with clean drinking water increased from 8% in 2005 to 15% in 2011. The percentage of births attended by

3959-493: The Romans (190 BCE). The Greco-Bactrians were so powerful that they were able to expand their territory as far as India: The Greco-Bactrians used Greek language for administrative purposes, and the local Bactrian language was also Hellenized, as suggested by its adoption of the Greek alphabet and Greek loanwords. In turn, some of these words were also borrowed by modern Pashto , the language of Afghanistan. The weakness of

4066-672: The Samanids , who were nominally vassals of Abbasids, but he was defeated and captured by Ismail Samani at Battle of Balkh in 900. He was sent to the Abbasid Caliph as a prisoner and was executed in 902. The power of Saffarids was diminished and they became vassals of the Samanids. Thus Balkh now passed to them. Samanid rule in Balkh lasted until 997, when their former subordinates, the Ghaznavids , captured it. In 1006, Balkh

4173-501: The Second Anglo-Afghan War : "a considerable colony of Jews, who have a separate quarter of the village to themselves, and appeared, so far as we could judge, to be fair-looking men with most unmistakably Jewish features ." Hiwi al-Balkhi , a 9th-century exegete and Bible critic , was born in Balkh and is widely believed to have been a Bukharan Jew , at least by ethnicity , as some scholars have asserted that he

4280-602: The eighth largest settlement in the country , unofficial 2024 estimates set its population at around 114,883 people. Historically, the site of present-day Balkh was held in considerably high regard due to its religious and political significance in Ariana . A hub of Zoroastrianism and Buddhism , the ancient city was also known to the Persians as Zariaspa and to the Greeks as Bactra , giving its name to Bactria . As such, it

4387-501: The present , future , and imperfect are imperfective in aspect; the aorist , present perfect , pluperfect and future perfect are perfective in aspect. Most tenses display all four moods and three voices, although there is no future subjunctive or imperative. Also, there is no imperfect subjunctive, optative or imperative. The infinitives and participles correspond to the finite combinations of tense, aspect, and voice. The indicative of past tenses adds (conceptually, at least)

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4494-586: The 11th century, when Jews were forced to maintain a garden for Mahmud of Ghazni and pay a minority tax of 500 dirhams . According to Jewish oral history , under Timur of the Timurid Empire , the Jews of Balkh were given a gated city quarter of their own to live in. There was still a substantial Jewish community in Balkh as late as 1885, as attested by the British administrator Charles Yate following

4601-486: The 1640s. Nevertheless, Balkh was ruled by the Mughal Empire from 1641 and turned into a subah (imperial top-level province) in 1646 by Shah Jahan , only to be lost in 1647, just like the neighboring Badakhshan Subah . Balkh was the government seat of Aurangzeb in his youth. In 1736 it was conquered by Nader Shah . After his assassination, local Uzbek Hadji Khan declared the independence of Balkh in 1747, under

4708-1031: The 5th century BC. Ancient pronunciation cannot be reconstructed with certainty, but Greek from the period is well documented, and there is little disagreement among linguists as to the general nature of the sounds that the letters represent. /oː/ raised to [uː] , probably by the 4th century BC. Greek, like all of the older Indo-European languages , is highly inflected. It is highly archaic in its preservation of Proto-Indo-European forms. In ancient Greek, nouns (including proper nouns) have five cases ( nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , and vocative ), three genders ( masculine , feminine , and neuter ), and three numbers (singular, dual , and plural ). Verbs have four moods ( indicative , imperative , subjunctive , and optative ) and three voices (active, middle, and passive ), as well as three persons (first, second, and third) and various other forms. Verbs are conjugated through seven combinations of tenses and aspect (generally simply called "tenses"):

4815-495: The Archaic period of ancient Greek (see Homeric Greek for more details): Μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος οὐλομένην, ἣ μυρί' Ἀχαιοῖς ἄλγε' ἔθηκε, πολλὰς δ' ἰφθίμους ψυχὰς Ἄϊδι προΐαψεν ἡρώων, αὐτοὺς δὲ ἑλώρια τεῦχε κύνεσσιν οἰωνοῖσί τε πᾶσι· Διὸς δ' ἐτελείετο βουλή· ἐξ οὗ δὴ τὰ πρῶτα διαστήτην ἐρίσαντε Ἀτρεΐδης τε ἄναξ ἀνδρῶν καὶ δῖος Ἀχιλλεύς. The beginning of Apology by Plato exemplifies Attic Greek from

4922-512: The Caliphate of Uthman , 644–656 AD). Attracted by the grandeur and wealth of Balkh, they attacked it in 645 AD. It was only in 653 when Arab commander al-Ahnaf raided the town again and compelled it to pay tribute. The Arab hold over the town, however, remained tenuous. The area was brought under Arab control only after it was reconquered by Muawiya in 663 AD. Prof. Upasak describes the effect of this conquest in these words: "The Arabs plundered

5029-557: The Chinese Emperor Wu Di was informed of the level of sophistication of the urban civilizations of Ferghana , Bactria and Parthia , and became interested in developing commercial relationship with them: These contacts immediately led to the dispatch of multiple embassies from the Chinese, which helped to develop the Silk Road . As of January 2022, clashes between Taliban and guerrilla bands have been reported in

5136-667: The Greco-Bactrian kingdom, it was ruled by Indo-Scythians , Parthians , Indo-Parthians , Kushan Empire , Indo-Sassanids , Kidarites , Hephthalite Empire and Sassanid Persians before the arrival of the Arabs . Bactrian documents - in the Bactrian language , written from the fourth to eighth centuries - consistently evoke the name of local deities, such as Kamird and Wakhsh, for example, as witnesses to contracts. The documents come from an area between Balkh and Bamiyan , which

5243-720: The Greco-Bactrians was shown by its sudden and complete overthrow, first by the Sakas , and then by the Yuezhi (who later became known as Kushans ), who had conquered Bactria by the time of the visit of the Chinese envoy Zhang Qian (circa 127 BCE), who had been sent by the Han emperor to investigate lands to the west of China. Under the Sassanids the province would become part of the area known as Khorasan . Kujula Kadphises ,

5350-629: The Guishuang xihou (or prince) of the Da Yuezhi, united the region in the early 1st century and laid the foundations for the powerful, but short-lived, Kushan Empire (1st to 3rd century CE), which was then overcome by the Sassanians from Persia. The name Daxia appears in Chinese from the 3rd century BCE to designate a mythical kingdom to the West, possibly a consequence of the first contacts with

5457-598: The Jews ' ) and a settlement called al- Yahūdiyya at the site of Balkh. Some Muslims believe that the Israelite prophet Jeremiah fled to Balkh during the Babylonian captivity and that the Israelite prophet Ezekiel was buried there, though Jews revere Ezekiel's Tomb in modern-day Iraq as the site of his final resting place. Balkh's Jewish community was further noted in the Ghaznavid Empire during

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5564-459: The Oxus in Greek), between 2000 and 1500 BC. However it was only recently that archaeological remains before 500 BC were found by French archaeologists led by Johanna Lhullier and Julio Bendezu-Sarmiento in the section called Bala Hissar, which is the citadel of the site. They dated this first settlement to the Early Iron Age ( Yaz I period, c.  1500 -1000 BC) continuing until pre-Achaemenid times ( Yaz II period, c. 1000-540 BC). Bala Hissar

5671-414: The Seleucid kings had to fight and the attacks of Ptolemy II of Egypt gave Diodotus, satrap of Bactria , the opportunity to declare independence (about 255 BCE) and conquer Sogdiana . He was the founder of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom . Diodotus and his successors were able to maintain themselves against the attacks of the Seleucids—particularly from Antiochus III the Great , who was ultimately defeated by

5778-407: The Valley. Whatever it be, their Kashmiri origin is undoubted and this also explains the deep interest of the Barmaks, in later years, in Kashmir, for we know they were responsible for inviting several scholars and physicians from Kashmir to the Court of Abbasids." Prof. Maqbool also refers to the descriptions of Kashmir contained in the report prepared by the envoy of Yahya bin Barmak. He surmises that

5885-401: The ancient wall of the town, which once encircled it, stands partially. Nava-Vihara stands in ruins, near Takhta-i-Rustam. In 726, the Umayyad governor Asad ibn Abdallah al-Qasri rebuilt Balkh and installed in it an Arab garrison, while in his second governorship, a decade later, he transferred the provincial capital there. The Umayyad period lasted until 747, when Abu Muslim captured it for

5992-550: The aorist. Following Homer 's practice, the augment is sometimes not made in poetry , especially epic poetry. The augment sometimes substitutes for reduplication; see below. Almost all forms of the perfect, pluperfect, and future perfect reduplicate the initial syllable of the verb stem. (A few irregular forms of perfect do not reduplicate, whereas a handful of irregular aorists reduplicate.) The three types of reduplication are: Irregular duplication can be understood diachronically. For example, lambanō (root lab ) has

6099-542: The area. Only through the conquests of the Emirate of Kabul 's Dost Mohammad Khan in the 1850s (see also; Afghan Conquest of Balkh ), followed by those of Abdur Rahman Khan in 1888, did the region of "little Turkestan" to the south of the Amu Darya (also known as Oxus River) become a permanent part of Afghanistan. By 1885, Charles Yate reported that the city was "nothing but a vast ruin" and that there were no more than 500 houses, occupied mostly by "Afghan settlers" and with "very few Usbegs" (i.e. Uzbeks). In 1866, after

6206-419: The augment when it was word-initial. In verbs with a preposition as a prefix, the augment is placed not at the start of the word, but between the preposition and the original verb. For example, προσ(-)βάλλω (I attack) goes to προσ έ βαλoν in the aorist. However compound verbs consisting of a prefix that is not a preposition retain the augment at the start of the word: αὐτο(-)μολῶ goes to ηὐ τομόλησα in

6313-438: The center of Greek scholarship, this division of people and language is quite similar to the results of modern archaeological-linguistic investigation. One standard formulation for the dialects is: West vs. non-West Greek is the strongest-marked and earliest division, with non-West in subsets of Ionic-Attic (or Attic-Ionic) and Aeolic vs. Arcadocypriot, or Aeolic and Arcado-Cypriot vs. Ionic-Attic. Often non-West

6420-402: The compilers recognized the remnants of the former Jama Masjid ( Persian : جَامع مَسجد , romanized :  Jama‘ Masjid , Friday Mosque). The outer walls, mostly in utter disrepair, were estimated about 6.5–7 miles (10.5–11.3 km) in perimeter. In the south-east, they were set high on a mound or rampart, which indicated a Mongol origin to the compilers. The fort and citadel to

6527-563: The dialect of Sparta ), and Northern Peloponnesus Doric (including Corinthian ). All the groups were represented by colonies beyond Greece proper as well, and these colonies generally developed local characteristics, often under the influence of settlers or neighbors speaking different Greek dialects. After the conquests of Alexander the Great in the late 4th century BC, a new international dialect known as Koine or Common Greek developed, largely based on Attic Greek , but with influence from other dialects. This dialect slowly replaced most of

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6634-413: The envoy could have possibly visited Kashmir during the reign of Samgramapida II (797–801). Reference has been made to sages and arts. The Arabs managed to bring Balkh under their control only in 715 AD, in spite of strong resistance offered by the Balkh people during the Umayyad period. Qutayba ibn Muslim al-Bahili , an Arab General was Governor of Khurasan and the east from 705 to 715. He established

6741-406: The expansion of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom, and then is used by the explorer Zhang Qian in 126 BCE to designate Bactria. The reports of Zhang Qian were put in writing in the Shiji ("Records of the Grand Historian") by Sima Qian in the 1st century BCE. They describe an important urban civilization of about one million people, living in walled cities under small city kings or magistrates. Daxia

6848-422: The former madrasah ( Arabic : مَـدْرَسَـة , school). The town was garrisoned as of 1911 by a few thousand irregulars ( kasidars ), the regular troops of Afghan Turkestan being cantoned at Takhtapul , near Mazari Sharif. The gardens to the north-east contained a caravanserai that formed one side of a courtyard, which was shaded by a group of chenar trees Platanus orientalis . A project of modernization

6955-563: The forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek ( c.  1400–1200 BC ), Dark Ages ( c.  1200–800 BC ), the Archaic or Epic period ( c.  800–500 BC ), and the Classical period ( c.  500–300 BC ). Ancient Greek was the language of Homer and of fifth-century Athenian historians, playwrights, and philosophers . It has contributed many words to English vocabulary and has been

7062-506: The historical Dorians . The invasion is known to have displaced population to the later Attic-Ionic regions, who regarded themselves as descendants of the population displaced by or contending with the Dorians. The Greeks of this period believed there were three major divisions of all Greek people – Dorians, Aeolians, and Ionians (including Athenians), each with their own defining and distinctive dialects. Allowing for their oversight of Arcadian, an obscure mountain dialect, and Cypriot, far from

7169-424: The historical circumstances of the times imply that the overall groups already existed in some form. Scholars assume that major Ancient Greek period dialect groups developed not later than 1120 BC, at the time of the Dorian invasions —and that their first appearances as precise alphabetic writing began in the 8th century BC. The invasion would not be "Dorian" unless the invaders had some cultural relationship to

7276-446: The interior and four passages have been pierced below from the outside, which probably lead to them. The base of the building is constructed of sun-dried bricks about 60 cm (2.0 ft) square and 100 to 130 mm (3.9 to 5.1 in) thick. The Takht-e Rustam is wedge-shaped in plan with uneven sides. It is apparently built of pisé mud (i.e. mud mixed with straw and puddled). It is possible that in these ruins we may recognize

7383-453: The king of Balkh at the time had fled to nearby Badakshan . The most remarkable Buddhist monastery was the Nava Vihara ("New Temple"), which possessed a gigantic statue of Gautama Buddha . Located near the city of Balkh, it served as a pilgrimage centre for political leaders who came from far and wide to pay homage to it. Shortly before the Arab conquest , the monastery became a Zoroastrian fire-temple . A curious reference to this building

7490-399: The language of the oldest portions of the Zoroastrian Avesta , was one of the old Iranian languages , and is the oldest attested member of the Eastern Iranian branch of the Iranian language family. It is suggested by E. Herzfeld that Bactria once belonged to the Median empire . It was annexed by the Achaemenid Persians in the 6th century BCE and together with Margiana it formed

7597-429: The legendary Assyrian king Ninus had defeated a Bactrian king named Oxyartes in ca. 2140 BC, or some 1000 years before the Trojan War . Ever since the discovery of cuneiform enabled actual Assyrian records to be deciphered in the 19th century, however, historians have ascribed little value to the Greek account. According to some writers, Bactria was the homeland of Indo-European tribes who moved south-west into what

7704-510: The looting. On March 9, 2023, the Taliban appointed Governor of Balkh Mohammad Dawood Muzammil was killed in a bomb blast. The earlier Buddhist constructions have proved more durable than the Islamic buildings. The Top-Rustam is 46 m (50 yd) in diameter at the base and 27 m (30 yd) at the top, circular and about 15 m (49 ft) high. Four circular vaults are sunk in

7811-476: The monks residing there". The Arab attacks had little effect on the normal ecclesiastical life in the monasteries or Balkh Buddhist population outside. Buddhism continued to flourish with their monasteries as the centres of Buddhist learning and training. Scholars, monks and pilgrims from China, India and Korea continued to visit this place. Several revolts were made against the Arab rule in Balkh. The Arabs' control over Balkh did not last long as it soon came under

7918-587: The name of the province is derived from the ancient city of Balkh , near the modern town. The city of Mazar-e-Sharif has been an important stop on the trade routes from the Far East to the Middle East , the Mediterranean and Europe . Home to the famous blue mosque , it was once destroyed by Genghis Khan but later rebuilt by Timur . The city of Balkh and the area of Balkh Province were considered

8025-494: The north-east were built well above the town on a barren mound and were walled and moated. There was, however, little left of them but the remains of a few pillars. The Green Mosque ( Persian : مَسجد سَبز , romanized :  Masjid Sabz ), named for its green-tiled dome (see photograph top right corner) and said to be the tomb of the Khwaja Abu Nasr Parsa , had nothing but the arched entrance remaining of

8132-508: The older dialects, although the Doric dialect has survived in the Tsakonian language , which is spoken in the region of modern Sparta. Doric has also passed down its aorist terminations into most verbs of Demotic Greek . By about the 6th century AD, the Koine had slowly metamorphosed into Medieval Greek . Phrygian is an extinct Indo-European language of West and Central Anatolia , which

8239-538: The people of the Balkh. He was deposed and his son was placed in his position. Nazak Tarkhan is also said to have murdered not only the Chief Priest but also his sons. Only a young son was saved. He was taken by his mother to Kashmir where he was given training in medicine, astronomy and other sciences. Later they returned to Balkh. Prof. Maqbool Ahmed observes "One is tempted to think that the family originated from Kashmir, for in time of distress, they took refuge in

8346-487: The perfect stem eilēpha (not * lelēpha ) because it was originally slambanō , with perfect seslēpha , becoming eilēpha through compensatory lengthening. Reduplication is also visible in the present tense stems of certain verbs. These stems add a syllable consisting of the root's initial consonant followed by i . A nasal stop appears after the reduplication in some verbs. The earliest extant examples of ancient Greek writing ( c.  1450 BC ) are in

8453-440: The population of Balkh lives in rural districts while 34% lives in urban areas. Around 51% of the population is male and 49% is female. The major ethnic groups living in Balkh province are Tajiks and Pashtuns followed by Uzbek, Hazaras, Turkman, Arab and Baluch. Dari is spoken by about 50% of the population and 58% of the villages. The second most frequent language is Pashto, spoken by the majorities in 266 villages representing 27% of

8560-400: The population, followed by Turkmani (11.9%) and Uzbeki (10.7%). Balkh province is divided into 15 districts. The locals of Balkh take great pride in their sporting history and culture. Every Nowruz (Persian New Year), Balkh is the site of many sporting events. Buzkashi is a traditional horse riding sport of the region and is very popular in this province. Kurash or traditional wrestling

8667-402: The province On 9 March 2023, Daud Muzamil , the Taliban governor of Afghanistan's Balkh province was killed in a blast at his office. Like in other parts of Afghanistan, agriculture plays an important part of Balkh's economy. It is known for producing some of the sweetest melons and grapes . It is expected that the province will witness a major agriculture boost in the near future after

8774-465: The province is mountainous or semi-mountainous terrain (48.7%) while half of the area (50.2%) is made up of flat land. The Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC, also known as the "Oxus civilization") is the modern archaeological designation for a Bronze Age culture of Central Asia , dated to c.  2200 –1700 BCE, located in present-day Turkmenistan , northern Afghanistan, southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan , centered on

8881-478: The region in the early 5th century, and found Hinayana Buddhism prevalent in Shan Shan, Kucha , Kashgar , Osh, Udayana and Gandhara . Later, the Chinese monk Xuanzang (602–664 CE) visited Balkh in 630 CE, when it was a flourishing centre of Hinayana Buddhism. According to his memoirs, there were about a hundred Buddhist convents in the city or its vicinity at the time of his visit. There were 3,000 monks and

8988-475: The rule of a local prince, a zealous Buddhist called Nazak (or Nizak) Tarkhan. He expelled the Arabs from his territories in 670 or 671. He is said to have not only reprimanded the Chief Priest (Barmak) of Nava-Vihara but beheaded him for embracing Islam. As per another account, when Balkh was conquered by the Arabs, the head priest of the Nava-Vihara had gone to the capital and became a Muslim. This displeased

9095-830: The south, beyond the Oxus, he met strong resistance. After two years of war Bactria was occupied by the Macedonians, but Alexander never successfully subdued the people. After Alexander's death, the Macedonian Empire was eventually divided up between several generals in Alexander's army. Bactria became part of Seleucus I , the founder of the Seleucid Empire . "The famed Bactrian Empire of a thousand cities, wallowing in wealth (opulentissimum illud mille urbium Bactrianum imperium)" The many difficulties against which

9202-517: The syllabic script Linear B . Beginning in the 8th century BC, however, the Greek alphabet became standard, albeit with some variation among dialects. Early texts are written in boustrophedon style, but left-to-right became standard during the classic period. Modern editions of ancient Greek texts are usually written with accents and breathing marks , interword spacing , modern punctuation , and sometimes mixed case , but these were all introduced later. The beginning of Homer 's Iliad exemplifies

9309-556: The total population of the province is about 1,509,183, which is a multi-ethnic and mostly Persian-speaking (63% Tajik, 20% Hazara) society. According to the Naval Postgraduate School : Balkh is ethnically diverse, including substantial Tajik , Hazara , Pashtuns , Arab , Uzbek , Turkmen , and Sunni Hazara (Kawshi) communities. According to the World Food Program Around 66% of

9416-480: The town and killed the people indiscriminately. It is said that they raided the famous Buddhist shrine of Nava-Vihara , which the Arab historians call 'Nava Bahara' and describe it as one of the magnificent places, which comprised a range of 360 cells around the high stupas'. They plundered the gems and jewels that were studded on many images and stupas and took away the wealth accumulated in the Vihara but probably did no considerable harm to other monastic buildings or to

9523-478: The town's society in various eras. The Belgian-French explorer and spiritualist Alexandra David-Néel associated Balkh with Shambhala , a mythical kingdom that features prominently in ancient Tibetan Buddhism , and also offered the Persian Sham-i-Bala ( lit.   ' elevated candle ' ) as an etymology of its name. In a similar vein, the British author John G. Bennett , whose academic focus

9630-524: The twelfth satrapy of the Achaemenids. After Darius III of Persia was defeated by Alexander the Great and killed in the ensuing chaos, his murderer Bessus , the satrap of Bactria, tried to organize a national resistance based on his satrapie but was captured by other warlords and delivered to Alexander. He was then tortured and killed. Alexander the Great conquered Sogdiana and Persia. However, in

9737-601: The upper Amu Darya (Oxus), in area covering ancient Bactria . Its sites were discovered and named by the Soviet archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi (1976). Bactria was the Greek name for the area of Bakhlo (modern Balkh ), in what is now northern Afghanistan, and Margiana was the Greek name for the Persian satrapy of Margu , the capital of which was Merv , in today's Turkmenistan. The early Greek historian Ctesias c. 400 BCE (followed by Diodorus Siculus ) alleged that

9844-403: The way Buddha instructed. Balkh is therefore named after Bahalika, who is credited with introducing Buddhism to the city. This is reflected in literature, where the town has been called Balhika , Bahlika or Valhika . The first Buddhist monastery ( vihara ) at Balkh was built for Bahalika when he returned home after becoming a Buddhist monk. The Chinese pilgrim Faxian (337-422 CE) traveled to

9951-480: Was Aeolic. For example, fragments of the works of the poet Sappho from the island of Lesbos are in Aeolian. Most of the dialect sub-groups listed above had further subdivisions, generally equivalent to a city-state and its surrounding territory, or to an island. Doric notably had several intermediate divisions as well, into Island Doric (including Cretan Doric ), Southern Peloponnesus Doric (including Laconian ,

10058-533: Was a practicing gnostic Christian . At the time of the Islamic conquest of Persia in the 7th century, however, Balkh had provided an outpost of resistance and a safe haven for the Persian emperor Yazdegerd III who fled there from the armies of Umar . Later, in the 9th century, during the reign of Ya'qub bin Laith as-Saffar , Islam became firmly rooted in the local population. Arabs occupied Persia in 642 (during

10165-544: Was again subjected in the 14th century by Timur . Notwithstanding this, however, Marco Polo (probably referring to its past) could still describe it as "a noble city and a great seat of learning." For when Ibn Battuta visited Balkh around 1333 during the rule of the Kartids , who were Tadjik vassals of the Persia-based Mongol Ilkhanate until 1335, he described it as a city still in ruins: "It

10272-508: Was an affluent country with rich markets, trading in an incredible variety of objects, coming as far as Southern China. By the time Zhang Qian visited Daxia, there was no longer a major king, and the Bactrian were suzerains to the nomadic Yuezhi , who were settled to the north of their territory beyond the Oxus (Amu Darya). Overall Zhang Qian depicted a rather sophisticated but demoralized people who were afraid of war. Following these reports,

10379-714: Was captured by Karakhanids , but Ghaznavids recaptured it 1008. Finally, the Seljuks conquered Balkh in 1059. In 1115, it was occupied and looted by irregular Oghuz Turks . Between 1141 and 1142, Balkh was captured by Atsiz , Shah of Khwarezm , after the Seljuks were defeated by the Kara-Khitan Khanate at the Battle of Qatwan . Ahmad Sanjar decisively defeated a Ghurid army, commanded by Ala al-Din Husayn and he took him prisoner for two years before releasing him as

10486-635: Was captured by Khwarezmshahs in 1162, by the Kara Khitans in 1165, by the Ghurids in 1198 and again by Khwarezmshahs in 1206. Muhammad al-Idrisi , in the 12th century, speaks of its possessing a variety of educational establishments, and carrying on an active trade. There were several important commercial routes from the city, stretching as far east as India and China . The late 12th-century local chronicle The Merits of Balkh (Fada'il-i-Balkh) , by Abu Bakr Abdullah al-Wa'iz al-Balkhi , states that

10593-711: Was destroyed, but Shah Rukh , his successor, rebuilt the citadel in 1407. In 1506 Uzbeks entered Balkh under the command of Muhammad Shaybani . They were briefly expelled by the Safavids in 1510. Babur ruled Balkh between 1511 and 1512 as a vassal of the Persian Safavids . But he was defeated twice by the Khanate of Bukhara and was forced to retire to Kabul . Balkh was ruled by Bukhara except for Safavid rule between 1598 and 1601. The Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan fruitlessly fought them there for several years in

10700-473: Was famously known as the capital of Bactria or Tokharistan . The Italian explorer and writer Marco Polo described Balkh as "a noble city and a great seat of learning" prior to the Mongol conquests . Most of the town now consists of ruined buildings, situated some 12 kilometres (7.5 mi) from the right bank of the seasonally flowing Balkh River , at an elevation of about 365 metres (1,198 ft). While it

10807-585: Was formerly the second largest museum in the country, but its collection has suffered from looting in recent times. The museum is also known as the Museum of the Blue Mosque, from the building it shares with a religious library. As well as exhibits from the ancient ruins of Balkh, the collection includes works of Islamic art including a 13th-century Quran , and examples of Afghan decorative and folk art . Balkh Province Balkh, also called Vazīrābād,

10914-486: Was from this area that different waves of Iranic tribes spread to north-east Iran and Seistan region. The changing climate has led to desertification since antiquity, when the region was very fertile. Its foundation is mythically ascribed to Keyumars , the first king of the world in Persian legend ; and it is at least certain that, at a very early date, it was the rival of Ecbatana , Nineveh and Babylon . The city

11021-634: Was on the teachings of the Armenian-Greek mystic George Gurdjieff , speculated in his works that Shambhala may have been a Bactrian Sun temple called Shams-i-Balkh , taking note of the Afghan author and mystic Idries Shah as the source of this suggestion. Wilhelm Eilers proposed that the region was named after the Balkh River (in Greek transliteration Βάκτρος ) from underlying Bāxtri- , itself meaning 'she who divides', etymologically from

11128-539: Was the son of a chief priest of a Buddhist monastery. Some of the family were killed when the Arabs captured Balkh; others including Khalid survived by converting to Islam. They would later come to be known as the Barmakids of Baghdad. Sennacherib , who reigned over the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 705 to 681 BCE, is said to have forcibly transferred some Israelites to Balkh after dispossessing them from

11235-480: Was to be found here, a temple so rich it invited plunder. Alexander the Great married Roxana of Bactria after killing the king of Balkh in the 4th century BC, and brought the Greek culture and religion to the region. The city was one of the capitals of the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom and was besieged for three years by the Seleucid Empire under king Antiochus III the Great . After the demise of

11342-540: Was traditionally a center of Zoroastrianism . For a long time the city and country was the central seat of the dualistic Zoroastrian religion , the founder of which, Zoroaster, died within the walls according to the Persian poet Firdowsi . Armenian sources state that the Arsacid dynasty of the Parthian Empire established its capital in Balkh. There is a long-standing tradition that an ancient shrine of Anahita

11449-654: Was undertaken in 1934, in which eight streets were laid out, housing and bazaars built. Modern Balkh is a centre of the cotton industry, of the skins known commonly in the West as "Persian lamb" ( Karakul ), and for agricultural produce like almonds and melons. The site and the museum have suffered from looting and uncontrolled digging during the 1990s civil war . After the Taliban 's fall in 2001 some poor residents dug in an attempt to sell ancient treasures. The provisional Afghan government said in January 2002 that it had stopped

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