Chach

Rouran epoch Göktürk epoch Uyghur epoch Kirghiz epoch

Rouran First Göktürk Tang rule Second Göktürk Uyghur Kirghiz Huns Western Göktürk Türgesh Karluk Khazar

Rouran 400–554
First Göktürk 552–630
Tang rule 630–682
Second Göktürk 682–744
Uyghur 744–840
Kirghiz 840–924
Huns 370–469
Western Göktürk 552–659
Türgesh 699–766
Karluk 766–800
Khazar 650–969

Chach is the oasis of Tashkent. It is formed by the valleys of the Chirchik and the Angren on the right bank of the middle Syr Darya, on the western piedmont of the Tianshan. It was a densely settled zone of contact between nomads and farmers, with cities of long standing. The great site of Kanka, of a hundred and fifty hectares, was its chief city until the eighth century. The Göktürks took it with Sogdiana in the Hephthalite war. The campaign is told in the Hephthalite article.

In the Sogdian sphere

In the sixth and seventh centuries Chach entered the Sogdian cultural sphere. Coins of Chach are found in number at Panjikent, and Sogdian coins are found at Chach. The many small lords of the oasis struck coins with legends entirely in Sogdian and the Sogdian title xwb, lord. A single very rare type bears the Göktürk title tudun. Their iconography mixes Sogdian and Göktürk features. The aristocratic residences were built and decorated after Sogdian models. The villages off the roads kept an older culture. The Chinese of the seventh century took the merchants of Chach for Sogdians like any others. The oasis was politically fragmented. A numerous and sogdianised aristocracy dominated it. No site here played the part Samarkand played on the Zarafshan. The largest, Mingurik, covered thirty-five hectares. Downstream at Otrar the Göktürk empire set the tudun in charge of Chach. This went together with the new canal irrigation of the sixth century and the growth of towns that followed.^[1] Xuanzang counted Chach within Sogdiana.

Archaeology

South of Kanka, beneath a Karakhanid caravanserai, excavators have reported a building of the same plan from the Sogdian period. The excavation is not advanced enough to rely on.^[1] Northern Sogdiana bred camels. The Chinese captured large numbers of them in their raid on Chach in 751. The roads from Samarkand to Chach and to Ferghana parted at Zaamin. A great enclosure of a hundred metres a side served travellers there in the seventh century.