Canals versus horses: political power in the oasis of Samarkand

At the heart of Central Asia, the Middle Zeravshan Valley and the city of Samarkand are crisscrossed by a complex system of canals derived from the Zeravshan river (Fig. 1). In agreement with the traditional theories proposed by soviet scholars and defended, in another context, by Wittfogel, it is usually assumed that a strong, long-term association exists between the management of this irrigation system and some form of centralized political power system. [image omitted]Figure 1. The Middle Zeravshan Valley (LANDSAT image), overlapped on a DEM showing the irrigated area (left). Simplified representation of the contemporary irrigation network (right). By adopting an integrated approach, we will examine an alternative history of the emergence and growth of Samarkand and the link between water management and socio-political power. In the first part we will focus on the archaeological evidence pertaining to the construction of the Dargom, the primary canal of Samarkand and suggest that it is not necessarily the result of a short-term (or fixed) master plan or linked to a strong central political power. In the second part we will consider the non-irrigated grasslands surrounding the oasis and show that the socio-political structures of the oasis cannot be understood without a more systemic approach. The paper is based on the results of an ongoing project to survey the Middle Zeravshan Valley systematically initiated by the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan in collaboration with various international teams (see acknowledgements).