Sogdian art
Its apex was between the 5th and 9th centuries, and it consists of a rich body of pre-Muslim Central Asian visual arts.
Because the purpose of the Sogdians was to convey narrative, they would include only the essentials, setting the scene with lines, blocks of color, and a few landscape elements, creating an "easy-to-read two-dimensionality that helps advance the progress of the depicted tale.
"[1] Many Sogdian paintings were lost or destroyed in time, and the land was subject to invasions from Turks, Hepthalites, Arabs, and Mongols.
It is also thought that the narrative of the Iranian Shahnameh and the epic cycle of Rostam is mirrored in a series of murals ("Rustemiada", "Blue Hall") at Penjikent dating to the first half of the 8th century.
[1] There is a dramatic painting called the Mourning Scene, depicting women bending over the deceased and cutting their hair (and their visages) in sorrow.
However, they did not "represent their mercantile activities, a major source of their wealth, but instead chose to show their enjoyment of it, such as the scenes of banqueting at Panjikent.
[1] The Varakhsha paintings survived the Arab invasion, and some of them endured up to the time when the region became definitively under Muslim rule.
[1] The production of paintings stopped in 722 AD with the invasion of the Abbasid Caliphate, in the Muslim conquest of Transoxiana, and many works of art were damaged or destroyed at that time.
Lines, blocks of color, and a few landscape elements to set the scene create an easy-to-read two-dimensionality that helps advance the progress of the depicted tale."
This artifact, the Orlat Plaques, was found in the tomb of a nomad, and is considered a masterpiece of Sogdian art.
In it are "Hindu makaras, or combinations of land and sea beasts; Greco-Roman hippocamps, or fish-tailed horses; and human-headed anguipeds whose 'legs' are serpents.
Such marine imagery seems odd for landlocked Panjikent, but it may refer to an imported myth or a view of an alternate afterlife.
As per Mazdaism practice, the body of the deceased would be excarnated and the bones then placed in a container, the ossuary, which was then put into a naos.
"[5] There is a more complex composition that is the subject of a number of fragmented ossuaries spread from Bukhara to Samarkand, which date from the late 6th century to the early 8th.
[1] The Durman Tepe ossuary is of good quality, especially when compared to the work of later, less experienced artists who reused the moulds, and comes close to the original.
They convinced the Turks to send a delegation via northern routes, thus avoiding Sasanian territory, to Constantinople to reach a deal.
"[3] The Tang silversmiths would imitate the shape of the Sogdian artworks, and notable examples are two silver cups (now at the Freer Gallery of Art), a vessel similar to the fluted lion bowl, and a 6th-century wine service.
[3] The Sogdians traded in silk, and also other goods like Indian gemstones, horses from Ferghana Valley, furs from the northern steppes and musk from Tibet, beside the famous "golden peaches of Samarkand" in Chinese poetry.
The Sogdians were also "skilled artisans, making and selling luxurious objects—particularly metalwork and textiles—across the Asian steppe and into China.
There is a Sogdian-made silver cup decorated with goats and vegetation, made by a Sogdian craftsman belonging to a particular school of metalwork ("characterized by the ropelike border of the roundels that enclose each goat, the alternating leafy and half-palmettes, and the flat, ring-matted pattern on the neck") whose motif, which may have been picked to "please a Turkic patron," is a pair of grappling wrestlers, engraved on the thumb rest.
As early as in the 6th century, the Chinese started to adopt the Sogdian patterns, although, at this time, they still kept the traditional technique.
The renowned Chinese kesi, "an extremely fine silk tapestry woven on a small loom with a needle as a shuttle", was the result of this influence, and it reached its height during the Song dynasty.
[20] Although the original Sogdian melodies are now lost, there are a number of elements that can help to achieve a good understanding of the music they produced.
The Sogdian merchants traveled across Asia during at least most of the first millennium AD, bringing with them their instruments and musical style.
They were buried in tombs with stone beds and sarcophagi that, like Sogdian ossuaries and painting, depicted the pleasures of the material world and of the next life.
Sogdian funerary furniture found in China typically features religious, Buddhist and/or Zoroastrian themes, banquet/feasting, or processions and hunting.
[4] The Anyang funerary bed, acquired in parts by different museums, is decorated with musicians in the typical Sogdian attire and with a Buddhist scene including deities.
The reception halls would have included pilasters and the sculpture of an important divinity on the side immediate opposite to the entrance.
Two temples were built in Panjakent in the 5th century, dedicated to certain gods, in which a local form of paganism, strongly influenced by Zoroastrianism, was in use.
[30] At a time coinciding with the Hepthalite invasion (6th century) the walls of the city were demolished and the temple underwent changes.
