Balkh ProvinceBalkh (Dari: , Balx) is one of the 34 provinces of Afghanistan, located in the north of the country. It is divided into 15 districts and has a population of about 1,509,183, which is multi-ethnic and mostly a Persian-speaking society. The city of Mazar-i-Sharif serves as the capital of the province. The Mazar-i-Sharif International Airport and Camp Marmal sit on the eastern edge of Mazar-i-Sharif. Balkh, also called Vazīrābād, the name of the province is derived from the ancient city of Balkh, near the modern town.
Alchon HunsThe Alchon Huns, (Bactrian: αλχον(ν)ο Alchon(n)o) also known as the Alchono, Alxon, Alkhon, Alkhan, Alakhana, and Walxon, were a nomadic people who established states in Central Asia and South Asia during the 4th and 6th centuries CE. They were first mentioned as being located in Paropamisus, and later expanded south-east, into the Punjab and Central India, as far as Eran and Kausambi. The Alchon invasion of the Indian subcontinent eradicated the Kidarite Huns who had preceded them by about a century, and contributed to the fall of the Gupta Empire, in a sense bringing an end to Classical India.
KunduzKunduz (kʊnduːz; ; original name: ) is a city in northern Afghanistan, the capital of Kunduz Province. The city has an estimated population of about 268,893 as of 2015, making it about the 7th-largest city of Afghanistan, and the largest city in northeastern Afghanistan. Kunduz is in the historical Tokharistan region of Bactria, near the confluence of the Kunduz River with the Khanabad River. Kunduz is linked by highways with Kabul to the south, Mazar-i-Sharif to the west, and Badakhshan to the east.
SabuktiginAbu Mansur Nasir al-Din Sabuktigin (ابو منصور سبکتگین) ( 942 – August 997), also spelled as Sabuktagin, Sabuktakin, Sebüktegin and Sebük Tigin, was the founder of the Ghaznavid dynasty, ruling from 367 A.H/977 A.D to 387 A.H/997 A.D. In Turkic the name means beloved prince. Sabuktigin lived as a slave during his youth and later married the daughter of his master Alptigin, the man who seized the region of Ghazna (modern Ghazni Province in Afghanistan).
Buddhas of BamiyanThe Buddhas of Bamiyan (or Bamyan) were two 6th-century monumental statues carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley of central Afghanistan, northwest of Kabul at an elevation of . Carbon dating of the structural components of the Buddhas has determined that the smaller "Eastern Buddha" was built around 570 CE, and the larger "Western Buddha" was built around 618 CE, which would date both to the time when the Hephthalites ruled the region.
HephthalitesThe Hephthalites (ηβοδαλο), sometimes called the White Huns (also known as the White Hunas, in Iranian as the Spet Xyon and in Sanskrit as the Sveta-huna), were a people who lived in Central Asia during the 5th to 8th centuries CE. They formed an empire, the Imperial Hephthalites, and were militarily important from 450 CE, when they defeated the Kidarites, to 560 CE, when combined forces from the First Turkic Khaganate and the Sasanian Empire defeated them.
Tocharian languagesThe Tocharian (sometimes Tokharian) languages (təˈkɛəriən or təˈkɑːriən), also known as Arśi-Kuči, Agnean-Kuchean or Kuchean-Agnean, are an extinct branch of the Indo-European language family spoken by inhabitants of the Tarim Basin, the Tocharians. The languages are known from manuscripts dating from the 5th to the 8th century AD, which were found in oasis cities on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (now part of Xinjiang in Northwest China) and the Lop Desert.
Bactrian languageBactrian (Bactrian: Αριαο, , [arjaː], meaning "Iranian") is an extinct Eastern Iranian language formerly spoken in the Central Asian region of Bactria (in present-day Afghanistan) and used as the official language of the Kushan and the Hephthalite empires. It was long thought that Avestan represented "Old Bactrian", but this notion had "rightly fallen into discredit by the end of the 19th century". Bactrian, which was written predominantly in an alphabet based on the Greek script, was known natively as αριαο [arjaː] ("Arya"; an endonym common amongst Indo-Iranian peoples).
TochariansThe Tocharians, or Tokharians (US: toʊ'kɛəriən or toʊ'kɑːriən; UK: tɒ'kɑːriən), were speakers of Tocharian languages, Indo-European languages known from around 7,600 documents from around 400 to 1200 AD, found on the northern edge of the Tarim Basin (modern-day Xinjiang, China). The name "Tocharian" was given to these languages in the early 20th century by scholars who identified their speakers with a people known in ancient Greek sources as the Tókharoi (Latin Tochari), who inhabited Bactria from the 2nd century BC.
Loulan KingdomLoulan, also called Krorän or Kroraina ( < Eastern Han Chinese lo-lɑn < Old Chinese rô-rân; Kroran, USY: Кроран), was an ancient kingdom based around an important oasis city along the Silk Road already known in the 2nd century BCE on the northeastern edge of the Lop Desert. The term Loulan is the Chinese transcription of the native name Krorän and is used to refer to the city near Lop Nur as well as the kingdom.
