There are two archaeological monuments on the western outskirts of Ashgabat, almost at the foot of one of the ridges of the Kopetdag, where the village of Bagyr once existed. These monuments are inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List under the name of Parthian Fortresses of Nisa. Its steep massifs rise above the modern rural settlement that has overlapped the cultural layer of the ancient city. They are now commonly known as Old and New Nisa. Both names are very conventional but well-recognized. They were coined by the well-known enthusiast of antiquities, General Alexander Komarov, who headed the colonial administration of Transcaspia in the eighties of the XIX century. In fact, New Nisa is much older than Old Nisa. These two citadels are completely different. They have different histories, and they were united by a city that stretched for one and a half kilometers between the walls of the two once impregnable fortresses.
The name of this city has been preserved since ancient times. The toponym Nisa (with the stress on the last vowel) or Nusay in Turkmen is found in the oldest cuneiform texts and the Zoroastrian Avesta, which mentions Nisaya, through which the Aryan tribes advanced, and its green pastures, where horses were bred and whose fame reached China. However, the true meaning of this word is not known. This was the conclusion reached by academician Mikhail Masson in his time, who published a detailed analysis of it and pointed to the wide spread of this toponym from Egypt to India. But even after Masson, scientists continued to speculate about the origin or, scientifically speaking, the etymology of Nusay-Nisa.
For example, the Turkmen philologist Mamednazar Khydyrov believed that this was the result of compounding the Old Persian “nu” (“nine”) and the Old Turkic “sai” (“dry riverbed”, “ravine”, “stream in a ravine”). There were many such combinations in the bilingual Turkic-Persian environment of this region. If we understand Nusay as “Nine Sais”, then this fully corresponds to the landscape in the area of the two Nisa fortresses. There is presently only one rather full-flowing river, the Kara-Su, enveloping the Old Nisa, but the springs in the upper part of Bagyr have not dried up yet. By the way, this toponym also has its explanation. According to the same Professor Khydyrov, it is made of two Turkmen words: bag (garden) and gyr (hill). According to the phonetic laws of the Turkmen language, the two letters “g”, when next to each other, merge into one. Therefore, Bagyr is literally “Garden on a Hill”. And indeed, this ancient village, towering over the entire neighborhood, was buried in gardens.
But no matter how attractive toponymy may be, it is primarily archeology that can truly uncover the secrets of history. “Only the earth, if you touch its bowels, can give an answer as to what exactly was here and in what era,” Prince Esper Ukhtomsky wrote, who visited Nisa in 1889. “The walls tower high above the ditches approaching them. There are no buildings left. Everything is dead, motionless, silent... I crawled for a long time over their enormous ruins and collected many shards of various patterned pottery, giving some idea of the life of the townspeople.” He was also perhaps the first to suggest that “it is not here that we should look for traces of the tombs of the Parthian dynasty, which the Greeks pointed out in the city of Nisaea.” Only 60 years after the visit of the Russian prince, an archaeological expedition led by Mikhail Masson found the remains of a necropolis of the Parthian nobility in New Nisa. It was partially excavated on the north-eastern slope of the settlement, where even earlier, in 1936, archaeologist Alexander Marushchenko discovered a section of a mud wall covered with red polished plaster with decorative black semi-columns crowned with capitals in the form of terracotta tiles with images of Ionic volutes. It was apparently a memorial temple erected in the III–II centuries BC right next to the fortress wall, near the burial chambers. Its graphic reconstruction, made by architect Galina Pugachenkova, seems quite convincing.
By that time, historians already knew in general terms how and why New Nisa emerged. A Persian legend associated the creation of this fortress with Vishtaspa that was mentioned by the governor of Parthia, the father of the Achaemenid king Darius I, in the famous Behistun inscription. And although there is still no reliable archaeological evidence to confirm this dating, there does exist one accidental and very expressive find from New Nisa in the piggy bank of evidence of its existence in the Achaemenid era. This is a small fragment of a terracotta product with a relief “portrait” of a bearded guard with a spear and bow that was found in a deep gully that formed on the edge of the settlement after heavy rain in the summer of 2015. The finding is completely unprecedented. To date, this is the only image of a Persian guard from the 5th century BC discovered so far from Persepolis, the ceremonial capital of the Achaemenids. And this discovery is so sensational that many scientists still doubt its authenticity, although they have no serious counterarguments.
In the 4th century BC, the Achaemenid Empire fell under the blows of the Greco-Macedonian armies. Under the Seleucids, the successors of Alexander the Great, independent states were formed in Central Asia. The most notable successes were achieved by the Parthian state of the Arshakids, which by the I century AD had become a formidable rival of Rome. It was a huge empire, which at its zenith stretched from the Mediterranean to northwestern India. And its cradle, its original core, was located in Parthava, the historical region of the Parthians, which is divided into two parts by the Kopetdag mountain range. It roughly corresponds to the territory of modern Akhal province in Turkmenistan and the northern regions of the Iranian province of Khorasan. It was there, not earlier than 247 BC, that the tribe of Aparni (or Parni), having become a large union of steppe nomads, led by their leader Arshak, captured Parthava. The Greek governor of this Seleucid satrapy was killed, and Arshak declared himself king of independent Parthia.
At about the same time, the city of Parthaunisa was revived as the administrative and economic center of the Arshakid dynasty. It corresponds to the ancient settlement of New Nisa, surrounded by a fortress wall with a well-fortified citadel in its southern corner. And further south, on the outskirts of the suburb, there arose a royal fortress, now called Old Nisa. Thanks to written documents found there during excavations, the former name of this fortress was accurately established – Mithridatkirt. Its foundation is attributed to King Mithridates I, who ruled in 171–139 BC, although it is possible that it was named in his honor later. The suburb of Parthaunisa was surrounded by a 7-kilometer-long clay wall, and the entire district with adjacent villages was also surrounded by a ring of walls.
The excavations of New Nisa continued intermittently for 73 years and yielded a wealth of priceless finds. These messages from the depths of centuries shed light on sometimes unexpected details of the history and culture of ancient Parthia. For example, according to Russian archaeologist Viktor Pilipko, the main researcher of New Nisa in recent decades, even during the excavations of 1936 Alexander Marushchenko noted two small fragments of a terracotta slab with the remains of some relief images. Due to the small size of the fragments, it was difficult to determine what exactly was depicted on them.
Ten years later, Mikhail Masson’s team found two more fragments there. The larger of them was of particular interest. It clearly shows a relief figure of a warrior with a round shield, looking out from behind some rectangular massif. At first, they decided that this was an image of a fortress wall or a tower on which defenders were standing. But the insightful Maria Vyazmitina, an experienced archaeologist who led those excavations, saw “ankh” on one of the fragments – a special device with which a drover controlled an elephant. So, this fragment does not show a fortress tower at all, but a basket of a war elephant. Her guess was confirmed quite recently, when Viktor Pilipko, who was working in the same area, found three other fragments of the same slab. They show the massive front legs of an elephant, a part of a blanket hanging from its back, and a fragment of a head in profile with an eye, trunk and tusk. The puzzle pieces came together. It became obvious that it was nothing else than a representative of the ancient elephanteria.
But the life of Nisa was not limited to the Parthian era. Unlike Mithridatkirt, where the ruins of the ancient era lay almost uncovered by later layers, New Nisa existed as a city citadel for many centuries after the fall of the Arshakid state. In 651, Nisa became part of the Arab Caliphate, and from that time on an era began in its history that was closely connected with the spread of Islam. Already in the IX–X centuries, there were all the signs of prosperity, according to travellers and geographers of that time. One of them, al-Muqaddasi, noted: “Nisa is a large, healthy and beautiful city, abundant in water and the benefits of life. It has trees intertwining with each other, and their fruits are beautiful. The cathedral mosque is graceful, the bread is pure, the bazaar is arranged in rows, valuable and rare things can be found there. They have one language and constantly low prices, they have literature and genealogy, courage and inaccessibility to enemies.” The city also experienced intensive growth in the XI–XII centuries, when it was under the Great Seljuks.
The shahristan of medieval Nisa with an area of 28 hectares grew up on the almost abandoned territory of the Parthian city. Arab geographers and travelers noted 10 streets, which corresponded to 10 gates. The walled rabad also had 10 gates. Only stone and brick foundations and fragments of walls of residential and public buildings remained of the densely built-up city. A bathhouse of the XII century with colorful ornamental frescoes stands out among them. As is known, in Muslim countries bathhouses were the most visited public places after the mosque, so special attention was paid to their architectural and artistic design.
A festive mosque-namazga dated the XI century stood on the mountainside outside the city. Twice a year – during the main Muslim holidays of Eid al-Adha and Oraza Bairam – mass prayers were held on the vast square in front of the mosque. The walls of the namazga were built of natural stone, the vaulted ceilings – of baked brick. Nisa also had Sufi monasteries – khanaka – and many mausoleums of saints associated with the traditions and beliefs of Turkmens. Nisa was even called “Little Syria” because of the number of such holy places. Little has survived from them, but one of the most valuable in artistic terms is the early 15th century mausoleum inside the mausoleum at the Baba Alimes necropolis, just three hundred meters from the walls of Nisa. Made of black stone, it is completely covered with exquisite carvings with ornaments and Arabic epitaph.
The city continued to develop until 1220, when Nisa, like other large cities of Central Asia, suffered a general catastrophe – a multi-day siege and destruction by the troops of Genghis Khan. This city is associated with one of the heroic episodes of the people’s resistance to the invaders led by the last Khorezmshah, Jelaleddin Menkburnu. In 1221, he defeated the Mongols at the walls of Nisa, but this was only a temporary victory. Four years later, the entire country was already under Mongol rule. One legendary episode in the history of Jelaleddin’s desperate struggle with Genghis Khan is depicted on a Turkmen book miniature of the 16th century. Finding himself in a dense ring of enemies on the banks of the Indus, he threw himself off the cliff into the river on horseback, swam across it, threatened the Mongols from the other bank with his sword and disappeared. His personal secretary and biographer Shihab ad-Din an-Nesevi was the most famous native of Nisa, whose work, translated into Russian and English, is one of the main sources on the history of the Mongol invasion.
Life in Nisa continued under the Mongols. The city healed its wounds in order to be reborn again. The power in the city changed hands many times, from one dynasty and leaders to another. The claims of the monarchs of neighboring despotisms were contested by free Turkmen tribes. Little remains from those harsh times. For example, the State Museum of Turkmenistan displays a very rare find from New Nisa, a part of a medieval fortune-telling circle made from the valve of a large seashell. Its mother-of-pearl inner side is completely covered with Arabic text in several rows, and the middle side features numbers placed in a “magic square”.
The same museum features many other remarkable finds from this settlement like, for example, tiles of the so-called Kashan type from the cladding of some unknown building in the form of eight-pointed stars and four-pointed crosses of the late XIII century. One of these stars depicts a young man sitting by a pond, the other shows an old man with a flower in his hand. Persian verses in the genre of love lyrics are inscribed along the contours of the stars. Even more fragments of various architectural decor are still found in New Nisa. These include glazed tiles of bright blue-green tones, and unglazed terracotta, which decorated the facades and interiors of long-vanished buildings. Numerous art items made of metal and ceramic dishes are also impressive. Among the latter, Chinese porcelain with a blue ornament on a white background and its local imitations are notable.
For several centuries, periods of peace and stability were so often followed by fierce internecine wars for the possession of Nisa, its fertile environs and pastures that they gradually undermined the foundations of urban life – economic and cultural. So, at the turn of the XVIII–XIX centuries, New Nisa was finally abandoned, and Old Nisa was abandoned much earlier. Around that time, the Turkmen village of Bagyr grew up to the east of the ruins of both fortresses.