The human settlement in the Inner Syrdarya delta in the second half of the 1st millennium BCE is characterised by walled sites of large sizes, containing different funerary structures like barrows, mud-bricks square mausolea and deep shaft-graves, fortified citadels and a huge number of small-sized rural sites located along natural and artificial rivers, palaeo-rivers and canals. The material culture associated to these sites attests evidences of the Achaemenid presence. Besides of the fine, wheel-made pottery production, witnessed by bowls and plates, jars and canteens of different sizes and functions, always found in association with steppe-like ceramic of rough manufacture, it must be mentioned also the presence of square-shaped bricks (about 42×42×8-10 centimetres), from Sengir Tam, with fingers imprints on their surfaces in the form of crosses, double-crosses and single lines. The most important artefacts so far collected, witnessing the Achaemenid presence, are represented by the fragments of two large vessels, alabastra, in gypsum characterised by the same Old Greek inscription on their shoulder, and by a complete canteen characterised by an Aramaic inscription on its body.

The present contribution examines some recent archaeological discoveries in order to bring some elements towards the identification of the Achaemenid occupation period in the Central Asian provinces of the empire. It comes back on the chronology of the Middle and Late Iron Age, aiming to clarify the sometimes improper use of the label “Achaemenid” in Central Asia. To do so, we present the results of some recent work on the Yaz II-III pottery assemblage, in correlation with stratigraphic excavations, leading to the identification of some typo-morphological criteria allowing identifying the Late Iron Age/”Achaemenid” levels. A reassessment of the recent excavations shows a territorial reorganization before the arrival of the Achaemenids, since the Middle Iron Age. While the religious architecture shows evidence of a continuous evolution since the beginning of the Iron Age, the buildings properly attributed to the Achaemenid occupation period are limited to some fortified constructions (Cheshme-Shafa, Kyzyl Tepa, Bactrian circular sites). Altogether, these data reflect the appearance of some socio-political entities since the Middle Iron Age, which evolve by their own under the Persian Achaemenid control, whose traces are visible through the military control over the territory.

The article is dealing with a new archaeological project carried on by UNO, in the frame of a more ample activity leaded by the University of Bologna, in agreement with the Institute of Archaeology of Academy of Sciences of Samarkand and related to the Achaemenid archaeological horizon in Central Asia. Any archaeological perspective related to the Achaemenids in the area should be preliminarily inserted in the very scarce, though complicated historical framework given and left by the ancient sources dealing with the region and the related peoples. Sogdiana was populated by a people speaking and writing in an eastern Iranian language: the Sogdian. According to the Greek and Roman authors, the region was located between the territories comprised by two rivers, the Oxus (Amu Darya) and Iaxartes (Syr Darya), and the southern border was running along the Zeravshan mountain range. It is not clear, however, whether the Sogdians populated all the lands which Greek and Roman authors attribute to the region.

Ancient Chorasmia was one of the “nations” considered by the Achaemenids under their sway. The polity appears in all the Persian records regarding the extent of the empire as well as among the depictions of the “nations” represented as throne-bearers on the royal tombs of Naqsh-i Rustam and Persepolis. There, we find the Chorasmian representative in Sakā attire and equipped with an akinakes. The archaeological data relative to Ancient Chorasmia seem to confirm the important although scant sources about a Persian influence on the area since the 6th century BC, when a new material culture emerges in a dramatic contrast with the local cultural substrata. This paper has the aim to present the Chorasmian Iron Age in the light of the new evidence provided by the excavations of the Karakalpak-Australian Expedition (KAE) on the background of the works of the former Soviet Khorezm Expedition (KhAEE). The archaeological evidence recovered from the royal site of Akchakhan-kala underlines the importance of the Achaemenid impact and of its heritage in Ancient Chorasmia up to the end of the 1st millennium BC. Religion, iconography, language and other aspects of the Chorasmian material culture show evident signs of continuity and development in this sedentary outpost toward the steppes at the north-eastern border of the Achaemenid empire.