The Lesser-Known Ancient Civilization Which You Have Probably Never Heard Of
There was a fifth river civilization along with Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China
In 1979, just before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, a struggling archaeologist made a spectacular find. He found huge piles of gold in the graves of nomads in Northern Afghanistan.
The burials were over four thousand years old, dating from the second and third millennia B.C.
It would be a watershed moment for the archaeologist, Viktor Sarianidi, whose tireless efforts for three decades have helped us to know about a fifth river civilization of the Ancient world.
This incredible yet lesser-known civilization is called the Oxus Civilization. It was referred to as the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex(BMAC) in the former Soviet Union.
The name of the civilization comes from the river Oxus, which is also known as the Amu Darya. It flows through Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Northern Afghanistan. The ancient Greeks named the region along the Oxus river “Bactria.”
Who were the mysterious people who built this long-forgotten civilization? What was their culture like? How did they influence the world? What caused their downfall? Let us…
