External Influences on the Formation of Central Asian Musical Culture in Antiquity

One of the earliest discoveries is the fragment of a clay canteen with a picture of a musician with an angle harp and a nobleman listening to him. It was discovered in the settlement of Koi-Krylgan-kala in the historical and cultural region of Khorezm (400 – 300 BC). The archaeological findings from ancient times confirm that there were three groups of instruments: strings, horns and percussion.

Certain musical forms (and middle-Asian instruments, in particular) were influenced by West Asian and Hellenistic cultures. When the Achaemenid king Cyrus conquered Central Asia in 539 BC, this territory (its southern region) became a part of the Achaemenid Empire for two centuries. This is probably when certain military musical instruments, such as large metal signal horns (karnays) and percussion, began to be used. In his Big Book of Music, al-Farabi wrote that Persian kings used karnays for military purposes. As for stringed instruments, the above-mentioned angle harp (according to its depiction on the archaeological objects of Central Asia) is also of west-Asian origin.

Greek musical instruments came to Central Asia in conjunction with the conquests of Alexander the Great (starting from 330 BC). From the visual art of Central Asia we know that they could play citterns, lyres, aulos, Pan flutes with several pipes, syrinx, salpinga and other Greek instruments. An impressive “collection” (more than 40 pieces) of fragments of Greek flutes (aulos) was discovered in the territory of modern Tajikistan during excavations of the Oks temple (existed until 300 – 400 AD) in the settlement of Takhti-Sangin. Although Greek instruments were not preserved in traditional Uzbek and Tajik music, it is possible that they were “assimilated” by instruments of a similar type (for example, double aulos and koshnay). 

The interaction of the Hellenistic and local musical culture, which has not been fully researched until our days, allows us to suggest that Greek music was mostly spread in regions with a concentrated Greek population. The music of the region therefore underwent significant changes caused by the dominant local culture surrounding it. This interaction gave birth to new mixed forms of musical art.

You can learn more about the topic in the book-album "The Musical Legacy of Uzbekistan in Collections of the Russian Federation" (Volume VI) from the series "Cultural legacy of Uzbekistan in the world collections". 

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