Chorasmia (satrapy)
Chorasmia (Old Persian Uvârazmiya) was a satrapy of the Achaemenid Empire in Persia. Chorasmia had become part of the Achaemenid Empire before 522 BCE, and it seems to have been ruled by the satrap of Parthia.
![](../I/m/Xerxes_I_tomb_Choresmian_soldier_circa_470_BCE.jpg)
There exists an archaeological site in Kalaly-gyr, modern Kazakhstan, in a rectangular area 1,000 x 600 m surrounded by a defensive wall 15 m thick, and an Achaemenid-style palace at its center, all of which were unfinished, suggesting the Persians' departure from Chorasmia shortly after the beginning of the 4th century BC. [1] By the time of the Persian king Darius III, it had already become an independent kingdom. Its king, Pharasmanes concluded a peace treaty with Alexander the Great in the Winter of 327/328.[2] Chorasmia approximately corresponds to the modern-day region of Khwarezm.
References
- Yuri Aleksandrovich Rapoport, “CHORASMIA: I. Archeology and Pre-Islamic History”, Encyclopædia Iranica, Vol. 5, p. 511-516, 1991, updated 2011. [Consulted 30 April 2019).
- Chorasmia, Livius.org, Articles on Ancient History, page dates from 1997, updated 2018. [Consulted new url 30/04/2019]