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Following a defeat in 162 BC by the Xiongnu ( Huns), the Yuezhi fled from the Tarim Basin towards the west, crossed the neighbouring urban civilization of the Ta-Yuan in Ferghana, and settled north of the Oxus in modern-day Kazakhstan and UzbekistanThe Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia. It has borders with Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Ozbekiston Respublikasi ( In detail) National motto: none Official language Uzbek Capital Tash. They displaced the SakaSaka is also the name of a town in Hiroshima, Japan; for information on this town, see Saka, Hiroshima. The Sakas or Saka race was a group of people who lived in present day Uzbekistan around 3000 BC. These Sakas followed the Aryan race into present day I Scythians who lived there previously, before being driven out by the WusunWusun information about this historic people can be found in Chinese historical annals. Geography Originally, the Wusun people lived near the Yue-zhi people, probably in the region of the eastern Tien Shan Mts. Later they moved to the Ili valley and the I in 132 BCCenturies: 3rd century BC 2nd century BC 1st century BC Decades: 180s BC 170s BC 160s BC 150s BC 140s BC 130s BC 120s BC 110s BC 100s BC 90s BC 80s BC Years: 137 BC 136 BC 135 BC 134 BC 133 BC 132 BC 131 BC 130 BC 129 BC 128 BC 127 BC Events The First Ser.
Coin of Yuezhi prince SapadbizesSapadbizes (or Sapalbizes), who reigned around 20BC-1BC, is one of the first identified kings of the northern Indo-European Yuezhi tribes, that had invaded the Greco-Bactrian kingdom in the region of Bactria (modern-day northern Afghanistan) from around 1 (c. 20 BCCenturies: 2nd century BC 1st century BC 1st century Decades: 70s BC 60s BC 50s BC 40s BC 30s BC 20s BC 10s BC 0s 10s 20s 30s Years: 25 BC 24 BC 23 BC 22 BC 21 BC 20 BC 19 BC 18 BC 17 BC 16 BC 15 BC Births Gaius Caesar, grandson of Augustus Caesar Deaths)
The Yuezhi then fled to the region of BactriaBactria (Bactriana) was the ancient Greek name of the country between the range of the Hindu Kush ( Caucasus Indicus) and the Amu Darya (Oxus), with the capital Bactra (now Balkh). To the east, it was bordered by the ancient region of Gandhara in the Indi in modern-day Afghanistan, which had been conquered first by the Greeks under Alexander the Great in 330 BC, and had then been settled by the Greek dynasties of the Seleucids and the Greco-Bactrians for the two centuries ever since. The last Greco-Bactrian king Heliocles I retreated and moved his capital to the Kabul valley. The eastern part of Bactria was occupied by Pashtun people.
As they settled in Bactria from around 125 BC, the Yuezhi became Hellenized to some degree, as suggested by their adoption of the Greek alphabet and by some remaining coins, minted in the style of the Greco-Bactrian kings, with the text in Greek.