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CHAPTER III

THE INDO-IRANIAN FRONTIER

EVIDENCE for the story of the eastern frontier of Parthia is scanty, for events there were too remote to interest western historians and archaeological work in eastern Iran has hardly begun. Indian history, which might supplement our inadequate information from the west, helps but little, since, in spite of considerable evidence both literary and archaeological in character and years of study by excellent scholars, the chronology of the period remains still uncertain. Fortunately the accounts of Chinese travelers and historians are fairly complete and accurate, and they possess the additional advantage that events mentioned can be accurately dated. From them, more than from any other source, we can obtain a few clues to the still uncertain question of the Indo-Scythian kingdoms.[1]

In the period between 174 and 165 b.c.[2] a tribe

  1. Little new evidence has been uncovered in the past twenty years, and most of the articles go back to common sources. The bibliography in this chapter is not complete; additional titles will be found in the works cited and in the Annual Bibliography of Indian Archaeology (Leyden, 1928—).
  2. J. Klaproth, Tableaux historiques de l'Asie depuis la monarchie de Cyrus jusqu'à nos jours (Paris, 1826), p. 132; S. K. Shiratori, "Ueber den Wu-sun-Stamm in Centralasien," Keleti Szemle, III (1902), 115 f.;

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