Samangan lies north of the Hindu Kush, in the hill country between the plains of Balkh and the central mountains. Its capital, Aybak — today often simply called Samangan — sits in the valley of the Khulm River, on the road between Kabul and Mazar-e Sharif, about 120 km from Mazar and 312 km from Kabul. The name is an old one: the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang recorded it around 630 CE, and in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh Samangan is the home of Tahmina, the princess who married the hero Rostam and bore him a son, Sohrab.
Hills, valleys and farming
More than half of the province is mountainous and only about an eighth is flat land, with the highest ranges rising south-west of the capital. Rolling hills, green valleys and small rivers shape village life. Much of the farming depends on rain: families grow wheat, rice and cotton, along with pistachios, watermelons, grapes, onions and other vegetables, and keep sheep, goats, cattle and horses. Carpet-making is an important household craft.
Takht-e Rostam
About two kilometres south-east of Aybak stands Takht-e Rostam, the “Throne of Rostam”. Despite its epic name, it is a Buddhist monastery of roughly the fourth to fifth centuries CE: a group of rock-cut caves beside a stupa carved directly out of the limestone. Encyclopaedia Iranica describes it as unique in Afghanistan, comparable only to rock-cut sites in India, and its name ties this Buddhist sanctuary to the hero of the Persian epic.
Caves older than history
The hills north of Aybak hold some of Afghanistan’s earliest archaeology. The rock shelter of Qara Kamar, about 23 km north of the town, was the first Palaeolithic site excavated in the country, and one of its layers has been dated to about 32,000 years ago. Closer in, about 16 km north of Aybak, the Hazar Sum (“thousand caves”) valley holds more than 200 multi-roomed cave dwellings, many with painted designs and carvings, which seem to have flourished as a caravan station in the Kushan centuries.
The smoke-blackened roof of Qara Kamar, whose name means “black belt”, records the campfires of generations of nomads. At Hazar Sum, decline seems to have followed the waning of Kushan power from the third century; the caves may have seen another period of use in the early Islamic centuries, between the seventh and the thirteenth, before they were left mostly to passing herders.
Samangan’s people are mostly Tajiks and Uzbeks, with Pashtuns, Hazaras, Tatars, Turkmen and a small Arab community. Dari, Uzbek and Turkmen are all spoken.