Joheki de kakomareta seiiki- Afuganisutan no syukyoteki zokei ni mirareru Ima shinwa 城壁で囲まれた聖域－アフガニスタンの宗教的造形に現れるイマ神話－(Walled Sacred Spaces -The Myth of Yima in the Religious Imagery of Pre-Islamic Afghanistan). Trans. Izumi Ueeda上枝いづみ (con testo originale inglese autenticato dagli editori)

Walls bearing strong symbolic values rather than serving a mere defensive role represent a quite common occurrence in Iranian/Central-Asian monumental architecture. Fortress-like temples as well as miniature replicas of walls in ritual objects and ostotheques, which are known from various times and places, bear witness to a persistent tradition that strongly affects the concept and physical layout of sacred spaces. The sources of inspiration for a symbolic or decorative use of military architectural features, and the reasons for adopting them, may vary according to circumstances. Especially during the Kushan period, under the umbrella of vaster geopolitical ties, Central Asian models and techniques entered the circuit of a wide cultural koiné that expanded their original semantic field and integrated them into new religious and artistic concepts. This is the case with the ‘fortress-like temple’, which, also thanks to propitious coincidences with a pan-Indian religious imagery, merged into a permanent, widespread vocabulary of visual forms. In particular, a symbolic use of military architectural features can be detected in archaeological settings and iconographic patterns of present-day Afghanistan. In particular, the paper examines two enigmatic and apparently distant monuments, namely the temple of Surkh Kotal (ancient Bactria, Northern Afghanistan) and a small Buddhist sacred area at Tapa Sardar (Ghazni, central-eastern Afghanistan), and their link to the Iranian myth of Yima and the related notions of kingship and safe enclosure.