Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex

The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (or BMAC, also known as the Oxus civilization) is the modern archaeological name for a Bronze Age culture of Central Asia, dated to ca. 2300–1700 BCE. It was in present-day Turkmenistan, northern Afghanistan and northeastern Iran, southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan. Its sites were discovered and named by the Soviet archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi (1976). Bactria was the Greek name for the area of Bactra (modern Balkh), in what is now northern Afghanistan. Margiana was the Greek name for the Persian satrapy of Margu, in today's Turkmenistan.

The extent of the BMAC (after EIEC).

Sarianidi's excavations from the late 1970s onward found many buildings in many sites. Reports were mostly in Soviet journals, until the last years of the Soviet Union. The findings were unknown to the West until Sarianidi's work was translated in the 1990s.