Issue 8 of Steppe includes a number of articles of special interest, notably Thomas Loy’s account of the Yaghnob valley, accompanied by 16 pages of stunning photography by Helen Bodian. Situated in a concealed valley between the Hisar and Zarafshan mountain ranges about 60 km north of Dushanbe in Tajikistan, the Yaghnobi people have survived with their own language which is closely related to the pre-Islamic Iranian language Sogdian. In the early 70s, however, the entire population was forcibly resettled in the plains to work on cotton plantations. A comparatively …

Volume 19 of the Bulletin of the Asia Institute is dedicated to P.O. Skjaervø, Aga Khan Professor of Iranian  at Harvard University, and author of numerous works on the languages, history and religions of Central Asia and Iran. This volume contains 28 articles by a team of international scholars and is edited by Carol Altman Bromberg with Nicholas and Ursula Sims-Williams. Contents Carol Altman Bromberg, Introduction Ursula Sims-Williams, Prods Oktor Skjærvø Duan Qing, “Mulberry” in Khotanese: A New Khotanese Loan Deed in the Hetian Museum Yaakov Elman, The Other in …