Abstrakt
Results of archaeological research focused on the Kushan period in Bactria and neighbouring regions bear witness to rapid growth in population, construction of sophisticated irrigation and water-bringing systems, as well as founding or enlargement of both older towns and rural settlements. The process of urbanization on unprecedented scale required not only a high degree of organization skills of the elites and society hierarchy allowing for the management of all these undertakings, but also an inevitable tool to do that: unified measurement units.
The Kushans, being themselves of nomad Yuezhi origin, did not have traditional measuring unit system, thus were forced to adopt one of the existing ones. While doing so, they became surprisingly consistent in their application.
New units were introduced and gradually implemented in architecture and urbanisation. Last but not least, the settlement pattern of the Kushan Bactria seems to be also deeply influenced by systematic employment of the measurement units.
In this paper, I attempt to resolve the above described problem using primarily archaeological sources.