New cake design
This article is about the geographic region. The Balochistan region is new cake design between three countries: Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. The name “Balochistan” is generally believed to derive from the name of the Baloch people.
Greeks called the land Gedrosia and its people Gedrosoi, terms of unknown origin. Nearly 5100 years ago, a multitude of tribes left their abodes in Central Asia and moved toward west, south, and southeast directions. These people were called Aryans and a section among them became known as Indo-Iranic tribes. Some of the Indo-Iranic tribes settled in northwestern Iranian region of Balashakan. Circumstances forced this pastoralist nomadic group of tribes known at that time as Balashchik to migrate en masse and abandon their original homeland.
Large Baluch carpet, from the mid 19th century. Alternating rows depict cypress trees and Turkmen Gül motifs in offset coloration. The somber background colors are characteristic of Baluch weavings. This likely was a commission for a tribal Khan or chieftain for ceremonial use. The earliest evidence of human occupation in what is now Balochistan is dated to the Paleolithic era, represented by hunting camps and lithic scatter, chipped and flaked stone tools. These villages expanded in size during the subsequent Chalcolithic when interaction was amplified.
Baloch were allied with the last Achaemenid emperor. Darius III, after much hesitation, assembled an army at Arbela to counter the army of invading Greeks. His cousin Besius was the commander, leading the horsemen from Balkh. During the reign of Arab dynasties, the medieval Iran suffered the onslaught of Ghaznavids, Mongols, Timurids, and the incursions of Guzz Turks. The relationship between the Baloch and nearly all these powers were hostile, and the Baloch suffered enormously during this long period. The Baloch encounters with these powers and the subsequent Baloch miseries forced the Baloch tribes to move from the areas of conflicts and to settle in the farflung and inaccessible regions. The Hindu Sewa Dynasty ruled parts of Balochistan, chiefly Kalat.
Map of independent Balochistan under the Buledi dynasty and the Kalat Khanate in 1730. The region was fully Islamized by the 9th century and became part of the territory of the Saffarids of Zaranj, followed by the Ghaznavids, then the Ghorids. The relation between the Ghaznavids and the Baloch had never been peaceful. The Baloch tribes fought against Sebuktegin when he attacked Khuzdar in AD 994. There are only passing references of Baloch encounters with the Mongol hordes. In one of the classical Balochi ballads, there is mention of a Baloch chieftain, Shah Baloch, who, no doubt, heroically resisted a Mongol advance somewhere in Sistan. During the long period of en masse migrations, the Baloch were traveling through settled territories, and it could not have been possible to survive simply as wandering nomads.
Perpetual migrations, hostile attitudes of other tribes and rulers, and adverse climactic conditions ruined much of their cattle breeding. Settled agriculture became a necessity for the survival of herds and an increased population. They began to combine settled agriculture with animal husbandry. In the 1870s, Baluchistan came under control of the British Indian Empire in colonial India. In 2021, there was an earthquake that killed dozens of people. This came to be known as the 2021 Balochistan earthquake.
Baloch tribalism in medieval times was synonymous with pastoral nomadism. It is, perhaps, because the occupation of nomads made them strong, active, and inured to hardship and the dangers which beset a mobile life. The areas of Balochistan where the Baloch tribes moved in had a sedentary population, and the Baloch tribes were compelled to deal with their sedentary neighbors. Being in a weaker position, the Baloch tribes were in need of constant vigils for their survival in new lands. To deal with this problem, they began to make alliances and organized themselves into a more structured way. The structural solution to this problem was to create tribal confederacies or unions. The British took over the area in 1839.
