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HOME :
Near Eastern Art :
Bactria-Margiana Art : Pair of Bactria-Margiana Gold Bands
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Pair of Bactria-Margiana Gold Bands - OS.137
Origin: Central Asia
Circa: 2000
BC
to 1000
BC
Collection: Near Eastern
Medium: Gold
Additional Information: F
£9,000.00
Location: Great Britain
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| Description |
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This piece pertains to an ancient culture
referred to both as the Bactria-Margiana
Archaeological Complex (BCAM) or as the
Oxus Civilisation. The Bactria-Margiana
culture spread across an area encompassing
the modern nations of Turkmenistan,
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Northern
Afghanistan. Flourishing between about 2100
and 1700 BC, it was contemporary with the
European Bronze Age, and was
characterised by monumental architecture,
social complexity and extremely
distinctive cultural artefacts that vanish from
the record a few centuries after they
first appear. Pictographs on seals have been
argued to indicate an independently-
developed writing system.
It was one of many economic and social
entities in the vicinity, and was a
powerful country due to the exceptional fertility
and wealth of its agricultural
lands. This in turn gave rise to a complex and
multifaceted set of societies with
specialist craftsmen who produced luxury
materials such as this for the ruling and
aristocratic elites. Trade appears to have been
important, as Bactrian artefacts
appear all over the Persian Gulf as well as in
the Iranian Plateau and the Indus
Valley. For this reason, the area was fought
over from deep prehistory until the
Mediaeval period, by the armies of Asia Minor,
Greece (Macedonia), India and the
Arab States, amongst others.
- (OS.137)
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