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.
Religion may have been based around deities
represented by pieces such as this. However, they
are extremely rare. A 2003 inventory calculated
that there were at least thirty-eight examples of
such Bactrian idols known, and although the
number of examples discovered since has
increased, the total number of such Bactrian idols
remains relatively small. Nine examples have
been found in south-eastern Turkmenistan and
two more in Pakistan. Their significance is
unclear. Some scholars identify them as elite
members of this early society, while others
consider their compelling monumentality to
signify that these female figures are depictions of
one (or more) goddesses.
Recent Carbon 14 dating of the organic material
found in association with some of the excavated
examples suggests a chronological position for
the group in the early second millennium BC
about 2000-1800 BC, and the use of different
coloured stone is apparently consistent with this
dating. The technique appears to be used for the
creation of composite figures of approximately
the same dimensions excavated at Ebla. As one
of less than fifty such examples in the world, this
piece has the quality of rarity as well as an
intensely powerful presence out of all proportion
to its size. In its simplicity and its inherent
monumentality, the figure resonates with
contemporary aesthetic taste. This is a
remarkable and fascinating piece of ancient art,
and a credit to any collection fortunate enough to
contain it.
