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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.
- (OF.161)
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