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.
Through local stone carvers inhabiting the regions of
Margiana and Bactria experienced no shortage in
material; the main raw material was soft steatite or a
dark soapstone, but also various kinds of marble and
white-veined alabaster. The main source for these
stones, including semi-precious lapis-lazuli, was in
Bactria, at Badakhshan in north-western Afghanistan,
which provided material not only for the Bactrian and
Margian carvers but also farther to the west into
Mesopotamia, for the Assyrian kings. White- veined
alabaster was indeed used for varied vessels,
including
small vases with disproportionately long stems and
low
capacity, such as the one here illustrated.
Elongated alabaster chalice with splayed foot and
everted flattened rim, the sides straight, the long
stem slightly splayed at the base.
For a comparable Bactrian example see, V.
Sarianidi, Margus, Turkmenistan, 2002: p.136.