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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.
- (SF.256)
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