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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.
In 2003 one inventory calculated that there were
at least thirty-eight examples of such Bactrian
idols known. Although the number of examples
inventoried since that time has increased, the
total number of such Bactrian idols remains
relatively small. Nine examples have been
founded in southeastern Turkmenistan and two
more in Pakistan. The discovery of a silver pin
depicting a kaunakes-clad woman sitting on a
small backed chair and of silver vessel depicting
a second, similarly dressed female figure,
kneeling on the ground, at the site of Gonur-
depe in Turkmenistan suggests that the origin of
such figures is to be sought in that area.
The eleven examples just cited, although
discovered in archaeological contexts, were not
accompanied with related finds sufficient to
define the nature of the kneeling women
depicted in the kaunakes. Although some
scholars prefer to identify them as elite members
of this early society, other scholars, noting their
compelling monumentality, suggest these female
figures are depictions of one or more goddesses.
Indeed, their faces are imbued with the look of
divine authority. The use of different colored
stones in their design would seem to support
such a divine interpretation for such spiritually-
charged beings where the focus of one’s
attention comes to rest on their head and face.
Recent Carbon 14 dating of some 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. The use of
different colored 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. In its simplicity and in its inherent
monumentality, the figure resonates with
contemporary aesthetic taste. As such, this idol
reveals the timelessness of the mother goddess
and her continuing ability to command both
attention and respect.
- (LO.1335)
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