In May 1880 Captain F.C. Burton, a British political officer in Afghanistan, rescued a group of merchants who had been captured by bandits while travelling between Kabul and Peshawar. With them was a rich and impressive collection of gold and silver objects dating back to the fifth and fourth centuries BC. From the banks of the River Oxus, the entire hoard was, in due course, bequeathed to the British Museum. Consisting of around 170 objects, including vessels, a gold scabbard, armlets, coins and much more, the collection is an example of ancient goldsmithery at its very best. With exciting and descriptive insight placing the treasure into historical and cultural context, this book takes a closer look at the individual wonders that make up the Oxus Treasure one of the British Museums most celebrated and cherished collections.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 edition. Excerpt: ... dependence and of a cosmopolitan taste always ready to assimilate the ideas of others. Now in a country where such a spirit reigned and where communications were good, we should expect to find, as at a later time in the Roman Empire, a widespread uniformity of taste and a free circulation of motives from one province to another; nor would there be much originality or variation except quite near the home of a strong indigenous art such as that of the Ionian Greeks in the west or the nomadic peoples on the frontiers of the northern Steppes. The old Persian Empire offers in many respects a rather close parallel to that of Rome, which also had a uniform and unoriginal art disseminated through provinces situated at vast distances from each other. Rome, like Persia, stood in a dependent relation to the Greeks; and in the Celts upon her northern borders she had a barbaric race with an art even more individual than that of the Scythian tribes. Just as the monuments of one Roman province are often monotonous and hardly distinguishable from those of another, so we might expect to find in different parts of ancient Persia almost identical examples of the prevalent styles of the day. Thus there is no abstract reason why such a Persepolitan or Susian type as no. 116 should not have been produced in Bactria to the order of a powerful satrap; especially as the collar, fig. 18, which, as far as its inlay is concerned, is of a class not so very inferior, bears traces of a pronounced northern (Scythic) influence. Nevertheless there are reasons which lead to the supposition that a large part at least of the Oxus Treasure was imported from the south-western provinces. In the first instance the Susa jewels so often mentioned in these pages may, with very...

This collection of essays presents a synthesis of current research on the Oxus Civilization, which rose and developed at the turn of the 3rd to 2nd millennia BC in Central Asia. First discovered in the 1970s, the Oxus Civilization, or the Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), has engendered many different interpretations, which are explored in this volume by an international group of archaeologists and researchers. Contributors cover all aspects of this fascinating Bronze Age culture: architecture; material culture; grave goods; religion; migrations; and trade and interactions with neighboring civilizations, from Mesopotamia to the Indus, and the Gulf to the northern steppes. Chapters also examine the Oxus Civilization’s roots in previous local cultures, explore its environmental and chronological context, or the possibly coveted metal sources, and look into the reasons for its decline. The World of the Oxus Civilization offers a broad and fascinating examination of this society, and provides an invaluable updated resource for anyone working on the culture, history, and archaeology of this region and on the multiple interactions at work at that time in the ancient Near East.

In history, this grand arterial 1500-mile waterway was always seen as the natural frontier between the northern provinces of the Iranian empires and the outer Turanian lands. It was for centuries central to Achaemenid and later Persian power. But, as the author shows, it has a prehistory which goes very much further back: and a succession of skilled yet still elusive Bronze Age cultures flourished here well before the rise of Cyrus the Great in the 6th century BCE. This richly illustrated book explores the fascinating history, art and archaeology of the region, including its primal trade in silk and foodstuffs; the mineral wealth of the Oxus basin; its exotic myths and beliefs; and the converging tribes and peoples which led to a new stability, economic growth and urbanism. The volume contains 150 full-colour photographs of notable artefacts, including silver decorated vessels, inlaid stone pots, agate beads and 25 'Bactrian Princesses': remarkable statuettes made in chlorite and limestone. Most of these rare objects have never been seen, let alone published, before.