PRINCESSE BACTRIANE Asie centrale, vers 2500 -... Lot 6

PRINCESSE BACTRIANE Asie centrale, vers 2500 - 1800 avant J.C. Matériau Stéatite ou chlorite H. 9,9 cm, L. 9,9 cm BACTRIAN PRINCESS COMPOSITE STONE Origin: Central Asia Circa: 2500 BC to 1800 BC Medium: Steatite or Chlorite Dimensions: 3.9" high, 3.9" wide The now-extinct country of Bactria spread across what are now Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Northern Afghanistan. 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. 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.This piece pertains to a civilisation referred to as the Oxus (or the BMAC). 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. 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. Pictographs on seals have been argued to indicate an independently-developed writing system. Religion may have been based around deities represented by pieces such as this. However, they are extremely rare. A 2003 inventory calculated that there were at least thirty-eight examples of such Bactrian idols known, and although the number of examples discovered since has increased, the total number of such Bactrian idols remains relatively small. Nine examples have been found in southeastern Turkmenistan and two more in Pakistan. Their significance is unclear. Some scholars identify them as