Description
This imposing piece is an archaic masterwork from one of the most remarkable cultures in Central Asia: the Bactrians. Bactria is a nebulously-defined area encompassing parts of Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, and is notable for two major cultural phenomena. The best-known is the Hellenistic occupation of Central Asia, when Alexander the Great’s forces took over from the previous Persian invaders. However, the current piece predates this by almost two thousand years, pertaining to the Bronze Age phenomenon known as the BMAC (Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex), also known as the Oxus civilization. This comparatively understudied cultural complex peaked between 2200 and 1700 B.C.E., and was characterized by a complex agricultural society which was capable of supporting craft specialists. These include enigmatic ground-stone sculptural forms – often anthropomorphic figures – although large, highly abstract geometric examples such as this are very rare.
The body of the chalice is cylindrical, with a pinched-in shoulder underneath a flared rim and lip, widening again towards the base of the body which is completely flat beneath. It stands upon a tall, central stem, which gradually flares from a narrow top to a somewhat larger, simple round base. The entire piece is carved from a single block of alabaster, which would have been roughed out into a general form using stone and copper tools then laboriously ground using wood/leather and an abrasive such as sand. This has been done with considerable delicacy, exploiting the banded nature of the alabaster which highlights the linear construction of the piece. The role of the piece is uncertain as we currently lack any contextual information. What it apparent, however, is that every piece of ground stone from this culture is associated with a ritual or at least elite social setting, from anthropomorphic figurines (arguably goddesses, with detachable ivory/bone heads) to outstanding artifacts such as this.
