The Oxus Treasure

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 heavily illustrated catalogue is devoted to the Museum’s collection of silver and gold from the Hellenized East—one of the largest yet assembled. Among the objects included are rhyta, bowls, cups, jewelry, and decorative gold and silver ornaments for horse bridles and clothing. In an extensive introduction, the author dates the various groups of objects and places them within a wider cultural and archaeological context, providing a detailed stylistic analysis of the ornamental motifs of many pieces. Of particular importance is the inclusion of illustrations of some 50 little-known comparative objects as well as extensive bibliographic references.

A richly-illustrated and important book that traces the rise and fall of one of the ancient world's largest and richest empires.