Principal Styles of the Bactrian Seals per S Winkelmann

In her close study of the seals and amulets of ancient Bactria in the great Ligabue collection, the results of which she published in her Seals of the Oasis, Syliva Winkelmann carefully classifies the Bactrian glyptic styles.  She also provides a proposed sequence and duration of Bactrian stamp seal styles.

Her categories are named and described as

Rough or Drilled Style: Simple motifs of unsmoothed borings, found mostly in Bactria, precursors found in Central Asia and the Indo-Iranian borderlands.

My proposed example of this style in my personal collection:

Stone Amulet from Bactria, Authenticated and Published by V Sarianidi 

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Murghab Style: Canonized and stylized motifs with internal pattern made from flat cut lines and shallow and well-smoothed borings, found in both Bactria and Margiana (Murghab), made by indigenous crafters influenced by Iranian art.

My proposed example of this style in my personal collection:

Ancient Bactrian Carved Gypsum Seal Authenticated and Published

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Evolved Bactrian Style: Three dimensional and vigorous rendering in perspective drawings, Bactria findings, indigenous makers.

My proposed example of this style in my personal collection:

Bactrian Amulet, ca Four Thousand Yrs Old, Authenticated, Published

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Bactrian Smooth Style: Shallow cut motifs from well smoothed borings in softly formed outlines of nearly bag shaped bodies without internal markings, very thin cut legs, horns and tails.

My proposed example of this style in my personal collection:

Bactrian Stamp Seal White Stone Bird Image, Authentic, Published by Archeologist

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As for the beginning and end of the crafting of the various styles, this is the Winkelmann proposal:

Compartmented metal stamp seals: 2400 B.C. to 1700 B.C.
Drilled Style: 2500 B.C. to 1600 B.C.
Soft Murghab Style (Bactrian): 2300 B.C. to 1700 B.C.
Evolved Bactrian Style: 2000 B.C. to 1700 B.C.
Smooth Style: 2100 B.C. to 1600 B.C.

An addition to the time sequence of the styles, not described in the categories above:
Linear Murghab Style: 2100 B.C. to 1700 B.C.


Reference:
Seals of the Oasis, pp. 36, 37, Sylvia Winkelmann available at Amazon for about $12.00
The Ron Garner Collection.  I have a larger collection of items not posted at my website.  If you are interested, please leave a comment below by clicking on the COMMENTS tab and I will receive your message and respond promptly.

Bactrian Bronze Age Cast Metals and Engraved Stones

An example of the cruciform cast copper/bronze stamp seal, a major design in the Bactrian culture:

Ancient Bactrian Cruciform Compartmented Seal Dated, Published by Archeologist
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The time of production of copper compartmented stamp seals in Bactria is determined to be 2,500 B.C. to 1,600 B.C.   

This stamp seal is at least three thousand four hundred years old.   Described in Myths of Ancient Bactria-Margiana on Its Seals and Amulets by Dr. Victor Sarianidi, leader of the Russian excavation, on pages 106, 107, plate 301:  Seal, open work, corrugated edges.  Copper D - 5.4 cm  Cross 'patee' in the center of the seal. Ron Garner's (my own) collection  I would add that the center of the seal is in the form of a cross, a commonly found symbol in Bronze Age Bactrian compartmented stamp seals. The photo is published at plate 301. 

References: Victor Sarianidi, Necropolis of Gonur, Athens, 2007 Victor Sarianidi, Myths of Ancient Bactria and Margiana on its Seals and Amulets, 1998 Giancarlo Ligabue and Sandro Salvatori, Bactria, Venice, 198- 

Sylvia Winkelmann, Seals of the Oasis, Italy, 2004

Now for an example of and engraved stone in what Ms. Winkelmann names as the "smooth style" of making stone amulets: 

Ancient Stone Seal from Bactria Image of Horned Goat, Two Crescents  Contact me with questions or for invoice through the private message form at the top right of this page.

This is the image sheared from the stamp end of a pyramid shaped stamp seal or amulet. It is carved in brown stone. I would call it sandstone. 

It is photographed and published in the book Myths of Ancient Bactria-Margiana on Its Seals and Amulets, by Victor Sarianidi, the excavator of much of the Bactria-Margiana cultural ruins. Dr. Sarianidi, now deceased, visited us and photographed most of our Bactrian collection. Now most of the items we collected while we lived in Afghanistan, where Bactria is located, are published in Victor's works. 

This item is found on pages 256,257 of Myths of Ancient...., plate 1408.1 and 1408.2 as

'1408 Seal. Pyramidal stamp. Brown stone. 2.5 x 2.4 cm; h (thickness) 1.4 cm (corrected by owner to record the actual measurement of thickness as 4.3 mm)

This is a valuable addition to your collection of glyptics, whether from the Bactria Margiana Archeological Complex or from other related cultures.

A sampling shown here.   Contact me with questions or for invoice through the private message form at the top right of this page.

Mace in Ancient Times

Bactrian Mace Head White Stone Dating Third to Second Millenn BC

An ancient mace head, a  Bronze Age weapon  Contact me with questions or for invoice through the private message form at the top right of this page.

This heavy stone mace head was manufactured and might have been stored in the towers of the city walls where piles of similar weapons were found during the official excavation of the city. Or more likely it was carried with the warrior or the person who felt threatened and needed to carry a weapon.  This ancient mace head was found by an unauthorized excavation in recent times. He then sold it to a merchant who went out into the villages of Afghanistan to buy such antiquities to sell in Kabul, Afghanistan, the capital city. 

It is now in our collection along with many other Bactrian objects that I will be listing. These objects are identified and described in publications by the various archeologists who were involved in the official excavations in Afghanistan and Turkmenistan. 

You will see a photo labeled above as a similar mace head as published in Necropolis of Gonur, p. 109, plate 185, by Dr. Viktor Sarianidi, the leader of the Russian excavations in Bactria and Margiana. 

Measurements: 7.2 cm diameter; 6 cm high (2.8 in x 2.3 in)

I offer a Reserve and Pay in Partial Payments over 3 months for all purchases of $300.00 or more.  If you are interested, Contact me with questions or for invoice through the private message form at the top right of this page. 

A sample of the collection:

Bactrian Seals and Amulets, an Introduction by Pierre Amiet

First, I might introduce my own interest in Bactria.  It began in the bazaars in Kabul, Afghanistan where my husband and I saw hundreds of obviously ancient artifacts, but we did not know where they came from, who made them, or how old they might be.  We only knew that they had lain in the earth a very long time and that they were different from the other arts we had seen in the Middle East.

We had lived in Ankara, Turkey for four years, then we made the overland trip on the map shown below, taking our time in Iran and then stopping in Kandahar before we reached Kabul, the city where merchants could sell the Bactrian artifacts that were found by unauthorized explorers of the ruins of Bactria and Margiana.  I have the region marked by the oval on the map and our journey is marked by the dark line from Ankara to Kabul, showing our stopping places.

Our journey from Ankara, Turkey to Kabul Afghanistan showing the Bactria-Margiana region in the oval

Now to explain how Victor Sarianidi, leader of the Russian excavations of Bactria and Margiana,  came to be one of my dear friends and how Pierre Amiet's writings on the Ancient History of Western Asia became interesting to me: 

After my family had put together quite a collection of various seals, amulets and grave goods from tombs, we met Victor through another collector who was in Afghanistan and Pakistan around the same time we lived there. We invited Victor to our home to see our collection and explain to us what it was, where it came from  and how the Bactrian people lived and behaved.  He was happy to do so.  My husband made clay impressions of our authenticated seals, photographed the seals and impressions and Victor examined each one, measured it and then wrote a short description and classification for publishing in his catalog: Myths of Ancient Bactria Margiana on Its Seals and Amulets.  

The introduction to the work is written by Pierre Amiet, Honorable General Inspector of the Museum of France.  The following is a synopsis of Monsieur Amiet's introduction to Victor Sarianidi's catalog of Bactria-Margiana archeological findings.  

Amiet's opening remarks concerning Victor Sarianidi's work: 

"Victor Sarianidi, excellent archeologist,...is known as an expert in field research.  Due to his excavations...we learn about astonishing fortresses of Bactria and Margiana situated on the border of the Iranian plateau and the steppes crossed by the Amu Darya river to [in-ed.] the north of of modern Afghanistan....Civilization of this "Outer Iran" formed a very original component in the immense network of the inter-Iranian exchange..."

Amiet points out that Bactria-Margiana,  this proto-Iranian (nascent) civilization, was rooted in their migration and mercantile exchanges as they came down from North of the Caspian Sea area and passed among the Elamites in the western part of Iran.  These previous connections between the Elamite and  the nearby Mesopotamian culture and the outer "colonies" of proto-Iranians probably happened before they settled in  Bactria and Margiana in the North and Quetta and Sibri [Sibi - ed.] in the South.  The latter mentioned cities are located in what is now the west central part of Pakistan.  This map may help show the locations of the  "Outer Iran" settlements of the mid-III millennium B.C.  The larger outlined area approximates the location of the northern proto-Iranian settlements and the smaller marked circle shows the southern location of other proto-Iranians. 

The people of the Bactria-Margiana culture did not produce any written documents; at least nothing with "writing" on it has been found yet.  Monsieur Amiet acknowledges the work of Victor Sarianidi in the final statement in his introduction to V. Sarianidi's book in Myths of Ancient Bactria Margiana on Its Seals and Amulets: 

"Victor Sarianidi approaches this mystery with courage and knowledge which is due to his understanding ...."

Dr. Sarianidi taught me a great deal about his interpretation of the images on Bactria-Margiana seals and amulets.  Contact me with questions or for invoice through the private message form at the top right of this page.

Festival at the Margiana Digs

Dr. Victor Sarianidi, his guest and his team of workers at the Gonur Depe excavations are in the picture below.  They are sitting on carpets spread on the Kara Kum Desert floor.  The brush piles protect them a bit from the sand and wind.  They are waiting for the nearby clay oven to bake the bread and for the steaming pot of meat stew for the festival.

Victor is the white-haired, white-bearded man; my husband, his guest, is seated to the right of Victor; to the right of my husband sits a Russian assistant; the Turkmen males, the woman cook and the child are seated on each side of the the three non-Turkmen males.

My husband, the adventurer and ardent explorer into the ancient Bactrian culture, visited the site seven times and came to know most of the people who worked with Victor Sarianidi, the leader of the Russian excavation team. Victor was also our teacher on the subject of Bactria.

I fondly recall his stories of what he had discovered about the religious practices, the burial customs and the myths portrayed on the seals and amulets of Bactria and Margiana.  One evening, as he sat in our easy chair, I perched myself on the raised hearth in our living room while he told his entrancing stories of lambs or horses given a burial beside the master who had died.  He explained that small dishes, the amulets or beads that the deceased had worn during life, and sometimes an animal would also be placed in the tomb shaped like a room in which to spend the after life.

Victor had found in the religious practices and the funeral customs the precursors of the Zoroastrian religion of later Persia and India.  As he "read" the images engraved on stones and cast in metal in ancient Bactria and Margiana, Victor saw their strong relationship to the legends written out much later in the Zoroastrian literature, the Avesta for the Persians and the Rig Veda for the Zoroastrians in India.

Since I had a background in linguistics and had done a bit of amateur archeology before I met Victor, I began to study seriously the history of the Bactria-Margiana Archeological Complex.  We had long before built up our collection of artifacts bought from Afghan merchants and from other collectors.  I am still studying the pieces and trying to interpret the images through Victor's eyes.

Victor died several months ago, but one of his last acts was to send us the last book he published.  I am therefore able to continue learning from him.

Where is the Bactria-Margiana Archeological Complex?

The responder to this question sometimes shows a region so large that it encompasses much more territory than the name would imply, since Margiana lies in the Kara Kum Desert and Bactria sits in the Northeastern reaches of what is now Afghanistan.

This map shows these areas:

Outlined border of the ruins excavated in the Murghab region of Turkmenistan and the Balkh province in Afghanistan showing the location of the ancient Bactrian ruins.

Use your zoom function to find the Murghab River in Turkmenistan, the location of Gonur North, Gonur Depe and other ruined settlements of the Margiana civilization.  The region of Balkh along the Amu Darya is the location of the ancient ruins of Bactrian settlements.

Other archeologists or experts in Bronze Age glyptics will usually offer a map much like this one:

Victor Sarianidi shows this map in his interpretive catalog of Bactria-Margiana Archeological Complex artifacts in his work Myths of Ancient Bactria Margiana on Its Seals and Amulets.  The motifs, styles and shapes of the glyptics are found to be similar among the findings by archeologists from  Crete through Anatolia and Northern Syria, across Iran and Afghanistan from the mouth of the Persian gulf to Bactria-Margiana and Baluchistan, then over the Khyber Pass and on to the Indus Valley.

Traders, travelers and imitative artisans could be the explanation for the wide distribution of similar stone and metal beads, seals and amulets.  The distinctive attribute of the Bactria-Margiana culture located in Turkmenistan and in Bactria passed on a religious legacy in the people that continued to inhabit Persia and India: the Zoroastrians.  For example, in my own collection of Bactrian stamp seals, I see in the ancient motif the suggestion of a modern mandala design:

Ancient Copper/Bronze Seal from Bactria

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Contact me if you are a collector.  I offer a RESERVE plan that allows you to make partial payments on your schedule for purchases of $300. 00 or more.