Kushano-sassanid ceramics is a mystery to those who work in Central Asia. The origin of this production still brings up many questions as it appears to be so different from Kushan pottery. By their shapes, some models can be associated with metallic objects whose origin is essentially Mediterranean. This pottery not only includes the world of the Bactria but also the Margian one. What should we think about that? This corpus constitutes evidence of political and cultural homogeneity?
How about the Greek influence? The Bactrian area had plenty of Greek influence even much after they stopped governing. The majority of the Greeks stayed behind and mingled with other nationalities, but kept their art, culture and history. That is why the Kalash preserved such customs up to this day.
Aside from the obvious Bactrian-Greek features, you may want to take into consideration the Tocharian elements. The Tocharians (named by the Chinese in its dynastic history as Yueh-chih) used to live in Northwestern China. They were chased out by the Hsiung-nu (Huns?) and moved west, passing by Bactria in the first century and finally settled down in Gandhara to establish the Kushan dynasty.
These newly ruling people adopted the local language (a form of Old Persian) rather than their mother tongue and have since been noted by the West as the Kushano-Sassanians. The Chinese, however, continue to call them Yueh-chih-Kushan. The Kushan era has definite contacts with the Persians, Romans, Indians and subtly Chinese and they also adopted Buddhism as the national religion. Recent Chinese archaeological findings reveal that the Yueh-chih people were good at metallic and alloy refinery, among other handicraft skills.
p.s. I have been doing paper chase (short of archaeological digs) of the whereabouts of the Tocharians for 25 years now!
I don t think that we should consider kushano sasanid pottery ceramics as Greek. Many centuries have passed and if we examine the material culture that developed between these two periods you can see great changes. Moreover, in its composition, it is very different from the Greco-Roman model even if we can find points of comparison between certain metal models.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Psychology