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Afghanistan: Zeus / Serapis / Ohrmazd with Kushan worshipper, Bactria, 3rd Century CE. The Kushan Empire was originally formed in the early 1st century CE under Prince Kujula Kadphises in the territories of ancient Bactria on either side of the Oxus River in what is now northern Afghanistan, southern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.<br/><br/> The Kushan kings were a branch of the Yuezhi confederation (possibly intermarried with local families) and they had diplomatic contacts with Rome, Persia and Han China. The empire declined from the 3rd century and fell to the Sassanid and Gupta empires.
Afghanistan: Kushan worshipper and the deity Pharro, Bactria, 3rd Century CE. The Kushan Empire was originally formed in the early 1st century CE under Prince Kujula Kadphises in the territories of ancient Bactria on either side of the Oxus River in what is now northern Afghanistan, southern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.<br/><br/> The Kushan kings were a branch of the Yuezhi confederation (possibly intermarried with local families) and they had diplomatic contacts with Rome, Persia and Han China. The empire declined from the 3rd century and fell to the Sassanid and Gupta empires.
Gandhāra is noted for the distinctive Gandhāra style of Buddhist art, which developed out of a merger of Greek, Syrian, Persian, and Indian artistic influence. This development began during the Parthian Period (50 BCE – 75 CE). Gandhāran style flourished and achieved its peak during the Kushan period, from the 1st to the 5th century. It declined and suffered destruction after invasion of the White Huns in the 5th century.<br/><br/> Stucco as well as stone was widely used by sculptors in Gandhara for the decoration of monastic and cult buildings. Stucco provided the artist with a medium of great plasticity, enabling a high degree of expresivness to be given to the sculpture. Sculpting in stucco was popular wherever Buddhism spread from Gandhara - India, Afghanistan, Central Asia and China.
Gandhāra is noted for the distinctive Gandhāra style of Buddhist art, which developed out of a merger of Greek, Syrian, Persian, and Indian artistic influence. This development began during the Parthian Period (50 BCE – 75 CE). Gandhāran style flourished and achieved its peak during the Kushan period, from the 1st to the 5th century. It declined and suffered destruction after invasion of the White Huns in the 5th century. Stucco as well as stone was widely used by sculptors in Gandhara for the decoration of monastic and cult buildings. Stucco provided the artist with a medium of great plasticity, enabling a high degree of expresivness to be given to the sculpture. Sculpting in stucco was popular wherever Buddhism spread from Gandhara - India, Afghanistan, Central Asia and China.
In the 320s BCE, Alexander the Great captured the city of Bagram and established a fortified colony named Alexandria of the Caucasus. The new town had brick walls reinforced with towers at the angles. The central street was bordered with shops and workshops.<br/><br/> After his death in 323 BC, the city passed to his general Seleucus, who traded it to the Mauryan Dynasty of India in 305 BC. After the Mauryans were overthrown by the Sunga Dynasty in 185 BC, the Greco-Bactrian Kingdom invaded and conquered Northwestern India (Present Day Pakistan) with an army led by Demetrius I of Bactria. Alexandria became a capital of the Eucratidian Indo-Greek Kingdom after they were driven out of Bactria by the Yuezhi in 140 BC.<br/><br/> Bagram (Kapisa) became the summer capital of the Kushan Empire in the 1st century, whereas their winter capital was in Peshawar. The emperor Kanishka started many new buildings there. The central palace building yielded a very rich treasure, dated from the time of emperor Kanishka in the 2nd century: ivory-plated stools of Indian origin, lacquered boxes from Han China, Greco-Roman glasses from Egypt and Syria, Hellenistic statues in the Pompeian style, stucco moldings, and silverware of Mediterranean origin.<br/><br/> The 'Bagram treasure' is indicative of intense commercial exchanges between all the cultural centers of Classical times, with the Kushan empire at the junction of the land and sea trade between the east and west. However, the works of art found in Bagram are either purely Hellenistic, Roman, Chinese or Indian, with little indication of the cultural syncretism found in Greco-Buddhist art.
About 30 kms from Kabul, Mes Aynek, is a trove of Buddhist monastery ruins, statues, and stupas attesting to the prolific role that Afghanistan played in the proliferation of Buddhism in Central and East Asia. Currently being excavated as a copper mine, rescue excavations began in 2009. Work was undertaken by the National Institute of Archaeology and the Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan. Part of the monastic compound was excavated, leading to the discovery of a vaulted chapel, monks’ cells and storerooms. Polychrome terracotta statues were also found, including a sleeping Buddha. A monastery complex has also been dug out, revealing hallways and rooms decorated with frescoes and filled with clay and stone statues of standing and reclining Buddhas, some as high as 10 ft (3m); more than 150 statues have been found so far though many remain in place.
Gandhāra is noted for the distinctive Gandhāra style of Buddhist art, which developed out of a merger of Greek, Syrian, Persian, and Indian artistic influence. This development began during the Parthian Period (50 BCE – 75 CE). Gandhāran style flourished and achieved its peak during the Kushan period, from the 1st to the 5th century. It declined and suffered destruction after invasion of the White Huns in the 5th century.<br/><br/> Stucco as well as stone was widely used by sculptors in Gandhara for the decoration of monastic and cult buildings. Stucco provided the artist with a medium of great plasticity, enabling a high degree of expresivness to be given to the sculpture. Sculpting in stucco was popular wherever Buddhism spread from Gandhara - India, Afghanistan, Central Asia and China.
Gandhāra is noted for the distinctive Gandhāra style of Buddhist art, which developed out of a merger of Greek, Syrian, Persian, and Indian artistic influence. This development began during the Parthian Period (50 BCE – 75 CE). Gandhāran style flourished and achieved its peak during the Kushan period, from the 1st to the 5th century. It declined and suffered destruction after invasion of the White Huns in the 5th century.<br/><br/> Stucco as well as stone was widely used by sculptors in Gandhara for the decoration of monastic and cult buildings. Stucco provided the artist with a medium of great plasticity, enabling a high degree of expresivness to be given to the sculpture. Sculpting in stucco was popular wherever Buddhism spread from Gandhara - India, Afghanistan, Central Asia and China.
Hormizd I was the third Sassanid King of Persia from 270/72 to 273.<br/><br/> He was the son of Shapur I (240–270/72), under whom he was governor of Khorasan, and appears in his wars against Rome (Historia Augusta, Trig. Tyr. 2, where Nöldeke has corrected the name Odomastes into Oromastes, i.e. Hormizd).<br/><br/> In the Persian tradition of the history of Ardashir I (226–240 [died 241/42]), preserved in a Pahlavi text (Nöldeke, Geschichte des Artachsir I. Papakan), Hormizd I is made the son of a daughter of Mithrak, a Persian dynast, whose family Ardashir had extirpated because the Magi had predicted that the restorer of the empire of Persia would come from his blood.<br/><br/> According to legend, this daughter alone was saved by a peasant; Shapur I saw her and made her his wife, and afterwards her son Hormizd I was recognized and acknowledged by Ardashir. In this legend, which has also been partially preserved in Tabari, the great conquests of Shapur I are transferred to Hormizd I. In reality he reigned only one year and ten days.
The Kushan Empire originally formed in the early first century CE under Prince Kujula Kadphises in ancient Bactria on either side of the Oxus River in what is now northern Afghanistan, and southern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. During the first and early second centuries CE, the Kushans expanded rapidly across the northern part of the Indian subcontinent at least as far as Saketa and Sarnath near Varanasi (Benares) where inscriptions have been found dated to the first few years of the era of the most famous Kushan ruler, Kanishka, which apparently began about 127 CE. The Kushan kings were a branch of the Yuezhi confederation (possibly intermarried with local families) and they had diplomatic contacts with Rome, Persia and Han China. The empire declined from the third century and fell to the Sassanid and Gupta empires.
The Kushan Empire originally formed in the early 1st century CE under Prince Kujula Kadphises in the territories of ancient Bactria on either side of the Oxus River in what is now northern Afghanistan, southern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. During the 1st and early 2nd centuries CE, the Kushans expanded rapidly across the northern part of the Indian subcontinent at least as far as Saketa and Sarnath near Varanasi (Benares) where inscriptions have been found dated to the first few years of the era of the most famous Kushan ruler, Kanishka, which reportedly began about 127 CE. The Kushan kings were a branch of the Yuezhi confederation (possibly intermarried with local families) and they had diplomatic contacts with Rome, Persia and Han China. The empire declined from the 3rd century and fell to the Sassanid and Gupta empires.
The Kushan Empire originally formed in the early 1st century CE under Prince Kujula Kadphises in the territories of ancient Bactria on either side of the Oxus River in what is now northern Afghanistan, southern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.<br/><br/> During the 1st and early 2nd centuries CE, the Kushans expanded rapidly across the northern part of the Indian subcontinent at least as far as Saketa and Sarnath near Varanasi (Benares) where inscriptions have been found dated to the first few years of the era of the most famous Kushan ruler, Kanishka, which reportedly began about 127 CE.<br/><br/> The Kushan kings were a branch of the Yuezhi confederation (possibly intermarried with local families) and they had diplomatic contacts with Rome, Persia and Han China. The empire declined from the 3rd century and fell to the Sassanid and Gupta empires.
Gandhāra is noted for the distinctive Gandhāra style of Buddhist art, which developed out of a merger of Greek, Syrian, Persian, and Indian artistic influence. This development began during the Parthian Period (50 BCE – 75 CE). Gandhāran style flourished and achieved its peak during the Kushan period, from the 1st to the 5th century. It declined and suffered destruction after invasion of the White Huns in the 5th century.<br/><br/> Stucco as well as stone was widely used by sculptors in Gandhara for the decoration of monastic and cult buildings. Stucco provided the artist with a medium of great plasticity, enabling a high degree of expresivness to be given to the sculpture. Sculpting in stucco was popular wherever Buddhism spread from Gandhara - India, Afghanistan, Central Asia and China.