The Begram Hoard: Treasures of the Silk Road

Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Chutaburg forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland, or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Let's visit HistoryHit.com/Subscribe Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. It shows up in the smallest moments. You bite your tongue instead of escalating. You put your phone down instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean instead of what would hurt someone else the most. Nobody applauds those moments, but they quietly change your life. That's what growing feels like. And that's exactly what growth therapy is here for. Grow is therapy that works, covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance, and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments, you just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the U.S. offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability, and you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. See if you could pay as little as $0 for therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com/acast. That's growtherapy.com/acast. Availability and coverage vary by state and insurance plan. This episode is sponsored by Smart Travel, a new podcast from NerdWallet. Now, you know that one friend who always finds the best travel deals, picks the right cards, and somehow ends up in first class for the price of coach. Smart travel is like that friend, but in podcast form. They cover all things travel finance, so you can stop stressing and actually start enjoying your trips. I'm lucky enough to travel a fair bit. You might have heard me talking about being on tour with the ancients in Australia and New Zealand quite recently. Well, Smart Travel podcast from NerdWallet was a great help. They dig into which airport lounges are really worth it, and which are just an airport gate with better snacks and worse lighting. And what actually happens when an airline loses your luggage for 12 days, and how to get real money back instead of a free drink and an apology? Plus, the tip I really needed. How to book flights without it turning into a part-time job. Travel smarter and spend less with help from NerdWallet. Follow Smart Travel wherever you get to your podcasts. It's the ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast where we are continuing our discussion with Lauren Morris from Fryberg University, all about ancient Begrum about the Begrum Horde. This incredible ancient set of objects discovered in the mid 20th century, which includes some objects created in ancient eastern China, lacquers from eastern China, but also objects from the Indian subcontinent, and also some from the Roman Mediterranean, all together at this place south of the Hindu Kush in modern day Afghanistan, really emphasizes the global nature of ancient history. This was a fascinating chat in this podcast, we go into the detail of the objects in this Horde, why it is so incredible, what we know from this incredible set of ancient objects. So that further ado, here's Lauren. Lauren, it is wonderful to have you back on the podcast. Thank you so much for having me again. No problem at all. Last time we looked at the background of Begrum in antiquity going up to the Begrum Horde itself, and now we're going to really delve into the Horde itself and some of the objects in this Horde. I mean, first of all, just to really clarify Lauren, as you have said in the previous podcast, but once again, I mean, this Horde is an extraordinary set of objects, and we've got objects stretching from the Mediterranean to eastern China to the Indian subcontinent. It's incredible. Yeah, we've got just about everything from across Afro-Eurator here. It's super. Absolutely super indeed. So let's go into the objects now, and first of all, I'd like to ask about locally made goods, because in the Begrum Horde, Lauren, do we have any objects that come from the vicinity around Begrum? I'm actually really glad you've asked, because there are some, but they haven't sped a lot of time in the limelight for, you know, the reason that the obvious imports are really exciting to us. And I should preface this by saying that it's actually not entirely clear where everything in the Horde was made, of course, but since we have some close enough comparisons for these objects from the wider region of Gandhira, right, so just adjacent to Begrum, we can be a little bit more sure about them. So there were like two kinds of goods which were certainly locally made. So first we've got about a dozen hemispherical copper alloy bottles, and then we've got these two quite large pots made of bronze. And so both were about half a metre wide and tall. They had handles on their sides, and they originally had lids, which could have been locked on with little metal rods, and in the literature of these have sometimes been called cauldrons, but I think they might have been more suitable for storing something like grain or perhaps rather water or wine. And if we go a bit further away from Begrum itself, do we see any objects, for instance, from North of the Hindu Courage from on the Afghanistan, from Uzbekistan, from that area, Lauren? Actually, we do have one that's very clear. We have a little chunk of lapis lazuli that was found in room 13, and we don't have many examples of precious gemstones or things like that in the Horde, but we do have this one little piece. And of course, we all know that lapis lazuli was mined in the mountains of Badakshan in the ancient world, and already by the Bronze Age, this was distributed very widely also to the Mediterranean and Near East. So we have just our little chunk at Begrum, and I think it probably speaks to being used in the context of craft production as raw materials. So going away from the immediate vicinity of Begrum and from Afghanistan, then if we head further east, and this is something that I find really, really interesting, what Chinese objects have been found in the Horde, Lauren? So quite interestingly, because of the diversity of all this material, we've got only examples of one very specific kind of object produced in Han China, and that's about ten different kinds of lack of waves. However, they had degraded a lot in the Earth, so we only have little slivers and pieces that would survive to look at. And these were made around the end of the first century BC to the early first century AD. And what are these lack of waves? So these are vessels and receptacles, so things like cups, bowls, platters, and boxes. These kinds of objects were made by getting lacquer, right, which is made from the resin of the lacquer tree, and applying these very, very thin layers of it over and over again onto this wooden or fiber core. And this was a really delicate and time-consuming specialised process, and it involved these repeated periods of drying, you have to sort of weigh, apply, weigh, yeah. And so these were also decorated by coloring the lacquer with black or red pigments, like charcoal or a cinnabar, and sometimes they could have these like really special decorative elements added like gilded silver feet or handles. And the fact that time-consuming process to make these objects, and the fact that we find some of these objects at begroom, Lauren, does it really suggest how these lacquer wares do we think they were seen, they were perceived as being very valuable items at that time? Absolutely, these were certainly valuable items, like not quite worth gold or jade in the mind of a person in ancient China, but we've got this first century BC Chinese text called Discourses on Salt and Iron, and this tells us that a nicely made lacquerware cup was equivalent to fact in value to 10 bronze cups, so really nothing to sniff out here. Absolutely nothing to sniff out indeed. Now you mentioned Han China, but of course Han China is huge, but do we know whereabouts in China these lacquer wares were produced Lauren? We had a relatively good idea. Oh good. Yeah, for once, right? So in this period, most lacquer wares were produced in state-run manufactories, and these were massive operations, producing the kinds of things which could have been used in the Imperial Palace, and this is a very elaborate division of labor. And so two of these manufactories were located in the present-day Sichuan province in southwest China, and then there were two other state workshops also located near the Han capital in China, so northern China. And sometimes lacquer wares actually had inscriptions. They tell us precisely where they were made, which is very, very useful. Unfortunately, if any of the background examples had once been inscribed, those parts haven't survived, so bad luck for us. Regardless though, stylistically, some of the background lacquer wares do look like typical products of these workshops. But what is really quite cool is that there also seems to have been a couple of private workshops operating in China at the same time, although we do know a little less about them. And so a main one seems to have been in the Guangling Princeton, so this is today's north-eastern and some really elaborate pieces are now attributed to this workshop. And so about 10 years ago, the archaeologist, Chong Liang Ren, he noticed that some of the Begrum Lackawares also look like they could have been made in some of these workshops too. Wow, I mean, if they did come from these particular workshops done, and I know it's a big if, but if they did, I mean, what could this suggest about Begrum and its connections by, let's say, the second century AD? Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of open questions here, right? Because we have to think about what were Lackawares produced for at home. So at home, they didn't really seem to have been produced for sale on open markets, although it's like possible that some of them end up being exchanged in this way. I mean, you can't rule anything out, right? But rather, it seems like when Lackawares have found outside of China and quite a lot of them, they seem to have arrived there mostly through diplomatic gift exchanges, right? And so we actually have a good amount of similar wares that are found in shong new burials, right? You know, the perennial foe of China, as well as these burials of other mobile pastoralists, you know, across the Eurasian step, even as far as Crimea. So it's possible that the Lackawares at Begrum could have arrived into Central Asia more directly as diplomatic gifts from Chinese agents, right? Because, you know, in Central Asia in this period, there were diplomatic connections and military engagements between Han China and, you know, Yueji then Kushan Central Asia. But the Begrum Lackawares also could have come via down the line kind of gift exchange with step pastoralists. So there's a lot of possibilities. A lot of possibilities indeed. But I love those connections that evidently were there. Now, we've gone east, we've talked about ancient China, but it's Begrum crossroads of the ancient world. So let's head south into Gandhara into the Indian sub-consonant. Lauren, what sorts of objects do we have in the horde from this area of the ancient world? Yeah, so I'll start with just one example of this bluish glazed pottery jug in the shape of this hybrid creature, like a bird woman called a canary. And so because of the form of this jug, you know, stylistically iconographically, like it looks like it was made in the Indian sub-consonant. However, the technology of this kind of glazed pottery doesn't really seem to have been common in this space at this time. Instead, it was rather more common in the Iranian world, more specifically pathian Mesopotamia. So with this jug, we might actually be looking at a really unique example of technology transfer from this space to Northwest India. So very cool. But of course, you know, the vast majority of objects in the Begrum Horde from the Indian sub-continent were over 1,000 carved ivory and bone elements featuring you know, very elaborate designs and all kinds of different decorative techniques. And these mostly depict women and these interior scenes. And they give this impression of this view into a private furtile and rich world. I mean, these ivory objects discovered in the horde. It sounds like so many different kinds, all these various depictions. Lauren, what's ivory at that time in the central Asia? Does it seem to be in very popular, very valuable also? It was very valuable. Ivory was mostly sourced from still Northwest India because elephants weren't really roaming in bacteria. But of course, around, you know, antiquity, we have a lot of ivory production still in bacteria at the same time. So they're importing ivory from the sub-continent and making things like furniture, statuettes and belt plaques and things like that. So they're also producing things in bacteria, yes. I mean, Lauren, I'd also like to ask about whereabouts in India. These begrimiveries were made and when. Because they recently did a podcast on the Pompeii Lakshmi and it's interesting to see if there might be a possible link between that and the ivories of the begrim horde. Ah, yeah, this is such a hard question. I don't think anyone really knows for sure. Although I'm looking forward to hearing the podcast that you've just done because I think I might learn something. I can say, yeah, there are almost no comparable carved ivories which survive from ancient India because, of course, the climate is not very favorable for the preservation of ivory in the archaeological record. But this gives a really student impression of this industry in the ancient world, right? Because this ivory furniture, carving industry in India must have been huge, not just for local consumption but also for export. So that's when the Lakshmi, so-called Lakshmi from Pompeii, comes in, right? So probably originally a table like, oh, that's my perspective. And so to figure out when and where the begrim ivories were made, one has to really look at stone sculpture instead which is usually Buddhist and it's from all over India. And then we can see, okay, what is it closest to stylistically? So in terms of regional schools, you know, the big ones of most relevance are Sanchi in central India, a little bit earlier. Then we have Mathura in the north, so not so far from Agra, right? Near Taj Mahal and then Amaravati in the south. And so the problem is that the begrim ivories, they incorporate a mix of these different styles and stylistic traces of all three schools can be discerned from this corpus even within individual piece of the furniture. And so it tends to be presumed that the northern elements are stronger. I do think the southern links can't just be dismissed. You know, Sancho Mahandali has proposed that the ivories were made by itiner and artists which could explain the stylistic problem. And they could have been according to her carved at begrim itself which I don't think is really entirely convincing. And so in terms of date, they were probably made, well, between the first and third centuries AD, that's pretty safe, I think. And I will leave those questions to people who specialise more in India and art. But I think the Pompeii so-called Lakshmi does raise the question about Western India. And I have kind of wondered recently if one of these schools might have been closed, you know, Ujjayi and Odseni, and that might be one of the places where these schools might have come together. But I think that's an open question. Well, we will see what future archaeology reveals, amazing. So, Lauren, let's delve into these ivory objects a bit more than what sorts of objects ivory objects were discovered in the Horde. Well, you know, we get the impression that these are little pieces of art or things like that because, you know, that's a beautiful and intricate. But actually that all one's decorated furniture, even though this furniture was found disassembled in the Horde rooms. So, we've got like a series of backrests of chairs or rather thrones and these were very elaborate and they'd been stacked up in room 13. And then in room 10, we've had the remains of perhaps 13 footstools. And we know what this furniture originally looked like, despite its very chaotic presentation in the Begram Horde, because we've got depictions of very similar kinds of furniture in the Buddhist sculpture of Amaravati in South India. And so, besides these chairbacks and these footstools, we've got things like disassembled table legs. And some of these furniture elements were actually also made of bone and these were used alongside the ivory actually. And this is quite interesting because bone is, you know, much easier and cheaper to source than ivory. And so, it's thought then maybe perhaps these pieces of furniture could have belonged to perhaps less elite consumers. But I'm not sure this really matters actually. You know, it's not actually totally easy for most people to tell ivory and bone apart without modern science of analysis. And then the use of bone here could just really speak to perhaps a little shortage of ivory in the workshops that made this furniture. Or, you know, maybe they knew they could just get away with it, actually. Ah, that's interesting. Yes, yes. I guess an ancient trading is con too strong a word, but the consumer is quite happy with whatever he gets or she gets. I think so, I think really a person looking at this furniture would not have observed the difference really. And a lot of this had been painted too, so that would have covered that up a little bit as well. Absolutely. Always must remember that many of these objects have been painted. Of course, we've lost that colour today. Well, let's move on then. Those Indian objects are really remarkable in their own right. But we've got to go on to the Roman objects. And Lauren, we've got loads and loads of bronzes. And we'll go through these bronzes. But first of all, the figurines. What are these bronze figurines from the Horde? So, we've got just a couple of them, but they are quite interesting. So, they're really quite generic. So, we've got some little statuettes of possible comic grotesque. We've got these figurines of horse riders. And we've got some little statuettes of gods, right? And so, among these gods, we've got Aeros. They've got associated with Love. And it's not entirely surprising to see him here, because for whatever reason, he was still quite popular in the visual and material culture of Bactrian Gandara for a really long time. And he turns up as a decorative figure in all kinds of locally produced art around this period. And then we've got a couple of interesting figures which point very strongly to an Egyptian provenance. So, one is a cast figurine of Seraphas Heracles. And this is like a hybrid version of the Greco-Egyptian god Seraphas. And he's associated with the sun and fertility. And here he's mashed up with our legendary hero Heracles. And then we have another Greco-Egyptian god, Hippocrates, who's associated with silence and secrecy. And so, perhaps these figurines might have first been imported as objects of religious devotion. So, we've got Seraphas Heracles. Hippocrates turning up elsewhere as little figurines in Bactrian Gandara at the time. So, it's possible they were religiously charged as possible. They weren't. And, you know, by the time they ended up in the Horde, it's possible then that this religious meaning had been sort of pulled away from them. So, they changed over time. They're significant. and so we see this when we see this little stature of hypocrite's rights. So originally he's meant to be pointing at his mouth because he's the god of silence and secrecy. But the example of background, his lower forearm had fallen off an antiquity and then someone had repaired it. So they actually repaired it in fact incorrectly. So he's pointing at his head instead. And so I think this shows like a nice little process of forgetting a loss of understanding over time and then someone sort of best approximated what they knew about this god. A religious bronze object, no longer a religious bronze object. And I've got in my notes for the next bronze item. And forgive me if I say this completely wrong. Baos Samaria. Lauren explains to me all about this. So this is another little group, but they're quite interesting because they're found commonly across the Roman Mediterranean. And so these are little bronze jars with lids on them and these were made in the shape of the busts of gods, right? So we've got two picked Athena. We've got two depicting Hermes and one of Aries. So Greek gods that would have been, you know, totally recognizable in the Roman world, you know, perfectly understandable. And the idea is that they were called Baos Samaria. It's kind of a convention because there's been quite some debate about what they were used for. So Baos Samaria implies that they were used for Baosan, right? This resin. And in fact, they may have been used to store perfumed oil, perhaps incense or even spices. And it's thought now that they could have been set on the table or carried around at banquets in the Roman world to add sort of more scent into this heavy atmosphere of feasting, right? And maybe the one's being used in this way at Begrum too. We don't know. But by the time they ended up in the Horde, I think they'd been in the stage of reuse, right? I think they'd been kept as part of reference material for craft production. So moving on from these bronzes onto other bronzes because there seems to be some other types of bronzes such as two handled basins. Yes, yes, this is a group of like quite wide dishes around 30 centimeters wide. And they had these two handles and they were set in a ring foot and they were mostly really homogeneous. And so these are examples of a very widely distributed kind of object in the Roman world. So we see them very commonly at Pompeii, for example. But sometimes it also found well beyond Roman imperial frontiers. And so a group has actually even been found in South India at Colourport, which is quite cool. And so naturally at Begrum, we have a whopping corpus. We have over 30 stacked together. And it's not really clear which workshop they were produced in because they're a slightly unique type. But nonetheless, in the Roman world, these kinds of basins are sort of generally thought to have been used for ablutions in bank winning contexts. But I think at Begrum, they might have just been used as tableware. Interesting the change of their use. And onto one of the most awesome labelled bronzes that I've ever heard of. The bronze aquariums stay with us. What are the bronze aquariums, Lauren? These are two totally unique devices, which are made mostly from worked bronze and one is circular, one is rectangular. And we can really only call them aquariums because we don't have another name for them. So I can say, though, because of their technical and iconographic qualities, they must have been produced in the Roman Mediterranean. And even though their function isn't totally clear, I would describe them as devices that entertainment. And perhaps they were meant to be interacted with during feasts. And what do these aquariums depict? So the first one, the circular one, right? It's quite well preserved. So we have a good vision into what this device looks like. So the first one, it's got this bronze dish on the bottom with some little pins. And then it's got a flat bronze circular plate, which sits on top. And then that bronze dish depicts this aquatic scene, right? We've got a gorgon's face at the centre and it's surrounded by fish and aquatic creatures. And these aquatic creatures, they've got moving parts. And these parts are primarily the fins of the fish and they were cut from little pieces of bronze and they were attached to the main body of the dish with rings. And then these little weights hung down from these rings below the decorative plate. And so then this plate had been embellished with polychrome paint, which is a very unusual decorative technique in Greco-Roman bronzes. And then a wooden ring sort of sat around the top of that plate. And then there was like a flat piece of glass on top with a decorative Roman bronze on top. So very, very elaborate. But altogether, the imagery on this main decorative plate, right, it looks like it might have depicted the myth of parasyst, rescuing, and drometer. But I think the most important theme that it displays actually is that of the ocean. So populated by all kinds of sea creatures, which would be totally foreign to a consumer at Bay Graham or White Essential Asia. And indeed, you know, the second aquarium, although it wasn't really well preserved, it actually only depicted different kinds of marine foreigners. So primarily fish. And indeed, you're quite right when we do think where these are found, right in the center of Asia, hundreds and hundreds of miles away from the oceans, from the Mediterranean, all that type of sea creatures on that, is awesome. Therapy's biggest impact doesn't show up in some dramatic breakthrough. Grow is therapy that works covered by insurance. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0, depending on their plan. There are no subscriptions, no long-term commitments. You just pay per session. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality, licensed therapists across the US, offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity, or availability. And you can book a therapy session in minutes and begin in as little as two days, not the national 48-day average. Growtherapy.com/acast. - Land of Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the poisonous cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and Shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed, not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. (dramatic music) - Catastrophic warfare, bloody revolutions and violent ideological battles. I'm James Rogers and over on the warfare podcast, we're exploring the vast history of ferocious global conflict. We've got the classics. - Understandably, when we see it from hindsight, the great revelation in Potsdam was really starting to say, "Yeah, tell me something, I don't know." - The unexpected, and it was at that moment that he just handed out all these documents that he'd discovered sewn into the cushion of the armchair and the never-ending. - So arguably, every state that has tested nuclear weapons has created some sort of a fact to local communities. - Subscribe to warfare from History Hits wherever you get your podcasts. Join us on the front line of military history. (upbeat music) - And let's then move on to another area of Roman objects, which are the plaster castes. Lauren, what are these? So we've got a group of over 50 plaster cast and they were found quite nicely sacked along a wall and room 13, and these are cast formed in positive relief. So their designs are sticking out to face us and they depict all kinds of things. So we've got Greco-Roman gods again. We've got Dynes, the Ark, mythological scenes, kind of genre scenes, vine leaves, really the whole smorgasbord of classical imagery. And so cast like this were probably pretty common in certain workshop contexts in the Hellenistic and Roman Mediterranean, uses reference material. And some examples do survive today. So a very comparable corpus to those of the Begrim examples were found in New Memphis in Egypt. And so these castes would have been made from plaster being poured into a negative matrix. So that would have been made from clay, wax, which is negative. matrix had been taken itself from a design elsewhere. So perhaps an original design or quite likely antique metalware that a workshop might have had access to. And tell me about this Hellenistic Link to these plastic castles, and I've always got asked about the Hellenistic Link, what is this Hellenistic Link? So the Hellenistic Link is that some of these vessels that the background cast might have been made from, but perhaps made in the Hellenistic period, the originals could have been from that. And so that's why it makes the background plastic cast so difficult to date. Yeah. And so these castles are interesting because they tell us about how imagery and iconography in both the Hellenistic and Roman world could move across these really vast spaces. And it's quite important to mention here that these casts weren't used for mechanical replication of imagery and motives. So like people weren't taking impressions directly from them, but again, they were used as sources of inspiration as reference material. And craftsmen could have had them on a hand and used them as needed. And actually, another Hellenistic Link, we find similar kinds of plastic casts already in Central Asia in the Hellenistic period at Ahinum. And then we also have them in a workshop that was producing terracotta figurines in old term as just prior to the Kushan period. So there is also like a longer Hellenistic history of the use of these kinds of casts as again, sources of inspiration in Central Asia. And I guess the background board just shows a continuation of that practice in craft production. It does indeed. And we'll be getting back to that Hellenistic Link in due course, don't you worry. But first of all, there is another area of the background board, another set of objects, which is the enameled glass objects because we have some striking examples of this from the hall, don't we Lauren? So yes, we have some amazing examples of enameled glass from the hall, right? So I should mention that of, there's a lot of Roman glass found in this hall and it's mostly all tableware and there's over 180 pieces. So this is absolutely enormous. And in this corpus of glass, we have just about everything Roman luxury glass production had to offer, especially in the first and second centuries AED. And so the enameled group is really important. There were at least 14, maybe 17 is hard to say, very fragmentary, problematic documentation. But these glass vessels were primarily goblets, so drinking vessels and all different sizes, they're made from colorless glass. And so this enamel feature is produced by powdered colored glass, which was then applied to the surface of the colorless vessel and then fired on. So it's really vibrant, very bright. And it stays very nice for us to look at today. And so the background group is actually so important for this kind of glass because yes, it was produced in the Roman Mediterranean and probably this group was produced in Egypt, we would say, for a number of reasons. But the background corpus is sort of the main body of reference material for this kind of glass, which is kind of insane, actually. We're speaking about Egypt and this link, we know, are there any particular examples of this enameled glass that you'd like to highlight? Oh, there's fabulous ones, right? I mean, we think of the Egyptian link because there is one, for example, which has this sort of new Egyptianizing scene, so that's sort of quite on the nose for us. But we've got all kinds of things. We've got people gathering garlands, making these to hang for a festive occasion. We've got depictions of gladiators, the same kinds of guys we would see on Pompeian war paintings. And we've got this amazing, enormous goblet, which is depicting this scene from the Iliad, Achilles and Hector fighting in battle in two different freezers. And we know exactly who they are because they were labeled as Achilles and Hector in Greek. So it's very convenient for us. That's so incredible. And I love the fact that you can find a depiction of a gladiator in central Asia around the second century AD. And Lauren, one other glass example I'd like to ask about is the pharaohs glass. What is this? Oh, yes, this is sort of one of the big, famous people of the Begrum glass. So this pharaohs goblet, it's this glass goblet, right? It's colorless and it's got this really high relief decoration. And it depicts what is probably the lighthouse of Alexandria. And then on the other side, it's got three different kinds of ships. And this is just a totally unique piece of Roman luxury glass, like an excellent example of the achievements of the industry. And it has prompted so much debate about when it was made, because we mostly have such high relief glass turning up in late antiquity of the third and fourth centuries of some of the famous diatreza, right? And it's just simply unclear precisely how it was made. So it could have been made from a very thick kind of blank, you know, so very thick walls. And then someone was, you know, minutely cutting away this very elaborate decoration, or it could have been made by somebody applying sort of blogs of molten glass and then sort of cold working it. There's different options. And it's kind of still subject to debate. That being said, what is so wonderful about this vessel is that it was probably made in the late first or early second century AT. It was certainly a product of an Alexandrian workshop because we have our lighthouse of Alexandria. And it was probably made to be something like a super posh souvenir. If that image is that of the lighthouse of Alexandria, I just really want to have this home because I find this fascinating. That image could be an image of one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, which is astonishing in its own right to have a contemporary ish image of it. Well, let's now talk about this link with the Roman Empire. I mean, at this time, do we have any evidence of there being regular contact of there being contact between the cushion empire and the Roman Empire? We kind of do, but it's really hard to interpret. So we've got like some Roman gold coins turning up in what are super deposits in the Kushan period. So these were buried with relics in these sacred objects of worship, which is quite cool. And we've got occasional bits and pieces of Roman glass vessels at places like Halshayan and Bactria and Taksila and Gandhara. But genuine imports from the Roman Mediterranean are really rare. There's really nothing comparable to the Begrum Horde so far. And this just is surely to do with the biases of our evidence. So if we looked a bit more into like rich urban context and central Asia, the archaeology of them, we'd probably find some more, but regardless, right? So our evidence is complicated because our texts don't really help us much either. So our most important source for Indian Ocean trade routes at the time, the paraphrase of the Erithrian Sea, which was written in Greek in the first century AD, basically doesn't know who the Bactrians are. So the author mentions like a poet in Northwest India and he says, "Oh, you know, there's some people beyond that, including a very war like people, the Bactrians." So great. And then we've got some passing references in later Latin biographies of Hadrian and Ants Nine as Pires. So, you know, of the second century AD, but written much later. And these mentioned, you know, Bactrians paying homage to the emperors. So I mean, it's difficult to interpret these. You know, maybe they're kind of hagiographic. Maybe there's a kernel of reality. It's possible that the Kushan kings and Roman emperors cultivated some kind of long-distance diplomatic relationships and how evidence simply just isn't insistent upon that point. And, oh, you know, we've also got the phenomenon of Gandhar and Buddha sculpture, which flourishes in this period in the region of Gandhar, right? And this drew on a very wide ranging vocabulary of styles and imagery from the Greco-Roman world as well. And so there's been a lot of debate about the mechanisms by which these visual features from, you know, the Roman Imperial period ends up in this distant body of art. So was it through imported objects like those at Bagram? Was it through things like the plaster cast or they're like pattern books? And, you know, recently this idea that Roman craftsmen could have traveled to Gandhar too, it's kind of been recently rehabilitated on the basis of art historical analysis. So it kind of complicated, and there's a lot of different possibilities. And I must say though, yeah, so the Romans, they weren't like dying to get to Central Asia in many ways, and they weren't totally aware of this as a space, but the Greeks really were, right? And so there's a lot of nuanced ways we can talk about the Greek and Central Asian cultural encounter in the Hellenistic period. But, you know, the fact of the matter is the period of Greek rule in this space, they introduced settlers, new cultural and religious practices. So they introduced the worship of certain kinds of Greek gods and rituals that were familiar from the Hellenistic world. They also introduced really, and like, you know, gave the use of coinage, a real push, Hellenistic style coinage, and they used the Greek language too. So even though that period of Greek rule was very brief, it left very profound traces in Central Asia's visual and material culture, and it's really still extended into the Kushan period. So even later in this Kushan period, right? Hundreds of years later, we've got the Greek language. It was still used on coins and inscriptions until the second century AD in Bactria. And that's when the Kushans decided to, you know, switch to the use of Bactrian as their sort of main imperial language, right? Which is the local middle Iranian idiom. And then when they did that, they still used a modified Greek script. And keeping on that memory of Greek rule and how strong it still seems to be. to be at this time of the Roman Empire, it feels like it kind of goes into that idea. When I asked you this question then, when we look at the appeal of these Roman objects in the Begrum Horde, what do you think the appeal was for the elites of the cushions in Central Asia for having these Roman-like objects? Yeah, so I think there was this really like longstanding social memory of Greek rule in this region. And it's interesting to think about how people living in the Kushan period might have remembered this Hellenistic period, and it's, you know, odd Hellenistic kings. And for centuries, coinage followed models of Hellenistic coins. And again, they used to Greek script and monuments of the Hellenistic period would have been, you know, very visible and engaged with in the physical landscape. So we had like monumental stone blocks from a Hellenistic period at Balc, right, which were reused for a canal in the Kushan period. And what's quite interesting is like politically the Kushan kings, you know, whatever their ethno-cultural origin, they didn't style themselves as Greek or Hellenistic. You know, instead they explicitly style themselves as Iranian kings in their vocabularies of power. So in their dress, portraiture, language, titles, epigraphy, all really Iranian and fatically so. And so a number of scholars have thought that they might be some kind of, you know, de-hellenization policy under the Kushans. And politically there's some merit to that. But still ideas about Greekness were linked with these old Hellenistic kings and associated with real prestige. And so because of phenomena like this, and you know, just as we talk about Brekkah Roman culture and we have, from the 21st century, a difficulty drawing a line between Hellenistic and Roman imperial material culture and the Mediterranean world, I think that Roman objects of background would have essentially been seen as Greek too, rather than really emphatically Roman distinctly. So and so a lot of the gods, mythological scenes and imagery, there's not been, you know, roughly familiar to elites in the Kushan period. And so, you know, gods, for example, we've got Hellenistic gods which end up being synchrotized in local deities in this period. So Heracles becomes the Buddha's bodyguard, Vatrapani and Gandhar and Arna, which is just super, like what a life of Heracles. But we've also got some Kushan coins around the same period, 2nd century AD, which also have Heracles on them. And he's our friend, he's exactly who we know he is. He is nude, he's got his club, he's got his lion skin, and there's a bacteria and legend written in the modified Greek script again, which literally says Herakilo Heracles. So he's unmistakably this Greek demigod. And in ways like this, I think it's very easy to imagine that elite consumers in Kushan Central Asia would have read these Roman items as essentially associated with Greekness. Loving that link once again, back to the Hellenistic Greco-Bacterian kingdom. And so, if these Roman objects were being read as Greek and harkening back to that Greek past rule in that area of the ancient world. You put your phone down, instead of firing off that text. You say what you actually mean, instead of what would hurt someone else the most. That's what growing feels like, and that's exactly what growth therapy is here for. Sessions average $21 with insurance and some pay as little as $0 depending on their plan. Grow connects you with thousands of high-quality licensed therapists across the US, offering both virtual and in-person sessions, nights and weekends. You can search by what matters, like insurance, specialty, identity or availability. See if you could pay as little as $0 per therapy in seconds at growtherapy.com/acast. Lando Viking Longship on Island shores scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt and avoid the poisonous cup in Renaissance florets. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire assassins' creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series Chasing Shadows where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for assassins' creed shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. It begs the question, I must ask we've covered all these incredible objects. Lauren, what do we think this horde is? So that is the big question subject to a lot of debate, and I can tell you what I think it is, right? You go for it. So I think it was an intergenerational collection of goods that was accumulated by elites and the character of these goods speaks to two sort of main functions of use that they had, not exclusively but two main ones. And so the first one is a really large-scale elite feasting with tableware or neat furniture, things like this. And then the second is accumulation of material for inspiration in a workshop. Even though we have no idea what was made in that workshop, it could have been metalwork, it could have been other kinds of goods. We have no idea. And so it's also important to underline that the horde objects had been stored somewhere else before they were deposited in this building at site two within which they were found. So this building had just been a rich house in the lower city. It was a mansion, and the horde objects had been its reception rooms, right, at the core of the house. That being said, the primary storage location of these objects before they were put into these rooms is just not clear. So the number of objects is way too large, I think, to speak to consumption in just one local mansion, remember, over 180 glass vessels. So this begs the question, maybe had they been stored originally in a palace? Well, such a palace, if it existed, should have been on the citadel, that when Roman Gershman looked there, it appeared that any ancient structures had been raised for their building materials. So we just don't know. And so the people who collected the background horde objects, they could have been local elites like a rich governor who we have evidence for at the time, or they could have been royal elites who suffered in Kapisha without King Kanishka, and we just have to accept that we don't know the answer. But by the time the horde was assembled and abandoned, presumably when the city was abandoned to, you know, mid-thirtth century or later, I want to reiterate that I think a lot of these objects were in terrible shape. So this evidence, for example, that this ivory furniture had been falling apart, disassembled, plaques from certain ensembles were found in piles in the wrong room, and other objects were basically antiques. Like the Chinese Lackawares would have been hundreds of years old by the time they were put there in the horde rooms. And wonderfully, we have an example of one of these Chinese Lackawares, an example of a prestigious luxury good from one side of Eurasia, jammed on top of a glass jar that was presumably made in the Roman Mediterranean. So you have to wonder what these people were thinking when they were putting these stuff together, assembling it and depositing in the horde rooms. So what is at least clear to me as that these objects were still seen as very, very highly valuable, even if they were in kind of bad shape? And you know, no, we don't have gold, silver or precious stones in any kind of quantity like our regular kinds of hordes. But these items were old and rare and acquired from across the known world at the time. Old, rare and acquired from all across Eurasia. It's awesome. And does this really emphasize, is Begrim and its horde a great example through which to understand this interconnected global nature of the ancient world? Absolutely. I think it's the best example we had, and I think it's so exciting because it's been misunderstood in my opinion for a really long time. So a number of scholars have viewed this material as parts of the product of overland transit trade across the so-called Silk Road, right? And so they were either then goods that were requisitioned and kind as customs duties or a merchant stock which was abandoned. But this idea, it speaks to a bigger longstanding historiographical construct. And that is the idea that the cushions were the middlemen of the Silk Road, getting rich from the profits of controlling overland transit trade between Roman China. And I think the picture that we've discussed here is way more exciting. It shows this incredibly dynamic cultural environment with elites in the Kushan period, very intentionally acquiring very specific procedures and luxury objects from across Eurasia, and they integrated ideas from these distant spaces into their local craft production and feasting habits. And so I think it's just such an important shift of emphasis to see the Kushans not just as little men, but active consumers driving long distance trade in these goods. But I think another example of what the Begram Horde does is it shows the messiness and difficulty of writing history, right? So it's attracted hundreds of articles, books, exhibitions, dissertations, including my own. And you know, someone in the future will say something much cleverer than I can. I'm no doubt about that. But you know, as I've picked apart the evidence and put it back together with a surviving documentation, I've just highlighted this key narrative that the cushions are the middlemen of the silk road, right? And this material tells us about consumption in cushions central Asia, but that's just one story. So through this material, we're actually looking at this entangled sum of hundreds and thousands in fact of stories of life across ancient Eurasia. We've got all these layers of experience as not just of elites for craftspeople, officials, traders, all kinds of people from both sides of the continent. I think that's absolutely right, Lauren, whether it's the Vindalandor tablets or whether it's in central Asia, when the archaeology can reveal more, can tell stories of people who lived some 2,000 years ago, that's what makes it really, really special sometimes. And you kind of highlighted it there, Lauren, but shall we say that the Begram Horde, it's a wonderful microcosm through which to really start getting an insight into the enthralling, it is enthralling ancient history of central Asia, whether it's Bactria, whether it's the Aram Begram, whether it's Gendara, the Shogdhya, just that awesome history, ancient history of central Asia. Absolutely. I mean, something I always think is that the Begram Horde has something for everyone. But well, I've been the incredible ancient history of ancient central Asia, wasn't interconnected to history, the Begram Horde is such a symbol of that. And where else but an ancient Afghanistan, can you find a Chinese Lackaware bowl jammed on top of a roaming glass jar? That's a good question to end it on, Lauren. I mean, you and other scholars like yourself, whether here in the UK or in Europe or in Afghanistan or in the East, seems like there's a growing amount of you now in your old incredible work trying to figure out more about central Asian antiquities, so your mission to shine more light on this. Absolutely, I've been thrilled to see that there's such growing interest in the last decades in this time and space. And my personal small contribution to that is to, I have a blog, which is called Central Asia Antiquity, and it sort of aims to gather, you know, recent publications, exhibitions, and kind of news about conferences to try and pull this information together and make it more accessible. Lauren, this was a wonderful chat. Thank you so much for shining your light on this awesome set of Objects of Ancient History. This goes to me to say, thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast. My absolute pleasure. [BLANK_AUDIO]