{"id":1437,"date":"2011-06-14T10:10:39","date_gmt":"2011-06-14T17:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/2011\/06\/14\/bactrian-breccia-ritual-object\/"},"modified":"2011-07-18T19:15:45","modified_gmt":"2011-07-19T02:15:45","slug":"bactrian-breccia-ritual-object","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/2011\/06\/14\/bactrian-breccia-ritual-object\/","title":{"rendered":"Bactrian disks"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sotheby’s auction house recently had a sale of miscellaneous\u00a0antiquities, including a 14″ stone disk<\/a> dated to 2200-1700 BC from the “Bactrian\/Margian Region.” \u00a0This is the so-called “BMAC” (Bactria-Margiana Archeological Complex<\/a>), centered around Merv in present-day Turkmenistan, which was first described by Soviet archeologists in the 1970’s. \u00a0I don’t know enough about it, but this disk — how did it end up at Sotheby’s? — is apparently not the only example of its kind. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Christie’s sold a similar piece<\/a> five years ago:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This disk is 2″ larger in diameter than the Sotheby’s example. \u00a0The pestles (or\u00a0pedestals?) flanking it, #17, are described as ‘ritual objects.’ \u00a0I have no idea what ritual purpose they could serve, though, and the auction house catalog descriptions don’t shed much light.\u00a0\u00a0The Christie’s disk and ‘ritual objects’ sold for $7,200 which presumably was the basis for Sotheby’s estimate of $5,000 – $8,000 for their disk; it ended up selling for $5,313.<\/p>\n

A quick search yields more examples. \u00a0They all seem to have a characteristic slot or groove through the center.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

bactrian breccia ritual object<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

bactrian stone disk<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

bactriain disco<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

bactrian veined<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

(photos by\u00a0greyherbert<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sotheby’s auction house recently had a sale of miscellaneous\u00a0antiquities, including a 14″ stone disk dated to 2200-1700 BC from the “Bactrian\/Margian Region.” \u00a0This is the so-called “BMAC” (Bactria-Margiana Archeological Complex), centered around Merv in present-day Turkmenistan, which was first described … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1421,140],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-central-asia","category-religion"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8jQA6-nb","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1437"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1471,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1437\/revisions\/1471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}