Results found: 2

Search results

Search:
in the keywords: Takht -i Sangin

Sort By:

Limit search:

The votive plaques in the Oxus and Mir Zakah treasures: what they tell about the cults

100%

Grenet F.

Studia Hercynia

2023

vol. 27

issue 1

54-64

This paper proposes a comparison between the votive plaques which were part of the Oxus and Mir Zakah treasures, both dating for the main to the Achaemenid period. In a first section the questions of provenance and authenticity are discussed. Arguments adduced against the authenticity of some plaques are dismissed in the light of comparative material, some of which was recently discovered in safe contexts. A second section addresses the religious significance of these offerings. The Oxus treasure collection is consistent with known chracteristics of the god Wakhsh (Oxus), e.g. its association with the horse and its possible assimilation to Tishtrya. The Mir Zakah collection is more associated with farming and it also comprises a significant proportion of medical ex -votos (or propitiatory offerings), completely absent from the Oxus treasure. Such a repertoire could suggest that this part of the Mir Zakah treasure originally belonged to a temple of Anāhitā.

Western, Eastern, both, or neither? Translocalism as alternative approach to syncretism and hybridity in Hellenistic Bactria

100%

Hoo M.

Studia Hercynia

2023

vol. 27

issue 1

124-150

Ideas of Hellenistic Central Asia as a cultural melting pot, resulting from the fusion of Eastern and Western cultures after Alexander the Great, continue to have considerable scholarly and popular appeal. While the Western component of the supposed melting pot generally stands for Greek influence as a dynamic actuating force, the Eastern component often seems to refer not to ‘eastern’ from a Bactrian perspective, but rather to a static idea of continuous local culture – essentialized as Eastern from a classical Mediterranean -centred point of view. Focused on the Niched Temple at Ai Khanoum and the Oxus Temple at Takht -i Sangin, this paper aims to rethink conventional taxonomies of ‘Western’, ‘Eastern’, and the convenient ‘hybrid’ by examining cultural interaction and religious syncretism from a translocal approach, sharpened by the situated perspective of communities of practice. Communities of practice are formed by people who share a set of practices which are learned by doing. Consideration of such communities not only grants analytical space for actors with different levels of learned participation but also for various potential identifications beyond ethno -geographical ones. This article explores the concept for Hellenistic Bactria and addresses heuristic problems of common assumptions of community and identity while drawing attention to various synchronous interactions and forms of identifications behind etically identified Hellenism, syncretism, and hybridity.

Refine search results

2 Studia Hercynia

1 Grenet F.

1 Hoo M.

2 2023

Search results

The votive plaques in the Oxus and Mir Zakah treasures: what they tell about the cults

Western, Eastern, both, or neither? Translocalism as alternative approach to syncretism and hybridity in Hellenistic Bactria