SEALS, SEALINGS AND TOKENS FROM BACTRIA TO GANDHARA (4 th to 8 th century CE)

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2 Judith A. Lerner and Nicholas Sims-Williams SEALS, SEALINGS AND TOKENS FROM BACTRIA TO GANDHARA (4 th to 8 th century CE) Edited by Judith A. Lerner and Michael Alram

3 ÖSTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN PHILOSOPHISCH-HISTORISCHE KLASSE DENKSCHRIFTEN,. BAND VERÖFFENTLICHUNGEN DER NUMISMATISCHEN KOMMISSION BAND 52 Studies in the Aman ur Rahman Collection Volume 2

4 ÖSTERREICHISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN PHILOSOPHISCH-HISTORISCHE KLASSE DENKSCHRIFTEN, 421. BAND SEALS, SEALINGS AND TOKENS FROM BACTRIA TO GANDHARA (4 th to 8 th century CE) Judith A. Lerner and Nicholas Sims-Williams With contributions by Aman ur Rahman and Harry Falk Edited by Judith A. Lerner and Michael Alram

5 Vorgelegt von w. M. MICHAEL ALRAM in der Sitzung am 18. Juni 2010 Gedruckt mit Unterstützung des Fonds zur Förderung der wissenschaftlichen Forschung Umschlagbild: AA 10.1 (Hc129) British Library Cataloguing in Publication data A Catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library Die verwendete Papiersorte ist aus chlorfrei gebleichtem Zellstoff hergestellt, frei von säurebildenden Bestandteilen und alterungsbeständig. Alle Rechte vorbehalten ISBN Copyright 2011 by Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften Wien Satz und Layout: Andrea Sulzgruber Druck: digidruck GesmbH, Wien Printed and bound in the EU

6 5 CONTENTS Foreword... 7 Acknowledgements... 9 Introduction by Aman ur Rahman Map List of illustrations includes maps, color plates and table of tamgas Bibliographic Abbreviations and Notes I. Glyptic Art from Bactria to Gandhara: The Aman ur Rahman Collection in Context by Judith A. Lerner Introduction: Bactrian and Gandharan Glyptics and Their Geographical and Cultural Setting Physical Characteristics of the Seals, Sealings and Tokens Seal Ownership The Representational Motifs Some Matters of Style, Locality and Date II. The Seal Inscriptions A. Remarks on Bactrian Seal Inscriptions of the Post-Kushan Era by Nicholas Sims-Williams Preliminary Remarks Earlier Studies and Collections of Bactrian Seal Inscriptions Seals of Women Seals Belonging to Couples or Families? Seals Belonging to a God or Temple? Naming Formulae Inscriptions Not Including a Name The Seal Inscriptions of the Present Collection and the Bactrian Documents B. The Brāhmī Inscriptions by Harry Falk Local Uses of Kharo hī and Brāhmī The Inscriptions Orthography III. Catalogue A. The Seals, Sealings and Tokens by Judith A. Lerner Organization and Preliminary Remarks Catalogue of Seals, Sealings and Tokens... 67

7 6 Contents B. The Iranian Inscriptions: Bactrian, Middle Persian and Sogdian by Nicholas Sims-Williams Preliminary Remarks The Seal Inscriptions Appendix 1. Frequently Cited and Key Seals and Coins from Robert Göbl, Dokumente zur Geschichte der iranischen Hunnen in Baktrien und Indien; and Pierfrancesco Callieri, Seals and Sealings from the North-West of the Indian Subcontinent and Afghanistan (4 th Century BC - 11 th Century AD) Concordance of Catalogue and Accession Numbers Bibliography Indices Index for Chapter I Middle Iranian Index Brāhmī Index Color Plates Color Plate I: Intaglios Color Plate II: Selected Sealings and Tokens

8 7 FOREWORD This publication is the result of a fruitful collaboration in the framework of the National Research Network (NFN) The Cultural History of the Western Himalaya from the 8 th Century, sponsored by the Austrian Science Fund (S 9806-G21). The NFN is closely associated with the Research Platform Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Documentation of Inner and South Asian Cultural History (CIRDIS) at the University of Vienna which is directed by Deborah Klimburg-Salter, who is also the speaker of the NFN project. As outlined in the project goals, the NFN concentrates its efforts on the Western Himalayan region, where the great cultures of China, India, Persia and Tibet converge. Through the centuries this region, traversed by trade and pilgrimage routes from the Mediterranean to the China Sea and the Indian Ocean, was, and continues to be, an area of intense cultural exchange. These corridors of communication connected far flung centers and thus over the millennia contributed to common cultural features despite great ethnic and linguistic diversity. The purpose of the NFN is to facilitate the documentation and descriptive analysis of the already extinct quickly disappearing cultures of the Western Himalaya. It brings together scholars from various disciplines, such as Art History, Archaeology, Numismatics, Philosophy, Philology, and Geography, and combines research projects at all stages of development, from the initial exploratory phase of problem definition and documentation to the production of research results. One of the sub-projects of the NFN concerns the pre-islamic numismatic history of the western region of the Western Himalayas from Afghanistan to Kashmir, including the geographically contiguous areas of Central Asia. The chronological framework stretches from the late 4 th to the 8 th century CE, when Hunnic and Turkish tribes ruled and struck coins on both sides of the Hindukush and far into Northwest India. Since its publication more than 40 years ago, Robert Göblʼs Dokumente zur Geschichte der iranischen Hunnen in Baktrien und Indien (Göbl 1967) has been the fundamental reference work for this group of interconnected coinages, which served as the main key to the history of the region during this period. Göbl s publication was based on 1,200 coins of approximately 300 different types; also included were 65 seals and sealings which he associated with the Hunnish and Turkic periods. But Göbl himself recognized the still fragmentary nature of the evidence available to him at the time. Since then, however, each year has brought new material, a fact that demonstrates the growing need for a completely novel approach. Apart from the greatly increased numismatic and sigillographic evidence (e.g., Callieri s 1997 work, which provided a firm new basis for analyzing seals and sealings), new sources from related fields have surfaced that can be incorporated into the already available numismatic and sigillographic evidence. In particular, these new sources are literary and epigraphic, such as the Bactrian and Arabic documents published by Nicholas Sims-Williams (2000 [BD 1] and 2007 [BD 2]) and Geoffrey Khan (2007), the important Brahmi inscription published by Gudrun Melzer (2006), as well as the new interpretation of the Chinese sources by Étienne de La Vaissière (2003 [2007]). The internal and external network of the NFN provides a unique opportunity to achieve a new synthesis of all the available information. The political developments of the last years in parts of the region under study have made it even more important to collect visual and textual evidence that is in imminent danger of being lost forever. The main goal of the project is to conduct a completely new analysis of the monetary history of Central Asia and Northwest India during the Hunnic and Turkish periods up to the Arab conquest, bringing the coin evidence into context with relevant sources from other disciplines. This integrated approach will provide a dense numismatic network secured by the corresponding historical sources that will give new insights into the monetary, political and cultural history of this very

9 8 Foreword important transitional period and will provide a firm basis for further research in numismatics as well as the related art historical, archaeological and linguistic disciplines. In this regard, Judith A. Lerner s and Nicholas Sims-Williams study of the seals and sealings from Bactria and Greater Gandhara in the Aman ur Rahman collection, with a contribution by Harry Falk, forms a major part of the project. The material, most of it previously unpublished, is of extraordinary importance and opens a completely new perspective on Central Asian sigillography and the larger issue of Bactrian and Gandharan art and culture from the mid-3 rd to mid-8 th centuries. Because the seals reveal many iconographic and linguistic parallels with the coins and many of the sealings are associated with dated documents, the glyptic material can also help us in dating the coins. It is my great pleasure to thank Aman ur Rahman for giving us access to his extraordinary collection, and to support our work with his generous hospitality. Moreover, he is responsible for the excellent photographs of the seals and sealings published in this catalogue. I also have to acknowledge the help of Harry Falk (Freie Universität, Berlin) who read the Brahmi legends. My special thanks go to Judith Lerner and Nicholas Sims-Williams, whose steady engagement, helpful comments and criticism are of utmost importance for the general success of our project. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Austrian Research Fund for printing this publication. Michael Alram Vienna, April 2010

10 9 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS We would like to thank Aman ur Rahman for making his collection of seals and sealings available to us for study. We greatly appreciate his enthusiasm for this project and his hospitality, as well as his photographic skills, which allowed us to continue our study of his collection and provide the excellent views that illustrate this volume. We are grateful to Michael Alram for his encouragement and for shepherding the volume through its stages of development. We would also like to thank Harry Falk for answering many questions and in particular for contributing his chapter on the Brahmi-inscribed seals; and convey our thanks to Michaela Kinberger and Daniel Nell for the map on page 12. Additionally, Judith Lerner expresses her gratitude to the following scholars for answering her queries and providing valuable information, and photographic and bibliographic help: Osmund Bopearachchi; Robert Bracey; Pierfrancesco Callieri; Elizabeth Errington; Frantz Grenet; David Jurie; Muhammad Nasim Khan; Michaela Kinberger; Deborah Klimburg-Salter; Susanne Kögler- Novotny; Ciro LoMuzio; Philippe Marquis; Daniel Nell; Matthias Pfisterer; Fabrizio Sinisi; Prods Oktor Skjaervø; Doris Meth Srinivasan; Sören Stark; Elizabeth Rosen Stone; Gary Tartakov; Klaus Vondrovec; and Verena Widorn. Judith A. Lerner and Nicholas Sims-Williams

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