Lands of Asia layouts (Eng) 26.11.21

2 .4
Medal engraving and particularly
monetary iconography were highly
developed in Bactria at this time. In
terms of artistic design, the coins of the
Graeco-Bactrian kings were among the
best in the world. The portraits on the
obverse of the coins are very distinctive
images of the kings, while the figures of
the deities on the reverse are copies of
famous Greek sculptures.
Mustahara. Flask. 2nd–1st century BC.
Art of the Yuezhi period
In the third quarter of the 2nd century BC Northern Bactria was conquered by the
Yuezhi (Tokharians according to Graeco-Roman sources), who, under pressure from
the Huns (Xiongnu), migrated here from an area that corresponds to the presentday
Gansu province of China. Later, the Yuezhi – Tokharians conquered Southern
Bactria and established a confederate Yuezhi state with Bactra as its centre, which
continued to exist until Kujula Kadphises established the Kushan kingdom in the
first half of the 1st century AD.
The building in Khalchayan and its unique sculptural compositions and remnants
of monumental painting, surveyed by the Uzbekistan Art History Expedition in
1959–1963, can be regarded as an example of monumental works of art of the Yuezhi
period.
There is little agreement among scholars about the date and interpretation of this
building, however. According to G.A. Pugachenkova, the building was a small palace
erected at the end of the last millennium BC/beginning of the 1st millennium ad,
and which survived for about two centuries. Over time, the main hall of the palace
became a hall of deified ancestors. By contrast, the scholars B. Rowland, B.J. Stavisky
and A.V. Sedov attribute the construction of the Khalchayan building to the early
Kushan period from the 1st century AD to the beginning of the 2nd century.
Stavisky and Sedov both believe that this building was originally erected as the
temple of a dynastic cult. However, their views on the dating and interpretation of
the building are not supported by any substantial facts, as was already pointed out by
Pugachenkova, whose analysis of this issue is more credible.
The interpretation of the content of the sculptural scenes and of particular
images is a different matter altogether. The palace at Khalchayan was a small building
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