5.4 Dating on the Basis the Other Objects Discovered in Room 10 and 13

In support of the suggested 1st century CE date for the Begram ivory and bone carvings, it will be propounded in this section that the other groups of objects discovered in Rooms 10 and 13 -- i.e. the Kinnari pot, the Roman objects and the Chinese lacquers -- together with the ivory and bone objects, can also be dated to this period.

With regard to the so-called Kinnari pot from Begram, on the basis of the trefoil armlet Davidson placed this earthenware jug in the 1st century BCE. R.S. Agrawala, however, notes that a fragment of a similar pot with such a trefoil armlet was discovered at Sonkh, in the Mathura region, and assigns a date as late as the early 1st century CE to both of these jars (Agrawala 1976:341-342). Agrawala also notes that these Kinnari pots remained in vogue through still later periods, as suggest by an example excavated at Ujjain dating from the 2nd-4th centuries CE (1976:342).

Of the Roman finds from Begram, the least examined are the plaster medallions. Kurz suggested that they were reproductions of silver originals and attributed them to Roman Alexandria on the basis of one example which depicted, in his opinion, the Tyche of Alexandria. To strengthen his argument, he further asserts that plaster molds were first invented by the Egyptians and although later adopted by the Greeks, were not often produced outside the dry climate of Egypt. Accordingly, Kurz attributes the plaster medallions to the Alexandria of the 1st century CE.

The small Roman bronze pieces discovered at Begram find their counterparts not only throughout the Roman Empire but also far beyond its frontiers, and further support a 1st century CE dating for the Begram ivory and bone objects. Several small balsamaria were among the Begram finds, and the most recent studies of these bronzes (Boardman 1992:112) note that they were a common object from the 2nd century BCE onwards. Moreover, the Begram examples belong to a Hellenistic type of Alexandrian origin, which has no exact date but which is placed between the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE [5] .

Two bronze Begram statuettes, one showing Horus the Child with a finger pointed toward his mouth and one of the god Serapis-Heracles clearly display an Egyptian origin and, like the balsamaria, probably arrived at Begram from Alexandria (Hackin 1954:276). Strong analogies can be drawn between these statues and several found at Pompeii and one found at Taxila, which reinforces an assertion that the Begram bronzes are to be dated in the 1st century CE.

Of the Roman glassware, the pillar-molded bowls are of great importance for the dating of the Begram ivory and bone carvings. As mentioned in section 1.4, examples of such bowls are known not only from most of the Roman world as far afield as England (Harden 1988:51), but also from the Arabian peninsula and India [6] . These pillar-molded bowls dated exclusively in Claudio-Neronian period sites and can be dated only between 25 BCE and the third quarter of the 1st century CE. One pillar-molded bowl from Begram (Fig.32) is identical in style and size to one found in Radnage, England. Both pieces have 22 ribs and carry a marbleized decoration. The example from England is dated in the second quarter of the 1st century CE (Harden 1988:51).

In both Begram Rooms 10 and 13, a large number of glass objects were excavated which have decorative patterns consisting of lozenge-shaped designs.

Although the proportions and shapes differ, the decorations are all similar: two plain zones on top and bottom, and in between a broader zone with concave lozenge-shaped designs which appear to have been pressed into the glass. This type of glass work is also attributed (Kurz 1954) to the 1st century CE on the basis of similar finds from Pompeii, Cyprus and Vienna. In addition, three examples published by Harden (1988:193-195), one of which was found in England and which are very similar to the Begram objects are all dated to the 2nd half of the 1st century CE.

The most controversy surrounding dating the Roman objects has been caused by the so-called painted glass beakers (see section 1.4). These are goblets depicting a variety of scenes, including hunting, fishing, battles and domestic life. Kurz compared these painted decorations with frescoes from Pompeii, which again would place the

cups in the 1st century CE (Kurz 1954:104). F. Coarelli, on the other hand, rejects this date and argues for a second or third century CE date, comparing the beakers with miniatures of the Ambrosian Iliad (Coarelli 1962:317). However, in contending that both the scenes on the beakers from Begram and the miniatures from the Ambrosian Iliad are a revival of much earlier Hellenistic prototypes, Coarelli undercuts his own argument, for he offers no evidence against the likely hypothesis that the Begram decorations could have simply been earlier reproductions of these older Hellenistic models.

David Whitehouse conducted the most recent research on the Begram Roman objects, and his work supports this author’s dating of the 1st century CE for the Begram ivory and bone objects. In an article in the Journal of Roman Archaeology (Whitehouse 1989), Whitehouse discusses the painted glass beakers which have been dated in the 2nd and 3rd century CE. According to Whitehouse, the ledge above the foot of these painted glass beakers separates them from all late 2nd and early 3rd century CE glass, and instead places them in the late 1st or early 2nd century CE.

In addition, Whitehouse found a parallel for the famous ‘Pharos’ beaker from Begram (Fig.33), which depicts the lighthouse of Alexandria with boats, in a beaker discovered in Nijmegen, The Netherlands. This beaker was excavated from a stratified layer dating to the Flavian period and provides the Begram example with a date around 100 CE.

In his conclusion Whitehouse notes:

“Even at this early stage, two widely-held assumptions must be challenged: they concern the date of the Roman objects and the date at which the cache was concealed. First, the date of the Roman objects. The diagnostic items -- the glass, the metal objects, the plaster models and other objects -- belong to the 1st and early 2nd c. Few of them can, and none of them must, be as late as the 3rd c. Secondly, the date of concealment: Ghirshman’s evidence for the date of the end of Begram II -- between 241-250 -- is circumstantial, and in any case we do not know that this is the moment at which the cache was concealed. The fact that the latest datable objects belong to the late 1st or early 2nd c. leads me to suggest that the cache was concealed around this time: within a generation, let us say, of A.D. 100”. (Whitehouse 1989:99).

In section 6.4 of this publication, a similar date for the concealment of the objects in Rooms 10 and 13 will be proposed and several supporting hypotheses will be provided. The above-mentioned study by Whitehouse not only supports a 1st century CE date for the Begram ivory and bone figures but also indicates the possibility of local glass workshops in the region of Begram. Whitehouse notes that there are several glassware examples from Begram which have absolutely no parallels in the Roman world (Whitehouse 1989:98). Chemical analysis has shown that the raw material for these examples came from Egypt. According to Whitehouse, the lack of parallels from Egypt may suggest that these were made elsewhere, with Egyptian raw materials. This hypothesis is further strengthened by the Periplus of the Erythraen Sea, which mentions raw glass as an item of trade which was imported in Barygaza (modern Broach in Gujerat, India).

If Whitehouse’s research on the Roman glassware provides convincing support for a 1st century CE date for the Begram ivory and bone objects, the evidence derived from the Chinese lacquers seems to clinch the matter. One Begram lacquer fragment (Fig.54) can be compared favorably to a Han dynasty lacquer cup from the British Museum which bears an inscription with a date of 4 CE (Garner 1979:42-43). And all the fragments of Chinese lacquers from Begram have almost exact counterparts found in East Asia, especially in China and Korea. V. Elisseeff studied the lacquers and came to the following conclusion:

“Ainsi, nous pouvons être assuré, d’une part, de posséder avec ces fragments, les restes de laques fabriqués en Chine au 1er siècle de notre ère; d’autre part, dans le sens d’une précision plus grande mais avec tout ce que cela comporte de hasard, nous pouvons suggérer de placer ces pièces entre 40 et 50 de notre ère..” (Elisseeff 1954:155).

Thus, the decorations on the Begram lacquers seem to assign them with great certainty to the era of the Han dynasty, and in particular to the 1st century CE. When added to the long list of other arguments that support a 1st century CE date, and considering that no evidence exists that excludes a 1st century CE date, the clear dating of the Chinese lacquers seems to bring an air of finality to the case for dating the ivory and bone carvings found alongside them.

[5] It should be noted, however, that the 1st century CE date is based in some small part on acceptance of D.Whitehouse’s terminus dating for the Begram finds, and thus to that extent is a circular argument.

[6] See, for pillar-molded bowls from the island of Bahrain: During Caspers 1980:14, Fig.6a, Pl.XXV-XXVI; see, for pillar-molded bowls from Ed-dur (Emirate of Umm al-Qaiwain): Haerinck 1988:6 and 1989: 18, fig.11 and Fig.J; see for Bidya (Emirate of Fujairah): Al Tikriti 1989:101-114, pl.82a; see, for Arikamedu (Tamil Nadu, India): Wheeler, Ghosh and Deva 1946:17-124.

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