Conclusion: Begram in a Larger Network of Trade

Given the major early interpretations of the nature of Begram's ‘New Royal City’ as an imperial capital and of the contents of the two rooms as ‘royal treasure’ , any attempt to argue that those contents may have been merchants' or traders' stock would have collided with two different, if related, obstacles. First, the dates assigned to a few of the individual artifacts ranged from the early first century CE to as late as the third or early fourth century CE. If the objects did indeed span two or three centuries, it would be highly unlikely that they would have been a part of merchants' or traders' stock -- especially since there is no evidence that merchants of the time traded in items valued as ‘antiques’, and merchants themselves certainly did not hoard items over centuries.

The second obstacle is reflected in the use of the term ‘palace’ to refer to the area in which the objects were found, thought to have been a summer residence of the Kushan emperors. If Begram had been a royal residence, then it seemed to follow that the varied objects there were a royal collection or treasure. This theory was supported by what seemed to be the intrinsic value of a number of the objects uncovered, although they included no gold, silver or precious jewels. And, not incidentally, it was a theory that could support an assignment of centuries-apart dates for several of the pieces; a royal collection, it was argued, might have been gathered and maintained over generations.

The first of these obstacles -- the widely separated dates for several artifacts-- has been slowly and variously undermined by subsequent studies which have indicated that virtually all the objects of diverse origins may be, and in most cases must be, attributed to the first century CE; likewise, none of the pieces is definitely dated after the early 2nd century CE (see Chapter 5). The apparently anomalous initial dating of a few individual particular pieces seems to have occurred at least in part because of a tendency to extract individual objects from the corpus as a whole, with a view to dating each object on stylistic grounds alone, without close reference to the archaeological context in which it was found. Similarly, there has been a tendency to focus solely on one particular group of objects, either the Roman or the Indian, to the near exclusion of the other categories. However, when viewing the objects as a whole, found apparently as they were originally stored together in two closed rooms, the fact that virtually all the objects can be dated with considerable certainty in the first century CE leads to the inference that the remaining few uncertain pieces should be dated similarly if there is some evidence to support such a date and no conclusive evidence to prove otherwise.

The continuing currency of the royal treasure theory was a frame upon which these widely separated dates could be stretched with relative comfort. But Foucher's initial specification of the site of Begram as ancient Kapisi, the summer capital and residence of the Kushan emperors, was based almost solely upon the records of the Chinese pilgrim Hsüan-tsang who traveled the area in the seventh century CE, long after the settlement at Begram had been abandoned, or lost, by the Kushans. As discussed in section 6.1, however, Hsüan-tsang never actually identifies the city he encounters as the ancient capital of the Kushans, and such descriptions as he presents about Kushan Kapisa seem to have been based on oral transmission rather than on contemporary visible evidence. Moreover, Hsüan-Tsang’s descriptions are sufficiently imprecise and convoluted that it cannot even be established that the city he refers to was located particularly close to the Begram site.

Finally, a close reexamination of the archaeological data tends to refute the notion that the site’s structures were royal at all, or that the value of the objects requires the inference that they were a treasure. The structures uncovered at the site present neither the size nor the architectural features which suggest a royal residence. Also, numerous demotic objects were among the finds, including ceramics and plaster models; many of the Begram ‘ivories’ turn out to be far less valued bone carvings; and several unworked pieces of non-precious gemstones and ivory found among the objects would have had no place in a ‘treasure’.

Once the contemporaneousness of the Begram objects is successfully argued and the royal treasure theory is reconsidered, a fundamental question remains: Why were these goods from diverse origins assembled together at Begram? What is known is that the Roman and Chinese goods traveled to Begram apparently during the same era, and seem to have been carefully stored in the rooms of site 2 in the ‘New Royal City’. The fact that the goods traveled from diverse, distant places and were stored together suggests that the place of storage was a point either of consumption (with the royal hoard theory thus retaining some vitality), of storage for further distribution, or of active trading. If the nature of the site and objects points away from the royal hoard theory, as argued herein, then the possibility that Begram functioned as a storage and redistribution or active trading site on the crossroads of various trade routes appears the most obvious explanation.

Considering Begram as a storage and redistribution site, the delays between the arrivals and departures of various traders and caravans, occasioned by the slow, difficult and irregular travel of the age and region, would have made it necessary for goods to be stored away safely for relatively long periods of time. This need for safe storage over time may well explain the fact that the two rooms in which the goods were found were ‘sealed off’ by brick walls.

The many plaster models and the unworked stones and pieces of ivory among the Begram finds not only serve to undermine the royal treasure theory but also present the possibility that Begram was not merely a crossroads storage site but an active trading center with its own workshops or ateliers. The plaster models may have been simply lower level -- compared to the bronzes and glassware -- trade to be handled by merchants operating out of Begram. But the plaster models also suggest their direct use by workshops or ateliers in Begram itself which, if demonstrated, would strongly suggest that actual trading took place at Begram ^[1] .

Begram’s geographical location was well placed along the ancient overland trade routes which joined Central Asia to India, China and the Mediterranean. Sea routes, too, linked the Roman world with Central Asia via the Indian subcontinent. The distribution of first century CE pillar-molded bowls in the coastal areas of the Arabian Gulf, such as the island of Bahrain, the site of Ed-dur in the Emirate of Umm al-Qaiwain and Bidya in the Emirate of Fujairah of the United Arab Emirates ^[2] , as well as Arikamedu in Pondicherry, India, suggest that there existed at the time a sea trade from perhaps Syria and Alexandria, Egypt to as far as the east coast of India.

In addition to its well-placed crossroads location suggesting that the objects traveled to Begram along established trade routes, the question also arises whether goods were actually produced at Begram. Room for the hypothesis is opened by the fact that it is uncertain from where the ivory and bone objects arrived at Begram, if they came from somewhere else at all. A number of possibilities exist for the provenance of these Indianesque ivory and bone objects. The simplest, and the one most often preferred, is that they were manufactured in India, probably at Mathura or Sañci, then transported along trade routes to Begram. A second possibility is that although the ivory and bone objects originated either in Mathura or Sañci, they were transported to Begram in parts and were assembled there. This could explain the marks, some of which are in the Kharosthi script, which appear on the backs of some of the ivory pieces and which may have existed on more. If such assembly did regularly take place at Begram, at least some workshops would have to have been maintained there.

A third possibility, and one posited for the first time in this work, is that the ivory and bone objects were carved locally at Begram by Indian artisans who had settled at the site because of the active trading occurring there (see section 2.5). Ancient literary evidence supports the notion of the itinerant artisan, and a tradition of ivory and bone carving in this region predates the Begram objects. Finally, stylistic analysis of the ivory and bone carvings from Begram reveals a remarkably eclectic mix of styles and techniques such as could very well have been produced by artisans who were equally at home in art forms from the north and west regions of the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia, as well as from the Indian ‘heartland’.

All of the above suggests an active, productive, multidimensional 1st century CE settlement at Begram, one whose lineaments and influences scholars may only have begun to explore.