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Bagram - The Begram treasure

Begram (Kapisa) became the summer capital of the Kushan Empire from the 1st century, their other capital being in Mathura in central India.

The emperor Kanishka started many new buildings there. The central palace building yielded a very rich treasure, dated from the time of emperor Kanishka in the 2nd century: ivory-plated stools of Indian origin, lacquered boxes from Han China, Greco-Roman glasses from Egypt and Syria, Hellenistic statues in the Pompean style, stuc moldings, and silverware of Mediterranean origin (probably Alexandria).

The "Begram treasure" as it has been called, is indicative of intense commercial exchanges between all the cultural centers of the Classical time, with the Kushan empire at the junction of the land and sea trade between the east and west. However, the works of art found in Begram are either quite purely Hellenistic, Roman, Chinese or Indian, with only little indications of the cultural syncretism found in Greco-Buddhist art.

The city was apparently abandoned after the campaigns of the Sassanian emperor Shapur I, in 241.

Begram vase depicting the rape of Ganymede by Zeus.

Begram vase fragments depicting a fighting scene.

Plaster mold from Begram.

Plaster mold from Begram depicting a cupid.

Plaster mold from Begram.

Plaster mold from Begram.

Plaster mold from Begram depicting a Greek soldier.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The Begram treasure", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki