The artefacts displayed in the exhibition at the British Museum are from four sites in northern Afghanistan:
- Tepe Fullol, a Bronze Age settlement;
- Ai Khanum, a Hellenistic city founded by one Alexander’s generals;
- Begram, summer capital of the Kushan Empire; and
- Tillya Tepe, a nomadic burial mound.
It is strange to think that these are a legacy from two thousand years ago: what the vagaries of fate and chance and – latterly, the courage of a small group of curators – have preserved for us. The exhibition guide aptly refers to them as 'surviving treasures' from the National Museum of Afghanistan. Treasures that have escaped the clumsy, clutching grasp of looters, and the destructive zeal of cultural vandals, and that speak so eloquently of an antique land that was once so very different to what it is now.
Amongst the many delightful objects on display are a set of buxom ivory maidens; miniature bronzes; glassware from the Mediterranean; and ornate gold jewellery.
A parting thought, from the inscribed fragments of a Greco-Bactrian funerary monument:
'As a child, learn good manners.
As a young man, learn to control your passions.
In middle age, be just.
In old age, give good advice.
Then die, without regret.'
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