Archaeologists from Tajikistan’s National Museum say they have made a significant discovery, a royal seal made of fired clay from the Kushan period, which began about 2,000 years ago and lasted for several centuries.
The circular, pea-green seal has a perforation for threading a cord and was found in very good condition in the Abdurahmoni Jomi district of Khatlon region in southwest Tajikistan, the museum said on August 14.
“This discovery may mark a new stage in the study of the Kushan period in the region, providing a solid scholarly basis for reassessing certain existing theories and interpretations concerning its history,” the museum said in a statement.
The Kushan Empire extended across a vast area at the height of its power, including swaths of present-day Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan and northern India. It emerged from the Yuezhi, a nomadic people who had migrated from what is today northwestern China and established themselves in Bactria, an ancient Central Asian region.
The decorated surface of the newly discovered seal, engraved within a circular field measuring six centimeters in diameter, features what the museum’s archaeologists describe as significant political, cultural and artistic elements of the Kushan period.
“The composition includes a Bactrian inscription, geometric ornamentation, a bust of a king wearing a crenellated crown, depictions of mountain goats, symbols associated with the royal authority and statehood of the Kushan rulers, as well as motifs associated with the authority of local rulers and other symbolic elements,” the Tajik museum said.
Specialists from the Department of Archaeology and Numismatics at the National Museum are analyzing the seal and, once finalized, their findings will be shared with a wider circle of researchers.
Arkeonews, an archaeology news platform, said the Bactrian inscription on the seal could be especially important because it might “help determine whether the seal belonged to a royal official, a local ruler or another figure operating within the Kushan political system.”
The platform said “the seal may ultimately provide evidence for the relationship between Kushan rulers and regional elites in what is now southern Tajikistan.”
Arkeonews said that until the museum’s analysis is complete, some of the “most important questions — who used the seal, what it was intended to authenticate, and how it functioned within Kushan administration — remain unanswered.”
