- Museum number
- 1880.4101.a
- Description
-
Weathered malachite double-crescent or winged bead, pierced by a transverse hole through each crescent. Tiny fragments evidently from the bead were found separately, with 1880.4109.
- Production date
- 2ndC (found with coins of Wima Takto (c. AD 90-113))
- Dimensions
-
Length: 14 millimetres
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Thickness: 2 millimetres
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Width: 5 millimetres
- Curator's comments
-
Found in in relic deposits 'Box 2', in an unnumbered large white tray with blue trim now designated 'A'. Identified as being from Passani Stupa 'tumulus' 2 from Masson's sketch (Uncat. MSS, Bundle 1b, f.2) done at the time of excavation. British Museum Research Laboratory no.7277-10-M, analysed by L. Joyner in 2002: Raman microscopy identified the stone as weathered malachite. Fragments of the bead were also found in an unnumbered tray in 'Box 4' together with stone and glass beads and ornaments probably from Hadda Stupa 10 (see 1880.4109), suggesting it had been moved at some point from its original tray. For other identified finds from Passani, see 1880.3527, 1880.3528, 1880.3498, 1880.3499, 1880.3530, 1880.3531, 1880.3694.a, 1880.4103. For a similar broken double crescent ceramic bead, see 1880.4116.m.
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E. Errington: The Passani reliquary (1880.98) contained ‘Soter Megas’ coins of Wima Takto (see 1880.3740.l-m), which provide a late 1st–early 2nd century date for the stupa deposit. Similarly shaped gold beads were found in Tillya Tepe tomb 3 with a Parthian drachm of Mithridates II (c. 123–91 BC) and a Roman aureus of Tiberius (AD 14–37), minted at Lugdunum in Gaul c. AD 14–21; and in tomb 6 with a gold Parthian coin apparently of Gotarzes I (91–87 BC) countermarked, it is thought, by Darius (c. 70 BC), together with a drachm of Phraates IV (c. 38–2 BC) overstruck by Sapadbizes, a local ruler in the Oxus region (Sarianidi 1985a, pp.241–2, 258, nos.32–3, 37–8; Cambon et al. 2006, pp.188, 213, nos.95–6, 146; Rtveladze 1993/4, pp.87–8, 92–3).
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C. Fabrègues: Beads of this type were common in Gandhara and Bactria, both areas having yielded numerous examples made of various materials. A string of double-crescent beads of pale blue vitreous paste was excavated in the Peshawar valley at Mir Ziyarat, near Charsadda, together with a coin of Menander (155-130 BC) and two defaced coins apparently attributable to the same king (Marshall 1902-03, p.158, pl.28.3), thereby suggesting a date for the deposit of the latter part of the 2nd century BC. Other finds indicate a later date. A chain of 130 plain gold double-crescent beads, which could have been used either as a necklace or a girdle, was recovered from the early 1st-century AD Indo-Scythian/Indo-Parthian levels of Sirkap at Taxila (Marshall 1951, p.187, no.9, p.629, no.76, pl.194.d). The beads are thin and hollow and pierced with two transverse holes for stringing. They were made of gold sheet hammered on bronze dies, examples of which were found in the same stratum (Marshall 1951, p.582, nos.37-8, 40-1, 168-76, pls.179, 181). Sirkap also produced double-crescent beads of copper sheet (Marshall 1951, p.582) and two of faience (Beck 1941, p.61, nos.626-7, pl.X.5-6), while a stamped gold example was excavated at the Buddhist site of Saidu Sharif in Swat (Fabrègues 1991, pl.55, fig.2.27). Similar gold beads were recovered from a tomb in the Tulchar necropolis (Bishkent valley, Tajikistan), together with a buckle which indicates that they were part of a belt (Mandel’stam 1966, pl.LX.1). A Heraus coin of Kujula Kadphises (AD 40-90) dates the grave to the second half of the 1st century. Gold double-crescent beads were also found in Tillya Tepe: 51 stamped and 39 cast examples in tomb 3; and 76 cast examples in tomb 6 (Sarianidi 1985, nos.3.30-1, 6.12). The latest coin evidence is the Roman aureus issued early in the reign of Tiberius, c. AD 14–21, from tomb 3. These examples clearly show the prevalence of the double-crescent bead in Bactria and Gandhara in the 1st century AD. However its prototype can be traced back to 16th-century Greece, where gold chains of double-crescent beads were discovered in a Minoan treasure on Aegina, and in Shaft Grave Omicron at Mycenae (Higgins 1980, p.65, pl.4.A). Although there are no specimens from the intervening period down to the late 2nd century BC, there are arguments in favour of a Greek origin for these beads. First, the string from Charsadda was found in association with a coin of the Indo-Greek ruler Menander; second, the Tulchar specimens were accompanied by a buckle in the characteristic Hellenistic shape of a Herakles’ knot, thereby suggesting the entire belt belonged to the same period; third, a large number of jewellery pieces from Sirkap and Tillya Tepe show Greek influences; and finally, a woman with a Greek hairstyle and ear-rings is depicted wearing a necklace of double-crescent beads on a relief from Butkara I in Swat (Faccenna and Taddei 1962–4, pl.DCLXV).
Bibliography:
Beck, H.C. (1941) ‘Beads from Taxila’, Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India 65, New Delhi, pp.1–48.
Cambon, P. et al. (2006) Afghanistan: les trésors retrouvés. Collections du musée national de Kaboul. Paris.
Fabrègues, C. (1991) The jewellery on the Gandhara sculptures in schist and its chronological significance, PhD. thesis, London University.
Faccenna, D., Taddei, M. (1962–4) Sculptures from the Sacred Area of Butkara, I (Swat, W. Pakistan), Ismeo Reports and Memoirs vol.II.2–3, Rome.
Higgins, R. (1980) Greek and Roman Jewellery, London, 2nd ed.
Mandel’stam, A.M. (1966) Kocenniki na puti v Indiju, Moscow–Leningrad.
Mandel’stam, A.M. (1969) ‘Archäologische Bemerkungen zum Kushana-Problem in Beitrage zur Alten Geschichte und deren Nachleben’, Feschrift für Franz Altheim zum 6. Okt 1968, Berlin, pp. 525–34.
Marshall, J. (1902–3) ‘Excavations at Charsadda’, Archaeological Survey of India Annual Report, pp.141–84.
Marshall, J. (1951) Taxila, 3 vols., Cambridge.
Rtveladze, E. (1993/4) ‘Coins of the Yuezhi rulers of northern Bactria’, Silk Road Art and Archaeology 3, pp.81–96.
Sarianidi, V. (1985) The Golden Hoard of Bactria from the Tillya-Tepe Excavations in Northern Afghanistan, New York.
Sarianidi, V. (1985a) Bactrian Gold from the Excavations of the Tillya-Tepe Necropolis in Northern Afghanistan, Leningrad.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1880
- Department
- Asia
- Registration number
- 1880.4101.a
- Additional IDs
-
Miscellaneous number: 7277-10-M (British Museum Research lab. no.)