This volume provides a thorough conspectus of the field of Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek studies, mixing theoretical and historical surveys with critical and thought-provoking case studies in archaeology, history, literature and art.
The chapters from this international group of experts showcase innovative methodologies, such as archaeological GIS, as well as providing accessible explanations of specialist techniques such as die studies of coins, and important theoretical perspectives, including postcolonial approaches to the Greeks in India. Chapters cover the region’s archaeology, written and numismatic sources, and a history of scholarship of the subject, as well as culture, identity and interactions with neighbouring empires, including India and China.
The Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek World is the go-to reference work on the field, and fulfils a serious need for an accessible, but also thorough and critically-informed, volume on the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms. It provides an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the Hellenistic East.
1. Introduction.
Rachel Mairs
Part I: Interactions
2. The Seleukid Empire
Rolf Strootman
3. South Asia
Sushma Jansari
4. Parthia
Jacopo Bruno
5. Central Asia and the Steppe
Sören Stark
6. China and Bactria during the reign of Emperor Wu in written tradition and in archaeology
Lukas Nickel
Part II: History of scholarship
7. The Quest for Bactra: Scholarship on the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom from its origins to the end of colonialism
Omar Coloru
8. The Original ‘failure’? A century of French archaeology in Afghan Bactria
Annick Fenet
9. Hellenism with or without Alexander the Great: Russian, Soviet and Central Asian approaches
Svetlana Gorshenina and Claude Rapin
Part IV: Regional archaeological survey
10. Afghan Bactria
Laurianne Martienz-Sève
11. Southern Uzbekistan
Ladislav Stančo
12. Southern Tajikistan
Gunvor Lindström
13. Sogdiana
Bertille Lyonnet
14. Merv and Margiana
Gabriele Puschnigg
15. Arachosia, Drangiana and Areia
Warwick Ball
16. Gandhāra and North-Western India
Luca M. Olivieri
Part IV: Written sources
17. Greek inscriptions and documentary texts and the Graeco-Roman historical tradition
Rachel Mairs
18. Reading the Milindapañha: Indian historical sources and the Greeks in Bactria
Olga Kubica
19. Chinese historical sources and the Greeks in the Western Regions
Juping Yang
Part V: Numismatic sources
20. History from coins: The role of numismatics in the study of the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek worlds
Simon Glenn
21. Two sides of the coin: from Sophytes to Skanda-Kārttikeya
Sushma Jansari
22. Dating Bactria's independence to 246/5 BC?
Jens Jakobsson
23. Monetary politics during the early Graeco-Bactrian kingdom (250-190 BCE)
Olivier Bordeaux
24. The last phase of the Indo-Greeks: Methods, interpretations and new insights in reconstructing the past
Shailendra Bhandare
Part VI: Culture and identity
25. Ai Khanoum, between east and west: A composite architecture
Guy Lecuyot
26. Globalization and interpreting visual culture
Milinda Hoo
27. Representation of Greek gods/goddesses in Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek visual culture
Suchandra Ghosh
28. Roman objects in the Begram hoard and the memory of Greek rule in Kushan Central Asia
Lauren Morris
Part VII: Beyond the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek worlds
29. Central Asia in the Achaemenid period
Xin Wu
30. Achaemenid north-west South Asia
Cameron A. Petrie
31. Greekness after the end of the Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms
Joe Cribb
Biography
Rachel Mairs is Professor of Classics and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Reading, UK. She has previously held positions at New York University, the University of Oxford and Brown University. Her publications include The Hellenistic Far East:Archaeology, Language and Identity in Greek Central Asia (2014), Archaeologists, Tourists, Interpreters (with Maya Muratov, 2015) and From Khartoum to Jerusalem: The Dragoman Solomon Negima and his Clients (2016). In 2016 she founded the Hellenistic Central Asia Research Network.
"...[A] doubly valuable contribution to this field of study. Not only does it offer the reader a synthesis of the most recent research, interpretations and discoveries (archaeological, historical, epigraphic and numismatic), but also highlights a number of methodological and theoretical insights into fraught issues such as culture and identity... [T]his volume is a very useful resource for students, lecturers and researchers alike. It offers an invaluable state of the art on research connected to Hellenistic Central Asia as well as a snapshot of key theoretical and methodological debates taking place." - The Classical Review
"[T]his volume is now the standard reference on the topic, a common point of departure for a new generation of readers. Its immediate assumption of this role is all but ensured by the precipitous timing of its release, at the end of two decades of coalition forces in Afghanistan and the rapid transformations that come with the return of Taliban rule. Current circumstances are very much on the minds of those working on this part of the world, who fear for the well-being of friends, colleagues, and the Afghan people. A dispassionate observer might note that avenues of access may be closing and that items of cultural heritage may well be subjected to intensified destruction and looting. One might say that the encyclopedic scope of this project befits this new precarity, an academic recourse to preserve and protect what might be lost." - Bryn Mawr Classical Review
