Arts asiatiques - Année 1993 - Volume 48 - Numéro 1 - Pages 53-71During the years 1936-1937, Joseph Hackin, then D.A.F.A.'s president and his staff, discovered inside the ancient town of Begram — Afghanistan — , two sealed rooms filled with a fantastic amount of bronze, rare stones, lacquer and glass vessels, together with ivory sets to be nailed on pieces of furniture. The whole was thought to be a treasure and to belong to Kanishka, the famous king ot the Kushan dynasty supposed to have been living in the second century A.D. The objects unearthed were partly alloted to Kabul, partly to Paris. However, in spite of the two major publications issued in 1939 and 1954 (the second World war occurred in-between), not much has been made since to ascertain these first interpretations. The present article is devoted to a new approach of one of the three types of designs displayed on the Begram collection of glasses held in musée Guimet, i.e. the cut and engraved type. The diamond cut, high relief cut and linear or figurative engraved glasses are carefully examined and compared to their extant parallels so as to make out both their date and place of production. The first data gathered well seem to point to the second half of the first century A.D. which is rather earlier than imagined first, and, to Egypt. Further informations, we hope, will complete and confirm these investigations once the painted and peculiar glass threads' decorated vessels have been studied.
19 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.
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