Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek World

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

• 1. Introduction. Rachel Mairs Part I: Interactions 2. The Seleukid Empire 3. South Asia 4. Parthia 5. Central Asia and the Steppe 6. China and Bactria during the reign of Emperor Wu in written tradition and in archaeology Part II: History of scholarship 7. The quest for Bactra: Scholarship on the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom from its origins to the end of colonialism 8. The original ‘failure’? A century of French archaeology in Afghan Bactria 9. Hellenism with or without Alexander the Great: Russian, Soviet and Central Asian approaches Part III: Regional Archaeological survey 10. Afghan Bactria 11. Southern Uzbekistan 12. Southern Tajikistan 13. Sogdiana 14. Merv and Margiana 15. Arachosia, Drangiana and Areia 16. Gandhāra and North-Western India Part IV: Written sources 17. Greek inscriptions and documentary texts and the Graeco-Roman historical tradition 18. Reading the Milindapañha: Indian historical sources and the Greeks in Bactria 19. Chinese historical sources and the Greeks in the Western Regions Part V: Numismatic sources 20. History from coins: The role of numismatics in the study of the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek worlds 21. Two sides of the coin: from Sophytes to Skanda-Kārttikeya 22. Dating Bactria's independence to 246/5 BC? 23. Monetary politics during the early Graeco-Bactrian kingdom (250-190 BCE) 24. The last phase of the Indo-Greeks: Methods, interpretations and new insights in reconstructing the past Part VI: Culture and identity 25. Ai Khanoum, between east and west: A composite architecture 26. Globalization and Interpreting Visual Culture 27. Representation of Greek Gods/Goddesses in Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek visual culture 28. Roman objects in the Begram hoard and the memory of Greek rule in Kushan Central Asia Part VI: Beyond the Graeco-Bactrian and Indo-Greek worlds 29. Central Asia in the Achaemenid period 30. Achaemenid north-west South Asia 31. Greekness after the end of the Bactrian and Indo-Greek kingdoms