Details

LOT 1055

Bactrian Manuscript Fragment of a Letter Written to Bunakan

5TH-8TH CENTURY A.D.

4 1/2 in. (1.56 grams, 11.2 cm).

Recto bearing ten incomplete lines of cursive script on leather; verso blank; accompanied by notes detailing the history and significance of such texts. [No Reserve]

Provenance

David Lindahl, Sweden, 2001.
Collection of Bruce Ferrini, USA.
Central London gallery.
Property of a UK collector.

For UK buyers only, this item is not exportable from the UK.

Published

Sims-Williams, N., Bactrian Documents II: Letters and Buddhist Texts, London, The Nour Foundation, 2007 (Studies in the Khalili Collection, III. Corpus Inscriptionum Iranicarum. Part II Inscriptions of the Seleucid and Parthian Periods and of Eastern Iran and Central Asia: Vol. III: Bactrian), MS jd; and Bactrian Documents III: pl.188a.

Footnotes

The Bactrian kingdom of southern Transoxiana was only known from a handful of inscriptions, seals and coins until circa 1991, when a cache of around 150 documents was discovered in an archive belonging to the ruler of the city of Rob, dating between the 4th-8th century AD, leading to major developments in the understanding of the Bactrian language. Many of these documents were sold on the art market and collected by Dr. David Naser Khalili for his Nour Foundation.