Details

LOT 0257

Large Kushan Gold Pendant with Bust of a Goddess

CIRCA 4TH CENTURY A.D.

2 3/4 in. (22.11 grams, 71 mm).

A late Kushan or Hephthalites Dynasty discoid pendant with a female deity, possibly Nana, at the centre holding a lotus flower in her right hand, hair elaborately dressed and wearing large earrings, necklace and bracelets; enclosed by a border of stylised bull heads and a double-plaited border, the outer edge with raised bosses; later applied polygonal suspension loop with granulated collars and an oval garnet cabochon.

Provenance

Acquired by a Swiss family in the mid-1980s to late 1990s, thence by descent.
Private collection, Switzerland, since the late 1990s.

Accompanied by an academic report by Dr Raffaele D’Amato.
This lot has been checked against the Interpol Database of stolen works of art and is accompanied by search certificate number no.13021-246776.

Literature

Cf. Academy of the Science, Painting of ancient Panjikent, (in Russian), Moscow, 1954, figs. 11,12, esp.18; Madhuvanti, G., ‘Nana: the ‘Original’ Goddess of the Lion’ in Journal of Inner Asian Art and Archaeology, volume 1, 2006, pp.98-112; Saadi-Nejad, M., ‘The Goddess Nana and the Kušan Empire: Mesopotamian and the Iranian Traces’ in Acta via Serica, Vol.4, no.2, December 2019, pp.129-140.

Footnotes

Nana (Kushan Greek: Νανα, Ναναια, Ναναϸαο, Sogdian Nni) was a Bactrian female deity, a variation of the pan-Asian Nana, a fusion of the Sumero-Babylonian Inanna-Ishtar with a local deity, in her Kušan form with the local (Zoroastrian) Harakhvati Aredvi Sura Anahita. Such syncretism was common among Kušan deities. She was an important patron deity in the Kušan Empire and the most important deity worshipped by Emperor Kaniška (c. 127-150 A.D.).