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The image may perhaps be interpreted as a variant of that of Nana/Nanaia, who was a major deity in the city of Susa and was often represented on a lion in the eastern regions of the Hellenized Orient down to pre-Islamic times.
©2010
C. Lippolis NOTES ON PARTHIAN NISA ON THE LIGHT OF NEW RESEARCH
The publication of this volume of studies in honour of professor Gennadij Andreevic Koselenko is a particularly welcome opportunity to remind my first encounter with him in 1993, during my first fieldwork experience in Old Nisa. The Italian team of the Turin Centre for Archaeological Research and Excavations was opening trenches on the northern and western sides of the Round Hall, while that of the Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Sciences of Moscow, the State University of Moscow and the State University of Ashgabat was investigating the southern and eastern sides of this same building under the supervision of professor Koselenko1 (Fig. 1).
Professor Ko^elenko’s scientific work, rich of ingenious insights as it is, is crucial for any research on the history and culture of Hellenized Asia, and specifically on Parthia. It is also a great pleasure to celebrate his achievements with the following information on the new Italian excavations in the south-western sector of Old Nisa, though they are preliminary for the excavations are still in progress.
In 2007, after the completion of fieldwork in the monumental central complex, the Italian-Turkmen Expedition in Old Nisa2 selected the south-western section of the site as a new area for archaeological investigation. Here, the surface inspection of the ground suggested the likely presence of structures on a large area of about 500 square m, only superficially touched by old trenches and partially covered — in its northern part — by the earth dug up from older excavations3. Though fieldwork is still in progress, after three campaigns a schematic plan of the relevant structures, which cover an area of approximately 55x60 m, can be traced (Fig. 2). It is however likely that this building complex — of the Parthian period — extended originally eastward, in the area where today the terrain slopes down and the natural erosion was more intense.
Under the surface layers dating to the Middle Ages, the excavations brought to light a large square Parthian complex of about 50 m on each side, the precise external limits of which were not defined. The general layout of the structures inside the excavated area was cleared farther during the 2008 and 2009 seasons (Fig. 3), and a general plan of the complex can now be traced, although the western and northern limits of the building need further investigation, and the southern and eastern ones were excavated only partially. One or two rows of rooms of different size were placed around a large and probably uncovered area, which was disturbed by late cuts, re-occupation layers
Fig. 1. OldNisa, at the beginningof excavationsof the northern corner of the Round Hallin 1993; italian and russian expedition teams (professor Koselenko is on the second row in the middle)
and modern trenches. To the south and west these structures reach to the city walls, from which they were probably separated only by means of narrow passageways. The precise relationship between the building and the ramparts is still to be cleared and this will be the object of the next season. The northern fa3ade of the building runs probably at a distance of about 25-30 m from the southern side of the Round Hall, while the limit reached by the excavations on the east cannot correspond with its original external boundaries4.
The construction is in square mud bricks, in the format typical for Parthian Nisa (40-42 cm in length, 10-12 cm in thickness, though with some variations)5. Two main types of bricks can be easily distinguished because of their different paste, which is likely to correspond to different building or occupational phases. The first type of brick is made of fine clay of bright colour mixed with straw, has a good quality and is similar to the bricks of the central monumental complex. The second type is made of red-brownish clay mixed with gravel (while the mortar has usually a greenish colour) and it is of lesser quality. The analysis of the texture of the walls and of the several repairs that occur in the masonry will help in establishing a general relative chronology within the building. This seems to have been in use for a long time, and can offer significant evidence for the latest Parthian occupational layers in Old Nisa. In general, the mud bricks used in the building are of lesser quality than those in the central monumental complex; moreover, only a few fragments of terracotta architectural decorative elements were found (whereas they are widely employed in the main buildings).
Fig. 2. Old Nisa, general view of the excavations in the south-western corner (season 2009; photo A. Battezzati)
A simple look at the topographical position of these structures out of centre suggests that they did not belong to the main ceremonial complex, although the distance between the two compounds is not considerable. In any case, the importance of the South-Western Building is made clear by its size and the width of its main walls (up to 2,50 m). Its general layout with rooms around a central open courtyard and its monumental size recalls, in some way, the Square House in the northern sector of the site, although the latter is much more regular and rich in architectural details because of its official purpose.
Instead, the destination of the South-Western Building was not official, nor ceremonial, but was mainly functional, at least in the latest Parthian levels. The devices brought to the light inside the rooms (fireplaces, grindstones, benches, khums etc...) mirror the everyday life and the “common” production activities of the inhabitants of this quarter of Mithradatkert. Who lived here is still difficult to say: probably not common people, if we think of Old Nisa as a royal centre or a ceremonial place and mausoleum6. No significant traces of a strong military presence have been discovered in these premises, so far, though they are so close to the fortification walls. Moreover, the different wings of the building could have had different destinations, as for example testified by the latest levels of the southern and eastern sides. Most rooms were almost completely empty of material and devices, but a number of interesting artefacts were found in some of them.
The south side of the building is the better preserved thanks to the collapse of the city-walls, which did likely occur some time after the abandonment of the site. In rooms 12 and 15 the debris protected some of the khums that originally were placed there, sunk partially into the virgin soil (Fig. 4). Clay sealings or bullae7 and fragments of clay with straw that originally sealed the khums and the doors were found in this wing of the building, in particular in rooms 12 and 15. Dozens of clay fragments, sometimes bearing more than one seal impression (the total number of seal impressions is around 180), were found on the two superimposed floors of the Parthian period or inside the khums stored there. Sometimes these sealings were found in correspondence of the doorways. Some bullae show the impression of strings and hollows, while imprints of reeds or fibres of wood are still visible in other cases. It is
Fig. 3. Schematic plan of the excavated building in the south-western corner of Old Nisa
Fig. 4. Old Nisa, south-western corner: room 15 from south-east
also clear that the bullae were used to seal laces of sacks, necks of khums, doors and/or wooden boxes.
The practice of sealing doors is well known in the Square House8 and in general is obvious for the most important rooms of a storehouse or treasury. That room 15 did also contain precious objects is suggested by the finding of a little ivory lid, finely decorated with acanthus and ivy leaves (Fig. 5).
The clay used for sealing is in general very similar to that of the bricks, but usually of poorer quality with straw and gypsum inclusions. It seems also of lower quality in respect to the finer and denser clay of the sealings found in the Square House. We can assume that containers sealed with these bullae were not transported over a long distance or were not transported at all.
Unfortunately, only a small number of seal impressions is still legible, and the seal motif, whenever recognizable, is rarely complete and clear. The seal impressions are of various shapes and sizes: square, oval or circular, usually with a diameter of no less than 0,9 cm and no more than 3,4 cm. The number of recognizable impressions discovered during the last season was made from seals; in no case the impression of Parthian coins has been ascertained9.
Animals (horses, goats and fantastic creatures), plants (?), geometric and perhaps tribal patterns (tamga), and anthropomorphic representations (Fig. 6) can be
Fig. 5. Ivory lid from room 15 (scale 1:2)
recognized among the motifs occurring on the sealings. On the whole, the motifs on the sealings from the South-Western Building are different from those from the Square House in Nisa10, and in general simpler. So far, no inscription of the type attested in some sealings of the Square House has been found.
However, two black terracotta sticks have been discovered recently on the floor of room 15. Although their end is unfortunately broken in both cases, their size and form suggest that they were used to produce the hollows impressed on some of the clay bullae (as showed in Fig. 7). The detailed study and iconographic analysis of the sealings is still to be done, however11, and we cannot rule out that the western side of the building, which is very close to the city walls and is still to be excavated, could also contain rooms and devices for storage.
The presence of khums and bullae allows us to state that the southern side of the building, though devoted mainly to storage of food, was also containing objects. The seals, according to their different motifs, belonged to the officials responsible for the storage and dispatching of the commodities destined to the ceremonies and rituals performed in Old Nisa, or perhaps to the military garrison, guards or employees of Mithradatkert.
Other finds from the recent excavations in the south-western corner of the citadel are worthy of mention. The excavations in the eastern side of the complex have brought to the light some pieces of a fine mortar, made of a mixture of sand and gypsum. These fragments have a roughly convex external side, while the inner one is finely carved and has a smoothed surface. It was immediately evident that these fragments were moulds for sculptures in the natural size or even larger. In the 2009 campaign we made casts from some of them, mixing silicone and gypsum, which showed parts of the legs (the rear lower parts and the hoofs) of one or more horses. The modelling of the legs is finely naturalistic and of a high quality standard (Fig 8).
S37 S53 S16 S12
Fig. 6. Seal impressions from rooms 15 (scale 1:1)
So far, ten large fragmentary moulds have been discovered, some of them pairs that still fit together thanks to their keys, plus several smaller unidentified fragments. Almost all of the moulds were lying on the second (late) floor of the small room 13, where they have probably been collected and stored in antiquity. They were found covered by the bricks of the walls that collapsed later. Two of them have been brought to the light in the “courtyard” and in the area immediately to the north of room 13 (room 20) that will be investigated further in the next season. As in the case of the seals, the study of this material has not yet been carried out and hopefully the excavations will produce other fragments.
The discovery of these moulds is particularly important, for they did certainly serve for a special production in Nisa that we apparently ignored until today. Although we know that some parts of the clay statues of the monumental buildings were modelled separately (likely using gypsum/mortar moulds) and then applied to the main body, this is not the use we can suppose for these larger and heavy moulds. Except for the clay statues, in Old Nisa we have no information or evidence of sculptures in the natural or a larger scale. We should therefore think of other materials for the statues produced with these moulds, as for example gypsum, terracotta or metal, the latter being a charming hypothesis. No large fragments of bronze statues have been discovered during the previous excavations in Mithradatkert, but this is not too strange if we consider that metal was often melted and re-used in antiquity. In the present stage of the research, the question of the utilization of this moulds remains problematic and only a close investigation of all excavated fragments will allow defining a plausible interpretation.
Fig. 7. Bullae with sealings and seal-stick
Fig. 8. Gypsum moulds/cast from room 13 (to the right the imprint made with silicone and
gypsum)
In any case, we can imagine the existence in Old Nisa of an equestrian statue (representing a king, a hero, or a group of horsemen?), in the natural size or little larger, and the modelling of the animal suggests that it was probably of Greek iconography. This is another clue that craftsmen or workshops well acquainted with the Hellenistic repertoire were working on the spot.
In conclusion, the new excavations in Old Nisa are giving us new significant
information. The precise destination of the south-western sector is still to be
understood better; also the limits of these structures have to be defined in detail.
However, it is likely that all these structures belonged to a large functional complex, no
less than 45-50 m on each side, and that they included storerooms but also other
12
functional premises with cooking-places, restrooms and perhaps workshops - though no furnaces have been discovered, so far. This building or block has been used for a long time and at least two floors, both of them of the Parthian period, are attested in almost all rooms. Only a few rooms were sealed by the collapse of the walls; elsewhere (especially to the north) the walls remained exposed for a long time and were partly re-used or cut in the Middle Ages.
Although Old Nisa has been by this time extensively excavated, it still continues to offer new hints and suggestions that could allow to a better understanding of its nature and history.
NOTES
1. Bader A., Gaibov V., Gubaev A., Koselenko G, Lapsin A., Novikov S. Ricerche nel complesso del Tempio Rotondo a Nisa Vecchia // Parthica. 4. 2002.
2. In 1990 the Turin Centre for Archaeological Research and Excavations started excavations here in cooperation with the Academy of Sciences of Moscow (Invernizzi A., Koselenko G.A. Soviet-Italian Excavations in Old Nisa (Season 1990) // Mesopotamia. XXV. 1990. P. 47-50.); in the following nineteen years the Italian Centre established a collaboration with the Ministry of Culture of Turkmenistan, the State Universities of Ashgabat and Moscow and the Turin University. The excavations, study and technical analyses on the excavated materials have been carried out with the support of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Italian Institute for Africa and the Orient (IsIAO, in 2000) and the Compagnia di San Paolo (in 2000-2007).
3. Both, A.A. Maru^enko and the JuTAKE Expedition are likely to have worked in this area, but no detailed plans had been provided. N.I. Kraseninnikova carried out a limited survey and opened trenches here, arguing the presence of a modest domestic building, perhaps the house of a guard-keeper charged of the surveillance of the monumental central complex after its abandonment (Крашенинникова Н. И. Полевой отчет о раскопках на Старой Нисе, 1967, Библиотека АН Туркменской ССР); Там же. Парфянская керамика Старой Нисы, Илл. 13; See also Пилипко В.Н. Старая Ниса. Основные итоги археологического изучения в советский период. Москва, 2001. С. 339.
4. The state of preservation of the structures eastwards is probably very poor, for the terrain here slopes considerably and some modern trenches are also visible. For the preliminary report of the first season (2007) see Lippolis C., Messina V. “Preliminary report on the 2007 Italian excavations in Parthian Nisa”// Parthica. 10. 2008. P. 53-61.; Lippolis forthcoming, “The “Dark Age” of Old Nisa. Some notes on late Parthian levels in Mithridatkert”, Proceedings of the conference ‘Sogdians at Home and Abroad’ dedicated
to the 75th anniversary of Boris Ilyich Marshak (1933-2006), November, 13th — 14th 2008, Saint-Petersburg.
5. Пугаченкова Г. А. Архитектурные памятники Нисы // Труды ЮТАКЭ.Т I. Ашхабад, 1949.
6. According to V.N. Pilipko, Old Nisa was a royal residence in the reign of its founder Mithradates I and changed its status after the death of the great king, when the central ceremonial complex was built Пилипко. Старая Ниса. Основный итоги археологического изучения в советский период.; он же. Некоторые итоги археологических исследований на Старой Нисе // РА. 2007. № 1. С. 150-158; Pilipko V.N. The Central Ensemble of the fortress Mihrdatkirt. Layout and chronology” // Parthica. 10. 2008. P. 33-51. For the sacral character of some of the main buildings at Old Nisa see also Кошеленко Г.А. Родина парфян. М., 1977; Invernizzi A. “Arsacid Palaces” // Nielsen I. (ed.) The Royal Palace Institution in the 1st Millennium BC. Athens, 2001. P. 295-312.
7. V. Gaibov pointed out that “bullae have only been recorded in a few Classical and Early Sasanian sites in Central Asia”: Old Nisa, Kanka, Erkurgan, Ak-depe, Paikend, Dzhiga Tepe, Panjikent and Gobekly-depe (Koselenko G.A. “Bullae from Gobekly-Depe. General Problems and Main Subjects” // Archives et Sceaux Hellénistique, Atti del Convegno di Torino 13-16 gennaio 1993 (BCH suppl. 29). 1998. P. 365-370.). For a bibliography on the bullae from all these sites: see Gaibov V.The Bullae of Gobekly-depe // Cribb J.— Herrmann G. (eds.) After Alexander. Central Asia before Islam. London, 2007. P. 285. During the excavations at Shahr-i Qümis in the ‘60s and in the ‘70s clay bullae were also found: see Bivar A.D.H. Seal-Impressions of Parthian Qümis (Qümis Commentaries No. 4) // Iran. XX. 1982. P. 161-176.
8. Dozens of sealings have been discovered in the Square House during the JuTAKE excavations in the ‘50s (seal impressions were found in rooms VI, XVI, XVII, XX, and in the filling between rooms XX and XXI, while sealings without seal impressions are reported from the area between room XIV and the courtyard, in room XI and in other not specified sectors of the building). On the sealing practice in Old Nisa see Mollo P. Le sigillature di Nisa Vecchia // Parthica. 3. 2001. P. 170-174.
9. Contrary to the gypsum balls from Old Nisa, where the impressions made by Arsacid coins are frequent (see recently: Пилипко В.Н. Старая Ниса. Основный итоги археологического изучения в советский период. М., 2001. С. 285-287; Messina V. Gli sferoidi in gesso // Invernizzi A., Lippolis C. (eds.) Nisa Partica. Ricerche nel complesso monumentale 1990-2006. Monografie di Mesopotamia IX, Firenze, 2008. P. 329-343). My assertion on the lack of Parthian coin imprints on the sealings is however speculative, for the investigation of the southern and western side of the building is not yet completed. Moreover, at the moment, it cannot be excluded that some of the impressions (the larger ones but also some elliptical imprints) are from Seleucid coins or bezels (Bivar A.D.H. Seal-Impressions of Parthian Qûmis (Qûmis Commentaries No. 4) //Iran. XX. 1982. P. 168).
10. Масон М.Е.., Пугаченкова Г.А. Оттиски парфянских печатей из Нисы // ВДИ. № 4. 1954.; Nikitin A.B. Parthian Bullae from Nisa // Silk Road Art and Archaeology. 3. 1993/1994; Mollo P. Le sigillature di Nisa Vecchia // Parthica. 3. 2001; Кошеленко Г.А. Буллы Старой Нисы и Гебеклы-депе: сопоставление // ПИФК. XV. 2005.
11. This article has been written only two months after the discovery of the bullae during the last season in Old Nisa (2009), and gives only a general information on these finds.
12. Upper khum halves have sometimes been discovered upside down on the late Parthian floors, where they have clearly been re-employed as ovens for cooking.
NOTES ON PARTHIAN NISA IN THE LIGHT OF NEW RESEARCH
C. Lippolis
Under the surface layers dating to the Middle Ages, the excavations brought to light a large square Parthian complex of about 50 m on each side, the precise external limits of which were not defined. Clay sealings or bullae and fragments of clay with straw that originally sealed the khums and the doors were found in this wing of the building, in particular in rooms 12 and 15. On the whole, the motifs on the sealings from the South-Western Building are different from those from the Square House in Nisa, and in general simpler. But for the clay statues in Old Nisa we have no information or evidence of life-size or larger sculptures. In conclusion, the new excavations in Old Nisa are giving us new significant information.
© 2009
К. Абдуллаев
ГРЕЧЕСКИЕ ТИПЫ В КЕРАМИКЕ СОГДА И БАКТРИИ
Греческая гегемония, установившаяся со времени походов Александра Великого на обширной территории, включавшей также некоторые регионы среднеазиатских республик (Согдиана, Бактриана, Парфия и др.), наложила своеобразный отпечаток на развитие народов, соприкоснувшихся с новой для них культурой. После распада державы Александра области, находившиеся под греческой властью, вошли в состав селевкидской империи. Именно с эпохи селев-кидов начинается интенсивное освоение среднеазиатских колоний и знакомство греков с terra incognita (экспедиция Демодама за Яксарт). После отложения от селевкидской державы бактрийского эпарха Диодота и создания независимого греко-бактрийского царства начался бурный расцвет экономики и культуры. Власть греков в этот период распространилась на юге вплоть до Индии.
Культура греко-македонян, осевших на территории Средней Азии, проникла во все сферы жизни населения. Относительно длительный период гре-ко-бактрийского владычества (более 100 лет) наложил глубокий отпечаток на культурное развитие, включая и художественную деятельность.
Наиболее известными образцами этой культуры являлись великолепные по художественному исполнению монеты греко-бактрийских царей. Реалистическое искусство и тонкая портретность образов возвели их в разряд высших достижений античной культуры. Образцы скульптуры, несмотря на их немногочисленность, а также мелкая терракотовая пластика говорят о том, что традиции ваяния, принесенные греками в далекую Азию, прочно укоренились здесь и успешно развивались на основе местных изобразительных традиций.
Яркий пример развития эллинистической культуры на среднеазиатской почве дают материалы городища Ай Ханум. Этот памятник, открытый французски-
