The history of the Kushan Empire long remained shrouded in mystery. In the 19th century, Orientalist scholars in Calcutta deciphered the ancient Brahmi and Kharosthi scripts and used numismatic evidence to shed a first ray of light on the dynastic succession of the Kushans. Previously obscure and semi-legendary figures such as Vima Kadphises, Kanishka and Huvishka entered the annals of world history as rulers of an empire that stretched, in the first centuries CE, from Central Asia deep into the Indian subcontinent.

Yet, as a small but well-curated exhibition at Berlin’s James Simon Gallery shows, their story started in what is now southern Uzbekistan. On display are artifacts from the ancient urban center of Dalverzin Tepe, the Buddhist monasteries of Fayaz Tepe and Kara Tepe, and the Khalchayan palace. Some of these objects recently featured in an Uzbekistan-themed exhibition at the Louvre, but many are shown in Europe for the first time. A linked exhibition in the nearby Neues Museum chronicles the more familiar story of Alexander the Great’s military campaign from Macedonia to Bactria.

In the absence of substantial written sources, what we know about the Kushans derives from a few Chinese, Greek and Roman accounts and, above all, from archaeological evidence. Around the second century BCE, a loose confederation of equestrian nomads, a subbranch of the Yuezhi called Guishang (hence Kushan), were driven out of their pastoral homeland in what is today the northwestern Chinese province of Gansu. Pushed out by another nomadic tribe known as the Xiongnu, the Yuezhi migrated westwards across Xinjiang and the valleys of the Tian Shan Mountains, and then gradually southwards in the direction of the Indian subcontinent.
The Yuezhi deployed thousands of mounted archers and overran the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom, a political entity that had itself only been formed in the mid-third century BCE when an ambitious satrap (governor) by the name of Diodotus broke off from the tottering Seleucid Empire. The Graeco-Bactrian capitals of Ai-Khanoum and Bactra were some of the most splendid and wealthy urban centers of antiquity. As the exquisite gold staters and silver tetradrachms issued by a succession of Graeco-Bactrian rulers powerfully illustrate, Hellenistic aesthetic and iconographical conventions continued to hold sway in the region. The Yuezhi entered this sophisticated world on horseback, but gradually adopted a more sedentary life-style. Although they ended Bactrian rule, the Kushans, as they came to be known, inaugurated an era, from around 100 until 300 CE, in which Graeco-Bactrian culture reached new artistic heights at prominent sites such as Begram, Purushapura (Peshawar), Taxila (the Gandhara region) and Mathura. At its peak, the Kushan Empire covered parts of modern-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and northern India, where their influence might have extended as far as the old Mauryan capital of Pataliputra in modern Bihar.
The Kushans epitomized the era’s religious and cultural syncretism and were certainly not dogmatic about picking a state religion; their coins depict a pantheon of dozens of gods, including Zoroastrian, Shaivite, Graeco-Roman and Buddhist deities and symbols. This ecumenical and eclectic approach to religion appears to have remained the dynasty’s guiding mantra, but Buddhism benefited most from Kushan patronage. Monasteries thrived, stupas were erected and the reign of Kanishka the Great (ca 127-150 CE) witnessed the diffusion of Mahayana Buddhism and Gandharan art, with its characteristic toga-clad sculptural representations of the Buddha, along the Silk Roads to China and East Asia. It is perhaps one of the ironies of history that one of the likely artistic sources of this sweeping Silk Road-saga can be found in what is today a forlorn and remote corner of southern Uzbekistan.


One of these sites, Dalverzin Tepe, was a crucial Kushan powerbase and early capital. Located in the valley of the Surkhan Daya river, this Bactrian settlement transformed under Kushan rule into an important urban center with a fortified citadel, temples and residential and artisan quarters that were enclosed by ten-meter-thick walls. Its Buddhist temple has yielded monumental statues of bodhisattvas that were molded from unbaked clay, then plastered and painted, and placed in a hall decorated with polychrome frescoes. Although the paint has flaked and faded, these gigantic torsos and serene faces, often subtly framed by jewelry or headgear, retain their power to inspire awe and contemplation. They project the qualities of benevolence, compassion and transcendence through a highly idealized, Graeco-Roman aesthetic that displays strong stylistic resemblances to the art produced in the Gandhara region.

Another sculpture recovered at Dalverzin Tepe represents a stately bust of a Kushan royal donning an imposing conical mitre. His thin, sensuously modeled lips and symmetrical face radiate authority, charm and refinement. As this sculpture powerfully illustrates, the mounted Yuezhi archers and pastoralists had undergone a remarkable transformation and metamorphosed into an urbane and sophisticated ruling dynasty.
A highlight of the exhibition is the unique artwork from the Khalchayan palace, a major administrative center that, following the shift of Kushan power to the south, became a dynastic temple. In the Soviet era, the famous archaeologist Galina Pugachenkova brought to light a series of astonishingly well-preserved sculptures that offer rare glimpses of a dynasty that, except for the highly stylized numismatic portraits of its emperors, has remained faceless.

Here we encounter the exceptionally life-like clay busts of local dignitaries and a Kushan prince sporting a thin moustache. His head has been artificially deformed in accordance with ancient Yuezhi nomadic practice and closely resembles Heraios, the mythical founder of the Kushan Empire, as depicted on a silver tetradrachm minted in the Hellenistic style of the Graeco-Bactrians.

In the same room, we find the bust of a Parthian prince, possibly king Vardanes I, which displays a strikingly modern aesthetic more reminiscent of Rodin than remote antiquity.

Another exquisitely preserved sculpture from Khalchayan depicts a Saka warrior whose face is framed by a helmet and a carefully groomed beard. The Sakas, a Scythian nomadic group, were at some point at war with the Kushans and the dejected expression on the Saka warrior’s face should be read as a Kushan propaganda statement.
Even though the term “Pax Kushana” has been coined to describe the relative peace and stability inaugurated by Kushan rule, military prowess remained the key to power. Indeed, by the third century CE, the Kushan Empire was gradually dismembered by rival polities and extinguished altogether following a series of Hun invasions that mirrored, in a familiar cycle of ascent and decline, the arrival of the Yuezhi centuries earlier.
Perhaps due to their ambivalent roots, the geographically dispersed nature of archaeological sites, and the lack of written sources, the Kushans have long featured as a footnote, or at best a subchapter, in regional and national histories. The recent vogue of Silk Road narratives has triggered renewed interest in the Kushans as a key actor initiating the diffusion of religion and art from Central Asia to the Far East.
By bringing together the artistic oeuvre from early Kushan sites in Uzbekistan, this exhibition offers unique insights into the emergence of the anthropomorphic, Graeco-Buddhist art that reached its artistic peak in Gandhara. It also sheds a fascinating light on the origin of a dynasty that carved out a territory at the ancient cross-roads of the Central Asian steppe and the Iranian, Graeco-Roman, and Indic cultural worlds.
The Kushans are still awaiting an international curatorial team that chronicles their full story in an exhibition which brings together the most important Kushan artefacts currently scattered across dozens of museums in Asia, Europe and the United States. Until that time, or at least until mid-January 2024, Berlin’s James Simon Gallery is the place to be for anyone with an interest in Buddhist art and this remarkable dynasty.
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