Abstract:
The proposed paper aims at looking into the evidence of engraved gems in the Indian subcontinent
belonging to the early centuries of the Common-era, when commercial ties with
the Roman Empire were active. A long indigenous tradition of mining and processing gemstones
prior to these cross-cultural connections is well established and also acknowledged
in the western classical accounts on India. Whereas, this ancient industry, primarily engaged
in the manufacture of beads, interaction with the Hellenistic world followed by connections
with the Roman Empire, prompted new artefact forms and attributes to be gradually incorporated
into the native repertoire as witnessed in the archaeological record.
In the studies on Indo-Mediterranean commerce, however, engraved gemstones have received
little attention. This is perhaps due to the small scale of tangible evidence as well as
their local material and stylistic composition. Previous studies have tended to explain similarities
in type and style among artefacts found in the Mediterranean region and South Asia,
including engraved gems, in terms of waves of acculturation i.e. Roman influence upon
India and likewise the Indianisation of Southeast Asia. These simplistic models of cultural
change have been rightly contested as insufficient and often biased accounts of cross-cultural
interaction, encouraging instead a review of recipient cultures as producers of new meanings
of the same objects and therefore active agents in shaping culture. In understanding the
nature of Indo-Mediterranean contact, a shift is also warranted from a primarily economic
approach to incorporating the role of non-economic factors.
The present paper, therefore, seeks to explore the variability in type and spatial distribution
of the available evidence of engraved gems in the Indian subcontinent with reference to
other markers of interaction with the Roman Empire to understand the cultural background
which facilitated and sustained ancient Indo-Mediterranean interaction.
