Gods’ Shadows. Anthropologies of (Divine) Kingship in Central Asia: Persia, Greece, India, and the Steppes: ca. 330-150 BCE

The Gosh project will develop a comparative anthropological framework to investigate Central Asian kingship, roughly modern Afghanistan, Northern Uzbekistan, Western Tajikistan, Eastern Turkmenistan, during the Hellenistic period, aiming at replacing outdated binaries that rely on shopworn dichotomies (Greek/Oriental, East/West), or leave the vast extent of Central Asia embedded in ‘Silk Road’ narratives of transit and exchange merely linking other ‘core’ regions of ancient Afro-Eurasia. World-historical, comparative research on kingship does not engage with Central Asian material, particularly coins, a key source on Baktrian ideology of power. Specialists in the region overlook the potential of the social sciences (especially anthropology) for their agendas. By focusing on the Hellenistic Baktrian Empire (ca. 330-150 BCE), I seek to bridge this divide, offering a new methodological framework for approaching Central Asian kingship comparatively across disciplinary boundaries and scholarly traditions. I aim to do so by comparing the coins’ visual vocabulary and titles with Near Eastern (particularly Achaemenid), Indic, and steppic sources on the ideology, rhetoric, visual cultures, and performances of kingship to redress the focus on Alexander’s model, showing how Baktrian monarchy emerged out of the interplay of multiple distinct but interconnected traditions. The project draws on anthropological theories of sacred kingship to examine the role played by religious and cultic traditions in shaping royal self-representation and driving cultural and political change, contributing to the scholarship of global history, political theory, and anthropology. GOSH will present a revisionist theory of the spiritual politics of Baktrian kingship based on a new empirical understanding of its visual cultures. Beyond ethnic affiliations and cultural divides, Baktrian kingship is reframed as part of a dynamic network of power, ideological interplay, and cultural exchange.