Work, Dress and Material Life in the Kushan World

Making a clay pot, carving a sacred image and assembling a king’s costume required different skills, materials and customers. In the first to third centuries CE, the regions governed by the Kushans supported all of these activities. Bactria, north of the Hindu Kush mountains, contained irrigated farming districts and towns; Gandhara, around the Peshawar valley, had large Buddhist establishments; and Mathura in northern India was an important centre of stone sculpture. Their inhabitants used local resources while drawing on goods and techniques that travelled between regions.

Excavated workshops and finished objects bring this material world into focus. They show the steps involved in production and the ways clothing or possessions could express occupation, religious commitment and wealth. A potter’s kiln and a ruler’s statue illuminate different parts of that world: the first concerns the supply of everyday vessels, while the second presents a carefully chosen public appearance.

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Working in towns and households

At Dalverzin Tepe, a Kushan city in the Surkhan Darya valley of present-day Uzbekistan, archaeologists identified a potters’ quarter with workshops and kilns. A kiln was an enclosed installation in which a fire heated vessels sufficiently to harden their clay. Producing a batch involved preparing and shaping the clay, letting the vessels dry, arranging them for firing and managing the heat. Firing was a crucial stage: uneven drying or heating could crack a vessel and waste the earlier work.

Pottery connected specialist workshops with the tasks of households. Bowls and cups served meals; larger jars held supplies. Excavated Kushan settlements contain repeated vessel forms, suggesting that makers supplied familiar household needs. At ancient Termez, in southern Uzbekistan, early Kushan ceramic groups include bowls, cups and jars, some covered with a reddish surface coating called slip. Applying slip changed the appearance of a vessel without making its entire body from a different clay.

Work and residence could also occupy the same building. Houses at Dalverzin included rooms for living and working. Building those houses was itself skilled work. Unfired clay bricks formed walls, timber supported roofs and plaster finished surfaces. Repairing earth walls and renewing their coatings kept buildings usable, while larger projects required the coordination of materials and labour.

Giving clay and stone a finished form

Religious institutions created demand for another kind of production: images and architectural decoration. Clay figures found in Bactrian Buddhist buildings were modelled, plastered and painted. These were composite works whose final appearance depended on colour and surface treatment as well as their underlying shape. A surviving unpainted or damaged figure can therefore look quite different from the bright image originally installed in a shrine.

Stone carving followed a different sequence. Mathura workshops worked red, mottled sandstone, including stone from the Sikri area. A carver had to remove material from a block while preserving the figure and its supports, then finish details such as faces, garments and inscriptions. Gandharan workshops commonly used grey schist, a stone that could carry finely cut folds and narrative scenes. Both regions also used other materials, and the choice affected the weight, finish and setting of a work.

Commissioning an image connected these crafts with donors and religious communities. A patron might arrange for a figure to be made and installed, while an inscription preserved the names of those responsible. Images made in Mathura travelled to other sacred centres, including Sarnath, where the monk Bala’s large standing figure was erected during Kanishka’s reign. The finished object brought together quarrying, carving, transport and installation.

Jewellery, weighed gold and small possessions

The gold deposit discovered at Dalverzin Tepe included jewellery and bars bearing inscriptions in Kharoshthi, a script used in parts of the Kushan world. Some inscriptions recorded weights. Weighed bars and finished ornaments served different purposes: one provided a measured quantity of valuable metal, while the other turned that material into something that could be worn and displayed.

Jewellers combined shaping and joining metal with the selection and setting of stones. Necklaces, earrings and bracelets required decisions about fastening, balance and the arrangement of repeated elements. The Dalverzin finds include gems from more than one source region, connecting local workmanship with wider supplies. Their discovery together also shows how portable wealth could be gathered and concealed, although the circumstances of this particular deposit remain debated.

Smaller objects belonged to the handling and care of the body. An ivory comb from Dalverzin, dated to the second or third century, is a compact example of skilled manufacture directed toward personal use. Its teeth had to be cut closely enough to comb hair while remaining strong enough for use. Such objects help bring the period down to the scale of hands, garments and grooming, alongside the more conspicuous monuments and treasures.

Royal clothing and public authority

Kushan royal images prominently show long coats, belts, trousers and boots. These garments drew on Central Asian traditions associated with riding and colder climates. In a monumental statue from Mathura, Kanishka wears a heavy coat and boots and holds weapons. The costume made his royal identity visible in a northern Indian setting, where other sculpted figures wore lighter draped garments.

Decoration added another layer of meaning. Gold bracteates, small thin metal ornaments that could be sewn to cloth, embellished tunics. Their repeated shapes could turn the surface of a garment into a display of wealth. Boots, a substantial belt and weapons similarly contributed to the presentation of a ruler as powerful and prepared for action.

It associated the dynasty with its Central Asian background even as its rulers governed populations farther south. Images of donors in Bactrian religious paintings also include coats and boots, placing related forms of dress in a devotional setting rather than only at court.

Monastic robes and religious identities

Buddhist images offer a contrasting use of clothing. A Buddha is commonly shown in a monk’s robe, expressing the renunciation of princely luxury associated with his religious life. Gandharan sculptors often carved substantial folds across the body, while Mathura sculptors commonly represented a lighter garment that left one shoulder exposed. These differences arose within regional artistic traditions and helped give each image its characteristic appearance.

Bodhisattvas could instead appear with jewellery and elaborate hairstyles. In Buddhist thought, a bodhisattva is a being pursuing awakening; figures such as Maitreya, the future Buddha, could be represented in princely dress before becoming a Buddha. The contrast between a plain monastic robe and an adorned body therefore conveyed religious meaning, distinguishing renunciation from a sacred figure’s princely appearance.