Bagram Hoard, Archaeological site in Bagram, Afghanistan

The excavation site in Bagram contained two sealed chambers holding over one thousand decorative ivory plaques, bronze items, and glass vessels from antiquity. This collection demonstrates the material wealth and sophisticated craftsmanship of the ancient city during the early Imperial period.

French archaeologists discovered this collection between 1936 and 1940, revealing a major cache of artifacts from the first and second centuries CE. The findings demonstrate that Bagram served as an important trading hub along ancient Silk Road routes.

The hoard's ivories were carved in styles compared to Mathura and Sanchi or to workshops of north-west India, and a similar ivory was found at Pompeii. Chinese lacquers of the Han period lay beside Greco-Roman painted glass, one piece showing the lighthouse of Alexandria and another the abduction of Europa.

The finds were split under the 1937 partage agreement: part went to the Musée Guimet in Paris, part to the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul. Ivories from Kabul were sent to the Guimet for safekeeping under UNESCO in 1997 and 1999. Twenty pieces recovered from antiquities dealers were conserved at the British Museum and shown there in 2011.

Among the glass finds are a painted vessel showing the Pharos of Alexandria, kept in Kabul, and another depicting the abduction of Europa by Zeus, held in Paris. The ivories, carved in Mathura, Sanchi and north-west Indian styles or by Bactrian workshops trained in India, have a single parallel outside Afghanistan: a similar ivory found at Pompeii.