The Greeks in Bactria and India c10.s1.237

c10.s1.237

There is no mystery as to the source of the Bactrian gold; it came to Bactria, as it came to South Russia, from Siberia⁵—the ‘griffin-gold’ whose guardian griffin adorned the coinage of Panticapaeum. This was the main Asiatic source of supply; it furnished the gold for the mass of Siberian and South Russian gold-work which is the glory of the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad. The gold is usually said to have come from the Altai mountains, known to the Mongols as ‘the mountains of gold’; at the beginning of the present century, however, the mines of the Altai proper were not producing gold, though to the northward in the Kusnetsk region, now being developed as a coalfield, there were said to be many alluvial deposits.⁶ But both in antiquity and in the Middle Ages mining, in the absence of machinery, was a primitive and laborious business, and far more gold was obtained from river-washings than from mines;⁷ even at the beginning of the present century the main Siberian source of supply was from the washings on the Lena and Amur,¹ and most of the recent discoveries have been in the Lena country.² The Lena may be too distant to have ever supplied Iran, and doubtless the bulk of the gold came from washings on nearer rivers; both the Obi and Yenisei systems originate in the Kusnetsk country, and new gold fields are said to have been discovered about the head waters of both rivers.³ Probably gold was obtained over a very large district; to the ancient world the supply seemed inexhaustible, and it was only a question of being able to tap it; it is claimed to-day that Siberia possesses greater resources in gold than any other country.⁴ The antiquity of the Siberian washings is shown by the discovery at Tepé Hissar near Damghan of a gold treasure, with five gold mouflon heads, dating from about 1500 B.C.⁵ In Achaemenid times there must have been a definite ‘gold route’ to Bactria, and all or most of the gold would come in the form of gold-dust.