A “Bactrian Lady” and Other Terracotta Figurines from Aligrama, Swat

This paper deals with a small terracotta figurine representing a “Bactrian lady” found in the excavations of the protohistoric site of Aligrama (Khyber Pukhtunkwa, Pakistan). The headless figurine, recovered in the deepest layers of one of the trenches excavated in the last years of fieldwork at the site but still unpublished, is datable to the horizon defined as “Period IV,” ca. 1700-1400 BCE. Quite similar to at least another terracotta specimen found at Gonur (Margiana, Turkmenistan), and less directly to a long series of composite sculptures in chlorite and limestone of the same subject, the find posits new questions on the links between the Swat Valley and the Oxus settlements of Southern Central Asia in the early-to-middle Bronze Age. We also discuss in a similar light a small collection of fragmentary human terracotta figurines, also found at Aligrama, which we could study and record in detail. We focus on the evidence of surface modifications (graphics and incised marks), so far marginally noted, that demand further investigation.