Artifact: Ossuary

The history of the handmade clay ossuary, which is expected to be featured in the exhibition of the Center of Islamic Civilization in Uzbekistan, dates back to the 6th century. The walls of the ossuary depict priests standing before a mihrab under an arch.

The three main events in human life birth, marriage, and death have always been accompanied by ceremonies, the nature of which was shaped by the historical conditions of the time, the prevailing religious beliefs, and the daily traditions of each people. Throughout the history of art in Uzbekistan, these pivotal moments in human life have found direct or indirect reflection in works of art and architectural monuments. In the modern mind, the concept of death is associated with hopeless grief and irreparable loss, but in the religious views of antiquity and the early Middle Ages, people were able to transform the feelings of grief and mourning traditionally associated with this inevitable event. This transformation is reflected in the shape and decorative scenes of clay ossuaries special burial vessels that emerged in ancient Khorezm and spread to the Sogdian region during the early Middle Ages.

For adherents of Zoroastrianism and supporters of similar local burial practices, the idea of immortality after death embodied in the ossuary served as a means of protection from negative emotions. On the other hand, the scenes depicted on ossuaries show that these rituals were perceived through the lens of ancient ideas about the cyclical sequence of life and death, akin to the cycles of nature’s decay and rebirth. The earliest ossuaries, often referred to as “sculpted ossuaries”, which appeared in the 4th–3rd centuries BCE, originated in the Khorezm oasis.