TH E K AZA K LY- YAT K AN W ALL P AINTINGS : N E W P E RS P E C TIV E S ON TH E ART OF TH E AN C I E NT IRANIAN W ORLD – TAASA Review September 2010

Fiona Kidd S ome of the best preserved early Iranian mural art is currently being excavated by the Karakalpak-Australian Expedition to Chorasmia, in modern Uzbekistan.

Dating to the end of the first millennium BCE, and perhaps an early forerunner to the flourishing early medieval mural art traditions of central Asia, the paintings demonstrate an unprecedented diversity of colour, style and imagery; they provide critical new perspectives on both the foreign relations of the ancient Chorasmian oasis, and the visual art of the ancient Iranian world. Field photo of a `portrait’ fragment, Eastern Chorasmia, Uzbekistan, c late 3rd/early 2nd century BCE.

Photo: Fiona Kidd Chorasmia forms an agricultural wedge in the delta region of the Amu Darya where it flows into the Aral Sea...