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Treasure sought from British Museum

Luke Harding

TAJIKISTAN PRESIDENT Imamali Rakhmonov has demanded that the British Museum give back a unique collection of ancient gold and silver artefacts discovered 130 years ago near the Oxus river.

Mr. Rakhmonov has ordered experts to seek the return of the Oxus Treasure, which was excavated near the border with modern-day Afghanistan. The treasure dates from the fifth and fourth centuries BC and is the most important surviving collection of Persian metalwork from the Achaemenid empire, which once stretched from Egypt across the Hindu Kush. According to Tajik scholars, the treasure was found in 1877. It arrived in Britain after bandits ambushed a group of merchants crossing from Kabul to Peshawar. A British political officer, F.C. Burton, rescued the merchants, buying from them an exquisite lion and griffin-headed gold amulet. British colonial administrators bought the remaining 170 pieces that turned up in a Rawalpindi bazaar. A British Museum spokeswoman said that Tajikistan had not formally requested the treasure's return. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2007

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