New archaeological evidences of the so-called “Bactrian-Margiana Archaeological Complex” (= BMAC) has invited a change in our knowledge of the cultural relations between Oxus civilization and south-eastern Iran during the III-II millennium B.C. transition period. The new archaeological projects in southern and western Turkmenistan, as well as attested at Gonur Depe, have showed a wider and more articulated relation in Asia Media, not only constrained to the movement of the Central Asian Bronze Age onto the Iranian plateau, Baluchistan, and western coast of the Persian Gulf. At the same time new research and excavations in the Jiroft valley has demonstrated a new cultural horizon in the eastern Iran. In this perspective, the new information from the Oxus (Bactria and Margiana) and Jiroft civilizations invite new interpretations on III-II millennium historical relations among eastern areas. In particular, it is possible to recognize south-eastern Iranian objects or influenced materials by Jiroft civilization in the Bactrian-Margiana archaeological complex. For these reasons the characteristic finds of BMAC recovered in Iran from Susa, Shahdad, Shahr-i Sokhta, Tepe Hissar, Khurab and Tepe Yahya have to be analyzed as part of a wider network and not simply explained with the movement of people from Central Asia towards southern Iran. An unpublished bifacial seal, now placed in the Bastan Museum, is an important line of evidence for a reassessment of the historical relations between two civilizations, representing a conceptual and ideological creation originated by the union of southern Iran and Central Asian cultural developments. This evidence is a new and decisive contribution for the understanding of the intercultural processes between the Oxus and Jiroft cultures; its presence confirms a homogeneous and related-artistic knowledge in a wide territory from Margiana and Bactria to the Lut, Jiroft, and Elam regions in a joint cultural source, but with different indigenous developments.
Introduction
The archaeological evidence collected in the last year in the Kerman and Turkmenistan regions change our knowledge of the cultural spheres in eastern Iran, reassessing the structure and process of political and artistic relations between Oxus and Jiroft civilizations (Hiebert - LambergKarlovsky 1992a). Starting from a bifacial stamp seal placed in the National Museum of Iran, we would suggest a new perspective in the cultural dynamics between eastern Iran and BactrianMargiana Archaeological Complex (= BMAC). The discovery of a new civilization in the Halil valley (Madjidzadeh 2003a; 2003b; 2003c; 2004; 2008) and the new archaeological finds from Gonur Depe (Hiebert 1992; 1994; Salvatori 1994a; 1994b; 1995; 2007; 2010; Sarianidi 1993b; 2002a; 2002b; 2005; 2007) might be decisive to build up new historical evaluations on the role carried out by Jiroft and the Oxus regions in the creation of a new syncretistic art, identifying a cultural koiné linking eastern Iran to Margiana and Bactria.
The wide evidence of a homogeneous artistic development between southern Iran and the Murghab and the Bactrian territories should be evaluated as a joint cultural transformation, bypassing an expansionist approach to the south-eastern Iran/BMAC interactions where an unidirectional cultural transmission from north to south or vice versa has been suggested (Hiebert - Lamberg-Karlovsky 1992a; 1992b: 135-136 contra Amiet 1986; 2004; Sarianidi 2009: 42-43).
