They are rare and important exemplars of Kushan art of the 1st or 2nd centuries CE, attesting to the cosmopolitan tastes and patronage of local dynasts, the sophistication of contemporary craftsmanship, and to the ancient trade in luxury goods.

[3][4] The ancient city of Kapisa (near modern Bagram), in Bactria was the summer capital of the Kushan Empire, which stretched from northern Afghanistan to northwest India between the 1st and the 4th centuries.

Some eighty miles from Kabul, the strategically located city dominated two passes through the Hindu Kush, connecting Bactria with Gandhara (modern north-east Pakistan.

[1] The finds were divided, in accordance with the system of partage, between the Musée Guimet and the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul.

[1] A number of the missing items were located in 2004, and a further group of twenty pieces, illicitly traded by antiquities dealers, was later recovered and is to be repatriated.