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Central Asia, crossroads of ancient trade routes known as the Silk Road, absorbed for centuries the pulses of travelling cultural influences and created an environment for the existence of original artistic expression, which can be seen in jewellery making as well. The dissertation thesis deals with analysis of the findings from excavation units and individual pieces of jewellery, in most cases made of gold, which were often largely inspired by the culture of the ancient Mediterranean. The historical - geographic perspective of the work is focused primarily on territory of ancient Bactria and Gandhara - southern part of the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, then northern and eastern Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. These areas were in the past centers of military activities and political formations, followed up in many aspects on the Mediterranean traditions. These political formations contributed distinctly to the dissemination and preservation of some elements of ancient cultural heritage in Central Asian architecture, sculpture and other fine arts and crafts. Most jewelry findings come from a fairly turbulent period of the 1st century AD, when the territory of Central Asia saw the progressive formation of Kushan Empire. The main part of the thesis consists of summary of the...

Based on a selection of examples from the sculptural art of Andhra, the paper discusses what possibly motivated the inclusion of motifs and stylistic elements from the ancient Mediterranean into the Buddhist art of the region. While in some cases such adaptations may have been driven by the need to find suitable solutions for the depiction of critical events or by the fact that a foreign motif tied in perfectly with already existing concepts, and thus, reinforced the message to be conveyed, in other cases no such reasons can be detected. Artists seem to have used foreign image types and stylistic variations deliberately to show their supreme craftsmanship or to add aesthetic sophistication to the image programme. The artists of Andhra, therefore, can by no means be regarded as epigones slavishly adhering to the examples set by the Mediterranean; the region—which is the place where narratives later spreading over large parts of Asia and Europe were first depicted—rather has to be regarded as on par with the classical cultures of Greece and Rome in terms of artistic versatility and creativity.