The elongated vertical chalice with concave waist,
incised on the outer surface with a band of three
oval medallions, each encircling a seated figure
holding either a chalice, or a long stick or what
seems like a writing pen. Their faces and the
garments only outlined, their seated cross legs
position indicated by a distinctive eight-shaped
design. Lying between them, small circular
medallions with a squared cross, a register of
key-frets above and below, a small band of
dotted circles almost at the base above a band of
concave arches, the joint terminating with
pending individual tear-shaped leaves.
The presence of the cross, as well as the unusual
rendition of the yogic posture, the halos that
ornament each head would seem to point to a
latent Christian iconography. At the same time,
the Central Asian flavour of the frontal depiction
of the human figures, together with the row of
dotted circles would point further to the east,
and possibly to Transoxiana. It was here that
Nestorian Christians thrived from the 6th century
onwards.
The Nestorian or Assyrian Church, also known as
the "church of the east", was ostracised by the
Roman church after the council of Ephesus in
431. Allegedly founded by the apostles Thomas
and Addai, it became widespread not only in
Syria, Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) and Persia.
After the council of Chalkedon in 451, the sect
further distanced itself from the orthodoxy by
following the teachings of Nestorius who
believed in the unity of the human and divine
nature of Jesus Christ, a dogma that was later
manifested as the two hypostatic natures of the
Christ (two natures, two persons). The bishop of
the Eastern Church acted as head of all eastern
Christians and promoted the voyages of
missionaries to India and Central Asia.
From the 7th to the 11th centuries Nestorianism
was the most widespread Christian sect in the
East. Nestorian parishes are known from
historical records and archaeological evidence to
have existed not only in Persia but to have
scattered tremendously throughout Central Asia,
following the Silk route. Centres were located in
Transoxiana and Turkestan at Bakhara, Kashgar,
Khotan, Merv, Samarkand, spreading as far as
Chinese Central Asian sites such as Kucha,
Urumqi, Turfan (in Gaochang) and Hami.
Visual evidence of their expansion comes from
various memorial steles, such as the one in the
Semiryechye at Frunze, Kirghizistan (datable 8th-
13th c. CE, and bearing an almost identical cross
depiction) but most prominently from the
famous bilingual stele in Chinese and Syrian
(Ugaritian) in the prefecture of Xi'an, erected in
781 and rediscovered in 1625. The inscription
narrates the existence of Nestorian (Chinese:
Niesituoli parishes in China since the beginning
of the 7th century. Nestorian monks lived in a
"Persian" Yiningfang Monastery in Xi'an, and the
first missionary was a Persian called "Aluoben"
(Alopen).
After the expulsion of foreign missionaries in the
840s, the Yuan Dynasty period of religious
tolerance against foreigners enabled a second
wave of Nestorian missionaries (hence called
erkehun, Chinese: yelikewen) to work in China.
Since the 15th century Nestorianism lost its
influence in China and vanished around 1550.
Today the number of Nestorian Christians in the
whole world is about 150,000, and the church is
divided into different branches.Interestingly
enough, the Syrian script used by the Nestorians
provided the base for the creation of both the
Mongolian and the Manchu alphabets.
This beautifully preserved chalice provides one of
the few existing historical evidence of the
presence of Nestorian Christians in Central Asia
and its decoration vibrantly proves the incredible
conflation of Central Asian and Christian symbols
into one unique extraordinary ritual vessel.
