Panel with the god Zeus/Serapis/Ohrmazd and worshipper

This Central Asian panel came from the Kushan People (people belonging to an Iranian Empire between the 1st and 3rd Century AD). It shows a god with a halo about his head, being approached by a man. In the scene, the man is showing his willingness to faithfully serve the god, and the god is entrusting the man to become one of his priests. Similar scenes had been shown before in earlier Greek and Iranian cultures.

The god in this scene is a chief god – this could be ‘Zeus’ who was god of the weather and sky in the ancient Greek religion. It could also be Ohrmazd, the supreme god in the ancient Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism (the first religion to believe in there being one god alone). The god could also be Serapis, a god invented by one of the Egyptian Pharaohs to unite the Greek and Egyptian people in his land.

This picture shows us how religion was sometimes used by rulers to ‘unite’ people. At the time of its creation, different groups of people had found themselves being brought together through a new ruling power expanding - ‘The Kushan Empire’. People were more likely to live peacefully alongside one another, when they felt that the things which they considered to be of value (such as their gods), were not being taken away from them. In a way, the god in this picture could be interpreted by different groups of people in different ways, meaning no one felt left out.

Also, this picture reminds us that, throughout all times and in all places, people have always sensed that there was a God. Having ‘belief’ in a creator god is part of what it is to be human.

The Kushans are believed to have mostly followed the Zoroastrian faith but they were also influenced by the ancient Greek and Egyptian religions, as well as the Buddhist and Hindu traditions too. To find out more on the first monotheistic (believing in only one God) faith, watch the film below.