Ancient Bactrian bronze mirror 73mm, circa 300-200 BC,
Diameter: 2.8 in. = 73 mm = 7.3 cm;
Weight: 125.68g
Condition: genuine patina all over, the handle is broken, no restoration
Authenticity report: 100% authentic;

Bactria (from , the Hellenized version of Old Persian Bxtri; Bactrian: Baktra; Persian/Pashto: Bkhtar; Uzbek: ; Tajik: ; Chinese: Dàxià; Sanskrit Bhlika) is the ancient name of a historical region located south of the Amu Darya and west of Gandhara, one of the ancient civilizations of Iranian peoples, covering the modern-day flat region that straddles Afghanistan and Tajikistan. Ancient Bactria was in present-day northern Afghanistan, between the Hindu Kush mountain range and the Amu Darya.
Bactria was the birthplace of Zoroastrianism, and later also hosted Buddhism before becoming Muslim after the arrival of the Rashidun and Umayyad Caliphates in the 7th century. Bactria was also sometimes referred to by the Greeks as Bactriana.
History
The BactriaMargiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC, also known as the "Oxus civilization") is the modern archaeological designation for a Bronze Age culture of Central Asia, dated to ca. 22001700 BC, located in present day eastern Turkmenistan, northern Afghanistan, southern Uzbekistan and western Tajikistan, centered on the upper Amu Darya (Oxus), in area covering ancient Bactria. Its sites were discovered and named by the Soviet archaeologist Viktor Sarianidi (1976). Bactria was the Greek name for Old Persian Bxtri (from native *Bxçi)[2] (named for its capital Bactra, modern Balkh), in what is now northern Afghanistan, and Margiana was the Greek name for the Persian satrapy of Margu, the capital of which was Merv, in today's Turkmenistan.
The early Greek historian Ctesias, c. 400 BC (followed by Diodorus Siculus), alleged that the legendary Assyrian king Ninus had defeated a Bactrian king named Oxyartes in ca. 2140 BC, or some 1000 years before the Trojan War. Since the decipherment of cuneiform in the 19th century, however, which enabled actual Assyrian records to be read, historians have ascribed little value to the Greek account.
According to some writers, Bactria was the homeland of Indo-European tribes who moved south-west into Iran and into north-western India around 25002000 BC. Later, it became the north province of the Persian Empire in Central Asia.[3] It was in these regions, where the fertile soil of the mountainous country is surrounded by the Turanian desert, that the prophet Zoroaster (Zarathushtra) was said to have been born and gained his first adherent