Head of Buddha
Sculpture
2nd century - 4th Century (made)
2nd century - 4th Century (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
The head is of an oval shape with a granular surface. The hair rises from a peaked ridge like a cap to a bulbous ushnisha. The hair is shown in horizontal waves between grooves. The forehead descends to eyebrows defined by arching edges (the right one showing signs of damage), which descend onto the bridge of the nose. The long narrow eyes are depressions within the eyelids, the upper ones of which are particularly prominent slightly slanting downwards towards the nose. The tip of the nose is damaged above a finely arced upper lip over a fuller lower one. The right ear is damaged but the long left one has a lobe which splays gently away from the jaw line and neck.
Object details
| Category | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Head of Buddha (Generic title) |
| Materials and techniques | Modelled lime stucco |
| Brief description | Head and neck of a Buddha image, lime stucco, Swat valley, Gandhara, 2nd-4th century AD. |
| Physical description | The head is of an oval shape with a granular surface. The hair rises from a peaked ridge like a cap to a bulbous ushnisha. The hair is shown in horizontal waves between grooves. The forehead descends to eyebrows defined by arching edges (the right one showing signs of damage), which descend onto the bridge of the nose. The long narrow eyes are depressions within the eyelids, the upper ones of which are particularly prominent slightly slanting downwards towards the nose. The tip of the nose is damaged above a finely arced upper lip over a fuller lower one. The right ear is damaged but the long left one has a lobe which splays gently away from the jaw line and neck. |
| Dimensions |
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| Object history | Acquired from Evert Barger, Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Bristol and Philip Wright, V&A Museum, as part of the collection of finds excavated during their expedition to the Swat valley in 1938. This object was numbered 127 in Barger's lists. It is one of eleven stucco heads found lying in the debris surrounding the foot of Stupa B. All but one of these heads was of the Buddha, in varying sizes but of a similar stylistic treatment, excepting the representation of his hair which differed in three different ways. See IM 75-1939 and IM76-1939. |
| Subject depicted | |
| Bibliographic reference | Barger, E. and Wright, P., ‘Excavations in Swat and Explorations in the Oxus Territories of Afghanistan, a detailed report of the 1938 expedition’, Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India, vol. 64, Calcutta, 1941, p.26 |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | IM.74-1939 |
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| Record created | June 13, 2002 |
| Record URL |
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