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Terracotta female figure
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Description
Such hand-modelled figures with pinch noses, split pellet eyes and full buttocks were common in the Peshawar region and much further afield.
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Details
- Associated place
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Asia › Pakistan › North-West Frontier Province › Peshawar district (place of creation)
- Date
- 2nd century BC - 2nd century AD (200 BC - AD 200)
- Material and technique
- terracotta, modelled
- Dimensions
- 15.8 x 5.5 x 3 cm max. (height x width x depth)
- Material index
- Technique index
- Object type index
- No. of items
- 1
- Credit line
- Presented by E. M. Scratton, 1958.
- Accession no.
- EA1958.3
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Further reading
Harle, J. C., and Andrew Topsfield, Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1987), no. 6 on p. 6, illus. p. 6
D. K. Chakrabarti, ‘Post-Mauryan States of Mainland South Asia (c. BC 185-AD 320)’, F. R. Allchin, ed., The Archaeology of Early Historica South Asia: The Emergence of Cities and States (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 324-325, illus. p. 325 fig. 12.23:4
Ahuja, Naman, ‘Early Indian Art at the Ashmolean Museum - Catalogue in progress’, 2016, no. 29.1
Location
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Ground floor | Room 12 | India to 600
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Ground floor | Room 12 | India to 600
Objects are sometimes moved to a different location. Our object location data is usually updated on a monthly basis. Contact the Jameel Study Centre if you are planning to visit the museum to see a particular object on display, or would like to arrange an appointment to see an object in our reserve collections.
Publications online
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Indian Art in the Ashmolean Museum
Hand-modelled figurines such as this, with pinch noses, split pellet eyes and crude appliqué representations of headdresses and ornaments, are found in abundance in the region around Peshawar, Pakistan. Some were found at nearby Chārsada by the excavator, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who gave them the somewhat inappropriate name of “baroque ladies”. From scientifically conducted excavations, they are securely dated from around 200 B.C. to c.200 A.D. (Dani, pp.46ff., pl.XXIV-XXVII). The buttocks (rear view) are voluptuously rounded in a naturalistic style, in striking contrast to the schematised front view. The larger group to which these figures belong, all distinguished by this primitive technique, have been found at chalcolithic period settlements from as far west as eastern Iran and variants are still made a toys in present day Bengal. It is doubtful, whether the majority of these figures, even in early times, can be dignified with the name of mother-goddesses.
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