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Edmond Pottier
Map: Asia Society (http://sites.asiasociety.org/gandhara/maps) designed by Dirk Fabian, ingraphis.de, Kassel, © Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn.

Gandhara Connections is a project of the Classical Art Research Centre originally developed between 2016 and 2022. Its aim is to stimulate and support the study of ancient Gandharan art and its links to the classical world of Greece and Rome, thousands of kilometres to the west. The project's webpages are intended as a hub with resources for understanding Gandharan art and information about past and future events.

During the first few centuries AD a flourishing production of mainly Buddhist art emerged in Gandhara, an area very roughly corresponding to northern Pakistan, which was at the time part of the Kushan Empire. It is characterized especially by sculptural reliefs used to adorn Buddhist shrines. This art often drew upon and adapted Greek and Roman conventions which had developed several thousand kilometres to the west, in respect to styles, compositions, dress, mythological imagery, and the use of lifelike and expressive figures. There has been intense interest in this archaeological heritage for well over a century. International museums contain thousands of Gandharan artefacts and archaeologists in Pakistan continue to make important new discoveries. But many things about Gandharan art are still only partly understood, including its chronology, the patterns of its production, and its still puzzling links to other regions of the ancient world.

Read more here about the project's achievements in 2016-2022 and what happens next.


Supported by

The Bagri Foundation

RICHARD BELESON
in honour of Professor Osmund Bopearachchi
with founding support from the Neil Kreitman Foundation

Gandhara Connections team

International Advisory Committee

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