Art and Archaeology of Ancient India
Art and Archaeology of Ancient India
Earliest Times to the Sixth Century
Naman P. Ahujua
ISBN: 9781910807170
Publisher: Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Size: 9.5 in x 12.5 in
Pages: 360
Illustrations: 400 color, 30 b&w
Hardcover
• A wealth of early Indian objects (pre-600 AD)
• Contains previously unpublished material
• New photography for all objects
Especially strong in sculpture, this rich representation of Indian art from prehistory to the 12th century has been acquired by the Ashmolean Museum over three centuries. The Museum's first major Indian sculpture acquisition, a stone Pala-style Vishnu image of the 11th century, was given in 1686 by Sir William Hedges, a governor of the East India Company in Bengal. From the late 19th century, a substantial core of the present collection was assembled at the University's former Indian Institute Museum (1897-1962), the precursor of the Department of Eastern Art, which opened within the Ashmolean in 1963. Since that date many more Indian objects of all periods have been acquired to make up this extraordinary collection, all of it covered here.
Contents: Introduction; Prehistoric South Asia; The Northwest; North & Central India; Eastern India and Deccan; Miscellanea; Bibliography.
Naman P. Ahuja is Professor of Indian Art and Architecture at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His University of London doctoral thesis (2001) was on early Indian terracotta sculptures. He has since published widely on Indian art of many periods, and he curated the major exhibition 'The Body in Indian Art and Thought' (2013), held at Brussels and New Delhi.