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A piece of scale armour from Shaikhān Dherī, Chārsada (shaikhān dherī studies, 1)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 March 2011

F. R. Allchin
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Extract

Among the many notable finds of the first season of the ill-starred collaboration of Cambridge and Peshawar Universities in excavations at Shaikhān Dherī, Chārsada, in the autumn of 1963, those in the house or shrine D were outstanding. Here in one of the symmetrical and well oriented insulae of the city was discovered a small building constructed of brick and diaper masonry, probably in early Kushān times, and destroyed around the time of Vāsudeva. The destruction was a result of fire and there was every sign that the building had been hastily stripped of its more valuable contents, if not actually looted, before the final collapse of the roof. In the main and largest room, of some 22 by 18 feet, beneath the fallen ceiling, were a remarkable collection of objects, scattered in disarray and including two seated Buddha figures, a standing Bodhisattva, a seated Hariiti, and a small figure of a four-armed city goddess, all being typical examples of the Gandhāran style and in Gandhāran schist; carved stone relic caskets and stūpas, one inscribed in Kharoṣṭhī; a remarkable relic casket of a fine schist, carved in the form of a cruciform building with four vaulted arms and a central circular opening rabbeted to take a now missing lid which was almost certainly in the form of a dome, the ends of the vaults being carved with miniature reliefs of scenes from the life of the Buddha; and a small broken sculpture in Mathurā sandstone of a seated Buddha in the style of the celebrated Mathurā Katrā Keśava Deva figure. It is a matter of great concern and regret that the proper publication of all this important material has been so long delayed, and that it has not been possible for this extremely productive and important excavation to proceed.

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Articles
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Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 102 , Issue 2: Studies in Honour of Sir Mortimer Wheeler , April 1970 , pp. 113 - 120
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1970

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References

1 I wish to acknowledge in this connexion generous grants from the British Academy, the Stein-Arnold Fund, the Smuts Memorial Fund, and other sources in Cambridge University. With these we were able to contribute approximately half of the cost of the first season's work.

2 The chronology of the excavations depended in the main upon the numerous coins discovered. The majority had not been cleaned at the close of the first season, and no full catalogue has yet been published. But from those already legible in the field it appears that the building in question was constructed in or before the reign of Kaniṣka, and that the destruction did not take place before the reign of Vāsudeva.

2a This is to be the subject of Shaikhān Dherī Studies, 2 (in press).

2b Dr. Dani has published a preliminary and often very cursory report (“Shaikhān Dherī excavations”, Ancient Pakistan, II, 1965–1966, 17–120Google Scholar). For example, the subject of this paper is dealt with in three lines (p. 119). In the past year or so I have written several studies of objects from the same provenance. For convenience these are numbered serially. For further comments on the date of the fire, see the second paper.

3 Rawlinson, G., Parthia, London, 1893, p. 399.Google Scholar

4 Daremberg, C. and Saglio, E., Dictionnaire des antiquityés grecques et romains, Paris, 1873–1919, figs. 1233–5, and article “Cataphractus”.Google Scholar

5 Excavations at Dura-Europos, Final Report, VIII, pt. ii, 1967, pp. 89–97.Google Scholar

6 Excavations at Dura-Europos, Preliminary Report, 4th season, pp. 215–21.

7 Excavations at Dura-Europos, Preliminary Report, 6th season, pp. 440–52.

8 Diakonov, M. M., Materiali i issledovania po arkheologii SSSR, 37, 1953, p. 286.Google Scholar

8a Hallade, M., The Gandharan style and the evolution of Buddhist art, 1968, Pl. IV.Google Scholar

9 Foucher, A. C. A., L'art gréco-bouddhique du Gandhāra, Paris, 1905–1918, p. 402.Google Scholar

10 cf. among other references: Moticandra, , Prācīn bhāratīya veṣ bhūṣa, Prayāg, Samvat 2007, pp. 107–108Google Scholar and figs. 146–9; Dani, A. H., Gandhāran art of Pakistan, Peshawar, 1968Google Scholar, pl. 22; Marshall, J. H., Buddhist art of Gandhāra, Cambridge, 1960Google Scholar, fig. 114; H. Ingholt, Gandhāran art in Pakistan, pl. 63; Faccenna, D. and Taddei, M., Sculptures from the sacred area of Būtkāra I, Rome, 1962, Pl. 25 and 26, etc;Google ScholarRosenfield, J., The Dynastic arts of the Kushans, 1967, Pls. 62, 62A, 81, 100, 127.Google Scholar

11 H. Ingholt, loc. cit., pl. 452.

11a J. Rosenfield, op. cit., Pl. 81. The cap in question is worn by the soldier to the left, beneath the Buddha's throne.

12 Marshall, J. H., Taxilā, Cambridge, 1951, pp. 549–550, no. 90.Google Scholar

13 ibid., p. 550, no. 91.

14 ibid., p. 550, no. 92.

15 Egerton of Tatton, A description of Indian and Oriental armour, London, 1896, p. 125, no. 591T, and fig. 30.Google Scholar

16 Stone, G. C., A glossary of the construction, decoration and use of arms and armour. New York, 1934, Figs. 58, 64, etc.Google Scholar