[Photo.34/(008)] Amaravati (nos. 47, 48)

Photograph of two excavated sculpture panels, a clearer view of the piece seen in print 7 and another panel of Buddha images. The reference numbers allocated to the pieces refer to Robert Sewell’s ‘Report on the Amaravati Tope, and Excavations on its site in 1877’ (London, 1880) in which the pieces are described.

‘While completing the examination of these sculptures [No. 46 and other pieces] my workmen were clearing the platform of earth, and we found several loose stones, 47 to 52 inclusive, lying on it. ‘No. 47 (3 ft. 4 in. long by 9 in. high.) Piece of a small cornice having alternate Buddhas (with nimbus) seated on lotus thrones, and dagobas wreathed with many umbrellas. ‘No. 48 is a fragment, similar, but of larger dimensions, the designs being separated into distinct panels by vertical lines (3 ft. 10 in. by 10 in. high). It is less elaborately sculptured. It has a small inscription in small letters apparently of a later date than those on many others. ‘These pieces of cornice seem new. The only specimen like them I can find amongst the marbles now in England is to be seen in F., XCVI.1, under the principal figure group. But even that is only similar in style. Both these new specimens have been photographed.’

Robert Sewell
‘Report on the Amaravati Tope, and excavations on its site in 1877’ (London, 1880, pp. 47-48)

Original negative not held. Part of a collection of twenty albumen prints mounted on card, with captions written in ink beneath the prints and all signed ‘R. Sewell’.