Asset number
510733001
Description
Stiipa drum panel showing the Distribution of the Relics. The table on large, elaborate, turned legs dominates the panel, a densely worked textile hangs from it and a plain undulating textile covers the table top for the reception of globular reliquaries with large lids and with circular knobs on top. Behind is the bust of an old man with rounded and protruding eyes, a moustache and a beard ending in bands of curls; the damaged hair may have had a chignon of two superimposed coils. An uttariya appears wound round his left shoulder. Beside him, but higher and smaller, a turbaned and moustached figure, presumably a claimant, with necklace, earrings and uttariya stands with both arms down his side. Vestiges, apparently chiselled away, of other figures, also presumably claimants, are ranged behind the table with another, much like the first claimant, in three-quarter view beyond it. Beside each table leg stands a moustached spearman with crested turban, earrings, collar, tight trousers, shod feet and sleeved tunic or jacket, in one case open at the front. All the figures have rounded and protruding eyes, emphasised chins and fixed expressions. The textile hanging from the table has vertical rows of blown flowers, scrolling, diagonally bisected squares, heart-shapes, beaded and hatched bands; the turned corners show similar vertical rows behind, and at the corners are bushy tassels. This attention to textile design, often in marked relief, has already been noted, with references, as a feature of carving from Swat valley sites such as Butkara I.2. The framed female figure is bare to the waist and has one knee flexed forward; one hand is on the hip, the other holding a pendent branch of a tree above her. She wears a wreath headdress, perhaps a twisted roll of cloth, to one side with a long loop of hair projecting through it, earrings, a necklace, bracelets, double anklets and a paridhana with a narrow fall of drapery in the middle and a loop on one side, while a long scarf billows in an are over her upper arms and behind her and falls abundantly beside her legs. Her features are treated like those on the rest of the panel. Below each breast three shallow grooves are presumably flesh folds. The framing fillet below is plain.
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