1889.] 



on the Virilization of Ancimt India. 



LS7 



Tlio cases in the British Museum contain a series of about forty- 

 such heads, varying from life-size to very small dimensions. Most of 

 these were obtained in the Peshawar District, and purchased in 1861 

 through the late Mr. Thomas* They arc as varied in character as in 

 size, and comprise old and young, male and female, serious and comic. 

 Almost all are good, but I was particularly struck by the head, five or 

 six inches in height, of an aged, emaciated, and bearded man, and the 

 very remarkable life-size head of a laughing youth, with large straight 

 nose, big projecting ears, and a curl of hair on his forehead. 



Dr. Leitner has a considerable number of similar heads in his 

 collection, and, as he observes, it is impossible not to notice the "resem- 

 blance between them and the heads found in Cyprus, specimens of 

 which may be seuu in the British, South Kensington, and Woking 

 Museums. 



The specimens from the Peshawar District, in the Indian Museum, 

 Calcutta, marked P 1 — 18, are similar, and some particularly good ex- 

 amples of snch heads, found in the Mian Khan monastery, are figured in 

 Major Cole's Plate 28. 



Two plaster heads of this class are figured in plate IX, fig. 5, 

 a and 6. They are about each sis inches in height. The head 

 reproduced in fig. a is very Greek in feature, though Indian in orna- 

 ment. The photograph, in consecpience of foreshortening, does not do 

 the face full justice. 



The great abundance of such detached stucco heads is probably to 

 be explained, at least in part, by the following observation of Masson, 

 who notes that at the village of Hidda, near Jalalabad in the upper 

 Kabul valley, " idols in great numbers are to be found. They are 

 small, of one and the same kind, about six or eight inches in height, and 

 consist of a strong cast head fixed on a body of earth, whence the heads 

 only can be brought away. They are seated and clothed in folds of 

 drapery, and the hair is woven into rows of curls. The bodies are 

 sometimes painted with red lead, and rarely covered with leaf-gold ; 

 they appear to have been interred in apartments, of which fragments 

 are also found, "f 



Section IV. Hellenistic Sculpture in India Proper. 



An exhaustive examination of all the known remains of early 

 Buddhist sculpture which exhibit traces, more or less distinct, of teach- 

 ing derived from Greek sources would, I fear, be extremely tcdiouB, 



* Information kindly supplied by A. Franks, Esq., F. It. S. 

 t Ariaua Autiqiia, p. 113. 



