One of the Buner reliefs, depicting devotees, holding plantain leaves, in purely Hellenistic style, inside Corinthian columns, 1st-2nd century CE. Buner, Swat, Pakistan. Victoria and Albert Museum.

The Buner reliefs are a series of frieze reliefs from the area of Buner, near Swat, and from the area of the Peshawar valley. They depict people in Greek dress (chiton and himation) and poses, "often regaling each other with cups, and sometimes pouring from wineskins into cups or mixing bowls in the Greek manner" (Boardman). The characters are often represented alongside columns in the Corinthian style. ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1592x625, 1446 KB) Summary Gandhara freeze with donor, in purely Hellenistic style, 1st-2nd century CE. Buner, Swat, Pakistan. ... ImageMetadata File history File links Download high resolution version (1592x625, 1446 KB) Summary Gandhara freeze with donor, in purely Hellenistic style, 1st-2nd century CE. Buner, Swat, Pakistan. ... Plantain Plantains are hard, starchy bananas used for cooking, as contrasted with the soft, sweet dessert varieties. ... The Corinthian order as used for the portico of the Pantheon, Rome provided a prominent model for Renaissance and later architects, through the medium of engravings. ... The Cromwell Road entrance to the Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum viewed from Thurloe Square The main interior courtyard of the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2004. ... Frieze of the Tower of the Winds. ... Peshāwar (translates to City on the Frontier from Persian; known as Pai-khawar in Pashto; in ancient times known as Purushapura in Sanskrit) is a city in Pakistans North-West Frontier Province (pop. ... The Corinthian order as used for the portico of the Pantheon, Rome provided a prominent model for Renaissance and later architects, through the medium of engravings. ...

These reliefs usually belong to Buddhist temples, where they were used as stair-risers, or thresholds to niches on Buddhist monuments. They are very Hellenistic in style and content, and are considered as some of the earliest examples of Greco-Buddhist art. They are usually dated to around the 1st century CE, although they might go back to the 1st century BCE, thus correponding to the period of Indo-Greek rule in the Indian subcontinent. The term Hellenistic (established by the German historian Johann Gustav Droysen) in the history of the ancient world is used to refer to the shift from a culture dominated by ethnic Greeks, however scattered geographically, to a culture dominated by Greek-speakers of whatever ethnicity, and from the political dominance... Gandhara Buddha, 1st-2nd century CE. Greco-Buddhist art is the artistic manifestation of Greco-Buddhism, a cultural syncretism between the Classical Greek culture and Buddhism, which developed over a period of close to 1000 years in Central Asia, between the conquests of Alexander the Great in the 4th century... Maximum extent of Indo-Greek territory circa 175 BCE. The Indo-Greeks (or sometimes Greco-Indians) designate a series of Greek kings, who invaded and controlled parts of northwest and northern India from 180 BCE to around 10 BCE. They are the continuation of the Greco-Bactrian dynasty of Greek...

One of the most famous of these reliefs is the one located in the Victoria and Albert Museum. The Cromwell Road entrance to the Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum viewed from Thurloe Square The main interior courtyard of the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2004. ...

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References

• "The Diffusion of Classical Art in Antiquity" by John Boardman (Princeton University Press, 1994) ISBN 0691036802
• "Alexander the Great: East-West Cultural contacts from Greece to Japan" (NHK and Tokyo National Museum, 2003)