Gandhara Connections

Gandhara Connections Gandhara Connections is a new project by CARC at Oxford University. Its aim is to advance the study of Gandharan art & its links to Greek & Roman culture.

During the first few centuries AD a flourishing production of mainly Buddhist art emerged in Gandhara, an area very roughly corresponding to northern Pakistan, which was at the time part of the Kushan Empire. It is characterized especially by sculptural reliefs used to adorn Buddhist shrines. This art often drew upon and adapted Greek and Roman conventions which had developed several thousand kilo

metres to the west, in respect to styles, compositions, dress, mythological imagery, and the use of lifelike and expressive figures. There has been intense interest in this archaeological heritage for well over a century. International museums contain thousands of Gandharan artefacts and archaeologists in Pakistan continue to make important new discoveries. But many things about Gandharan art are still only partly understood, including its chronology, the patterns of its production, and its still puzzling links to other regions of the ancient world. The Gandhara Connections project is a three-year initiative by the Classical Art Research Centre, Oxford University, to pool knowledge and stimulate new insights into Gandharan art and its links to Greece and Rome. The project's webpages will offer a variety of permanent resources for study by researchers of all kinds, from specialist academics to students and everyone else who is fascinated by Gandharan art. They will also contain information about our international workshops and other events.

13/05/2025
Our forthcoming CARC workshop will be of interest to many of our 'Gandharan' followers.
03/06/2024

Our forthcoming CARC workshop will be of interest to many of our 'Gandharan' followers.

08/01/2024
22/07/2022

Date: Friday, 5 August 2022
Time: 2pm to 8pm (8am to 2pm CEST)
Venue: Online via Zoom
Language: English
Quota: 280 (First-come, first-served)

No registration required. All are welcome.

Zoom Link:
https://hku.zoom.us/j/94560429398?pwd=WG1wT2hjVERxVGlOdkNVU2dFNjN5dz09
Meeting ID: 945 6042 9398
Password: 759593

Programme: https://umag.hku.hk/content/uploads/Giuseppe-Tucci-SYMPOSIUM-Programme-details.pdf

21/06/2022

Ciclo di conferenze Museo delle Civiltà/ISMEO
“Ripensare il mondo. Il confronto tra culture nella formazione delle civiltà”

Archeologie difficili e sistemi di valori
Il caso dell'Afghanistan

Conferenza di Anna Filigenzi

Giovedì 23 giugno 2022, ore 16.30

Museo delle Civiltà
Sala Conferenze “F.M. Gambari”

L’archeologia in Afghanistan è condizionata, oggi come ieri, dalla storia tormentata del paese. Dalla fine degli anni Settanta del Novecento, a partire dall’occupazione sovietica e con gli eventi che a questa sono seguiti (la guerra civile, il regime talibano, l’interludio di una fragile “democrazia” che non ha interrotto i conflitti e, infine, il recente ritorno al potere dei Taliban), l’Afghanistan vive sotto il peso del terrorismo, della crisi economica e di diseguaglianze sociali che rendono estremamente selettivo l’accesso alle già scarse possibilità di progresso. Sullo sfondo di questo difficile panorama, l’archeologia diviene bersaglio di una propaganda che ora la dipinge come espressione di una élite predatrice di risorse, più interessata a cose inerti che alle persone, ora tenta di servirsene per mostrare al “ricco Occidente” il volto umano e progressista della politica. Nel frattempo, la filiera locale dei beni culturali, con le sue infrastrutture e professionalità, distrutta dai lunghi anni del conflitto e, a partire dai primi anni 2000, sulla strada di una faticosa rinascita, ripiomba ora in un limbo opaco. Cosa può e deve fare dunque l’archeologia? C’è ancora per essa uno spazio sociale da riconquistare e valori umani da riaffermare? La Missione Archeologica Italiana dell’ISMEO, che opera dal 1957, ha cercato una risposta entro il perimetro etico e scientifico della ricerca, dell’avanzamento degli studi e della condivisione delle conoscenze. Non solo il patrimonio materiale va difeso e protetto, è necessario difenderne e proteggerne anche i valori immateriali. Questa operazione dipende da quanto siamo capaci di comprenderne la connessione con la storia e la dimensione umana. Questo il tema dell’incontro: un racconto di esperienze che dal lavoro sul campo ci hanno condotto, a ricostruzioni di frammenti importanti di storia. Il futuro dell’Afghanistan avrà bisogno anche del passato e, soprattutto, di una visione di esso rinnovata dal progresso degli studi.

È possibile seguire l’incontro via YouTube tramite il seguente link:
https://youtu.be/OY8kdYRwAHs

Per maggiori informazioni si prega di consultare la locandina

Building on we're launching a new initiative – a thematic umbrella for events & publications placing classical art in...
08/06/2022

Building on

we're launching a new initiative – a thematic umbrella for events & publications placing classical art in the wider ancient world. Save date for our hybrid workshop 21-22 March 2023: 'Classical Art and Ancient India' -more soon!

20/05/2022

Gérard Fussman (1940-2022)

We are sorry to report the death of our Honorary Fellow, Professor Gérard Fussman, on Saturday 14th May 2022. We are grateful to Professor Adriano Rossi, President of ISMEO (Associazione Internazionale di Studi sul Mediterraneo e l’Oriente), for permitting us to reproduce the following excerpt from ISMEO's appreciation of his work:

"Gérard Fussman studied in Paris (Classics, Sanskrit, Greek epigraphy and numismatics, linguistics) and was a member of the French Archaeological Mission in Afghanistan, working under the supervision of Prof. Daniel Schlumberger (1962-65). After a two-year stay in Cambodia, he joined the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, received a Ph.D. in linguistics in 1972, and was appointed Professor of Sanskrit at Strasbourg the same year. In 1984, he became Professor of History of India and Greater India at the Collège de France, Paris. He has traveled extensively in Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Northern India.

Professor Fussman wrote papers on topics ranging from the Central Asiatic Bronze Age to contemporary India; and a number of books, including Le trésor monétaire de Qunduz (1965, with co-author Raoul Curiel), Atlas linguistique des parlers dardes et kafirs (1972), Naissance et déclin d’une qasba: Chanderi du Xe au XVIIIe siècle (2003, with co-authors Denis Matringe, Eric Ollivier and Françoise Pirot), Aryas, aryens et Iraniens en Asie Centrale (2005, with co-authors Jean Kellens, Henri-Paul Francfort and Xavier Tremblay), and Monuments bouddhiques de la région de Caboul (2008, in collaboration with Eric Ollivier and Baba Murad).

His contribution to the studies of the Indian Subcontinent, especially in the north-west areas, is enormous and is divided into a wide range of disciplines: history, philology, palaeography, epigraphy, and archaeology, the latter in particular aimed at Afghanistan. Traces remain not only in the number of his publications (https://www.college-de-france.fr/site/gerard-fussman/bibliographie.htm), but also in its commitment to the formation of new generations of scholars, commitment lavished so much in its activity of teacher as well as in the generous availability towards younger colleagues, who always have counted on him for directions and advice."

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Classical Art Research Centre, Ioannou Centre For Classical And Byzantine Studies, 66 St Giles'
Oxford
OX13LU

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