Art and Archaeology of Ancient India: Earliest times to the Sixth Century

A discussion based on Professor  Naman P. Ahuja’s book, published by Ashmolean Museum: Oxford, 2018

Professor of Indian Art and Architecture at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and the co-Editor of Marg Publications, Mumbai, Prof. Ahuja was Research Fellow in the Ashmolean’s Department of Eastern Art from 2002 to 2004

 

Followed by a discussion with Prof. Romila Thapar , Emerita Professor of History, Jawaharlal Nehru University; and Prof. Deborah Swallow, Marit Rausing Director of The Courtauld Institute of Art

 

How was the Ashmolean Museum’s rich and representative collection of the art and archaeology of the Indian subcontinent formed? Largely assembled in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, its important holdings of the formative periods of Indian art up to AD 600 are fully presented in this book for the first time. In this talk, Professor Ahuja will lead us through the highlights of the collection. The strength of the Ashmolean’s collection lies in its everyday objects in terracotta or other materials, such as the pots that people used, their small votive offerings, children’s toys or talismanic charms. This lecture provides a vivid insight into the art and material culture of South Asia from the Stone Age to the early post-Gupta period

 

(Collaboration: Oxford and Cambridge Society of India)