Earliest times to the 6th Century

Naman. P. Ahuja spoke about his latest book Art and Archaeology of Ancient India: Earliest Times to the Sixth Century, Ashmolean Museum (Oxford, 2018).

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 his talk, Professor Ahuja leads 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. Exploring these, Ahuja’s lecture provides a vivid insight into the art and material culture of South Asia from the Stone Age to the early post-Gupta period.