The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: The Story of the Early School, its Birth, Growth and Decline c11.4

c11.4

A good illustration of such scenes, of a purely Hellenistic character, is afforded by fig. 40. This relief was formerly in the Guides' Mess at Mardān and like the majority of their sculptures probably came from Swāt; but its precise provenance is uncertain; nor have I been able to ascertain the variety of stone of which it is made. It is now in the Peshāwar Museum. The drinking party comprises nine figures, namely, four male and five female. The men wear either a short *chiton*, with a girdle at the waist and a scalloped turn-over edge at the top, leaving the right shoulder bare, or a simple *himation* alone leaving the upper part of the body bare save for the fold over the left shoulder. Two of the men wear hats that look rather like coal-heavers', but the details are damaged. The women wear a long *chiton* and *himation*, and garlands on their heads. The *chiton* is supported by a twisted girdle under the breasts and is long enough completely to cover the feet; the *himation* is draped over the left shoulder and arm, and round the hips and legs. The women also wear numerous bangles on their wrists but not on the upper arm. The man in the centre is holding a metal tankard of a type that is still familiar in Kashmīr and the North-West Frontier. The goblets held by the others are of a peculiarly distinctive shape, numerous specimens of which were found at Taxila in deposits dating from the Parthian period but not from any other period. Some were of earthenware, others of copper or bronze or silver. An example of the silver ones is shown in fig. 42. The characteristic features of these Parthian goblets are their carinated bodies, deeply flared mouths, horizontal flutings or bands, and disproportionately small bases, which were evidently meant to support them only when empty. Although a drinking-party, the men and women composing it make a sedate, dignified group very different from the boisterous orgy depicted on the toilet-tray, fig. 16.