Ajanta: The Colour and Monochrome Reproductions of the Ajanta Frescoes Based on Photography v4.c15.29

v4.c15.29

¹ In preparing the clay plaster special care seems to have been observed. First the clay was taken from the slimy beds of water-pools, apparently following the practice of contemporary potters, who selected fine earth for their ware from such places. Afterwards the earth was made into a paste and mixed with molasses, bdellium (*gūgal*), rice-husk, and the leaves of some herbs, with a view to ensuring that the plaster should stick well on the wall and not peel off when dried. The clay plaster so cleverly prepared, however, ultimately led to the ruin of a large number of paintings at Ajanta, because it became a hotbed for the development of insects during the monsoons. The insects not only bored holes in the paintings but ate up the earth mixed with vegetable and sticky matter and created hollows behind the painted surface, which, for lack of support, has either fallen down or is hanging loose. The Archaeological Department of Hyderabad, under the guidance of expert archaeological chemists, has recently succeeded in fixing back on the rock-wall many of these loose paintings.