Cleveland Museum of Art

Layman bearing offerings

Date

c. 300 CE

Medium

stucco with mother-of-pearl inlay

Culture

Afghanistan, Hadda, probably Tape Shotor

Department

Indian and Southeast Asian Art

Institution

Cleveland Museum of Art

The Buddhist monasteries at Hadda were famous internationally until their destruction by fire in the 800s CE. One thousand years later, a British explorer named Charles Masson (1800–1853) documented the site and collected many sculptures from the ruins that are now in the British Museum in London. French archaeologists carried out systematic excavations between 1926 and 1929. They brought many sculptures to the National Museum of Asian Art, Guimet, in Paris. Some sculptures entered other museum and private collections around the world. In the 1970s, Afghan archaeologists continued to document the Buddhist sites of Hadda and brought many more sculptures to the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul. The Buddhist community (sangha) consists of both monks and laypeople who brought wealth to support the monasteries at Hadda.

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