Gandharan terracotta figure consisting of the head and torso only. There is black painted lines on the front and back of the torso and top of the head.
Head and upper torso from a human female figurine of relatively simple Sar Dheri type, in red terracotta with a dark red slip. The short arms are outstretched and the nose pinched. The small breasts are punched appliqué pellets, the eyes are slit appliqué pellets as are the large pierced ears with substantial ornmanents in them. The body is adorned with a black painted band at the neck and below and on the back with a black painted crossbelt. What remains of the coiffure consists of a pair of appliqué panels above the ears decorated with horizontal incised lines. This doubtless votive piece fits well into the general Sar Dheri type, though it is less elaborately decorated than the most sophisticated examples. The broken end of the torso is marked with ‘SD 12’, doubtless indicating a Sar Dheri origin for the object (ie Sar Dheri, off the Charsadda-Mardan road, about 1.5 miles east of Charsadda, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan). Archaeological context: presumably unstratified and from a surface collection. Early Historic Period, late centuries BCE. Given by Col. D H Gordon (1952/3).
