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edakin.bsky.social
@edakin.bsky.social
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Ancient World (Black Sea, Epigraphy, Democracy, Rhetoric, Oratory in the Hellenistic Period. Ancient Sport; Ancient Warfare.) Bonsai. Muay Thai. Husband.
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This relief is a Buddhist interpretation of the fall of Troy. From Gandhara - now part of Pakistan and Afghanistan - it depicts the Greek warrior Sinon and King Priam pushing the horse towards Troy, while the Trojan priest Laocoön obstructs it and Cassandra predicts disaster. 🏺

100-200 CE. 📸 me
This apparent Trojan War scene comes from the region of Gandhara (in modern Pakistan and Afghanistan). The figures seem to be the Greek warrior Sinon pushing the horse - smaller than a normal horse and on a wheeled platform - towards Troy, King Priam behind it, the Trojan priest Laocoön trying to obstruct it, and Cassandra, Priam's daughter, predicting disaster. But 'Cassandra' wears traditional Indian clothing and ornaments worn by nature or fertility spirits (yakshi) in South Asian art. The episode has probably been reinvented as a Buddhist mythological narrative. The Laocoön figure may have represented a bodhisattva, a Buddha of the future, intervening to avert disaster. Relief panel, probably a stair-riser from a votive stupa, AD 100-200. Kushan, probably near Hund, Pakistan. Brownish schist. British Museum (1990,1013.1)
March 12, 2025 at 4:21 PM