Page 7 - Met Museum Ghandara Incense Burner

Figure 12. Poseidon. Hellenistic. Figure 13. After Lysippos, Poseidon. Hellenistic. Bronze,
Brahmapuri, Kolhapur,
Bronze, H. 12.8 cm. Kolhapur Museum, 932 (photo by H. 46 cm. Pella Museum, M383 (photo: TAP Service, Athens)
of
Professor Richard De Puma, University Iowa)

ascribed to the Campanian bronze manufacturing philosophy.20 practice did not preclude the pos-
This
center of Capua, and they are datable to the first cen- sibility that objects, including Western ones, were
is
tury a.d. Capua only twenty miles north of Puteoli copied before being melted down, and it explains why
(modern Pozzuoli) , the major Italian seaport for trade so few ancient bronzes, Indian or foreign, survive in
with Alexandria, making it a logical source for works India. However, in South India clay bullae were deco-
to the East.
traveling Capua was founded by the Etrus- rated with Roman-style portrait heads copied from
cans and had a long tradition of metalworking. The imported coins.21 A small Buddhist stone relief panel
conclusion of De Puma's study is that bronzes of dif- from Amaravati, in South India, which shows a woman
ferent periods (i.e., Hellenistic and Roman) were in classical dress with Indian bangles on her ankles
imported into India at the same time. Thus, it is not (Figure 14) was probably copied and modified from a
ahistorical to seek prototypes for Indian works of art Roman original. According to an inscription on the
of the first and second centuries a.d. or even later in relief, it was donated to the Buddhist community by
Hellenistic models as well as in Roman works of art. the wife of a goldsmith. suspect that a Roman bronze
I
De Puma noted that the Kolhapur bronzes were in the goldsmith's possession was copied and then
probably on their way to a neighboring foundry to be melted down for other purposes.22
melted down for their metal value.19 It is common Judith Lerner, in her 1996 article on horizontal-
practice in India to melt down all "used" metal, of handled mirrors, confirmed the pattern of trade sug-
whatever The purpose is to ensure that any bad gested by De Puma.23 She stated that horizontal-handled
quality.
karma possessed by the original owner is melted down mirrors first on Roman
territory (and in Latinum
appear
and a new object "reborn," consistent with Indian and Campania, the heart of the Roman Empire) and
is
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