ANCIENT REGION OF GANDHARA, 3RD-4TH CENTURY CE

This decorative frieze illustrates a hunting scene with archers drawing their bows at a lion and lioness. Panels of the hunt, a popular noble sport, were a common fixture in Gandharan iconography. Compare the present relief with a pair of hunting scenes in the British Museum, illustrated by W. Zwalf in A Catalogue of the Gandhāra Sculpture in the British Museum, London, 1996, nos. 315 & 317.