Terracotta, also known as terra cotta or terra-cotta, is a clay-based non-vitreous ceramic fired at relatively low temperatures. It is therefore a term used for earthenware objects of certain types, as set out below.
Vidisha is a city in central Madhya Pradesh, India. It is located 62.5 km northeast of the state capital, Bhopal. The name "Vidisha" is derived from the nearby river "Bais", mentioned in the Puranas.
Indian art consists of a variety of art forms, including painting, sculpture, pottery, and textile arts such as woven silk. Geographically, it spans the entire Indian subcontinent, including what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and at times eastern Afghanistan. A strong sense of design is characteristic of Indian art and can be observed in its modern and traditional forms.
The Nok culture is a population whose material remains are named after the Ham village of Nok in southern Kaduna State of Nigeria, where their terracotta sculptures were first discovered in 1928. The Nok people and the Gajiganna people may have migrated from the Central Sahara, along with pearl millet and pottery, diverged prior to arriving in the northern region of Nigeria, and thus, settled in their respective locations in the region of Gajiganna and Nok. Nok people may have also migrated from the West African Sahel to the region of Nok. Nok culture may have emerged in 1500 BCE and continued to persist until 1 BCE.
Dholavira is an archaeological site at Khadirbet in Bhachau Taluka of Kutch District, in the state of Gujarat in western India, which has taken its name from a modern-day village 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) south of it. This village is 165 km (103 mi) from Radhanpur. Also known locally as Kotada timba, the site contains ruins of a city of the ancient Indus Valley civilization. Earthquakes have repeatedly affected Dholavira, including a particularly severe one around 2600 BCE.
Behala is a locality of South West Kolkata in South 24 Parganas district in the Indian state of West Bengal. Behala is a part of Kolkata Municipal Corporation area. It is broadly spread across Ward Nos. 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 131 and 132 of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and is divided into two Vidhan Sabha constituencies: Behala Paschim and Behala Purba. Behala, Parnasree, Thakurpukur, Haridevpur and Sarsuna police stations serve this area under the South West Division of Kolkata Police also known as Behala Division.
Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti is an Indian archaeologist, Professor Emeritus of South Asian Archaeology at Cambridge University, and a Senior Fellow at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, Cambridge University. He is known for his studies on the early use of iron in India and the archaeology of Eastern India.
The National Museum in New Delhi, also known as the National Museum of India, is one of the largest museums in India. Established in 1949, it holds a variety of articles ranging from the pre-historic era to modern works of art. It functions under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. The museum is situated on Janpath. The blueprint of the National Museum had been prepared by the Gwyer Committee set up by the Government of India in 1946. The museum has around 200,000 works of art, mostly Indian, but some of foreign origin, covering over 5,000 years.
Pottery in the Indian subcontinent has an ancient history and is one of the most tangible and iconic elements of Indian art. Evidence of pottery has been found in the early settlements of Lahuradewa and later the Indus Valley Civilisation. Today, it is a cultural art that is still practiced extensively in the subcontinent. Until recent times all Indian pottery has been earthenware, including terracotta.
Mauryan art is art produced during the period of the Mauryan Empire, the first empire to rule over most of the Indian subcontinent, between 322 and 185 BCE. It represented an important transition in Indian art from the use of wood to stone. It was a royal art patronized by Mauryan kings, most notably Ashoka. Pillars, stupas and caves are its most prominent surviving examples.
Tamralipta or Tamralipti was an ancient port city and capital of Suhma kingdom in ancient India, located on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. The Tamluk town in present-day Purba Medinipur, West Bengal, is generally identified as the site of Tamralipti.
Bhirrana, also Bhirdana and Birhana, is an archaeological site, located in a small village in the Fatehabad district of the north Indian state of Haryana. Bhirrana's earliest archaeological layers predates the Indus Valley civilisation times, dating to the 8th-7th millennium BCE. The site is one of the many sites seen along the channels of the seasonal Ghaggar river, identified by ASI archeologists to be the Rigvedic Saraswati river.
Ujjayanta Palace is the state museum of the Indian state of Tripura and former royal palace of the princely state of Tripura. It was built by Maharaja Radha Kishore Manikya in 1901. It housed the State Legislative Assembly between 1973 and 2011. The palace primarily showcases the lifestyle, arts, culture, tradition and crafts of communities residing in northeast India, along with many stone sculptures of the Manikya dynasty.
Somapura Mahavihara or Paharpur Buddhist Vihara in Paharpur, Badalgachhi, Naogaon, Bangladesh is among the best known Buddhist viharas or monasteries in the Indian Subcontinent and is one of the most important archaeological sites in the country. It was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985. It is one of the most famous examples of architecture in pre-Islamic Bangladesh. It dates from a period to the nearby Halud Vihara and to the Sitakot Vihara in Nawabganj Upazila of Dinajpur District.
Government Museum and Art Gallery, Chandigarh, is a public museum of North India having collections of Gandharan sculptures, sculptures from ancient and medieval India, Pahari and Rajasthani miniature paintings. It owes its existence to the partition of India. Prior to the partition, much of the collections of art objects, paintings and sculptures present here were housed in the Central Museum, Lahore, the then capital of Punjab. The museum has one of the largest collection of Gandharan artefacts in the world.
Jagajjibanpur or Jagajivanpur is an archaeological site in Habibpur block of Malda district in West Bengal state in eastern India. This site is located at a distance of 41 km east from English Bazar town. The most significant findings from this site include a copper-plate inscription of Pala emperor Mahendrapaladeva and the structural remains of a 9th-century Buddhist Vihara: Nandadirghika-Udranga Mahavihara.
Daimabad is a deserted village and archaeological site on the left bank of the Pravara River, a tributary of the Godavari River in Shrirampur taluka in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra state in India. This site was discovered by B. P. Bopardikar in 1958. It has been excavated three times so far by the Archaeological Survey of India teams. The first excavation in 1958-59 was carried out under the direction of M. N. Deshpande. The second excavation in 1974-75 was led by S. R. Rao. Finally, the excavations between 1975-76 and 1978-79 were carried out under the direction of S. A. Sali. Discoveries at Daimabad suggest that Late Harappan culture extended into the Deccan Plateau in India. Daimabad is famous for the recovery of many bronze goods, some of which were influenced by the Harappan culture.
Bhitargarh is an archaeological site that includes the remains of an ancient fort city built in and around the 5th century AD. It is located in Panchagarh District in Rangpur Division in the northern part of Bangladesh and is large enough that it can be seen from space. The archaeological significance of the site lies in its strategic position as an intersection of the trade routes between Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan and the middle and lower Ganges Valley. At its height the city stretched over 5 km by 3 km and involved rerouting the Talma River.
Sculpture has been an indispensable part of Bangladeshi culture. Bangladesh was at times an important centre influencing stone sculpture in South Asia, especially in the post-Gupta and medieval periods. Terracotta reliefs are a particular local characteristic of Hindu temples and mosques in recent centuries.
Pilak is an archaeological site in the Santirbazar sub-division of South Tripura district of the Indian state of Tripura. Many images and structures, belonging to Buddhist and Hindu sects, have been discovered here since 1927. The antiquities found here are dated to 8th to 12th centuries.
