Studies on Gandharan art have not yet produced an unbiased interpretation of its participation in the wide phenomenon of ‘Hellenism’. This incertitude is mirrored by ambiguous and debatable definitions such as ‘Hellenised Orient’ or ‘Gréco-bouddhique’, which contain an implicit, though mostly unintentional, notion of civilising influence. The emphasis on Hellenistic forms may mislead our interpretative efforts, especially when, as in the case of India, art history is based on weak historical grounds. Indeed, in order to develop more effective analytical tools we have to draw upon methodical and scientific archaeology. The aim of the present work is to offer an overview of the most important achievements of the IsIAO’s Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan with regard to the vexata quaestio of the inception of Gandharan art and, implicitly, the inclusion of Hellenistic elements into the local figurative languages. In the course of over fifty years of field research the Italian Archaeological Mission has created a repository of data that enables us to bring vis-à-vis the single site and the regional environment, as well as the religious settlement and the lay world around, thus providing reliable grounds for a better understanding of the historical, political and social framework of Gandharan art and its Hellenistic components.

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This work by G. Fussman is to be welcomed as a vademecum for all future researches in Afghanistan. Scholars and students will find here an analytical collection of data, those provided by the old scientific literature, those extracted from the Author's personal experience, and those newly available thanks to recent archaeological work in the area. An analytical reconstruction of the original appearance, building technique and dating of the monuments is attempted with the sharp insight of someone who is not only well acquainted with Buddhist architecture, but moreover endowed with a sense of “territorial” archaeology, which means attention to relevant questions such as environmental, economic, and cultural constants and changes. Thus, the comprehensive reading of the evidence spread across the whole of the territory under scrutiny, and the sharply focused examination of the single issues, always accompanied by comparisons and connections, not only add to our knowledge but also prompt us to enlarge our focus and try the way for further research.

In the rich repertoire of the Buddhist art of Gandhāra, 1 a special place is occupied by what we usually call "Dionysiac scenes," where different characters are portrayed in the act of drinking, dancing, performing more or less explicit erotic gestures that are a prelude to sexual intercourse, or engaged in social ceremonies of unknown nature. When considered together and analysed more closely, these scenes reveal a typological variety that no doubt reflects different layers of meaning. Besides not fitting into any unitary picture, such themes cannot be easily reconciled with our idea of ancient Buddhism. Nevertheless, the association of Buddhist Note: An abridged and slightly different version of this paper was published in French (Filigenzi 2016). The contents were first outlined in the framework of the workshop At the Foothills of the Hindukush: Art and Archaeology of the Swat Valley, Pakistan (Drexel University, Philadelphia, May 7, 2011), and further developed on the occasion of the International Symposium Buddhism and the Dynamics of Transculturality (Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg, 11th-13th June 2012). I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to the organisers of these events, Pia Brancaccio and Birgit Kellner respectively, for encouraging this line of research and providing the best opportunity to discuss it with colleagues from different disciplinary fields. My deepest gratitude also goes to Pierfrancesco Callieri and Luca Maria Olivieri for their scientific advice and suggestions, as precious as ever. I am also indebted to Lorenzo Costantini for helping me to address specific palaeo-bothanic issues, and to Laura Giuliano for her kind assistance at the Museo Nazionale d'Arte Orientale "Giuseppe Tucci," Rome. Special thanks go to Max Klimburg, who generously gave me access to the pre-print version of his article (Klimburg 2014). His presentation at the conference Wine Culture in Iran and Neighbouring Countries (Institute of Iranian Studies, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 16th-17th September 2010), on which that publication is based, was indeed revelatory of the connections between the iconographies discussed here and the Kafir folklore. 1 The term "Gandharan art" is used here in its historicised meaning, which is purely conventional and traditionally accepted by scholars as the more adaptable to an artistic phenomenon that has been recognised, although with distinct regional characteristics, in wider territories than the Peshawar Valley. In this usage (which, I would like to clarify on behalf of nonspecialists, was adopted with full consciousness and not without criticism) "Gandharan art" includes art from neighbouring regions such as Swat, Panjab and Eastern Afghanistan, and is roughly encompassed within the Kushan time frame (1 st to 3 rd century CE). I refer the reader to the brilliant synthesis in Zwalf (1996, 11-19).

W i t h c o n t r i b u t i o n s b y l u c A M A r i A o l i v i e r iA n d A n o t e b y P e t e r r o c k W e l l FOREWORDThe project that has given birth to this long-awaited volume has its roots in the very beginning of the Italian activity in Swat. The first rock reliefs, not counting those introduced by Sir Aurel Stein, were in fact published in 1958 by Giuseppe Tucci in his seminal Preliminary Report on an Archaeological Survey in Swat which presented to the scholarly community the results of his survey of 1955.Belonging to a late chronological horizon close to that of Padmasambhava, these Buddhist sculptures were no doubt one of the reasons that led to IsMEO's decision to invest efforts and resources in Swat.The dates of arrival in the IsMEO photographic archive of images of rock reliefs from Swat gives a clear idea of how since 1955 more than one generation of scholars has shown an interest in this class of artefacts, if only in the shape of photographs and a few notes on the discovery of new reliefs: from the 1950s to the 1980s, new records were accumulated by Domenico Faccenna, Francesca Bonardi, Maurizio Taddei, Alfredo Vallazza, Pietro Guj, Enrico Cimmino, Umberto Scerrato, Francesco Noci and Pierfrancesco Callieri. In 1987, in his capacity as director of the IsMEO Italian Archaeological Mission, Domenico Faccenna set up a comprehensive project to survey and study these rock reliefs, entrusting its execution to Anna Filigenzi and Luca Maria Olivieri, who had both recently joined the Mission. Anna Filigenzi had been one of the most brilliant students of Maurizio Taddei at the Oriental University of Naples, while Luca Maria Olivieri was a graduate of the Department of Historical, Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences of the University of Rome La Sapienza. The choice was intended to provide the study with a global approach in which the record of the topographical context was accorded equal importance with the iconographic interpretation of the reliefs.Since 1987 the systematic activity of surveying and recording carried out by Luca Maria Olivieri has made considerable progress. Along with the main groups of reliefs already known, which were surveyed again using a new and more thorough methodological approach, further complexes as well as isolated reliefs were identified and surveyed, and the area of research was extended to new areas adjoining Swat, in particular Puran and Buner. The study of the topographical distribution of the reliefs has proved to be of the greatest interest, suggesting new functional interpretations.Most of the activity of survey and recording was completed in a relatively short space of time, as it was merged with that undertaken for the project of the Archaeological Map of Swat. The long hiatus between that period and this publication is due not only to the political events which have affected the recent history of Swat but also to the reasons that Anna Filigenzi describes so effectively in her Preface and Introduction and which allowed her to resist with incredible...