History
Taxila Museum) is located in Taxila, Punjab, Pakistan. The museum houses an important and extensive collection of Gandharan art from the 1st century AD to his 7th century AD. Most of the objects in the collection were excavated from the ruins of ancient Taxila.
Construction of the Taxila Museum began in 1918 and the foundation was laid in 1918 by Lord Chelmsford, Governor of India. Construction was completed by him in 1928, and the museum was opened to the public by then-Minister of Education, Lord Muhammad Habibullah. Sir John Marshall, who had planned to resign as Director General of the Indian Archaeological Survey in 1928, was unable to carry out his original plans. The Pakistani government built his North Gallery in 1998.
Collection and displays
About 4000 works are on display, including stone, stucco, terracotta, silver, gold, iron and semi-precious stones. The exhibit mainly consists of objects from 600 BC. The Buddhism, Hindu and Jain religions up to 500 AD are well represented by these objects, which represent his three ancient cities in the region and over twenty Buddhist stupas and monasteries, Found in Greek temples.
The Taxila Museum has one of the most important and comprehensive collections of Buddhist stone carvings (known as Gandhara art) from the 1st to 7th centuries in Pakistan. The core of the collection is the Taxila Valley ruins, especially those of Sir John Marshall. Other objects came from excavations elsewhere in Gandanla, donations such as the Ram Das collection, or materials confiscated by police and customs officials. The entire collection contains over 1400 objects, of which 409 are published.
The Taxila Museum is a site museum and houses most of the numismatic material found during archaeological work in Taxila. Excavations began in 1917 under the then-Director of the Indian Archaeological Survey, John Marshall, and continued until 1934. The museum contains a large collection of coins from the Indo-Greek period to the late Kushan period. Some of these were published in Marshall’s original excavation report, and there are ongoing projects to publish the complete collection.
