Credit: ©The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.13432

    ‘Tope of Maunikyaula’

    Date
    1815
    Creator
    Unknown, Engraver
    After
    Unknown Deli artist (Indian) , Artist
    Object type
    Library reference
    RCN38165
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 210mm
    width (print): 280mm
    Subject
    Content object
    nature
       > landscape
    Description
    Landscape showing the Mankiala Stupa, a Buddhist reliquary near the village of Mankiala, near Rawalpindi in the Punjab province of Pakistan.

    The image shows a dome-shaped building surrounded by trees with human figures at its base. The Stupa rises out of the landscape, more than twice the height of the trees apart from those that appear to be growing out of the brickwork. The top right section of the dome is incomplete, with loose brickwork rather than the smooth dome shape of the rest of the building. The relic deposits are now housed in the British Museum.

    Plate 1 from from Mountstuart Elphinstone's An account of the Kingdom of Caubul and its dependencies in Persia, Tartary, and India… (London, 1815), an account of his embassy to the ruler of Afghanistan, Shuja Shah Durrani Khan (1785-1842) in 1808.

    Inscribed below: ‘Tope of Maunikyaula. Published by Messrs. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, Paternoster Row, 1815.’

    Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779–1859), East India Company administrator from 1776, known for his periods as Resident at Poona and Governor of Bombay in the 1810s and 1820s, and involvement in the Anglo-Maratha wars.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Asia
          > Pakistan
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