#11 - Disk Stones

Reference number - 2000.284.11
1st century B.C. - Pakistan (ancient region of Gandhara, Indus Valley)

“Ring stones, richly decorated with raised reliefs of female gures typically alter- nating with plant forms and other auspicious motifs, represent an enigmatic cate- gory of early Indian sculpture. Both the women and the owering and fruit-bear- ing trees are presumably associated with fecundity. Such ring stones may have functioned as jewelers’ molds, with malleable gold sheet being hammered into the form. ”