CH. VII FRESCOES OF ROTUNDA PASSAGE 123
a mound only some sixty yards off I discovered there a Buddhist shrine of exactly the same rotunda type decorated on its passage wall with a dado showing figures altogether secular and frankly Western in character.
In this ruin, too, the rotunda held in its centre a Stupa enclosed by a circular passage, both somewhat larger than in the shrine first described. That both shrines dated from approximately the same period was proved at the outset by the discovery of a similar angel bust painted on what little survived of the wall of an outer square passage. The Stupa within had suffered badly from the burrowing of treasure-seekers, but gilt fragments of fine wood carvings which once adorned its top were recovered from the debris with which the fallen dome had choked the circular passage. The clearing of this passage by the side of its eastern entrance revealed that what remained of the passage wall was decorated with frescoes arranged in a frieze with a dado below it. On the former there soon emerged some short inscriptions in Kharoshthi script and Indian language by the side of two figures. There was thus definite proof that these shrines and wall paintings dated back to the early centuries of our era.
On the west side, facing the entrance, a segment of the enclosing wall had been completely levelled down by early treasure-seekers. Hence the frescoes were now found extending over two detached hemicycles. Owing to greater decay the one on the northern side retained but little of
the upper frieze, but in the frescoed dado below it was easy, in spite of faded colours, to recognize a remarkably graceful
composition quite classical in design (Figs. 56, 57). Its connecting feature was a broad festoon of wreaths and flowers
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