Famous Sultanganj Buddha Ftatue.

Sultanganj Buddha statue.

the largest substantially complete copper Buddha figure known from the time. The statue is dated to between 500 and 700 AD .

The Sultanganj Buddha was cast in pure, unrefined copper by the cire perdue, or lost wax, technique. Inside there is a clay body.

Statue found in 1861 during the construction of the East Indian Railway. It is now in the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, Birmingham, England.

E. B. Harris, the railway engineer who discovered the Buddha during excavations that he carried out on ancient remains near the Sultanganj station that he was constructing, published a detailed account of his work, complete with a site plan and photographs. He describes finding the right foot of the Buddha ten feet under the surface, beneath a floor he considered to have been used to conceal the statue after it had been toppled from its former place.

Harris sent the statue to Birmingham, the cost of its transport to England being paid by Samuel Thornton, a Birmingham manufacturer of ironmongery. Thornton, himself a former mayor of Birmingham, offered it to the Borough Council for their proposed Art Museum in 1864.