2-979-619 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Sketches in Cashmere - Ruins of Ancient Temple, near Islambad, [modern Pakistan], 1857. Possibly a view of the Martand Sun Temple, an 8th-century Hindu temple. '...a picturesque group of ruins situated at the foot of the hills three miles east of the town of Islambad, on the north side of the Behut, or Jhelum...The ruins are the remains of a temple, said to be built 500 B.C, They consist of two large rooms, each about thirty feet long, surrounded by a quadrangular colonnade, about 100 yards square. The granite blocks of which the temple is built are of immense size; every particle has once been elaborately carved; but, notwithstanding the depth of the sculpture and hardness of the material, almost all the figures and hieroglyphics are effaced'. From "Illustrated London News", 1857.