Abstract: The contribution focuses on some iconographic motifs relating to Buddhist art in Afghanistan, adopting a partly theoretical and partly empirical approach and a trans-areal and diachronic perspective. These motifs do not fall within the typological classifications of the repertoires accredited by the scientific community, even though they are found in various regions and time periods. Despite local transformations, the formal coherence it maintains presupposes the existence of yet unclassified repertoires, as well as undeniable transregional and diachronic flows of symbolic, material and cognitive elements.
This raises the first recurring problem of the ineffectiveness or inadequacy of the nomenclatures used in the art histories of the regions of northern South Asia, Central Asia, and Inner Asia. Not only are we lacking satisfactory periodisations due to the uncertainty of relative chronologies and the scarcity of absolute chronological references, but the historical frames of reference themselves are also indeterminate. At a trans-regional and diachronic level, this becomes an even more conspicuous problem since, although areas and themes of cultural continuity can be empirically observed, there is no sufficiently cohesive tradition of historical-artistic studies to allow these phenomena to be typified. Added to this is the very partial survival of materials, which are often fragile and ephemeral in nature, and the still very incomplete archaeological record of long-lost topographies. It is these objective difficulties that gave rise to the eartHeritage research project.