Alfred Charles Auguste Foucher
Alfred Charles Auguste Foucher (1865–1952), was a French scholar, who argued that the Buddha image has Greek origins. He has been called the "father of Gandhara studies", and is a much-cited scholar on ancient Buddhism in northwest Indian subcontinent and the Hindu Kush region.
One of the first representations of the Buddha, Gandhara, in pure Hellenistic style and technique. Foucher considers such statues as Greek work of the 1st century BCE.
The Hindu Kush is an 800-kilometre-long (500 mi) mountain range on the Iranian Plateau in Central and South Asia to the west of the Himalayas. It stretches from central and eastern Afghanistan into northwestern Pakistan and far southeastern Tajikistan. The range forms the western section of the Hindu Kush Himalayan Region (HKH); to the north, near its northeastern end, the Hindu Kush buttresses the Pamir Mountains near the point where the borders of China, Pakistan and Afghanistan meet, after which it runs southwest through Pakistan and into Afghanistan near their border.
The Hindu Kush mountains at the Afghanistan-Pakistan border
Noshaq is the second highest independent peak of the Hindu Kush Range after Tirich Mir.
Landscape of Afghanistan with a T-62 tank in the foreground
Aerial view of Hindu Kush mountains in northern Afghanistan