Head of Buddha, Pakistan - Public domain museum image. A sculpture of a rock on a pedestal

The Gandhara civilization existed in what is now northern Pakistan and Afghanistan from the middle of the 1st millennium BCE to the beginning of the 2nd millennium CE. Although several great powers ruled this area during this time, they all shared a great reverence for Buddhism and an adoption of the Indo-Greek artistic tradition that had developed in the region following Alexander's invasions of India.