With the exception of paleolithic cave paintings, the murals here are the oldest surviving paintings in South Asia.

The Ajanta paintings, along with the contemporary Sanchi Torana carvings, show us what ancient Indian cities actually looked like.

See for example, the innumerable wooden pavilions across all the paintings.

There are cities of wood, chariots and elephants, merchants trading with Rome, and nobles draped in embroidered silks.

Indeed along with the frescoes of Pompeii and the Fayyum portraits of Egypt, they are perhaps the most comprehensive depiction of civilised classical life to survive from antiquity.

-Sam Dalrymple.