The Amaravati sculptures reach the British Museum

Colin Mackenzie saw the Amaravati stupa in 1797, when the mound was being dug for building material. An excavation of 1816 and 1817 took out 51 sculptures, many of which went to a monument in the market at Machilipatnam. Walter Elliot dug at the site in about 1845 by Barrett's date, or 1850 by Howes's, and sent hundreds of pieces to Madras. In 1859, 121 were shipped to London. They reached the India Museum by way of a wharf and Fife House, and were studied by James Fergusson in 1867.

When the India Museum was broken up, the sculptures went to the British Museum in 1880. They have been shown in Room 33a since 1992. Amaravati is the main site of the Satavahana-era Buddhist art of the Krishna valley, so the largest body of its finest work now sits about 8,000 kilometres from the pin.

India's Archaeological Survey asked for the sculptures in 2010, and the Museum replied that it was satisfied they had been acquired legitimately. The older account says that the removals saved the stones from lime kilns; recent work by Howes argues that this account served the antiquarians who made them.