To be published in Widorn, Verena & Ute Franke (eds.). Proceedings of the 20th Conference of the "European Association for South Asian Archaeology and Art". Vol. 2: Contextualizing Material Culture in South and Central Asia in Pre-Modern Times. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014).
New Light on Charles MassonDr Sanjay
[email protected] Director, National Archives of
India,Ministry of Culture,New Delhi 110 001 (INDIA)Abstract
To the archaeologists, historians and antiquarian researchers of
Afghanistan, the name of Charles Masson is quite familiar. Between
1833 and 1838 he explored or excavated nearly fifty monuments in
Afghanistan and amassed a staggering amount of antiquities. These
included an estimated 60,000 coins, most of which were sold at
auction in 1887, while the British Museum received a substantial
share. Other recipients of the Massons coin collection were the
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford and the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge.
Recognizing Massons pioneering contribution in unearthing
(literally!) the antiquities of Afghanistan, in 1993 the British
Museum launched a project Masson Project - under Elizabeth
Errington, which is now nearing completion. As part of this project
7 volumes and 149 uncatalogued manuscripts of Massons records now
available in the British Library are proposed to be published.
Massons archive, however, survive beyond the British Library.
The official correspondence of the British East India Company in
the National Archives of India, for example, was surveyed by me in
1991 and later, in 1998, utilized to present a study of the coins
collected by Masson in Afghanistan. Apart from these identified
records of Massons archaeological explorations there is, in the
National Archives of the UK, a so far untapped series of
correspondence between Charles Masson and Henry Pottinger
(1789-1856), who was then serving as the British Agent in Sindh.
Pottinger not only espoused Massons efforts but also gave him
monetary and material support. After going through the Pottinger
Papers one can say with some certainty, that but for him, Masson
would never had the opportunity or the means to pursue his
archaeological explorations.
Based on this untapped archival series in the National Archives
at Kew (London), the proposed paper will cull out fresh evidence of
Massons archaeological explorations and antiquity collection which
will not only complement the Masson Project, but will also shed new
light on the circumstances and methods employed by this remarkable
footloose archaeologist in Afghanistan. The Speaker:Dr Sanjay Garg
is a numismatist of international repute. He specializes in the
coinage of the Islamic dynasties of India as well as on the
monetary system during Indias colonial period (18th -20th
centuries). His catalogue of the coins of the Mughals and their
contemporaries in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum,
University of Cambridge (UK) is presently under print. Author of
several books and a regular contributor to various academic
journals, Dr Garg is also the Editor of Numismatic Digest - the
well-known numismatic journal published from the Indian Institute
of Research in Numismatic Studies, Nasik (India).
Apart from numismatic studies, the academic interests of Dr Garg
include archival science and records management as well as Urdu
poetry.
