New Light on Charles MassonDr Sanjay Gargsgarg30@hotmail.comAssistant 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.