Colonial Archaeology in South Asia

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This book discusses the practice and institutionalization of the discipline of archaeology under British Rule and its current manifestations. Using Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s tenure as the Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India (1944-48), it assesses the extent to which colonial intervention shaped the nascent discipline in South Asia. The study investigates two important areas generally neglected in most histories of archaeology of the subcontinent–conservation practices and the display of archaeological artefacts in museums. It also examines topical questions like the government control of academic disciplines like archaeology and the role of the discipline in the postcolonial period. Ray also provides an overview of the major events and debates that emerged in the archaeology of the subcontinent leading up to the 1940s. She discusses the contemporary academic scenario, Wheeler’s Indian contemporaries, his contributions to the study of the subject, and his agenda for the Archaeological Survey of India. In doing so, she highlights how his work and methodology continue to dominate the study of archaeology in the postcolonial period as well. The author draws on a wide range of source material, some being used for the first time–the archives of Archaeological Survey of India and Mortimer Wheeler’s private papers–to present the changing paradigms within which the past has been studied. This book will interest scholars, teachers, and students of Indian history and archaeology, as well as anthropologists, art historians, and the interested reader.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Himanshu Prabha Ray

Himanshu Prabha Ray is associate Professor at the Centre for Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, where she has taught since 1980. Her publications include Monastery and Guild: Commerce under the Satavahanas, Oxford University Press, 1986; The Winds Change: Buddhism and the Maritime Links of Early south Asia, Oxford University Press, 1994 (reissued as Oxford India Paperbacks, 1998); The Archaeology off Seafariing in Ancient South Asia, Cambridge University Press, 2003. In 1996, she jointly edited with Jean-Ffrancois Salles a volume titled, Tradition and Archaeology: Early Maritime Contacts in the Indian Ocean, Manohar, 1996. another volume Archaeology of Seafaring: The Indian Ocean in the ancient Period, was published in the Indian Council of Historical Research Monograph Series I, New Delhi, 1999.