Archaeology

Before the discovery of the monsoon winds by Hippalus in AD 45–47, the mariners of the east coast of India were aware of the monsoon wind and currents and used them for maritime trade. The maritime trade from India to Southeast Asia was a seasonal phenomenon. The distribution of Buddhist settlements, discovery of varieties of pottery, beads and inscriptions along the ports and trade centres point to active maritime trade between India and Southeast Asia.

With funding from the NTICVA between January and April 2005 I assisted with a number of archaeological projects in India. Firstly I spent one and a half months excavating at the site of Gilund, Rajasthan. The excavations at this Chalcolithic site were being conducted jointly by Vasant Shinde of the Deccan College Pune and Gregory Possehl of the University of Pennsylvania. The second part of my project consisted of three weeks studying at the Deccan College. Lastly I spent one week assisting a student from the University of Chicago with fieldwork for her PhD dissertation.

I am grateful to the Trust for awarding me the Fellowship to study Kushan terracottas in the museums in the UK at the appropriate time when I was excavating sites such as Kanishkapura and Ambaran (Akhnur) in Jammu and Kashmir related to the Kushan period - particularly the latter which is famous for earlier yields of typical Akhnur Buddhist terracotta heads.

This grant allowed me to start a larger study of prehistoric Indian antiquities in both Indian and UK museums. The report which I submitted to the NTICVA at the end of the grant had chapters on foreign tools in Indian tools in UK museums such as the Institute of Archaeology, the British Museum, the Liverpool Museum, the Ashmolean Museum, the Pitt Rivers Museum., who supplied me with literature and some photographs.