Masson archive Vol. 2 (1).pdf

Charles Masson: Collections from Begram and Kabul Bazaar, Afghanistan 1833-1838

From 1833–8, Charles Masson (1800–1853) was employed by the British East India Company to explore the ancient sites in south-east Afghanistan. In return for funding his exploration of the ancient sites of Afghanistan, the British East India Company received all of Masson’s finds. These were sent to the India Museum in London, and when it closed in 1878 the British Museum was the principal recipient of all the ‘archaeological’ artefacts and a proportion of the coins. This volume discusses and catalogues Charles Masson’s 1833–8 collections of coins and other objects from the urban site of Begram and Kabul bazaar, supplemented by illustrated coins recorded in other sources but no longer in the British Museum’s collection. This volume therefore studies the British Museum’s collection of these fascinating objects, including reliquaries, beads and coins, and places them within a wider historical and archaeological context. The book accompanies the previous two publications on Charles Masson’s collections by Elizabeth Errington: Charles Masson and the Buddhist Sites of Afghanistan: Explorations, Excavations, Collections 1832−1835 (British Museum Research Publication no. 215) and The Charles Masson Archive: British Library, British Museum and Other Documents Relating to the 1832–1838 Masson Collection from Afghanistan (British Museum Research Publication no. 216).

2018

In Widorn, Verena & Ute Franke (eds.). Contextualizing Material Culture in South and Central Asia in Pre-Modern Times, Proceedings of the 20th Conference of the European Association for South Asian Archaeology and Art (EASSA) Vol. 2, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), pp. 203-11.

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 Masson’s coin collection were the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford and the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. Recognizing Masson’s 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 Masson’s records now available in the British Library are proposed to be published. Masson’s 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 Masson’s 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 Masson’s 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 Masson’s 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.

Journal of the Oriental Numismatic Society, 2019

The mint of Farwan in Afghanistan issued coins from the time of the Islamic conquest of the region in the ninth century until the city was destroyed by the Mongols in the thirteenth century. The coins collected at Begram by Charles Masson in the 1830s throw a detailed light on the coins of the city during this period and suggest the attribution of many mint-less coins to this mint.