New Light on Charles Masson

Dr Sanjay Garg
sgarg30@hotmail.com
Assistant 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.