Much of an archaeological site I'm researching has been destroyed by people who wanted to use its ancient bricks. But it's also been greatly damaged by rabbits, porcupines, and wild dogs!
Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India
Reading about a South Asian archaeological site where many fingerprints were found impressed in pottery. The excavators are using them to see if the same or related people made different dishes.
Current time travel apparatus location: Williamsburg, Virginia, USA
Learned why it's been impossible to find archaeological info after a certain date from Harappa: people started building an AMUSEMENT PARK on the site! A prominent Pakistani archaeologist according to omniscient (cough) Wikipedia was very instrumental in stopping the nonsense when of course the builders began finding very valuable archaeological artefacts; the site is far far from being completely explored.
Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India
Felt quite clever after thinking some ancient painting on a pot (of what the excavator said looked like the back of a dog) looked awfully like our cat, and then learning that indeed some years later they found domesticated (and wild) cats here from the same ancient time period.
Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India
I was a little shocked with my librarian background (during grad school) while doing a bibliographic search for additional sources I wanted to check, to see a list they probably didn't mean to publicize of periodic publications to "discard on arrival" that included interesting local archaeological and historical works. Hopefully the publishers are keeping good archives...
Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India
A professor at Cambridge told me to be very careful to avoid slang in my nonfiction. Here's a good example from an archaeological journal of when someone should have been given the same advice; it's from 1983: "We are working on the fag end of the era." It just sounds out of place in an otherwise well done report, to be suddenly mentioning a cigarette...
Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India
for Painting a Room and Entry Floor Cloth...with a Poosey Cat on one Cloath and a Leetil Spannel on ye other, Frenchman like.
This book should be regarded as rescue work. It salvages from pre-Victorian periodicals from the limbo of forgotten publications, and exhumes from long undisturbed sources a curious collection of women who, at a time when it was considered humiliating for a gentlewoman to earn money, contrived to support themselves by writing, editing, or publishing... sometimes even supporting husbands and children as well...The women who emerge make a motley gallery; but over the years that I have been getting to know them, they have won my respectful affection. More, indeed. To me they are all heroines...
If you ever think some archaeological finds are suspicious, you might be right. There are some Buddhist finds in and near Nepal that were forged. There were also important parts of a building complex that were just made up -- written about and then a little model made for a museum -- and people didn't realize for some time that those parts never even existed. (Check out information such as at piprahwa.org.uk/The Piprahwa Deceptions.htm .)
Current time travel apparatus location: New Delhi, India
I was charmed and surprised to see that India did some C14 dating for Ireland and Nigeria around 1989.
Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India
Why do some archaeologists -- very few -- lie about their "finds"? It makes me ignore all of their writings, because I don't want to repeat potential fabrications. It would be much more useful if they must indulge their religious or whatever leanings if they just admitted they're speculating and have fun with that, but meanwhile clearly present the actual facts. Perhaps like a few sad people I've met around the world, some of them hallucinate so much they don't realize they're presenting fiction.
Current time travel apparatus location: New Delhi, India
Just ran across at least one Archaeological Survey of India writer with a sense of aesthetics -- "New varieties of roses, cannas and several other ornamental trees and plants were introduced to add to the beauty of this newly developed garden" over an archaeological site they've covered back up. Moreover, "The entire area...has now been developed and profuse flowering of annual and perennial plants is indeed a sight to enjoy." It's interesting that this was in an area not far from an Agra site that spoke some of beauty; also, it's mentioned that a committee got together to discuss improving the landscaping, and also that they were able to get a good water pump which "has improved the water supply to a great extent." As so often here, it has much to do with finances. Of course I really shouldn't read too much into quick comments such as these; I just find them interesting while doing my "real work."
Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India
If you ever think some archaeological finds are suspicious, you might be right. There are some Buddhist finds in and near Nepal that were forged. There were also important parts of a building complex that were just made up -- written about and then a little model made for a museum -- and people didn't realize for some time that those parts never even existed. (Check out information such as at piprahwa.org.uk/The Piprahwa Deceptions.htm .)
Current time travel apparatus location: New Delhi, India
Just read in an archaeological report: "The width of a doorway was also available." But they don't state what it is! Maybe someone wrote this, meaning to return and write in the actual measurement?
Current time travel apparatus location: State Central Library, Bangalore, India
I like the leisurely writing style of some old guys. Ram Chandra Kak wrote of work in Kashmir in the 1930s, "It was on a brilliant afternoon that the site was first surveyed. The hill-side along which the water conduit runs was waving with long-stalked Indian corn. But amid all those fields of luxuriant corn there existed a square flat patch which was covered only with thin turf, and in which there grew a solitary stunted plane tree. This plot of land, by reason of its apparent unproductiveness, immediately attracted attention. On enquiry from the neat-herd who was watering his cattle in the brook near by, it was ascertained that this barren field owned the significant name of Kitur-i-Daj (field of potsherds), because the entire field consisted of thickly packed sherds - whence its barrenness. The question that naturally arose was how such an abundance of potsherds could occur so high up the hill-side and so far from the present inhabited areas. The only explanation (which eventually turned out to be correct) was that in ancient times there had been dwellings here - dwellings the nature of which could be ascertained only by excavation."
Current time travel apparatus location: Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
An Indian archaeological journal mentions that someone was given training in the rudiments of archaeology which included not only excavation but displaying the finds in museums and keeping them from falling apart. That wasn't surprising. But they also were careful to teach the "layout of gardens." (A lot of archaeological sites here after the excavation are covered over with gardens.)
Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India
I should mention in the midst of my complaints about a few archaeological secondary sources that I truly appreciate the amazing and very difficult work of archaeologists, work that I probably could not do for even a week. When I read their original reports, I see careful and honest work in almost all cases, including bringing in chemists and other experts when necessary. Though yesterday I saw a sudden change in tone and accuracy when an archaeologist notorious for assigning early dates without evidence took over, even he (perhaps because of a good editor?) did not actually present made-up evidence and tagged on remarks like "this has yet to be proven" after a bit of wild speculation. I've been using a lot of sources from the Archaeological Survey of India lately and have great respect and appreciation for them.
Current time travel apparatus location: New Delhi, India
As happens too frequently in India, our internet was down almost all day yesterday, from the middle of the night and coming back up at about my bedtime. Like the electricity which is also often down, one appreciates such things more after experiencing their being gone. Anyway, I finished most of the research on that big site (Kalibangan), and finally wrote up the smaller site whose date depended on Kalibangan's (which always annoys me, but I guess they can't afford to scientifically date every single site)....
Current time travel apparatus location: The Round Library, Bangalore, India
I would recommend anyone who really wants to research South Asian history to go directly to primary sources, or at least to secondary sources that handle them carefully.
Overgeneralizations I have seen even in some academic/scholarly secondary sources hide the truth, that history is fascinatingly complicated and varied. (The same problem happens with many pre-college history classes.) I heard something similar pointed out by an archaeologist and historian who works in Williamsburg, Virginia -- she said that people had been repeating the same myths about what people ate in colonial America, but when you look at the actual archaeological and archival evidence the picture is ever so much more interesting. It's not just a problem in South Asia!
Current time travel apparatus location: Williamsburg, Virginia, USA