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Charles Masson

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For other people named Charles Masson, seeCharles Masson (disambiguation).

The Stupa No.2 atBimaran,where theBimaran reliquarywas excavated. Drawing by Charles Masson.

Charles Masson(1800–1853) was the pseudonym ofJames Lewis,aBritish East India Companysoldier, independentexplorerand pioneering archaeologist andnumismatist.He was the first European to discover the ruins ofHarappanearSahiwalinPunjab,now inPakistan.He found the ancient city ofAlexandria in the Caucasus(modernBegram) dating toAlexander the Great.He unlocked the now-extinct script known asKharoshthi.[1]At the time of the 1838First Anglo-Afghan War,Masson had spent more time in Afghanistan than any other British subject. He was a minority voice critical of the invasion and accurately predicted it would be a disaster for theBritish Empire.[2]

Early life

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Charles Masson was born on 16 February 1800 at 58 Aldermanbury within theCity of London.He was the elder son of George Lewis and Mary Hopcraft. His father was a tradesman and a member of theNeedlemakers Company.His mother's family were farmers inCroughton, Northamptonshire,who subsequently became brewers. His younger brother George was born in 1803. Charles went to school inWalthamstow,almost certainly Monoux School (nowSir George Monoux College), where he learned some Latin and Greek. On leaving school he worked as a clerk with a silk and insurance broker in the city. When aged 21 he enlisted with the army of theBritish East India Companyand sailed forBengalon 17 January 1822.[3]

Travels

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A plate of Masson's Bactrian coins, published in the Journal of theAsiatic Society of Bengal,1836.

He fought in theSiege of Bharatpurin January 1826.[4]In 1827, while stationed atAgra,he and a colleague deserted and traveled through parts of thePunjabthat were under British control at that time. AtAhmadpur,they were rescued byJosiah Harlanand commissioned as mounted orderlies in his expedition to overthrow the regime inKabul,Afghanistan. Not long afterward, nearDera Ghazi Khan,he deserted Harlan.

Between 1833 and 1838, Masson excavated over 50 Buddhist sites around Kabul andJalalabadin south-eastern Afghanistan, amassing a large collection of small objects and many coins, principally from the site atBagram(the ancientAlexandria on the Caucasus), north of Kabul. From 1827, when he deserted, to his return to England in 1842, it is estimated that Masson collected around 47,000 coins.

Masson was the first European to see the ruins ofHarappa,described and illustrated in his bookNarrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan and The Punjab.He also visited theNorth-West Frontier ProvinceandBalochistan,serving as an agent of the East India Company.

In the 1930s, theFrench Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan(Délégation archéologique française en Afghanistan,DAFA) found unexpected evidence of an earlier European visitor scribbled in pencil on the wall of one of the caves above the 55 meter Buddha atBamiyan:

If any fool this high samootch explore,
Know Charles Masson has been here before[1][5]

Return to London

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In 1841 he sailed fromBombaytoSuez,crossed Egypt overland, caught a boat to France where he visited Paris, and finally arrived back in London in March 1842. He had been away for 20 years.[6]He received a pension of £100 a year from the East India Company. On 19 February 1844 he married Mary Ann Kilby, an 18 year old farmer's daughter. They had two children, a son born in 1850 and a daughter born in 1853. Masson died, probably of a stroke, inEdmontonin north London on 5 November 1853.[7]

Collection at the British Museum

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Through his wide-ranging travels, Masson built up an extraordinary collection of artefacts largely (although not exclusively) from the modern states ofAfghanistanandPakistan.Numbering over 9,000 objects most are now held by theBritish Museum.The collection includes more than 7,000 coins.[8]Beginning in 1993, a project at the museum led byElizabeth Erringtonorganised the material into an accessible study collection. The project resulted in the publication in 2017 and 2021 of three volumes describing the collection and linking it to the surviving documentation, much of which is held by theBritish Library.[9][10][11]

Stupas and caves inHadda,by Charles Masson, 1842

Works

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See also

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References

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  1. ^abErrington 2002.
  2. ^Richardson 2021.
  3. ^Errington 2017a,pp. 3–4.
  4. ^Errington 2017a,p. 4.
  5. ^Hackin & Carl 1933,p. 2.
  6. ^Whitteridge 1986,p.157.
  7. ^Errington 2017a,p. 14.
  8. ^"Charles Masson".British Museum.Retrieved10 January2022.
  9. ^Errington 2017a.
  10. ^Errington 2017b.
  11. ^Errington 2021.

Sources

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Further reading

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