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Mortimer Wheeler's science of order: the tradition of accuracy at Arikamedu

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Robin Boast
Robin Boast*
Affiliation:
Cambridge University Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3DZ, England.
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Extract

In February 1944 Mortimer Wheeler, having resigned his duties with the British 8th Army after the Salerno landings, was bound for India. Aboard the City of Exeter, in convoy to Bombay, Wheeler was planning another campaign —to sort out the ‘scientifically deplorable’ state of India’s archaeological survey. Even before he had set a foot on Indian soil, Wheelcr already had a plan. Like all good Officers, colonial and otherwise, Wheeler had determined his plan of attack beforc landing. It is no good to reach a foreign field of a battle and just see what happens. This he had learned from his idol, Lt. General Lane Fox Pitt Rivers; that you must always begin with a plan of attack.

Keywords

Mortimer Wheelermid 20th-century IndiaArchaeological Survey of IndiaArikamedufieldworkstratigraphydatingarchiveshistory of archaeology
Type
Special section: Ancestral Archives: Explorations in the History of Archaeology
Information
Antiquity , Volume 76 , Issue 291 , March 2002 , pp. 165 - 170
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2002

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References

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