Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T10:36:09.499Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

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.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

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

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Badé, W. F. 1929. A manual of excavation in the Near East. Berkeley (CA): University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hawkes, J. 1984. Mortimer Wheeler: adventurer in archaeology. London: Abacus.Google Scholar
Petrie, W. M. F. 1904. Methods and aims in archaeology. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Pitt-Rivers, A.H.L.F. 1889. Excavations in Cranbourne Chase. Privately printed.Google Scholar
Roy, S. 1996. The story of Indian archaeology. 1784–1947. New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India.Google Scholar
Wheeler, R. E. M. 1948. Technical Section: 4.—Further notes on digging and recording. Ancient India (4: 311–21).Google Scholar
Wheeler, R. E. M. 1954. Archaeology from the earth. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Wheeler, R. E. M. 1956. Still digging. London: Readers Union.Google Scholar
Wheeler, R. E. M., Ghosh, A. & Deva, K.. 1946. Arikamedu: an Indo-Roman trading-station on the East Coast of India, Ancient India 2: 17–124.Google Scholar
Woolley, L. 1939. A report on the work of the Archaeological Survey of India. Delhi.Google Scholar