From the Oxus to Mysore in 1951: The Start of a Great Partnership in Indian Scholarship - Softcover

Allchin, Frank Raymond; Allchin, Bridget

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1843822210 ISBN 13: 9781843822219

Publisher: Hardinge Simpole, 2012

Synopsis

Raymond and Bridget Allchin are legendary figures in the field of South Asian archaeology. They led - as Nicholas Barrington says in his Introduction - 'busy lives', in the UK and made frequent archaeological trips to South Asia, weaving a partnership of overlapping areas of knowledge and skills. The story they tell here is first of their early years and influences, their very different experiences of World War II and the changes it brought, and of how they met, in London, in 1950. Within a year, they are married and setting out together on their first joint visit to India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It is the narrative of this exciting and at times demanding journey that fills the rest of the book. History,anthropology, religion, politics, and a detailed account of how the Allchins made a pioneering archaeological excavation of the prehistoric Piklihal site in southern India, spills off the page amid the practicalities of travel and daily life. There is variety of detail everywhere about bazaars, clothes, food and family homes and about cities and remote settlements. The book is a record of the scholars with whom they came into contact and of the friendship and hospitality they found everywhere in the subcontinent.

About this title

About the Author:

Michael D. Petraglia was born in New York in 1960, and has been conducting research into the Paleolithic archaeology of South Asia since 1987. He is currently a Lecturer in the Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge. He has conducted archaeological research in India, Arabia and North America. He is co-editor of the book, Early Human Behaviour in Global Context: the Rise and Diversity of the Lower Palaeolithic Record.

Bridget Allchin was born in Oxford in 1927, and has been conducting research into varied aspects of Indian prehistory and ethnography for more than four decades. She is currently Chair of the Ancient India & Iran Trust (Cambridge). Her books include The Stone Tipped Arrow, The Prehistory and Palaeogeography of the Great Indian Desert, and, with Raymond Allchin, The Birth of Indian Civilization, and The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan.

Review:

'...this delightfully written memoir is a beginning and a background, rather than an account of a lifetime's work [...]. It is these lesser-known background anecdotes that make it all the more interesting for the large number of people who came within the Allchins' generous orbit. There is much else of interest to the specialists of South Asian archaeology (including a complete bibliography of all their published works and reports). I recommend it.' Warwick Ball, Asian Affairs, July 2015.

About this edition

• Publisher: Hardinge Simpole
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1843822210
• ISBN 13: 9781843822219
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 338