The Charles Masson Archive: British Library, British Museum and Other Documents Relating to the 1832–1838 Masson Collection from Afghanistan

Abstract

• Since its inception in 1993, the Masson Project has worked towards reconstructing the archaeological history of south-eastern Afghanistan through an early 19th-century collection of its antiquities now in the British Museum, in conjunction with comprehensive related manuscript records in the British Library. This is the collection and archive created by Charles Masson (1800–53), the first European not only to explore and/or excavate the Buddhist monuments near Kabul and Jalalabad and the urban site of Begram, but also to document in detail what he found. His finds are a unique record of many ancient sites which are now lost or no longer accessible for research. The Charles Masson Archive is the second part of a trilogy of publications resulting from the Project and is designed as a linked online reference resource of unabridged records supplementing Charles Masson and the Buddhist Sites of Afghanistan: Explorations, Excavations, Collections 1832–1835 (Volume 1; British Museum Research Publication 215) and Charles Masson: Collections from Begram and Kabul Bazaar, Afghanistan 1833–1838 (Volume 3; British Museum Research Publication 219).