Charles Masson

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

The Stupa Nb.2 at Bimaran, where the Bimaran reliquary was excavated. Drawing by Charles Masson.

Charles Masson (1800–1853) was the pseudonym of James Lewis, a British East India Company soldier, independent explorer and pioneering archaeologist and numismatist. He was the first European to discover the ruins of Harappa near Sahiwal in Punjab, now in Pakistan. He found the ancient city of Alexandria in the Caucasus (modern Begram) dating to Alexander the Great. He unlocked the now-extinct language known as Kharoshthi.

At the time of the 1838 First Anglo-Afghan War, Masson had spent more time in Afghanistan then any other British subject. He was a minority voice critical of the invasion and accurately predicted it would be a disaster for the Empire.

Early life

Charles Masson was born on 16 February 1800 at 58 Aldermanbury within the City of London. His parents were George and Mary Lewis. He went to school in Walthamstow and then worked as a clerk with a silk and insurance brokers but on 5 October 1821 he enlisted with the army of the British East India Company. He sailed for Bengal on 17 January 1822 and fought in the Siege of Bharatpur in January 1826.

Travels

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

In 1827, while stationed at Agra, he and a colleague deserted and traveled through parts of the Punjab that were under British control at that time. At Ahmadpur, they were rescued by Josiah Harlan and commissioned as mounted orderlies in his expedition to overthrow the regime in Kabul, Afghanistan. Not long afterward, near Dera Ghazi Khan, he deserted Harlan.

Between 1833 and 1838, Masson excavated over 50 Buddhist sites around Kabul and Jalalabad in south-eastern Afghanistan, amassing a large collection of small objects and many coins, principally from the site at Bagram (the ancient Alexandria 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 of Harappa, described and illustrated in his book Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan and The Punjab. He also visited the North-West Frontier Province and Balochistan, serving as an agent of the East India Company.

In the 1930s, the French Archaeological Delegation in Afghanistan (Délégation archéologique française en Afghanistan, DAFA) found unexpected evidence of an earlier European visitor scribbled in one of the caves above the 55 m Buddha at Bamiyan. This stated:
If any fool this high samootch explore,
Know Charles Masson has been here before

Return to London

In 1841 he sailed from Bombay to Suez, 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. 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, in Edmonton in north London on 5 November 1853.

Masson Project at the British Museum

Through his wide-ranging travels, Masson built up an extraordinary collection of artefacts largely (although not exclusively) from the modern states of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Numbering about 9,000 objects, they are now held by the British Museum. The Masson Project was led by Elizabeth Errington, with the aim to publish Masson's collection.

Stupas and caves in Hadda, by Charles Masson, 1842

Works

• Masson, Charles (1834). "Memoir on the ancient coins found at Beghram, in the Kohistan of Kabul". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 3 (28): 153–175.
• —— (1836). "Second memoir on the ancient coins found at Beghram, in the Kohistan of Kabul". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 5 (49): 1–38.
• —— (1836). "Note on an inscription at Bamyan". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 5 (51): 188.
• —— (1836). "Third memoir on the ancient coins found at Beghram, in the Kohistan of Kabul". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 5 (57): 537–547.
• —— (1836). "Notes on the antiquities of Bamian". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 5 (59): 707–720.
• —— (1841). "Memoir on the topes and sepulchral monuments of Afghanistan". In Wilson, H.H. (ed.). Ariana Antiqua: A Descriptive Account of the Antiquities and Coins of Afghanistan. London: East India Company. pp. 55–118.
• —— (1842). Narrative of various journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan, and the Panjab, 4 vols. London: Richard Bentley.
• —— (1843). Narrative of a journey to Kalât : including an account of the insurrection at that place in 1840 and a memoir on Eastern Balochistan. London: Richard Bentley.
• —— (1848). Legends of the Afghan countries, in verse. London: James Madden.

See also

• Harappa
• Josiah Harlan
• Indus Valley civilization

Sources

• Errington, Elizabeth (2002). "Ancient Afghanistan through the eyes of Charles Masson (1800-1853): The Masson Project at the British Museum" (PDF). International Institute for Asian Studies: Newsletter. 27: 8–9.
• Errington, Elizabeth (2004). "Charles Masson". Encyclopedia Iranica. Brill.
• Errington, Elizabeth (2017a). Charles Masson and the Buddhist Sites of Afghanistan: Explorations, Excavations, Collections 1832-1835. British Museum Research Publication 215. London: British Museum Press. ISBN 978-0-86159-215-9.
• Richardson, Edmund (2021). Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5266-0378-4.
• Whitteridge, Gordon (1986). Charles Masson of Afghanistan: Explorer, Archaeologist, Numismatist and Intelligence Agent. Warminster, UK: Aris & Phillips. ISBN 978-0-85668-318-3.

Further reading

• Errington, Elizabeth; Curtis, Vesta Sarkosh, eds. (2011) [2007]. From Persepolis to the Punjab: Exploring Ancient Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. London: British Museum Press. ISBN 978-0-7141-1177-3.
• Errington, Elizabeth (2017b). The Charles Masson Archive: British Library, British Museum and Other Documents Relating to the 1832–1838 Masson Collection from Afghanistan. British Museum Research Publication 216. London: British Museum Press. ISBN 978-0-86159-216-6.
• Errington, Elizabeth (2021). Charles Masson: Collections from Begram and Kabul Bazaar, Afghanistan, 1833–1838. British Museum Research Publication 219. London: British Museum Press. ISBN 978-0-86159-219-7.
• Richardson, Edmund (2013). "Mr Masson and the lost cities: a Victorian journey to the edges of remembrance". Classical Receptions Journal. 5 (1): 84–105. doi:10.1093/crj/cls008.