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Frank Raymond Allchin, FBA (9 July 1923 – 4 June 2010) was a British archaeologist and Indologist. He and his wife, Bridget Allchin, formed one of the most influential British partnerships in the post-Independence study of South Asian archaeology. Producing a large body of scholarship ranging from archaeological excavations, ethnoarchaeology as well as epigraphy and linguistics, the Allchins made their work and that of others accessible through a series of sole, joint and edited publications. Seminal works include The Birth of Indian Civilisation (1968), which was later superseded by their books The Rise of Indian Civilisation in India and Pakistan (1982) and The Archaeology of Early Historic South Asia (1995).

Background

Raymond Allchin was born in Harrow, London on 9 July 1923, son of Frank Macdonald Allchin, a doctor, and Louise Maude. His brother was Donald Allchin, an Anglican priest and theologian. Raymond was educated at Westminster and enrolled at the Regent Street Polytechnic, where he studied architecture for three years followed by conscription into the Royal Corps of Signals. Trained as a Line Mechanic, Raymond was posted to India in 1944. On his return, he embarked on a BA in Hindi and Sanskrit at SOAS University of London, followed by a PhD on the prehistory of Raichur District in Hyderabad under the supervision of Professor K. de B. Codrington at the same institution. On completing his PhD, Raymond was appointed Lecturer in Indian archaeology at SOAS in 1954. He left SOAS in 1959 for the post of Lectureship in Indian Studies at Cambridge.

Raymond died in Cambridge on 4 June 2010. He and his wife Bridget had two children, Sushila and William.

Career

Afghanistan and South India

Raymond was an active field archaeologist throughout his career and his first introduction to South Asian fieldwork was in the Bamiyan Valley of Afghanistan in 1951. Here, under the direction of Codrington, he studied the standing remains of Shahr-e-Zohak. Later that year, in the company of Bridget, he began his PhD research in Raichur District. Raymond's selected research topic, the Neolithic of Peninsular India, was one of the areas of South Asian archaeology most poorly understood and was a neglected area of research when compared to the Bronze Age Indus cities or those of the Early Historic period in the north of the Subcontinent. After undertaking a survey of sites within the District, he selected the ash-mound of Piklihal for further investigation. Excavating in 1952, and again in 1957, with the assistance of the Andhra Pradesh Department of Archeology and Museums, Raymond demonstrated that the ash mound had a distinct Neolithic sequence with later evidence of Iron Age occupation above.

In order to test some of his earlier theories about Piklihal, Raymond selected Utnur for excavation, one of the best-preserved ash mounds. In a single season, he cut through metres of cinder and ash and discovered that the mounds were contained by series of post-holes, demarking superimposed circular stockades. He again dated this site-type to the Neolithic of South India and to the fourth millennium BC on account of the associated polished stone axes. He interpreted the stockades at Utnur as annual cattle camps, whose accumulations of dung were burnt at the end of each grazing season, thus creating a regular sequence of ash and cinder. He later developed these ideas into a narrative which bound together Hindu ritual tradition and contemporary pastoral practice with the archaeological findings, suggesting that the regular burning of the stockades was not a calamity or the result of raiding but part of an annual fire rite, perhaps surviving today as Holi, Divali or Pongal.

Pakistan and Western India

On moving to Cambridge in 1959, Raymond turned his attention to Pakistan and worked at the site of Shaikhan Dheri between 1963 and 1964. Working with Professor A. H. Dani of Peshawar University, Raymond and Bridget supervised the processing of antiquities and pottery drawing during the first season. Although only on site for one season, Raymond later produced research on artefacts from Shaikhan Dheri. He suggested that a number of small iron plates pierced with small holes around their edges, some of which had rusted together, formed part of the scale armour from the cap of a cataphract, based on observations from Gandharan sculpture, excavation reports, textual sources and contemporary examples from Rajput. He also suggested that a number of globular vessels, that Sir John Marshall had interpreted for distillation of water at Sirkap, Taxila, were actually alcohol stills. Basing this hypothesis on ethnographic analogy, Vedic references and Rajput texts he stated that "Considering the importance of alcohol for man-kind . . . it is surprising that comparatively little is known of its early history,'12 and concluding that 'it may well be that the art of distillation was India’s gift to the world!"

Raymond then shifted his focus back to India and undertook an archaeological reconnaissance of the coast of Gujarat in 1967 focused on investigating the presence or absence of sites associated with the Indus civilisation in western India, following this in 1968 with excavations at the site of Malvan with Bridget and Dr J. P. Joshi, of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Returning to fieldwork in the North West Frontier Province in the Bannu Basin, Raymond and Bridget worked collaboratively between 1977 and 1979, working at Lewan and Tarakai Qila with Professor F. A. Durrani and Professor Farid Khan of Peshawar University, Mr Robert Knox of the British Museum and Professor Ken Thomas of UCL. Later as Joint Director of the British Archaeological Mission to Pakistan with Bridget, the focus shifted away from the Bronze Age to the Early historic period and particularly onto the site of Taxila.

On a walk around the Hathial ridge one February morning in 1980, not far from the Taxila Museum guesthouse, they discovered numerous sherds of a distinctive, highly burnished red ware covering an area of 13 hectares along the foot of the spur. Raymond recognised that these sherds belonged to the category of Burnished Red Ware associated with the Gandhara grave culture, dating to the beginning of the first millennium BC at the end of the Chalcolithic period. Also aware of the parallel presence of such sherds in the basal levels of Wheeler's excavations at the Bala Hisar of Charsadda challenged received wisdom at the time that suggested that such cities had been founded no earlier than the sixth century BC as the Persian Empire expanded eastwards and annexed the satrapy of Gandhara, and that the urban sequences of the region stretched back before Persian contact, possibly back to the late Chalcolithic. Though Raymond never excavated to prove such assertions, he was pivotal to negotiating the return of an archaeological team to Charsadda after a gap of thirty years. Jointly directed by his former students, Professor Robin Coningham and Professor Ihsan Ali of Peshawar University, excavations between 1993 and 1997 confirmed Raymond's hypothesis of a much earlier date for initial settlement at c.1300 BC.

Sri Lanka

In 1989 and at the age of 67, Raymond initiated his last major field project in Sri Lanka at the Citadel of Anuradhapura in the island's North Central Province following a joint invitation from Dr Roland Silva, director general of archaeology, and Dr Siran Deraniyagala, one of his former students and then archaeological advisor to the Government of Sri Lanka. Raymond invited his former undergraduate and new research student, Robin Coningham, to accept the role of field director, and the results from excavations between 1989 and 1993, refuted many long held assumptions. Excavating a ten-metre deep cultural sequence stretching from the ninth century BC to the tenth century AD. it provided evidence of urbanism in the fourth century BC but also confirmed Deraniyagala's early claim of evidence of the earliest Early Brahmi script anywhere in South Asia, demonstrating its use to facilitate trade before being later adopted as an imperial tool by the Mauryans.

Legacy

The Allchins were also pivotal in promoting and facilitating the study of South Asian archaeology in Europe as well as within the Subcontinent. In the 1970s, aware of the fragmented nature of South Asian scholarship across Europe and seeking to broaden the capacity that was at the time possible and available within Britain, the Allchins, together with colleagues from Europe, created a biannual platform for South Asian archaeologists, numismatists, epigraphers and historians of art and architecture to exchange information from current research. Forming the European Association of South Asian Archaeologists, the Allchins organised the first meeting, which was held at Churchill College in Cambridge in 1971.

In reaction to the lack of institutions, teaching posts or funds devoted to the promotion of popular or scholarly interest in South and Central Asia, the Allchins, along with Professor Sir Harold Bailey, Professor Johanna van Lohuizen-de Leeuw and Dr Jan van Lohuizen, founded the Ancient India and Iran Trust in Cambridge in 1978. The Trust aimed to support and provide a focal point where scholars and members of the public with interests in the cultures of these geographic regions could meet and use its unique library, substantially composed of the collections of its founders. The Trust also organised funds to facilitate Indian and Pakistani visiting fellowships, which included highly distinguished scholars including Dilip Chakrabari, Ravi Korisettar, K. Krishnan, V. N. Misra, Lolita Nehru, K. Paddaya, Gautam Sengupta and Vasant Shinde.

The legacy of the Allchins, and the Trust that they helped found, continues to support the promotion of South Asian scholarship. In December 2013, the first Annual Allchin Symposium, named in their honour, was held at the Trust. Established to commemorate their work and outstanding contribution to the development of South Asian studies in the UK, the Symposium brings together established lecturers, post-doctoral researchers and PhD students working in South Asian Archaeology, History and the History of Art and Architecture, providing a forum for the presentation and discussion of current research. Amongst other collections, the Ancient India and Iran Trust also houses the Allchin archive, comprising the photographic slide collection of both Allchins and the meticulous work diaries which Raymond kept during each of his field seasons, offering great potential to scholars of South Asian archaeology.

Heritage protection

As well as undertaking almost forty years of field investigations, Raymond was also motivated by the need to record and protect heritage in the face of the pressures of increasing population and development in South Asia. Raymond was also one of the pioneers for the protection of heritage sites within their cultural landscape, as illustrated by his work for the UN with the Japanese Planner and Architect, K. Matsushita, in 1969. Raymond and Matsushita had been contracted by UNDP with the responsibility to guide the development of Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha, following the 1967 visit to the site by U Thant, the UN Secretary General, who wished to see the site transformed from what Raymond called 'little more than a neglected field' to a site worthy of 'a collection of monuments of great importance'. Tasked with assisting in the planning of a sacred garden, pilgrim village and a buffer zone around the site, this report was later used by the Japanese architect, Kenzō Tange, as the core for his masterplan for Lumbini, which has directed the development of the site over the last thirty years into the present.

Academic recognition

Recognition of Raymond's contribution to South Asian archaeology was rewarded in Cambridge when he was appointed a Fellow of Churchill College in 1963 and promoted to a Readership in Indian Studies in 1972. Away from Cambridge, his achievements were also recognised through being made a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1953, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in 1957, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 1974 and a Fellow of the British Academy in 1981 as well as having an Honorary D.Litt. conferred by Deccan College, Pune in 2007. He also served on the Governing Council of the Society for Afghan Studies and its successor, the Society for South Asian Studies, as well as being associated with the Charles Wallace Pakistan Trust, the British Academy's Stein-Arnold Committee and the Advisory Council of the Victoria and Albert Museum. Raymond was appointed a Fellow of the British Academy in 1981 and retired with the title of Emeritus Reader in South Asian archaeology in 1989.

Personal life

In 1951, Bridget met fellow PhD student Raymond Allchin at the Institute of Archaeology and they married in March of that year. Travelling to India for the first time with Raymond in 1951, Bridget steadily but firmly established herself as the most prominent South Asian Prehistorian in the UK. A pioneering female field-archaeologist in South Asia at a time when there were none, Bridget's research interests and publications were to stretch across South Asia from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka.

Like Raymond, Bridget's family also had a long heritage of medical practitioners, including Dr Thomas Monro, an ancestor who had attempted to treat the 'madness' of George III.

Publications

Publications: 1950s—1960s

Publications: 1970s—1980s

Publications: 1990s—2000s

Joint publications

Reports for UNESCO and UNDP

See also

• Ahmad Hasan Dani
• Ihsan Ali
• Elena Efimovna Kuzmina
• Yunas Samad
• Siran Upendra Deraniyagala

References

1. ^ Robin Coningham. "Raymond Allchin obituary | Science". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 April 2017.
2. ^ Allchin and Allchin (2012: 90)
3. Coningham, R.A.E. (2012). Frank Raymond Allchin (1923–2010). In Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy. Oxford University Press. IX: 9
4. Coningham, R.A.E. (2012). Frank Raymond Allchin (1923–2010). In Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy. Oxford University Press. IX: 6
5. Coningham, R.A.E. (2012). Frank Raymond Allchin (1923–2010). In Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy. Oxford University Press. IX: 7
6. Allchin, Raymond (1954) The Development of Early Culture in Raichur District of Hyderabad in the Deccan. PhD Thesis
7. Allchin, F.R. (1961) Utnur Excavations, Andhra Pradesh Archaeological Series 5, Hyderabad, Government of Andhra Pradesh.
8. Allchin, F.R. (1963) Neolithic Cattle Keepers of South India: A study of Deccan ashmounds, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
9. Coningham, R.A.E. (2012). Frank Raymond Allchin (1923–2010). In Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy. Oxford University Press. IX: 9–10
10. Allchin, F.R. (1970) A piece of scale armour from Shaihkan dheri, Charsada. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 2: 113
11. Allchin, F.R. (1979) India: the home of ancient distillation. Man 14: 55
12. Allchin, F.R. (1995) Excavations at Malvan: Report of the collaboration of the Archaeological Survey of India and Cambridge University in 1970, on the Gujarat plan (Memoirs of the Archaeological Survey of India). Cambridge
13. Allchin, F.R. et al. (1986) Lewan and the Bannu Basin. Excavation and Survey of Sites and Environments in North West Pakistan. Bar International Series 310
14. Allchin, F.R. (1981) 'How old is the city of Taxila?’, Antiquity, 56, 8–14.
15. Coningham R.A.E. & Ali I. (2007). Charsadda: The British – Pakistani Excavations at the Bala Hisar of Charsadda. Oxford: Archaeopress.
16. Coningham, R.A.E. (2012). Frank Raymond Allchin (1923–2010). In Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy. Oxford University Press. IX: 14
17. Coningham, R.A.E. (1999). Anuradhapura: The British – Sri Lankan Excavations at Anuradhapura Salgaha Watta: Volume 1 The Site. Oxford: Archaeopress for the Society for South Asian Studies Monograph Series; Coningham, R.A.E. (2006). Anuradhapura: The British – Sri Lankan Excavations at Anuradhapura Salgaha Watta: Volume 2 The Artefacts. Oxford: Archaeopress.
18. R. A. E. Coningham et al. (1996) Passage to India? Anuradhapura and the early use of Brahmi script. Cambridge Archaeological Journal, 6: 73–97.
19. Coningham, R. A. E. (2012). "Frank Raymond Allchin (1923–2010)". In: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy. Oxford University Press. IX: 19
20. Coningham, R.A.E. (2012). Frank Raymond Allchin (1923–2010). In Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy. Oxford University Press. IX: 22; http://www.indiran.org/
21. "Authentication Request Failure". Mcdonald.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 1 April 2017.
22. Coningham, R.A.E. 2013. Review of R. Allchin & B. Allchin, From the Oxus to Mysore in 1951: The Start of a Great Partnership in Indian Scholarship. South Asian Studies 29(2): 242–243
23. Coningham, R.A.E. (2012). Frank Raymond Allchin (1923–2010). In Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy. Oxford University Press. IX: 25
24. F. R. Allchin and K. Matsushita, Unpublished UNDP Report for the Lumbini Development Project (New York, 1969),
25. F. R. Allchin and K. Matsushita, Unpublished UNDP Report for the Lumbini Development Project (New York, 1969): 10
26. Coningham, Robin (28 July 2010). "Raymond Allchin obituary". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 9 August 2023.
27. Allchin, F. Raymond, and Bridget Allchin (2012). From the Oxus to Mysore in 1951: The start of a great partnership in Indian Archaeology. Kilkerran: Hardinge Simpole, pp. 90
28. Allchin, F. Raymond, and Bridget Allchin (2012). From the Oxus to Mysore in 1951: The start of a great partnership in Indian Archaeology. Kilkerran: Hardinge Simpole, pp. 35

• 1923 births
• 2010 deaths
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• Fellows of the British Academy
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