Abstract
SIR LEONARD WOOLLEY'S Birdwood Memorial Lecture to the Royal Society of Arts, on December 1, was in effect an addendum to his official report to the Government on the organization of archæological studies in India; and it should receive no less careful consideration than the major document when in due course it appears in print. For in the freer atmosphere of the lecture hall, Sir Leonard evidently felt at liberty to allow his trained faculty of scientific imagination to play on the archæological material which had come before him, and to submit the result to his audience in a selection of the problems and possibilities which the study of Indian archæology presents to his mind as calling urgently for investigation—problems no less fascinating in the vistas of the advancement of knowledge they open up than they are evocative of dismay when contemplation turns to the vastness of the field in time and space to be covered. Nor was any short cut offered which might lead by an easy way to the solution of these problems. While Sir Leonard paid due tribute to the work of Lord Curzon in setting up the Archæological Survey of India, and the work which has since been carried out in the triple function of conservation, excavation and publication, he went on to point out with the greatest emphasis that no further advance on sound lines is possible until the essential preliminary groundwork has been completed and a backbone has been built up in a sequence scheme of Indian cultural history. This is the essential task to which effort must first be directed.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Indian Archæology and Indian Problems. Nature 144, 1006 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/1441006b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1441006b0