C.E. Davis

The earliest Buddhist shrine: excavating the birthplace of the Buddha, Lumbini (Nepal)

Key locations identified with the lives of important religious founders have often been extensively remodelled in later periods, entraining the destruction of many of the earlier remains. Recent UNESCO-sponsored work at the major Buddhist centre of Lumbini in Nepal has sought to overcome these limitations, providing direct archaeological evidence of the nature of an early Buddhist shrine and a secure chronology. The excavations revealed a sequence of early structures preceding the major rebuilding by Asoka during the third century BC. The sequence of durable brick architecture supplanting non-durable timber was foreseen by British prehistorian Stuart Piggott when he was stationed in India over 70 years ago. Lumbini provides a rare and valuable insight into the structure and character of the earliest Buddhist shrines.

Luminescence dating of brick stupas : an application to the hinterland of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka.

The domed stupas are among the most distinctive of South Asias religious monuments and have been shown to be sensitive indicators for their society. Since arguments for economic and political change depend on accurate dating, and since the stupas are largely composed of brick, the authors here assess the potential for dating building sequences by applying optically stimulated luminescence to brick fabric. As so often, good scientific dates obtained from specimens must be tempered by their context: brick may be replaced or recycled during repair and embellishment. Nevertheless, the method promises important insights by distinguishing different episodes of building, and so writing ‘biographies’ for stupas with different functions.

Archaeology and cosmopolitanism in early historic and medieval Sri Lanka.

The peoples of Sri Lanka have participated in far-flung trading networks, religious formations, and Asian and European empires for millennia. This interdisciplinary volume sets out to draw Sri Lanka into the field of Asian and Global History by showing how the latest wave of scholarship has explored the island as a ‘crossroads’, a place defined by its openness to movement across the Indian Ocean. Experts in the history, archaeology, literature and art of the island from c.500 BCE to c.1850 CE use Lankan material to explore a number of pressing scholarly debates. They address these matters from their varied disciplinary perspectives and diverse array of sources, critically assessing concepts such as ethnicity, cosmopolitanism and localisation, and elucidating the subtle ways in which the foreign may be resisted and embraced at the same time. The individual chapters, and the volume as a whole, are a welcome addition to the history and historiography of Sri Lanka, as well as studies of the Indian Ocean region, kingship, colonialism, imperialism, and early modernity.

Response to Goonatilake

GOONATILAKE, S. 1981. The formation of Sri Lankan culture: reinterpretation of Chronicle and archaeological material. Ancient Ceylon 4: 157–74. – 1982. Crippled minds: an exploration into colonial culture. New Delhi: Vikas Publishers. – 1984. Aborted discovery: science and creativity in the Third World. London: Zed Press. – 1999. Toward a global science: mining civilizational knowledge. Bloomington (IN): Indiana University Press.

Pilgrimage and procession : temporary gatherings and journeys between the tangible and intangible through the archaeology of South Asia.

ABSTRACT South Asia is home to many of the world’s major religions, and over a century of archaeological enquiry has documented the sites associated with these traditions. Although textual scholarship, augmented by art historical and architectural studies of durable remains, has dominated interpretations, recent archaeological studies have begun to redress this balance by contextualizing monuments within their landscapes and engaging with the varied roles that such monuments played in the past. Referencing ethnographic analogy and archaeological visibility of ritual practices, alongside analysis of archaeological and textual evidence, the authors explore the issues faced when identifying and interpreting temporary gatherings at these sites in the past with reference to pilgrimage. Utilizing a broad-spectrum approach through varying time-periods and traditions, they advance potential ways of bridging the gap between intangible practices and tangible evidence, revealing the role of settlements, religious sites and landscapes as routeways and assembly points for pilgrimages and processions.

Look Down, Not Up: Protecting the Post-disaster Subsurface Heritage of the Kathmandu Valley’s UNESCO World Heritage Site

Short-term environmental shocks generate long-term impacts, and although the Gorkha earthquake devastated large areas of Nepal, it also caused a cultural catastrophe within Kathmandu’s UNESCO World Heritage Site. Playing a central ritual role in the lives of thousands and a major source of tourist income, there is a drive for the rapid reconstruction of the ornate monuments in this region. Although many are subject to reconstruction and conservation programs, most interventions focus on standing architecture with negligible attention paid to archaeological deposits below the ground or the condition of their foundations. Referencing the results of recent rescue excavations, this chapter investigates earthquake damage and inappropriate post-disaster responses as well as noting the limited protection offered to monuments and their subsurface heritage from existing guidelines and needs assessments.

Contextualising the Tabbova-Maradanmaduva ‘Culture’: Excavations at Nikawewa, Tirappane District, Anuradhapura District, Sri Lanka

Terracotta figurines and artefacts discovered throughout Sri Lanka, especially in the North Central Province, have been traditionally assigned to the Tabbova-Maradanmaduva culture. Not a single stratigraphic excavation has been conducted at any site where a terracotta assemblage has been recovered, leading to a variety of divergent opinions as to the date of such artefacts. In addition, the corpus is often presumed to represent ‘folk art’ spontaneously created by individuals or local communities to suit and satisfy immediate ritual, economic, and social concerns. Recent fieldwork conducted as part of the Anuradhapura (Sri Lanka) Project: The Hinterland (Phase II) has addressed the uncertainty surrounding the Tabbova-Maradanmaduva culture. Not only has excavation at the site of Nikawewa (D339) provided the first absolute scientific date for such an assemblage, but data collected from the projects sample universe suggests that the terracotta corpus exhibits a high degree of uniformity and that these assemblages may represent a formalised ritual structure parallel to that provided by Buddhist monasteries.