About

I arrived in India for the first time at the age of eighteen, having hitchhiked overland to Himachal Pradesh, to teach in a Tibetan refugee camp. 

The experience changed my life. I returned to the UK with a realisation of the huge variety and interest of Asia. The colour, vibrancy and sheer difference of the subcontinent had dramatically affected me, and the lure of India remains to this day.

Studies and excavations

Back in the UK I studied Ancient History and Archaeology at Birmingham, followed ten years later by an MPhil in Indian Archaeology at Cambridge. In between I went on excavations in Britain, North Africa and southern Afghanistan, the latter at Old Kandahar, famous not only for the Achaemenid citadel, but for the Buddhist structures that overlook the site. 

In the early 1980s I spent three seasons at the ruined medieval city of Vijayanagara in southern India, working with George Michell, John Fritz and Anna Dallapiccola. Here I not only learnt about medieval life in a cosmopolitan Indian city, but also experienced life in a rural Indian community. This uniquely gained knowledge enabled me to apply for a post at the British Museum in 1986 where I then stayed for thirty-two years.

The 1978 Kandahar excavation team, including:

Bottom row, seated on the left: Me
Middle row, second from left: eminent Dutch archaeologist Willem Vogelsang (with water-pipe), now based in Leiden
Midddle row, second from right: Margaret ‘Kim’, Lady Wheeler (widow of Sir Mortimer Wheeler), who ran the study of the ceramics from the excavations
Top row, far left: Warwick Ball, Middle East archaeologist and writer, the late Svend Helms, director of the excavations and (just visible) Alison Betts, now professor of archaeology in Sydney
Top row, second from right: George Willcox, now a renowned archaeo-botanist