0:00:43 > 0:00:45Oh, yes.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48Now, you haven't done any formal archaeological
0:00:48 > 0:00:49excavation for some time now.
0:00:49 > 0:00:51You haven't been out with your bucket and spade.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54Do you miss the business of excavation?
0:00:54 > 0:01:02No. No. I did my last bucket and spade excavation in 1958.
0:01:02 > 0:01:05I don't know how many years ago that is,
0:01:05 > 0:01:08but I knew at the time that it was going to be my last ever.
0:01:10 > 0:01:13Not only my last in India or Pakistan, but the last in my life.
0:01:15 > 0:01:16And so it was.
0:01:16 > 0:01:23And looking back, do you know, you must forgive this, to
0:01:23 > 0:01:30my reasonable satisfaction, I think it was quite a successful goodbye.
0:01:33 > 0:01:35I'll tell you about it briefly.
0:01:35 > 0:01:39Let me take you first of all back to the beginning of the century,
0:01:39 > 0:01:43to 1902, when I was a small boy who hadn't even a dream.
0:01:46 > 0:01:52In that year, Lord Curzon was still Viceroy of India.
0:01:52 > 0:02:00He decided, in 1902, to revive the archaeological survey of India,
0:02:00 > 0:02:05which had...had a tentative existence of a number of occasions.
0:02:05 > 0:02:08It had never really come to fruition.
0:02:08 > 0:02:13He sent word back to the India Office in London,
0:02:14 > 0:02:18"Send me out, send me out, a suitable archaeologist to take
0:02:18 > 0:02:22"charge of this revived archaeological survey."
0:02:24 > 0:02:27Well, that query, that inquiry, naturally,
0:02:27 > 0:02:31went straight to the British Museum. It was the only place to send it to.
0:02:31 > 0:02:35There were no archaeological departments in universities
0:02:35 > 0:02:37and so on to approach.
0:02:38 > 0:02:44And in the museum, the director of the period,
0:02:44 > 0:02:48his name doesn't matter... What are they called?
0:02:48 > 0:02:51..Trawled, for a candidate.
0:02:51 > 0:02:54That is to say, he sent round circular letters to
0:02:54 > 0:02:57all his departments saying, "Have you got anybody whom you can
0:02:57 > 0:03:00"spare to go to India as director-general of Archaeology?"
0:03:00 > 0:03:03And somebody, one of the departments,
0:03:03 > 0:03:07I have a pretty good idea which, it's a long time ago,
0:03:07 > 0:03:09sent in the name of a man called Marshall.
0:03:11 > 0:03:15Now, the Marshall that they had in mind, I can say this,
0:03:15 > 0:03:19with the proper, reasonable respect,
0:03:19 > 0:03:25the Marshall they had in mind was a junior member of the staff.
0:03:25 > 0:03:31Of one of the archaeological departments in the museum.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35He was competent and undistinguished.
0:03:35 > 0:03:38But they thought they could spare him.
0:03:38 > 0:03:41So, they sent his name up to the director.
0:03:41 > 0:03:43The director said, "Send Marshall to me."
0:03:45 > 0:03:46Shortly afterwards,
0:03:46 > 0:03:50the director was called away from his room for some purpose
0:03:50 > 0:03:52elsewhere in the museum,
0:03:52 > 0:03:57and there entered upon the scene a young man with an attractive,
0:03:57 > 0:04:02intelligent face, called Marshall, John Marshall, who came
0:04:02 > 0:04:07from the British School of Athens, he was a Cambridge man originally...
0:04:08 > 0:04:12And who wanted to confer with the Director of the British Museum
0:04:12 > 0:04:14with a view to his future career.
0:04:17 > 0:04:21Back came the director to his room, presented...
0:04:21 > 0:04:24This young Marshall was presented to him, the director naturally
0:04:24 > 0:04:29thought it was the Marshall he expected to see
0:04:29 > 0:04:31from his own staff, and...
0:04:31 > 0:04:34He said, "Well now, look here.
0:04:34 > 0:04:38"They want a man in India to look after the archaeological
0:04:38 > 0:04:41"survey there. How soon can you go?"
0:04:41 > 0:04:43"Well," said young Marshall, "I want to get married."
0:04:43 > 0:04:45"How long will that take you?"
0:04:45 > 0:04:49He said, "I could go in six weeks, would that be all right?"
0:04:49 > 0:04:52"All right, I'll send word to the Viceroy that you will be
0:04:52 > 0:04:56"in Delhi as soon as possible after the next six weeks."
0:04:57 > 0:05:01So, after the next six weeks, they arrived in Delhi,
0:05:01 > 0:05:08young John Marshall, of whom nobody ever heard, he was a student,
0:05:08 > 0:05:15accompanied by his young bride. I knew them both. And...
0:05:15 > 0:05:19Curzon took to him at once, he was an attractive young man,
0:05:19 > 0:05:21intelligent young man.
0:05:22 > 0:05:24Took to him.
0:05:24 > 0:05:27In fact, every Wednesday, I was told this by Marshall himself,
0:05:27 > 0:05:32every Wednesday the Viceroy would have Marshall in his office
0:05:32 > 0:05:38with him so that he could hear how a subcontinent should be conducted.
0:05:40 > 0:05:43What did Marshall do? You were going to ask me, weren't you?
0:05:43 > 0:05:45When he got out there. I'll tell you.
0:05:45 > 0:05:48He did what any new director-general...
0:05:48 > 0:05:51What I did myself when I was a new director-general in India.
0:05:52 > 0:05:54He went round India to meet his staff
0:05:54 > 0:05:56and to see what India looked like.
0:05:56 > 0:06:00And he began, as I later on began, up in the north-west corner,
0:06:00 > 0:06:04what was then India, which is now India and Pakistan,
0:06:05 > 0:06:10which was the natural entry into India from the rest of Asia by land.
0:06:10 > 0:06:14Surrounded by the mountains which are generally hidden in mist.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17The most romantic part of the area, if you use the word romantic,
0:06:17 > 0:06:20which I don't.
0:06:20 > 0:06:24There he found a series of mounds, one of them a very high one,
0:06:24 > 0:06:2960 or 70 feet high, still there, part of it,
0:06:29 > 0:06:34which represented the predecessor of the present Peshawar, the old
0:06:34 > 0:06:35capital of the frontier,
0:06:35 > 0:06:41which was known as Pushkalavati, in other words, Lotus City.
0:06:41 > 0:06:45And, coming as he did from Greece, with the Acropolis very much
0:06:45 > 0:06:48in his mind, he thought, "Here's another Acropolis.
0:06:48 > 0:06:52I'll dig it up, we'll find perhaps another Parthenon on top of it."
0:06:54 > 0:07:00So, in 1903, he carried out the first excavations in
0:07:00 > 0:07:03modern times, but not by modern methods, I must say.
0:07:03 > 0:07:09Modern methods in 1903 were hard to come by. They hadn't been invented.
0:07:09 > 0:07:12But he carried out excavations there and...
0:07:12 > 0:07:16To be quite frank, he made an awful mess of the job.
0:07:16 > 0:07:18It was to be expected.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22A young man with no training, and no training to match up to.
0:07:22 > 0:07:30Well, years later, it was 1944,
0:07:30 > 0:07:34I suppose 42 years later, another
0:07:34 > 0:07:40English director-general began his tour in the same sort of way.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43He went up to the frontier
0:07:43 > 0:07:49and he went out into the great open plain which was covered with
0:07:49 > 0:07:52sugarcane, great waving masses of green sugarcane
0:07:52 > 0:07:57weaving like a sea, and rising out of these waves,
0:07:57 > 0:08:02rather like a battleship at anchor, was this great mound which
0:08:02 > 0:08:06represented the old capital city, Pushkalavati.
0:08:06 > 0:08:10So, Mortimer Wheeler had himself been appointed director-general
0:08:10 > 0:08:13of the archaeological survey for India in 1944.
0:08:14 > 0:08:17But he had to wait 14 years before he could excavate the ancient
0:08:17 > 0:08:19city of Pushkalavati.
0:08:19 > 0:08:22The chance came in 1958, when he was invited back to the
0:08:22 > 0:08:26frontier by the government of Pakistan.
0:08:26 > 0:08:27I dug there.
0:08:27 > 0:08:34But before doing so, living as I was in 1958 and not in 1902, 1903,
0:08:34 > 0:08:39I had made arrangements beforehand with the Pakistan Air Force to
0:08:39 > 0:08:45have an air photograph taken of the area I was going to deal with,
0:08:45 > 0:08:48to see what that would show up.
0:08:48 > 0:08:51I didn't think at the time, I'll be perfectly frank about it,
0:08:51 > 0:08:53that much would happen.
0:08:53 > 0:08:56But what did happen was this.
0:08:56 > 0:09:00On the second day, my second day out there on the plain,
0:09:01 > 0:09:06I was standing by the tents which we had there for workshops and
0:09:06 > 0:09:10so on, when a jet fighter swooped down over my head,
0:09:10 > 0:09:13almost took my hat off.
0:09:16 > 0:09:23And it swung round and then almost poised like a dragonfly in the air.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28I discovered afterwards, upon inquiry,
0:09:28 > 0:09:31that what was happening was that the poor pilot had been told,
0:09:31 > 0:09:33having been instructed in Peshawar,
0:09:33 > 0:09:36to go and photograph the old city near Charsadda.
0:09:36 > 0:09:39When he got there, of course, there was no city,
0:09:39 > 0:09:41he didn't realise that these mounds were intended.
0:09:41 > 0:09:43And he didn't know what to do.
0:09:43 > 0:09:48So, he received instructions on the telephone to photograph
0:09:48 > 0:09:52the area for half a mile or so around my tents.
0:09:52 > 0:09:54Which they did. Which he did.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57He took about a quarter of an hour, swooping about there,
0:09:57 > 0:10:02and I thought, "My God, nothing will come out of this." After all,
0:10:02 > 0:10:06he's going too fast to begin with to get a decent photograph.
0:10:06 > 0:10:09But, but...
0:10:09 > 0:10:13Next morning, a messenger came from Peshawar, from the Air Force,
0:10:13 > 0:10:16with a bunch of photographs.
0:10:17 > 0:10:21As I turned them over with my colleagues,
0:10:21 > 0:10:22two young men from Cambridge,
0:10:22 > 0:10:28another man from various parts of Pakistan, we looked through them.
0:10:28 > 0:10:31And they shrugged their shoulders.
0:10:31 > 0:10:33And I said, "Well, what do you make of it?"
0:10:34 > 0:10:36They said, "Well, it all looks rather...
0:10:36 > 0:10:39"Looks very nice, but rather muddled."
0:10:39 > 0:10:41I said, "What do you make of that one?"
0:10:41 > 0:10:43I held out one of them to him.
0:10:43 > 0:10:44They looked again.
0:10:44 > 0:10:49They were not used to this sort of thing, this sort of quiz.
0:10:51 > 0:10:53So I said, "This is the greatest discovery
0:10:53 > 0:11:01"made in the frontier of Pakistan for perhaps 100 years."
0:11:02 > 0:11:04And then I explained.
0:11:04 > 0:11:08What I saw on this air photograph was the plan of a large
0:11:08 > 0:11:10part of a Greek town, a Greek city.
0:11:11 > 0:11:14The lines of the streets were there,
0:11:14 > 0:11:17the lines of the house walls were there at right
0:11:17 > 0:11:20angles to the streets in parallel to the streets, and
0:11:20 > 0:11:26there in the midst was the circular shape of the Buddhist shrine.
0:11:26 > 0:11:30The whole thing was there. Nobody had ever heard of it before!
0:11:30 > 0:11:32That afternoon, we went over to Shaikhan, which is
0:11:32 > 0:11:34the name of this mound,
0:11:34 > 0:11:39it was about three furlongs from where our tents were, and there
0:11:39 > 0:11:45it looked like a tumult, rather like a cross-channel sea on a rough day.
0:11:45 > 0:11:48But from the air, from 1,000 feet up,
0:11:48 > 0:11:50looking down as the camera had looked down,
0:11:50 > 0:11:54the whole thing fell into place and what had happened was quite simple.
0:11:54 > 0:11:57The local farmers had found that there were the brick
0:11:57 > 0:12:00walls of an ancient city there.
0:12:01 > 0:12:06They dug lines along... Trenches along the lines of the walls,
0:12:06 > 0:12:09pulled out the bricks, of course, their trenches were no wider than
0:12:09 > 0:12:12the walls, otherwise they would have wasted their efforts.
0:12:12 > 0:12:18And so, what they'd left for me, for the air photograph,
0:12:18 > 0:12:21was a city in negative.
0:12:21 > 0:12:27A city in negative, with hollow lines where the walls had been.
0:12:29 > 0:12:35Well, thereafter, all of this was verified.
0:12:35 > 0:12:37Two years later, two years after I'd left,
0:12:37 > 0:12:40it was verified by Professor Darney,
0:12:40 > 0:12:45a local professor of archaeology at Peshawar University,
0:12:45 > 0:12:46who had been a pupil of mine.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50A very good fellow, a very fine fellow indeed.
0:12:50 > 0:12:57You see, as one gets older, one boasts of one's pupils, no doubt,
0:12:57 > 0:13:00maybe, in time to come, I shall be boasting of you, Mag!
0:13:00 > 0:13:03But never mind that for the moment.
0:13:03 > 0:13:07He dug there, he found the walls where I had found the hollows
0:13:07 > 0:13:11in the ground where the walls had been partially dug up,
0:13:11 > 0:13:13and he found these coins of Menander,
0:13:13 > 0:13:18right at the bottom of the whole thing, many feet down, showing
0:13:18 > 0:13:22that this was in fact a Greco-Indian,
0:13:22 > 0:13:25or Indo-Greek, creation
0:13:25 > 0:13:28of approximately the middle of the 2nd century BC.
0:13:28 > 0:13:34In the Greek tradition, following the pattern set by...
0:13:36 > 0:13:38..by Alexander The Great,
0:13:38 > 0:13:41when he came there at the end of the 4th century.
0:13:43 > 0:13:44The place was captured by...
0:13:46 > 0:13:49Charsadda, or rather Pushkalavati,
0:13:49 > 0:13:56was captured by Alexander's troops in the year 327 BC.
0:13:56 > 0:13:58And, as a bonne bouge,
0:13:58 > 0:14:01I decided to find the defences of the city at that time
0:14:01 > 0:14:07because the fact that it took a trained division,
0:14:07 > 0:14:10or corps, of Alexander's troops
0:14:10 > 0:14:1530 days to capture it implied that it was fortified.
0:14:15 > 0:14:17I wouldn't have told you that story
0:14:17 > 0:14:19if I hadn't actually found the defences.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22It was up to me to find them,
0:14:22 > 0:14:24and I did.
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