Speaking Archaeologically™

"Imagine standing in a room in a large museum. As you look around the dimly lit gallery, you begin to recognize shapes: a basket, an arrow, a beautifully decorated carving, a shield. Some of the objects are unrecognizable to you. What if these objects could speak? What would they tell you about themselves? How have they been used? Where did they come from? How did they get to this museum? Who do they belong to?"                                                                                                                    - Ari Berk and Carolyn Dunn It was a typical cozy, warm Sunday morning, with the air resplendent with festive vibes, perfect for catching up on all that lost sleep. Yet I ...

“The past is a foreign country and art is the passport to it.” - Anonymous If my life could be a testament to anything it would probably be to the fact that staying up post three scrolling through Instagram while sipping on your second cup of espresso can land you in the most unexpected of places; sometimes ,even the right places. Now don’t get me wrong , I don’t mean to recommend such unhealthy behavior to anyone reading this but that is how I came across ‘Speaking Archaeologically’s’   Instagram handle some three months ago. Needless to say i t wasn't long before I fell in love with history all over again  and decided this organisation was something I wanted to be a part of . What followed that was me applying the famed and oft used three fold Bollywood strategy to get anything you want in life, which in this case included religiously stalking the Instagram page for recruitment posters or declarations, working hard to prove I’m worthy by sending in submissions and final...

SA is all about understanding history in every possible way, which obviously includes a lot of museum tours and workshops. The tour to Shimla State Museum, though, was different : only three privileged members Vedant Chandel, Vidushi Chandel and I were a part of it, because we wanted to stay active for otherwise inactive weeks and work on regional archaeology. Since all three of us hail from Shimla,  we teamed up for the tasks ahead and thus The State Museum, Shimla was finalised as the place of our research. We walked all the way from Chotta Shimla to the  Museum, a path that covered at least three of the major heritage walks of Shimla. It took us about an hour and to reach it, and although it was tiresome, we still had fun. The State Museum Shimla is housed in a Victorian mansion, carefully altered to the requirements of a museum. It is built on the hilltop of  ‘Inveram’  and is ,sometimes, known by this name, too. It belonged to General Innes in the 1860sl...

Our first visit to Government Museum was back in November, like Aditi Joshi told you , which started with an interactive lecture on geological periods from our very own Shriya Gautam. What followed were a series of interactive sessions on the development through the prehistoric eras. Finally, we arrived at the Art Gallery, where we were split into teams for our very first team task (Again, we have come a long way from there. But, yes, this was where it all began). I remember not having my partner around, the "now in vogue" Rakshanda Thakur.  So, as it turned out we were given our own sections to work with, I for one got textile Chamba Rumals on display, Textile Section Chandigarh Museum and disappointed (little did I know what was to come). As far as I can recollect, the others got subjects ranging from Mughal paintings to Manuscripts. We were given our own private time with our sections to narrow down on the subjects. And narrow down is what we did, to Cha...