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GemsOfINDOLOGY

@GemsOfINDOLOGY

Jan 9

#GemsOfASI #14
Theft, loss, and inventory failure

1/
When artefacts disappear from protected monuments, the response is usually administrative.
Files are opened, reports are written, and records are updated.
By the time this happens, the loss has already occurred much earlier.

2/
Many antiquities under protection are still incompletely catalogued, irregularly verified, or stored without consistent physical security.
In such cases, legal custody exists on paper, but effective control on the ground is weak or absent.

3/
Once local community presence was removed from many sites, informal and continuous surveillance disappeared with it.
As a result, losses are often discovered only years later, during audits or inspections, when recovery is no longer realistic.
(3/5)

Read 5 tweets

GemsOfINDOLOGY

@GemsOfINDOLOGY

Jan 7

#GemsofASI #13

1/ Community custodianship removed. Decay accelerated.

For centuries, India's monuments survived not because of departments.

They survived because of communities.

Priests. Caretakers. Villagers. Guilds.
Daily acts of maintenance kept stone alive.

Then we professionalized protection—and removed the protectors.

2/ What did daily custodianship look like?

• Cleaning debris
• Clearing drainage
• Minor repairs before they became major
• Ritual upkeep
• Constant presence

This wasn't "informal."
It was a functioning system.

Colonial archaeology called it a liability.

3/ British ASI reframed custodians:

• Untrained ❌
• Intrusive ❌
• Encroachers ❌

Control replaced continuity.

Post-Independence? We kept the same framework.

Protection became professionalised.
Also **detached**.

Local custodianship: removed.
On-ground substitute: none.

Read 8 tweets

GemsOfINDOLOGY

@GemsOfINDOLOGY

Jan 7

1/ When did you last hear about a 2000 years old hotel style South Indian site with Roman silver and Chinese coins?

Never.

Because we were taught ancient India was isolated. Insular. Self-contained.

That was a lie.

Here's what they found underground in Karnataka — and why nobody talks about it. 🪙🌏
#GemsOfASI #MNI938

2/ Chandravalli. Moon-shaped valley. Chitradurga district, Karnataka.

The site: Ankalagi Caves.

Inhabited since 1000 BCE.

Layers stack like civilizations:
Megalithic burials → Satavahana coins → Kadamba inscriptions → medieval cave shrines.

No single empire. Just continuous occupation for 3,000 years.

3/ 1909: B.L. Rice arrives.
1929–30: M.H. Krishna digs deeper.
1947: R.E.M. Wheeler, Archaeological Survey of India.

They weren't looking for artifacts.

They found an entire underground economy.

Trade routes. Religious centers. Water systems.

This wasn't a cave. It was infrastructure.

Read 12 tweets

GemsOfINDOLOGY

@GemsOfINDOLOGY

Jan 6

#GemsOfASI #12
Ritual bans, policing faith, and administrative overreach.

1/
Across India, ritual bans at protected monuments are often justified as “conservation measures”.
Their effects, however, go far beyond conservation.

2/
Rituals in temples are not ornamental additions.
They are structured practices embedded into architecture, time cycles, and spatial design.

Banning them alters how a site functions — not just how it is used.

3/
Colonial-era conservation frameworks treated ritual activity as an external stressor.

This assumption migrated into post-Independence administration, where regulation slowly turned into prohibition.

Read 10 tweets

GemsOfINDOLOGY

@GemsOfINDOLOGY

Jan 5

1/ THREAD — Before 1700 CE, European law didn't prohibit child marriage. It regulated it.

Minimum ages codified in canon law. Contracts binding in royal courts. Elite daughters became diplomatic currency.

This thread documents legal practices from primary sources. It doesn't comment on any modern religion or community.

Ages. Alliances. Archives.

Bookmark 🧵👇

2/
Carolingian Europe.

Bertha of Laon is believed to have married Pepin the Short around 744 CE. Historical sources suggest she may have been around 13–14 years old at the time. The marriage aimed to consolidate the Carolingian claim.

Source: Einhard, Royal Frankish Annals.

Alliance first. Childhood considered differently in historical context.

3/ Judith of Bavaria married Louis the Pious in 819 CE. Historical sources suggest she was quite young.

This marriage was significant in securing Bavarian loyalty to the Frankish throne, illustrating how alliances were formed in that era.

Source: Astronomer’s Vita Hludovici

Read 34 tweets

GemsOfINDOLOGY

@GemsOfINDOLOGY

Jan 4

#GemsOfASI #11

1/ Lving worship, conservation law, and manufactured conflict.

Across India, living worship and heritage protection are repeatedly presented as being in conflict.

This conflict is often treated as inevitable.
It is not.

2/
Indian temples were historically designed for continuous use.

Architecture anticipated:
• daily rituals
• water flow
• oil lamps
• human movement

Use was not an accident.
It was part of structural logic.

3/
Colonial conservation law introduced a new assumption:
That **use causes damage**, and protection requires restriction.

This assumption worked for abandoned ruins in Europe.
Applied to living Indian temples, it created friction.

Read 10 tweets

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