The Kerala Council for Historical Research (KCHR) and The British Museum, London have announced the first of the three international workshops for the coming three years on the theme - ‘Indian Ocean Exchange: the Archaeology of Technology.’
The workshops are funded by the British Academy, UK, to promote collaboration between the British and Indian institutions with an emphasis on training Indian researchers.
Each workshop will focus on a unique artifact ‘assemblage excavated from Pattanam’ and use that as a springboard for enquiries into the issues within Indian Ocean exchanges.
The themes for the next three years are the Pattanam ceramics, personal adornment assemblage and maritime technology.
The first workshop to be held from September 12 to 16 at the Cherai Beach Resorts will concentrate on ceramics.
It will cover the diverse imported wares from the Roman world and West Asia identified at Pattanam, together with local Iron Age and Early Historic pottery from Kerala.
A team of researchers will record potters in the vicinity of Pattanam from September 18 to 23.
Roberta Tomber of the British Museum and P J Cherian of the KCHR are the co-conveners.
There will be ten young researchers from Kerala attending the ceramic workshop.
Participants
The experts taking part are Professor Mark Pollard (Oxford University), Derek Kennet (Durham University, UK), Heidrun Schenk (DAI Bonn, Germany), Alexia Pavan (University of Pisa, Italy), Michel Mouton (CNRS, Paris, France), D Dayalan (ASI, Bangalore), Nambi Rajan (ASI, New Delhi), V Selvakumar (Tamil University), R Mohanty (Deccan College), Professor K Rajan (Pondichery University), V N Prabhakar (ASI, New Delhi), Rukshana Nanji (Pune), Sharmi Chakrabarty (CASTEI, Kolkata), Wijerathne Bohingamuwa (Oxford University), Preeta Nayar (KCHR), Sonali Gupta (UCLA, USA) and Anjana Venkat Reddy (ADACH, Abu Dhabi).