| Project Participants |
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For more than 20 years, the Project has attracted an international group of senior scholars, students and young professionals, especially architects and Archaeologists, from India, Australia, the USA, the UK and other European countries. The interaction between senior scholars of different backgrounds (Anthropologically- and historically-trained Archaeologists, art and architecture historians, an astronomer, an ethnologist, a geographer and language specialists) has been particularly fertile. We have also benefited from the many associates most of whom have spent time with the team at the site. Several have contributed important scholarly reports. Other colleagues have provided invaluable assistance to us at the site or from a distance, or have carried out research that has enhanced our understanding of Vijayanagara. Officers of the Karnataka Department of Archaeology and Museums, our hosts at the site, have been particularly generous with their kind assistance over the years. Equally valuable has been the mutual understanding and appreciation created by the interaction between the young participants from different countries and backgrounds. A caring staff of drivers, cooks, chokidars, and others, have also made essential contributions to our work. Here we list all of these scholars, associates, assistants, staff and colleagues that appear in our records and note the period of their involvement. However, if we inadvertently have omitted anyone, we beg forgiveness. If participants would like us to list contact information, or if they do not want such information to be made available, let us know. We promise to include changes in the next update of this site. Please do get in touch! Listed in alphabetical order together with the dates at which the scholars were at the Vijayanagara site.
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| Prof. Anna L. Dallapiccola was Professor of Indian Art at the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University from 1981 to 1995. In 1991 she was appointed Honorary Professor at Edinburgh University, has regularly lectured at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and was Visiting Professor at De Montfort University Leicester until 2004. She worked in India with the Vijayanagara Research Project from 1984 to 2001. Her current research with Dr Anila Verghese, Sophia College, Mumbai, with whom she has published papers and books, focuses on Vijayanagara and its successor states. Among her most recent publications are: South Indian Painting: A Catalogue of the British Museum Collection (London, 2010) and The Great Platform at Vijayanagara (New Delhi 2010) and Indian Painting: The Lesser Known Traditions (New Delhi 2011). (See Project Publications.) Contact: annaliberadallapiccola@gmail.com
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| Dr Dominic Davison-Jenkins, Archaeologist, UK (1986 and 1988). Completed his PhD at Cambridge University on hydraulic works of the Vijayanagara site (in 1988), which was published as a monograph in 1997 (by Manohar and the American Institute of Indian Studies). In 2001, he contributed a chapter on hydraulic works to New Light on Hampi: Recent Research at Vijayanagara published by MARG, (See Project Publications.) Dominic left the academic world in 1989, becoming a commercial insurance broker and relocating to the US in 1991. Dominic continues to live in New York City and works for Aon Corporation (as a Managing Director specializing in professional liability). Contact: dominic.davison-jenkins@aon.com
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| Dr Asim Krishna Das, Sanskritist, India (1987 to 1992). Das received his PhD in Sanskrit at Columbia University. In his dissertation, he compiled and translated a Vaishnava text dealing with Salagramas, or natural stone formations that are believed to be manifestations of Vishnu. He resided in Vrindaban, where he was Assistant Director of the Research Centre at Sri Chaitanya Samperday. There, he supervised the creation of a bibliography of sources on the history of Braj, and translated certain of these works. This work was done on behalf of the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi. He worked with the Vijayanagara Research Project for 5 years, translating the Pampamahatmya and studying local religious practice. (See Project Publications.) Sadly, Asim died in 1997, but he is remembered warmly in Hampi and Vrindaban.
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| Dr John M. Fritz, Archaeologist, USA (1981 to present-day). He is currently Consulting Scholar, University of Pennsylvania Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology. He was educated at the University of Chicago where he received his PhD in Anthropology in 1974. He taught at the University of California, Santa Cruz and the State University of New York, Binghamton. Subsequently he was adjunct faculty at the University of New Mexico and University of Pennsylvania. His earlier work was concerned with hunting/gathering subsistence systems and with the typology of stone tools in the prehistoric US Southwest. He then became interested in the relation of settlement plan and world view in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico. He began fieldwork at Vijayanagara in 1981. Here, he has concentrated on “surface archaeology” (documentation of evidence for past human activity visible on the surface of the site) and on the interpretation of urban form. (See Project Publications.) Contact: johnmfritz@gmail.com
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| Sri C.T.M. Kotraiah, Archaeologist, India (1996 to 2010). A retired officer of the Archaeological Survey of India, one of his most important postings was as Director of the local museum in Kamalapura, which he was instrumental in setting up. Kotraiah carried out research and published several articles on iconography and religious history of the region as well as on water management in the empire as revealed by inscriptions. He was honored by his colleagues in Hemakuta: C.T.M. Kotraiah Feliciation Volume: Recent Researches in Archaeology and Museology (Bharatiya Kala Prakashan Publishers, Delhi, 2003). His collected articles have been published as Irrigation Systems under Vijayanagara Empire (Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Mysore, 1995) and Archaeology of Hampi-Vijayanagara (Bharatiya Kala Prakashan Publishers, Delhi, 2008). He also abstracted information from Vijayanagara texts in the Kannada language that referred to urban life, the capital and its courtly life; these have been edited and published as the monograph, King, Court and Capital. (See Project Publications.)
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Dr Mark Lycett, Archaeologist, USA (1993 to the present day). He received his PhD in 1995 from the University of New Mexico and is now Director, Environmental Studies Program in the College and Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at the University of Chicago. His principal interest is the adaptation of native populations to Spanish invasions in the early historic US Southwest; he has written on the use of stone tools at Vijayanagara. (See Project Publications.) With Kathleen Morrison he has written on the creation of prehistoric landscapes and on the cultural meaning of inscriptions and of temple destruction in southern India. His publications are listed on his web page. Contact: mlycett@uchicago.edu
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| Prof. John McKim Malville, Astronomer, USA (1990-1991). He is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, and is Adjunct Professor at James Cook University, Australia. His fields of professional interest include solar physics, auroral physics, radio astronomy, ethnoastronomy and archaeoastronomy. His books include A Feather for Daedalus: Explorations in Science and Myth (Cummings Publishing Co, Menlo Park 1975). The Fermenting Universe: Myths of Eternal Change (Seabury Press, New York, 1981), Prehistoric Astronomy in the Southwest (Johnson Books, Boulder, 1989; second edition 1993 (with Claudia Putnam)), Time and Eternal Change (Stirling Press, New Delhi, 1990), Ancient Cities, Sacred Skies: Cosmic Geometries and City Planning in Ancient India (Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and Aryan Books International, New Delhi, 2000) and A Guide to Prehistoric Astronomy in the Southwest (Johnson Books, Boulder, 2008). He is the author of some sixty papers on archaeoastronomy. For his pioneering papers on Vijayanagara, see Project Publications. Contact: kim.malville@colorado.edu
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| Dr Alexandra Mack, Archaeologist, USA (1995-96 and 1999-2000). After assisting with our mapping program at Vijayanagara in 1995-96, she travelled widely in India. She returned three years later to document mortars and other indications of economic activity, in order to understand the ways communities that receive pilgrims adapt their material world. This research was incorporated in her PhD in Anthropology (Archaeology Sub-discipline) at Arizona State University in 2001, in several articles, and in her book, Spiritual Journey, Imperial City: Pilgrimage to the Temples of Vijayanagara (Vedams, New Delhi, 2002). (See Project Publications.) A complete list of her publications can be found on her website. As one of the first anthropologists hired at Pitney Bowes, her role over the last decade has been to identify, conceive, and develop new growth opportunities for the company. She works at the intersection of customer-centred design, market research, business opportunity identification, business planning, innovation, and cultural change. Contact: amack@post.harvard.edu
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| Prof. Ben Marsh is Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies at Bucknell University, Pennsylvania, where he has taught since 1979. He received his PhD from Pennsylvania State University in 1983. At Vijayanagara (1987 and 2000) his survey work focused on geoarchaeology and past land use and, in particular, on the use of natural resources, including stone and water. He has also carried out archaeological field research on environmental change at Gordion, Yalburt Yaylasi and other sites in Turkey. In addition to his publications on archaeological landscapes, he has written extensively on the community impact of spatial inequalities, on contemporary cultural landscapes, especially in the state of Pennsylvania. His publications and diverse research are elaborated at his website. Contact: marsh@bucknell.edu
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| Dr George Michell, Architecture Historian, UK (1980 to the present day) was born in Australia where he received a Bachelor of Architecture degree from the University of Melbourne in 1968. He then turned his attention to India, obtaining his PhD in 1974 from the School of Oriental African Studies, University of London, for his dissertation on Early Chalukya temple architecture. In the 1970s he directed courses on Asian architecture at the Architectural Association, London, as well as co-editing Art and Archaeology Research Papers (AARP), a journal specialising in architecture and art of the Islamic and Indian worlds. His research has mainly concentrated on the Deccan, Bengal, Gujarat and, most recently, Southern India. The projects have varied from surveys of town planning and Islamic buildings to detailed studies of temple architecture and sculpture. During the 1980s and 1990s he and Dr John M. Fritz co-directed an extensive survey of the medieval Hindu site of Hampi-Vijayanagara in Karnataka. In 1988-89 he was visiting Rockefeller Research Fellow at the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery of Asian Art in Washington. He has lectured at universities and museums throughout the USA, Europe, India and Australia. He has also acted as a guest curator for In the Image of Man: 5,000 Years of Indian Art, Hayward Gallery, London, 1982, and Living Wood: Sculptural Traditions of Southern India, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1992. His many publications include The Hindu Temple: An Introduction to its Meaning and Forms (1977; Reprinted, University of Chicago Press, 1989), Brick Temples of Bengal (Princeton University Press, 1982), Blue Guide to Southern India (A&C Black, London, 1997), The Royal Palaces of Rajasthan (Thames & Hudson, London, 2003), Mughal Style (IBH, India, 2007), Kashgar – Oasis City on China’s Old Sild Road (Frances Lincoln, London, 2008), Mughal Architecture and Gardens (The Shoestring Publishers, Mumbai, 2011) and several works on Vijayanagara. (See Project Publications). Since 2002 he has been Professorial Fellow at the Department of Architecture, University of Melbourne. He received the Nadoja award (Honorary Doctor of Letters), from Kannada University, Kamalapura, Karnataka. In January 2012 he was appointed as a Member in the General Division of the Order of Australia, In March 2013 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the University of Melbourne. Contact: georgemichell@aol.com
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| Prof. Kathleen D. Morrison, Archaeologist, USA (1986 to the present day) is Neukom Family Professor in Anthropology and the College, University of Chicago where she directs the Paleoecology Laboratory. She received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley in 1992 for her thesis “Transforming the Agricultural Landscape: Intensification of Production at Vijayanagara”. Her research, focusing primarily on South Asia and, to a lesser extent, Southeast Asia, the Pacific and the Southwestern United States, addresses a number of related issues including: the formation and transformation of anthropogenic landscapes; the causes and consequences of agricultural change; colonialism and imperialism; and the interplay between political power, economic organization, and social strategies of production and exchange. Most recently, she has begun working on issues related the causes and consequences of the expansion of rice agriculture and the development of elite cuisines in southern India. Her extensive publications include Fields of Victory (1995, 2000), Vijayanagara Metropolitan Survey (with Carla Sinopoli, 2007), Daroji Valley: Landscape History, Place, and the Making of a Dryland Reservoir System (2009) (See Project Publications). With Carla Sinopoli she founded and directed the Vijayanagara Metropolitan Survey and the investigation of Early Historic Landscapes of the Tungabhadra Corridor. (See Associated Projects). More on her research and publications can be found at her website. Contact: morrison@uchicago.edu
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| Prof. Carla Sinopoli, Archaeologist, USA (1987 to the present day), is Professor of Anthropology at the Department of Anthropology and Curator of Asian Archaeology at the Museum of Anthropology. She analyzed Vijayanagara ceramics for her PhD at the University of Michigan (1986). Her research focuses on complex societies and political economy in Southern India. Her abundant publications include Archaeology as History: South Asia (editor, with H.P. Ray, Aryan Books, New Delhi, 2004); Wrapped in Beauty: The Koelz Collection of Kashmiri Shawls (with Grace Beardsley, Museum of Anthropology, Ann Arbour, 2005); The Himalayan Journey of Walter N. Koelz: The University of Michigan Himalayan Expedition, 1932–1934 (Museum of Anthropology, Ann Arbour, 2013); and The Vijayanagara Metropolitan Survey (with Kathleen Morrison, 2007), see Project Publications. [LINK] With Kathleen Morrison she founded and directed the Vijayanagara Metropolitan Survey, a 10-year systematic regional survey of the hinterland of Vijayanagara, where she focused particularly on examining the relations of imperial and temple institutions in the control and organization of craft production. She and Morrison then began the investigation of Early Historic Landscapes of the Tungabhadra Corridor where they are concerned with emergent social and economic inequalities and the formation to territorial polities during the South India Iron Age. (See Associated Projects) At the University of Michigan her Department of Anthropology website summarizes her career while her Museum of Anthropology website describes her research. Contact: sinopoli@umich.edu.
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| Dr Natalie Tobert is a Medical Anthropologist from UK who was earlier interested in ethno-archaeology. She undertook field work on ethno-architecture in sub-Saharan Africa for which she received her PhD from University of London. Her research at Vijayanagara (1987, 1998 and 1997) focused on Anegondi, which was once the twin city of Vijayanagara. With the illustrator, Grahame Reed, she published Anegondi: Architectural Ethnography of a Royal Village. As curator at London’s Horniman Museum she created an exhibition, “Sacred Lands, Devoted Lives: Hinduism and Daily Life in a South Indian Village” (1994). (See Project Publications). Recently she developed cultural diversity courses for UK hospitals: Goodmayes, Northwick Park, Barts, and the Royal London. Seminars were also run at the following universities: Northampton, University College London, Glasgow, and Brighton and Sussex Medical School. Natalie has published books and articles on material culture, architecture, heath and spirituality. Her new book on Mental Health Practices in India is published in early 2014. She also continues to be a well-regarded potter. More about her medical work can be found at this website. Contact:natalietobert@aol.com
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| Dr (Sister) Anila Verghese, Historian, India (1984 to the present day). Retired Principal, Sophia College, Mumbai, she is now Directress of Sophia Polytechnic, on the Sophia Campus. In 1989 she completed her PhD in History at Bombay University; her dissertation dealt with religious cults at Vijayanagara as understood through inscriptions, icons and temples. She has authored numerous essays on the culture history of Vijayanagara. Some of these have been collected as Archaeology, Art and Religion: New Perspectives on Vijayanagara (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2000). She has also written a guide to the Vijayanagara site (Hampi, Monumental Legacy, Oxford, New Delhi, 2002) and has edited papers on the Empires most famous ruler (Krishnadevaraya and His Time, K.R. Cama Oriental Institute, Mumbai, 2013). She has lectured in India, the Netherlands and the United States. With Anna Dallapiccola she continues her research on history, religion and iconography during the Vijayanagara period. They have authored an iconographic dictionary (Sculpture at Vijayanagara) and a collection of conference papers (South India under Vijayanagara: Art and Archaeology, Oxford, New Delhi, 2011). (See Project Publications). Her contributions are described at the Sophia College website. Contact: anilaverghese@gmail.com
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Prof. Phillip B. Wagoner, Architectural Historian and Translator, USA (1987 and 1991), is Professor of Art History at Wesleyan University. He studied Telugu and Sanskrit literature as well as South Asian Archaeology at the University of Wisconsin where he completed his dissertation on Kakatiya temple architecture in Andhra Pradesh. He has carried out research at Vijayanagara on religious architecture of the fourteenth century and has published a translation and historical interpretation of a Telugu text of the late Vijayanagara period. (See Project Publications). He has also published numerous articles on various topics relating to Vijayanagara, including the pre-Vijayanagara history of the site, the reuse of architectural components retrieved from earlier buildings, the system of elite dress at the Vijayanagara court, the ability of political elites to move between the Indic and Persianate worlds, and the significance of Sanskrit historiographic traditions that represent Vijayanagara as a successor state to the Delhi Sultanate. Since 2000, his work has increasingly focused on Persianate Islamic architecture in the Deccan, and his articles have dealt with topics ranging from the first appearance of Sultanate style architecture in the region in the early fourteenth century, to the founding and design of Hyderabad, laid out as a new capital by the Qutb Shahi sultans in the late 16th century. With Richard Eaton he is publishing Power, Memory, Architecture: Contested Sites on India's Deccan Plateau, 1300-1600 (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2014). His research interests are described at a Wesleyan University website. Contact: pwagoner@wesleyan.edu |
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Listed alphabetically; dates at the site indicated
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| Clare Arni, Photographer, Bangalore, India. In 2001 we published New Light on Hampi with Clare’s splendid photographs (See Project Publications). Her diverse work is described on her websiteContact: ClareArni@gmail.com
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Dr Robert P. Brubaker, Archaeologist. A student of Prof. Carla Sinopoli, he completed his PhD dissertation, “Cornerstones of control: the infrastructure of imperial security at Vijayanagara, South India” at the University of Michigan in 2004. A South Asianist and a specialist in pre-modern complex societies, his dissertation research examined the interrelated phenomena of militarism, urbanism and inter-polity dynamics in the context of the Vijayanagara Empire. He is the author of several articles and a monograph, Vijayanagara: Warfare and the Archaeology of Defence. (See Project Publications). He is now Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of History, University of Arkansas; see his university website. Contact: robertb@umich.edu or rbrubake@uark.edu.
Dr Laura Junker, Archaeologist and Ethnohistorian, USA, is Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago and Adjunct Curator, Field Museum, Chicago. She received her PhD from the University of Michigan in 1990. Her research has focused primarily on Southeast Asia maritime trading polities of the first millennium AD to European contact, particularly prehispanic chiefdoms of the Philippine archipelago. With Kathleen Morrison, she published Forager-Traders in South and Southeast Asia: Long-Term Histories (Cambridge University Press, 2003). She is co-editor of The Journal for Asian and Pacific Archaeology. In 1984 she studied contemporary pottery production in Kamalapura with Carla Sinopoli. (See Project Publications) Her research and other publications are noted on her university website. Dr Dieter Eigner, Engineer and Archaeologist, Vienna, Austria. He has participated in several archaeological projects in Egypt, Sudan and Eritrea organized by German and Austrian institutions. For example he has participated in architectural documentation at the Tomb of Harwa, at the Fourth Nile Cataract in Egypt, and the Thebian Necropolis in Egypt, and a survey in the desert of Bayuda in northern Sudan; website. His work is published in the Encyclopedia of the Archeology of Ancient Egypt (Routledge, London, 1999). In 1993-96 he carried out mapping and architectural drawings in the Urban Core and at Vitthalapura. With Anila Verghese, he published a description of a matha in the latter area. (See Project Publications). Contact: eigner_arch@yahoo.de |
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| Dr David N. Gimbel, Archaeologist, Founding Director, Archaeos, New York, New York, USA. He received his doctorate from the Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford University. He was a visiting professor at the University of Vienna and has also lectured extensively about globalization, conflict, intercultural dialogue, cultural identity and heritage to numerous groups and organizations. He has directed and supervised archaeological and cultural heritage projects in Syria, India, and Yemen. At Vijayanagara he and his team used sophisticated instruments and software to map areas of the North Ridge and Noblemen’s Quarter. His aim was not only to create conventional two-dimensional representations, but also three-dimensional modelling of buildings and other site features (2000-2004). Contact: gimbel@archaeos.org
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| John Gollings, St Kilda (Melbourne), is one of Australia’s best-know photographers of contemporary architecture. He specializes in the documentation of cities, old and new, often using aerial photography. His work in the Asian-Pacific region includes iconic images of Khmer temples in Cambodia, monuments at Borobodur and Prambanan in Indonesia, city and landscapes at Kashgar and ruined cities at Jiaohe City, Turfan both in China, classical and Berber ruins in Lybia, as well as of open pit mines and burned landscapes in Australia. During his many seasons at Vijayanagara (1980-88, 1994 and 1999) he captured the heroic quality of ruined monuments in their setting. His images have appeared in City of Victory, Vijayanagara, Hampi Vijayanagara and many of our books and articles. Working with Sarah Kenderdine and Jeffrey Shaw, he created two- and three-dimension photographs for the exhibition and subsequent publication, Place : Hampi. See Project Publications. Examples of his work at Vijayanagara can be found at his website. Contact: john.gollings@gollings.com.au
Kate Gollings, Photographer, Melbourne, Australia. During visits to the site (1981, 1982 and 1994), she documented the sculptures on the Great Platform. Dr Sugandha Johar, Archaeologist, India (1980-1984). As Sugandha Purandara, she completed her PhD thesis, “History and Archaeology of Anegondi” at Deccan College in 1986. Subsequently she has worked on a database on resources for Vijayanagara studies and on the life and projects of the eighteenth century Maharani Ahilya Bai Holkar. Contact: sugandha.johar@gmail.com Dr Sarah Kenderdine, Archaeologist. She is currently head of Special Projects and Project Manager for The Virtual Room at Museum Victoria, and is a Director for the International Society of Virtual Systems and Multimedia. She publishes widely and recently co-edited and co-authored Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage with MIT Press in 2007. Recent built works include: “Sacred Angkor” for The Virtual Room, Museum Victoria (2004), “Place-Hampi” for PLACE (with Jeffrey Shaw & John Gollings, 2006) touring internationally and “The Eye of Nagaur” for THE EYE (2008-), Rajasthan and she was curator, designer and contributing artist for the major 2008-2010 exhibition “Ancient Hampi: the Hindu Kingdom Brought to Life” at the Immigration Museum, Melbourne. The exhibition “Place-Hampi” has recently been permanent installed at Kaladham arts centre of the JSW Steel campus, Toranagallu, Karnataka. For her projects link to her professional website. Contact: skender@museum.vic.gov.au
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| Surendra Kumar, was born in Hampi village. He studied a variety of computer applications in Bangalore the 1990’s. An all-rounder, he has created this web site as well as one for the Deccan Heritage Foundation and others. A skilled photographer, his dramatic panoramas appear in Discovering the Deccan: A Panoramic Journey Though Historical Landscapes and Monuments (text by George Michell & Helen Philon, Pictor, Mumbai, 2012); he has also illustrated Badami Aihole Pattadakal (Pictor, 2011), and Architecture and Art of the Early Chalukyas (Niyogi, New Delhi, 2014). He is currently preparing digitized site maps for publication. (See Vijayanagara Archaeological Atlas) Contact: surihampi@gmail.com
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