MAHSA

Mapping Archaeological Heritage in South Asia

Historical map of the Indus River

The landscapes of India and Pakistan guard histories that are vulnerable to time and change. Discovering, documenting and disseminating knowledge of archaeological heritage at danger will help to protect it for the future.

Why is this important?

The ground beneath our feet is continually transforming under the influence of human activity and nature. Thousands of archaeological sites face threats that could break the chain of knowledge with both our near and distant past.

Why now?

The need to detect and monitor endangered archaeology and cultural heritage has never been more urgent, given increasing pressures from urban expansion and agriculture. Government agencies and other stakeholders need to be able to monitor, predict and, where possible and necessary, intervene to prevent irreversible losses.

What is the MAHSA project doing?

The project team and partners are carrying out remote identification of cultural heritage sites that could be at risk today and in future in the Indus River Basin and surrounding regions. We are combining planetary-scale satellite imagery and machine learning to explore new, sustainable solutions for the management of archaeological heritage.  

What will the outcomes be?

At the heart of the project is the aspiration to create a sustainable management database for local heritage stakeholders. With this in mind, data will be published in a collaborative, open access Arches geospatial database, designed to serve as a primary mapping resource and research repository for archaeological and endangered cultural heritage of the region. 

Who is involved?

MAHSA is generously supported by Arcadia, which is a family charitable foundation. The project is hosted by the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, in partnership with the Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICAC) and Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona (UPF), and will also form close collaborations with relevant bodies and heritage professionals in Pakistan and India. 

MAHSA team gathered around computer

Where?

India and Pakistan

Sustainability of the platform and data is a cornerstone of the project. Made possible through close collaboration with heritage partners in Pakistan and India, the aim is to establish a platform that meets local needs and also lays the foundations of what is hoped will become a management database for local heritage stakeholders.

Cambridge, UK

The MAHSA Project is hosted by the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge, UK

Barcelona, Spain

MAHSA is also in collaboration with two key project partners: the Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICAC) and Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona (UPF).

The MAHSA project will document the endangered archaeology and cultural heritage of the Indus River Basin and the surrounding areas and publish this information in an Open Access Arches geospatial database. 

The core purpose is to co-create a resource that will serve as the primary mapping tool and research repository for the archaeological and endangered cultural heritage of the region.

Background to the project

Western India and Pakistan are extremely rich in archaeological and cultural heritage sites, which span in date from the earliest villages, through several phases of urbanism, the rise and fall of numerous historical states and empires, and up to the colonial and modern periods. Today, many areas are densely occupied and undergoing rapid development, and while archaeological and cultural heritage sites and monuments in Pakistan and India are protected in principle, in practice they are often viewed as impediments and obstacles.

Many sites are at risk, typically from factors including erosion, large-scale development, looting, and perhaps most significantly, the expansion of extensive irrigation agriculture and the concomitant levelling of large tracts of land. Site destruction has been observed in the field and is ongoing, and the level and rate of site lost is not being monitored.

Past and current research

Since the 1950s and 1960s, academic books and journals have published lists of archaeological sites discovered in western India and Pakistan, and scholars have attempted to compile these data and use it to draw conclusions about the ancient societies in South Asia. Since 2008, Cambridge-based researchers have reviewed the published archaeological settlement data for the Indus River Basin as a whole. Ground-truthing in northwest India has demonstrated that there are significant inaccuracies with much of the current primary site location data. Systematic approaches have not been common and there are substantial gaps in spatial coverage. These factors combine to limit our understanding of the distribution of archaeological and cultural heritage in the region, and make it difficult to manage and protect this resource.

An open digital workflow 

The MAHSA approach combines remote sensing, historic mapping and machine-based algorithms to collect, assess, refine, systematise and import archaeological and cultural heritage site data, making it possible to identify sites that have not previously been documented, highlight sites that are in danger, and monitor the impact of development and agriculture. 

To do this, the project team is:   

  • Comprehensively assessing, collating and systematising the published legacy data on archaeological site locations, and the associated field data, research, and bibliographic information for all known archaeological sites in Pakistan and western India
  • Identifying and documenting previously unidentified sites, using historic maps, remote sensing and automated site detection methods  
  • Cross-checking and expanding the data on site locations through identifying ‘signatures’ of both known and previously unidentified and unrecorded archaeological and cultural heritage sites. These will be identified through systematic analysis of historical maps, publicly available satellite and remote sensing imagery, digital elevation models provided by the German Space Agency (DLR), and automatic site detection algorithms 
  • Collaborating with local stakeholders to provide training in GIS, methods of site detection, recording of sites on the ground, and detailed site documentation.  
The ground floor of a former temple in Pakistan which has now been converted into a family home
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Students looking for pottery on archaeological site in India
a sacred grove in India
Sacred space near to archaeological site in India

Database

An Open Access geospatial database based on Arches 5 is being tailored to the specifics of the project and the needs of the local stakeholders.

The MAHSA Arches database is being tailored using the open source Arches software platform. Arches has been developed by the Getty Conservation Institute and World Monuments Fund for cultural heritage data management.

It has a variety of features and capabilities for data management, discovery and visualisation, and allows for flexible customisation of the data model.  

The MAHSA Arches database and data model

To help ensure that the information on archaeological and cultural heritage sites in the database matches stakeholders’ requirements and expectations, the precise details of entries are being developed with the project collaborators. These will include:

  • Location, size, shape, periods of occupation and degree of preservation and risk level
  • Where available, map images, photographs, features that have been observed and associated finds 
  • Bibliographic information, including links to Open Access publications, for sites that that have been previously surveyed, excavated and/or studied. 

For data collection in the field and ground-truthing of the sub-set of data, a customised digital field survey form is being developed using open source Open Data Kit (ODK) software.

ODK allows offline data collection, using mobile phones or tablets, in resource-constrained environments. The collected data can be uploaded to a server when an internet connection is available. The forms are structured along several checks and constraints that will minimise the possibility of data collection errors. We are also exploring the Arches Collector app for future data collection.

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MAHSA team presenting project to general public
MAHSA team presenting project to general public
MAHSA team presenting project to general public

Resources

As part of MAHSA we are developing a resources library to be used by researchers and heritage professionals, based on the materials developed for our training and workshops.

These resources are based on the techniques and methodologies used and developed by the project team, from maps digitisation and data modelling to remote sensing and machine learning, to identify, document and monitor the archaeological heritage of South Asia.

Workshops

We have held a number of online workshops organised jointly with the MAEASaM project, covering remote sensing, databases and the use of historic maps for archaeological research. 

Remote Sensing Workshop in Archaeology

A Hindu Mandir (temple) in Pakistan possibly dedicated to Hanuman but the iconography has been erased.

MAHSA Blog

On the left - A depiction of the Pattan Minar as a ‘watchtower’ in a Survey of India map from the late 19th C. Map courtesy of the British Library. On the right - The remains of Pattan Minar as of 2013. Though it is somewhat given some protection it is clear that deterioration is rapid and some work has to be done soon. - Image courtesy of Amina Khan 2013

Pattan Minar: A Warning to the Curious

By Afifa Khan and Rosie Campbell, April 15, 2022

Working with Brown History, Afifa and Rosie wrote this blog about Pattan Minar and other archaeology of the region.
GIF of maps cropped using the QGIS plugin

Cropping Maps with QGIS and Python

By Jack Tomaney, May 15, 2022

Thanks to the hard work of our RA Jack, we now have a new tool for the project - a QGIS plugin that detects the edges of georeferenced Survey of India maps and crops them. This produces a beautiful mosaic of tessellating map sheets!

Old photo of highly-trained Indian surveyors

Story Maps: Surveyor Stories Part I

by Indu Prasad, Afifa Khan & Rosie Campbell, July 17, 2024

The Indians who mapped the archaeology of South Asia

Example of a map from the NW of India (now Pakistan) made 'secret' during WWII

Story Maps: For Official Use Only: The Survey of India in WWII

By The MAHSA Team

A survey of India's indispensable role in the World Wars

Live Maps!

Click here to see what the MAHSA team has been getting up to in our live Georeferencing Progress map. Click any of the maps or to zoom in and out, and explore the data!

Historical map of the Indus River

MAHSA TEAM

The MAHSA project benefits from the deep knowledge and expertise of colleagues in a number of South Asian and European institutions. 

A core team based at the University of Cambridge is coordinating the project, and is working with colleagues in two partner institutions, the Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICAC) and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona (UPF). The project is also collaborating with government bodies and academic institutions in both Pakistan and India, including the Directorate of Archaeology and Museums, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; the Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar; the University of Kerala; and the University of the Punjab.

As the work progresses, we will continue to forge links across heritage management and research communities in order to build knowledge and advance the ultimate goals of the project: to document, disseminate, protect and preserve.

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Abhayan G.S.

Project Collaborator
Assistant Professor, Department of Archaeology, University of Kerala

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Aftab Alam

Project Collaborator
Post Doctoral Research Associate, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi
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Iban Berganzo Besca

Iban Berganzo Besca
Project Collaborator
Post-Doctoral Researcher, University of Toronto
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Rosie Campbell

Research Assistant
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge
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Moazzam Khan Durrani

Project Collaborator

Lecturer at Islamia University of Bahawalpur's Department of Anthropology

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Petrus (Piet) J. Gerrits

Research Assistant
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge
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Junaid Abdul Jabbar

Research Assistant/Database Coordinator
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge 
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Muhammed Hameed

Project Collaborator
Chairman / Associate Professor, Department of Archaeology, University of the Punjab 
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Samia Khalid

Project Collaborator

Associate Professor / Chairperson

The Islamia University of Bahawalpur Pakistan

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Afifa Khan

Research Assistant
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge  
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Navjot Kour

Navjot Kour
Project Collaborator
Research Associate
Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology (ICAC)
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Marco Madella

Project Partner
ICREA Research Professor, Department of Humanities, Universitat Pompeu Fabra 
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Hector Aleix Orengo

Project Partner
Ramón y Cajal researcher and co-director of the Landscape Archaeology Research Group (GIAP), Catalan Institute of Classical Archaeology
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Muhammad Waqar Mushtaq

Project Collaborator

Lecturer in the Department of History at The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan

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Cameron Petrie

Principal Investigator
Reader in South Asian and Iranian Archaeology, University of Cambridge 
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V.N. Prabhakar

Project Collaborator
Associate Professor (Archaeology), Indian Institute of Technology, Gandhinagar, Gujarat 
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Rajesh S.V.

Project Collaborator
Assistant Professor, Department of Archaeology, University of Kerala
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Rebecca Roberts

Project Coordinator
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge
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Abdul Samad

Project Collaborator
Director of the Provincial Archaeology Department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
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Mou Sarmah

Research Assistant
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge
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Ravindra Nath Singh

Project Collaborator
Honorary Research Associate, McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge and Professor in Archaeology in the Department of AIHC & Archaeology, Banaras Hindu University
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Kuili Suganya Chittiraibalan

Research Associate (Remote sensing and survey: India)
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge

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Jack Tomaney

Research Assistant
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge
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Azadeh Vafadari

Research Associate/Training Coordinator
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge
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Vaneshree Vidyarthi

Research Assistant
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge
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Thank you to former colleagues who contributed to the MAHSA project

Adam Green

Project Collaborator
Lecturer in Sustainability, University of York
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Maria Suarez-Moreno

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Jonas Gregorio de Souza

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Pangambam Sendash Singh

News

New Workshop Videos now Live!

The MAHSA Team, in collaboration with MAEASaM have hosted two new workshops where our experts spoke to participants about archaeological data management practices in Workshop 5 and archaeological data digitization in Workshop 6. Check out the recordings on our YouTube Channel - @mahsa_maeasam

Applications of GIS in Archaeology and Heritage Workshop at IIT Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

11 December, 2024

Earlier this month MAHSA held a 5-day training workshop for students, PhD researchers, archaeologists and geologists hosted at IIT Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India.

Experts gave a variety of presenrations on the Applications of GIS in Archaeology and Heritage with a mixure of case studies, theory and practical sessions.

MAHSA makes the move to BlueSky

5 December, 2024
MAHSA has joined the new Twitter-like social media platform BlueSky. Come and visit our page @mahsa-project.bsky.social

MAHSA leaves Twitter/X

20 November, 2024

MAHSA has made the decision to leave the social media platform X and focus our energy on platforms which foster positive engagement.

We will be continuing to post on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and BlueSky.

Historical map of the Indus River

Contact Us

To find out more:

Email: mahsaadmin@arch.cam.ac.uk

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