Photo 1000/13(1350)

Panoramic view consisting of 12 joined prints, showing the excavated site, with finds of sculpture laid out on the ground, after the controversial 1880 excavations carried out by Jeremiah Garnett Horsfall, Collector, Kistna District,on the orders of the Governor of Madras, the Duke of Buckingham. This panorama and the following photographs taken on site at Amaravati are credited to an unidentified 'local photographer' in T. Bloch's A list of the photographic negatives ... in the possession of the India Office (Calcutta: 1900). However, Horsfall's report clearly credits Sergeant Coney, who was specially deputed for the purpose :

Sergeant Coney had before my arrival completed the thirteen sections of the circle, and at my request took four general views of the tope, and one of some heads of statues which I considered sufficiently remarkable to warrant special notice. He also took a few of the most noticeable stones separately. So far as can be judged from the negatives an excellent idea can be obtained from these photographs of the present condition of the tope...

[Letter from J. G. Horsfall toChief Secretary to Government, dated Masulipatam, 16 April 1880. Madras Public Proceedings, 5 September 1881. IOR/P/1746, pp. 607-608.]

These photographs were subsequently reproduced as a lithographed tracing alongside a characteristically combative report by Henry Hardy Cole, Conservator of Monuments, relating to the state of the site and removal of pieces by James Burgess:

When I took up the Amravati case, excavations had been carried out under the orders of the Duke of Buckingham in 1880, and the Secretary of State was informed in March 1881 that 'no demolition of the Tope had taken place, and that all that had been done was to remove the earth from the fallen marbles so as to expose them to view.' A set of photographs were taken, and the accompanying sketch panorama from some of them shows the condition of the old ruins as revealed by these excavations and before Dr. Burgess began his packing.

The picture now presented is probably identical. minus the most valuable stones, which Dr. Burgess has enveloped with straw ropes and deposited in a shed hard by and near the River Kistna.

[India Home Proceedings, Archaeology and Ancient Monuments, no. 7-9 of June 1882, IOR/P/1681, pp. 57-67.]