Mark Willis
Biographic Data
| ID | 83949 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mark Willis |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mark |
| FAMILY NAME | Willis |
| SIGNATURE | WILLIS M |
| AFFILIATIONS | British Museum |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3143-2207 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 65 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 134 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 65 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1985 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
The Sufi shrine at Dhār in central India: Documents for an economic and institutional history
During the course of our exploration of the history and architecture of central India, Mukhtar Ahmad Khān, a school teacher and local historian, directed our attention towards a collection of unpublished legal documents pertaining to the shrine of Shaykh Kamāl al-Dīn Chishtī in Dhār, Madhya Pradesh. 1 As a corpus, these documents are concerned with grants of land, revenue, and legal issues regarding the management of the shrine, but they give, no…
Perceptions and Products of the Forested Highlands: A View from the Malwa Sultan’s Book of Delicacies , c. 1500
The Scorpion Mound Complex: An Effigy Mound Site with Possible Functional/Ceremonial Significance in the Tehuacán Valley of Puebla, México
While conducting archaeological survey to document the large prehistoric canal systems in the central portion of the Tehuacán Valley, investigators recorded a mound and plaza complex that includes what appears to be an effigy mound in the shape of a scorpion. Large quantities of ceramics, including surface-decorated and polychromes, indicate a Late Classic and Postclassic occupation. The site is interpreted as being part of an intensive agricultu…
The Wold Rock Art District, Wyoming (48JO4513): Geoarchaeology, changing landscapes and estimating ages of rock art
This article demonstrates the importance of geoarchaeological investigations as part of rock art recording and research. The Wold Rock Art District, Wyoming (48JO4513), situated along a short reach of the Middle Fork of the Powder River, contains a suite of rare, contemporaneous, white-painted stenciled human hands and associated paintings. Most are accessible from the present ground surface, but others are stranded as much as 4 m high. Geoarchae…
A changing perspective: The Impact of Landscape Evolution on Rock Art Viewsheds
The Oldest Manuscripts from India and Their Histories: A Re-assessment of IO Loth 4 in the British Library
This essay examines a copy of the Qur’ān from India, now in the India Office Collections at the British Library. The manuscript, registered as IO Loth 4, belongs to the reasonably large group of early Qur’āns that date to the eighth and ninth centuries CE. While some of these manuscripts have charted histories, what is not widely known is that early Qur’āns also made their way to India. There they have their own special histories, meanings and as…
Chapter 15 Paithan Excavation: Historical, Archaeological, Geographical and Epigraphical Contexts
Kennet, Derek, Hawkes, Jason and Willis, Michael. "Chapter 15: Paithan Excavation: Historical, Archaeological, Geographical and Epigraphical Contexts." In Excavations at Paithan, Maharashtra: Transformations in Early Historic and Early Medieval India, 324-335. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110653540-015\n\n \n\nGupta. \nHindu Tempel. \nHindu temple\n\nLandwirtschaft. \nVakataka. \nagriculture. \narchaeology. \nRELI…
Aboriginal Timber-Built Deer Corral-Traps in Mineral County, Nevada
Late prehistoric and early historic communal hunting sites along the southwestern mountainous margins of the Great Basin, United Sates, include timber-built corral-traps estimated to be only a few hundred years old. In most of these, no animal bones or direct evidence for the targeted species were found in the corrals. Our goals were to characterize and reconstruct past use of these sites, and we chose two distinct case studies, Anchorite Pass an…
Still no archaeological evidence that Neanderthals created Iberian cave art
High-resolution mapping and analysis of shiny grooved rock surfaces: The case study of the Skiles Shelter, Lower Pecos, Texas
Beyond the Square Hole: Application of Structure from Motion Photogrammetry to Archaeological Excavation
The accurate and precise collection of three-dimensional (3D) context and provenience data is of critical importance for archaeologists. Traditional square-hole methods are being augmented by new digital techniques to increase the accuracy and precision with which 3D data are collected. Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry is an emerging digital technique that is becoming more widespread for collecting 3D data of archaeological sites and fe…
A Bird's-Eye View of Proto-Tewa Subsistence Agriculture: Making the Case for Floodplain Farming in the Ohkay Owingeh Homeland, New Mexico
Previous research on agriculture in the American Southwest focuses overwhelmingly on archaeological survey methods to discern surface agricultural features, which, in combination with climatological, geological, and geographical variables, are used to create models about agricultural productivity in the past. However, with few exceptions, the role of floodplain irrigation and floodwater farming in ancestral Pueblo agriculture is generally downpla…
Reconstructing Paleolithic cave art: The example of Marsoulas Cave (France)
Report of the Archaeological Survey of Chamak and its Surroundings, District Amaravati, Maharashtra
This report presents the results of a short programme of fieldwork targeted towards the investigation of the archaeological and geographical setting of the Chamak copperplate charter. This inscription, unearthed in the modern village of Chamak in 1868, records the grant of land to a group of Brahmins living in the village of ‘Charmaka’. These have long been assumed to be the same place, but the archaeological contexts of the find spot of the char…
A GIS Analysis of the Zeekoe Valley Stone Age Archaeological Record in South Africa
The conversion of the Zeekoe Valley Archaeological Project survey data to a GIS format allows rapid and accurate analysis of this large hunter-gatherer database. During the 16-month survey 13,866 prehistoric Stone Age sites were recorded and plotted on aerial photographs. These site locations and archaeological data can now be analysed in a manner never possible before the conversion. The distribution and abundance of sites spanning over ~700,000…
The pueblo decomposition model: A method for quantifying architectural rubble to estimate population size
Not liberation, but destruction: War damage in Tunisia in the Second World War, 1942-43
The Allies under General Dwight D. Eisenhower fought a bitter air and land campaign in Tunisia against German and Italian forces for six long months between November 1942 and May 1943. Tunisian civilians, caught between the two sides, suffered tremendous human losses. Almost all of Tunisia's major cities and towns were destroyed or badly damaged and its economy wrecked. The end of the fighting did not lead to liberation for the Tunisians, but to …
The Dhanesar Kherā Buddha in the British Museum and the ‘Politische Strukturen’ of the Gupta Kingdom in India
This article examines a bronze sculpture of the Buddha in the British Museum and offers a revised reading of its dedicatory inscription. A close examination of the paleography, combined with a study of the sculpture’s style, shows that the image belongs in the early years of the sixth century. This provides a date for the ruler Harirāja named in the record and allows us to disassociate him from the Harigupta known from early Gupta coins. In addit…
Mantra and dhāraṇī in the religious traditions of Asia
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Tibetan, Burmese and Chinese Inscriptions from Bodhgayā in the British Museum
This article is concerned with four inscriptions found at Bodhgayā in the nineteenth century that are documented by records kept in the Department of Asia at the British Museum. Two Tibetan inscriptions, probably dating between the ninth and fourteenth centuries, are of special note because they provide the first archaeological evidence for Tibetans at the site. Chinese and Burmese records of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth century are also …
Introduction: Medieval India and the Paramāra Dynasty
This collection of essays focuses on the history, literary culture and legacy of the Paramāra dynasty. Ruling from central India, with collateral branches of the family at Candrāvatī, Vāgaḍa, Bhinmāl and Jālor, the Paramāras constituted an important force in the Indian medieval world. They flourished between the tenth and twelfth centuries and throughout their history entertained high political ambitions. In particular Vākpati Muñja ( circa 973–9…
Dhār, Bhoja and Sarasvatī: From Indology to Political Mythology and Back
The Bhojśālā or ‘Hall of Bhoja’ is a term used to describe the centre for Sanskrit studies associated with King Bhoja, the most celebrated ruler of the Paramāra dynasty. The Bhojśālā is also linked to Sarasvatī – the goddess of learning – whose shrine is said to have stood in the hall's precinct. Since the early years of the twentieth century, the mosque adjacent to the tomb of Kamāl al-Dīn Chishtī in the town of Dhār has been identified as the B…
Undermining self-determination: Robert Murphy and the Atlantic Charter in Tunisia, 1943
The liberation of Tunisia from the Axis military forces in 1943 provided the first concrete opportunity for the USA to apply the Atlantic Charter principle of self-determination. This article shows how the US diplomat Robert D. Murphy as presidential representative and political advisor to General Eisenhower quietly undermined key elements of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policy towards the French and towards self-determination in North Afric…
The Ra Mo Che Temple, Lhasa, and the Image of Mi bsKyod rDo rJe: The Narrative of Ri ‘Bur sPrul sKu
Although practicing Buddhists and historians of Tibet are well aware of the Ra Mo Che Temple in Lhasa, very little about the building and its history has been published. Situated a short distance north-west of the more-famous Ra Sa gTsug Lag Khang or Jo Khang, the temple received, according to the dBa' bZhed , the Buddha image brought to Tibet in the time of the Tang princess Ong Jo. Early in the reign of Khri Srong lDe bTsan, while the king was …
The Gupta Temple at Behti: A New Find
The town of Chanderi in Madhya Pradesh was an important centre under the Sultans of Mandu in the fifteenth century. In the course of conducting a study of the town with a view to developing a coordinated conservation plan, we surveyed historic places in the neighbourhood including the temple sites of the Prafiharas and other medieval dynasties. During the 2007 field-season our attention was drawn to a building at a place called Behti in the hinte…
Still no archaeological evidence that Neanderthals created Iberian cave art
Morocco's Islamists and the legislative elections of 2002: The strange case of the party that did not want to win
The Islamist Party of Justice and Development (PJD) contested the legislative elections held in Morocco in September 2002 and was expected to do well. However, despite a favourable electoral climate, the PJD's electoral chances were complicated by, first, a call to boycott the elections from Morocco's largest Islamist movement and, second, the party's own reluctance to be seen to perform too well and thus invite an adverse reaction from the Moroc…
A GIS Analysis of the Zeekoe Valley Stone Age Archaeological Record in South Africa
The conversion of the Zeekoe Valley Archaeological Project survey data to a GIS format allows rapid and accurate analysis of this large hunter-gatherer database. During the 16-month survey 13,866 prehistoric Stone Age sites were recorded and plotted on aerial photographs. These site locations and archaeological data can now be analysed in a manner never possible before the conversion. The distribution and abundance of sites spanning over ~700,000…
Beyond the Square Hole: Application of Structure from Motion Photogrammetry to Archaeological Excavation
The accurate and precise collection of three-dimensional (3D) context and provenience data is of critical importance for archaeologists. Traditional square-hole methods are being augmented by new digital techniques to increase the accuracy and precision with which 3D data are collected. Structure from Motion (SfM) photogrammetry is an emerging digital technique that is becoming more widespread for collecting 3D data of archaeological sites and fe…
The pueblo decomposition model: A method for quantifying architectural rubble to estimate population size
Analyzing Moroccan Foreign Policy and Relations with Europe
Algeria's other Islamists: Abdallah Djaballah and the Ennahda movement
The Ennahda Party of Algeria led by Sheikh Abdallah Djaballah is an example of an Islamist political party that has been permitted to participate in official political processes. From clandestine beginnings in eastern Algeria in the early 1970s the organisation grew and attracted to it many figures who were later to become senior figures in the Algerian Islamist movement. Independent of the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) following the latter's cr…
Reconstructing Paleolithic cave art: The example of Marsoulas Cave (France)
A Bird's-Eye View of Proto-Tewa Subsistence Agriculture: Making the Case for Floodplain Farming in the Ohkay Owingeh Homeland, New Mexico
Previous research on agriculture in the American Southwest focuses overwhelmingly on archaeological survey methods to discern surface agricultural features, which, in combination with climatological, geological, and geographical variables, are used to create models about agricultural productivity in the past. However, with few exceptions, the role of floodplain irrigation and floodwater farming in ancestral Pueblo agriculture is generally downpla…
Later Gupta History: Inscriptions, Coins and Historical Ideology
This article argues for a radical revision of later Gupta chronology based on a review of the primary evidence. The paucity of dated material has meant that historical reconstructions of the period have been based on late-Victorian assumptions about the nature of society and kingship. Removing this ideological framework allows not only for a revision of chronology — a traditional historical concern — but for a new understanding of Gupta kingship …
Buddhist Saints in Ancient Vedisa
The Buddhist saints, that are the subject of this article, are known from a series of inscribed reliquaries collected by Alexander Cunningham and F. C. Maisey at Sanchi and neighbouring sites in central India. The inscriptions, dating to the circa early first century BC, have been known since readings of them were first published the mid-nineteenth century. The detailed re-examination of the records presented in this article shows that the reliqu…
A changing perspective: The Impact of Landscape Evolution on Rock Art Viewsheds
Aboriginal Timber-Built Deer Corral-Traps in Mineral County, Nevada
Late prehistoric and early historic communal hunting sites along the southwestern mountainous margins of the Great Basin, United Sates, include timber-built corral-traps estimated to be only a few hundred years old. In most of these, no animal bones or direct evidence for the targeted species were found in the corrals. Our goals were to characterize and reconstruct past use of these sites, and we chose two distinct case studies, Anchorite Pass an…
Report of the Archaeological Survey of Chamak and its Surroundings, District Amaravati, Maharashtra
This report presents the results of a short programme of fieldwork targeted towards the investigation of the archaeological and geographical setting of the Chamak copperplate charter. This inscription, unearthed in the modern village of Chamak in 1868, records the grant of land to a group of Brahmins living in the village of ‘Charmaka’. These have long been assumed to be the same place, but the archaeological contexts of the find spot of the char…
The Dhanesar Kherā Buddha in the British Museum and the ‘Politische Strukturen’ of the Gupta Kingdom in India
This article examines a bronze sculpture of the Buddha in the British Museum and offers a revised reading of its dedicatory inscription. A close examination of the paleography, combined with a study of the sculpture’s style, shows that the image belongs in the early years of the sixth century. This provides a date for the ruler Harirāja named in the record and allows us to disassociate him from the Harigupta known from early Gupta coins. In addit…
Tibetan, Burmese and Chinese Inscriptions from Bodhgayā in the British Museum
This article is concerned with four inscriptions found at Bodhgayā in the nineteenth century that are documented by records kept in the Department of Asia at the British Museum. Two Tibetan inscriptions, probably dating between the ninth and fourteenth centuries, are of special note because they provide the first archaeological evidence for Tibetans at the site. Chinese and Burmese records of the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth century are also …
Architecture in Central India under the Kacchapaghata Rulers
Michael Willis (1996) Architecture in Central India under the Kacchapaghata Rulers, South Asian Studies , 12:1, 13-32, DOI: 10.1080/02666030.1996.9628506 \n\n Art, Indic -- History. \n Architecture -- India -- History. \n Architecture
An introduction to the historical geography of Gopakṣetra, Daśārṇa, and Jejākadeśa
Emphasizing the importance of balanced geographical and historical knowledge in the late sixteenth century, Richard Hakluyt remarked: 'Geographie and Chronologie are the sune and moone, the right eye and left eye of all history.' In current studies of archaeology and history this emphasis remains apt, for to write a proper account of both artifacts and kings, they must be set geographi- cally in space and chronologically in time. The regions sout…
An Eighth Century Mihrab in Gwalior
Tiles from the Mosque of Rustem Pasa in Istanbul
La mosquee de Rustem Pasa, sur la Corne d'Or, a ete reconnue comme un monument significatif de l'art et de la culture ottomans du 16e s. Les carreaux de faience couvrant l'interieur du bâtiment montrent une remarquable vitalite decorative et servent de jalon dans l'histoire de ce type de ceramique polychrome. L'A. etudie ici en particulier les plus anciens carreaux conserves dans le porche, rassembles au petit bonheur, variant considerablement pa…
The participle ghaṭita as applied to windows
The participle ghaţita (from the root ghaţ) has a wide range of meanings, but is quite restricted when applied to windows in a house or palace. Our purpose here is to clarify this specific usage by reference to texts and archaeological remains. As such, this note elucidates the cultural milieu of the term
An introduction to the historical geography of Gopakṣetra, Daśārṇa, and Jejākadeśa
Emphasizing the importance of balanced geographical and historical knowledge in the late sixteenth century, Richard Hakluyt remarked: 'Geographie and Chronologie are the sune and moone, the right eye and left eye of all history.' In current studies of archaeology and history this emphasis remains apt, for to write a proper account of both artifacts and kings, they must be set geographi- cally in space and chronologically in time. The regions sout…
A Ninth Century Umamahesvara Image
Taj Mahal: The Illumined Tomb: An Anthology of Seventeenth-Century Mughal and European Documentary Sources
Art of the Imperial Cholas
A Brick Temple of the Ninth Century
Some Notes on the Palaces of the Imperial Gurjara Pratīhāras
The Gurjara Pratīhāras have long been recognised as the leading royal house of northern India during the ninth and tenth centuries. A considerable number of copper plate and stone inscriptions have survived from Pratīhāra times and these have provided the requisite data for a reconstruction of the dynasty's political and social history. Following conventions established in the Gupta period if not before, the copper-plates of the Pratīhāras record…
Architecture in Central India under the Kacchapaghata Rulers
Michael Willis (1996) Architecture in Central India under the Kacchapaghata Rulers, South Asian Studies , 12:1, 13-32, DOI: 10.1080/02666030.1996.9628506 \n\n Art, Indic -- History. \n Architecture -- India -- History. \n Architecture
Algeria's other Islamists: Abdallah Djaballah and the Ennahda movement
The Ennahda Party of Algeria led by Sheikh Abdallah Djaballah is an example of an Islamist political party that has been permitted to participate in official political processes. From clandestine beginnings in eastern Algeria in the early 1970s the organisation grew and attracted to it many figures who were later to become senior figures in the Algerian Islamist movement. Independent of the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS) following the latter's cr…
Inscriptions of Gopakṣetra: Materials for the History of Central India
Inscriptions from Udayagiri: Locating domains of devotion, patronage and power in the eleventh century
(2001). Inscriptions from Udayagiri: locating domains of devotion, patronage and power in the eleventh century. South Asian Studies: Vol. 17, No. 1, pp. 41-53
Buddhist Saints in Ancient Vedisa
The Buddhist saints, that are the subject of this article, are known from a series of inscribed reliquaries collected by Alexander Cunningham and F. C. Maisey at Sanchi and neighbouring sites in central India. The inscriptions, dating to the circa early first century BC, have been known since readings of them were first published the mid-nineteenth century. The detailed re-examination of the records presented in this article shows that the reliqu…
The Lion Capital from Udayagiri and the Antiquity of Sun Worship in Central India
Indian subcontinent: Architecture from the 6th–11th centuries
Deogarh
Gupta
Indian subcontinent: Sculpture from the 4th–6th centuries
Indian subcontinent: Architectural terminology and glossary
Deori Kalan
Gurjara-Pratihara
Indian subcontinent: Sculpture from prehistory to the 3rd century
Indian subcontinent: Architecture from prehistory to the 5th century
Indian subcontinent: Sculpture from the 7th–18th centuries
History (41 works) · Ancient history (34 works) · Geography (34 works) · Archaeology (33 works) · Eurasian Exchange Networks (19 works) · History (19 works) · Art (18 works) · Indian and Buddhist Studies (14 works) · Indian subcontinent (12 works) · Law (12 works)