Identity area
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Title
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Extent and medium
5237 photographic slides
Context area
Name of creator
Biographical history
Arthur Llewellyn Basham was born on 24 May 1914 at Loughton, Essex, England. From 1965-79 Basham was foundation professor and head of the new department of Oriental civilisation in the faculty of Oriental studies at the Australian National University, Canberra.
Repository
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Scope and content
This archive of images was put together by the late Professor A. L. Basham (1914-1986) during his tenure as professor and head of the department of Oriental (later Asian) civilizations at ANU (1965-1979). He helped set up the Faculty of Oriental (later Asian) Studies at ANU and played a pioneering role in teaching and research in this area. His book The Wonder that Was India (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1954) became a signal study in the field. Basham undertook extensive fieldwork in India and studied several classical Indian languages.
Upon his retirement, the erstwhile Department of Art History at ANU inherited his extensive collection of 35-mm slides, each slide accompanied by an index card with Basham’s typewritten (and sometimes handwritten) notes on the image. As the archive reveals, Basham had a deep interest in art and visual culture as an essential aspect of historical study, and was an accomplished photographer. These images represent an important ingredient in the historiography of ‘classical’ civilization in Asia, variously carried out by scholars working within and outside the region in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
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Conditions governing access
Researchers must sign an access agreement.
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Finding aids
Allied materials area
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
These slides have been digitised and copies are available at https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/handle/1885/143941