Coline LEFRANCQ Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres Coline.Lefrancq@ulb.ac.be Campus du Solbosch ULB CP175/01, avenue F.D. Roosevelt 50, 1050 Bruxelles

retour annuaire

Présentation des thèmes de recherche

Aspirante FNRS depuis le 1er octobre 2010, je réalise une thèse de doctorat à partir du site de Mahasthangarh au Bangladesh.
La thèse s’intitule « Etude de la céramique du site de Mahasthangarh au Bangladesh : analyse des relations économiques et religieuses dans le Delta du Gange et dans le Golfe du Bengale du IIIe au Xe siècle de notre ère ».

Abstract

My research project will concern the study of a corpus – composed at 80% of common pottery – come from an area excavated on the Mahasthangarh site in Bangladesh. The Bangla-French mission (directed by J.Fr.Salles and M.Fr.Boussac for the french part) that makes excavations from 1993, has undertaken in 2001 the opening of a new area called Mazar (“grave”) located near a mosque. By the informations issued from the excavations, the archaeologists have delimited an general occupation of the site from the Maurya period (end IVth – first IId c. B.C.) to musulmans invasions (XIIth c. A.D.). The material by wich I will go, comes from ten campaigns of excavations (from 2001 to 2010 and more) and includes a ceramic group supposed to belong to Gupta, Pâla and Sena periods. My study will consist to specify wich type of pottery is a feature of each time applying a tripartite method.
Indeed, I will make differents typlogies according to productions, but also analysis of paste to identify the employed clay. To this, I will add ethnoarchaeologicals observations (list of micro and macrotraces on the pots) to reconstruct the “chaîne opératoire” of vases. During a final stage, I will confront the results obtained to bring to light the exchanges relations that have been made at the differents periods around Mahasthangarh. I will accord a particular attention to local economy. Largely, the informations obtained will be allowed to enlighten about the trade of Bengal Golf, real platform of transition between the India and the South East Asia.
To have elements of comparaison, I will study the museal collections accessible from National Museum of Bangladesh in Dhaka and in Calcutta. I will include material from others archaeological sites from the region. Sh.H.Jahan, professor at the University of Dhaka, will help me during this processus.
Concurrently at this ceramic work, I will developp the problematic of the buddhist pilgrims role in the diffusion and the trade of pots. This subject is directly linked to the Pâla period, attested massively on the site of Mahasthangarh, since it sees buddhism reach its last stage of efflorescence in the Peninsula.

Centre(s) de recherche

Centre de Recherches en Archéologie et Patrimoine (CReA - Patrimoine)

Dernière(s) publication(s)

Lefrancq, Coline (2011). Aperçu de la céramique d’époque kouchane à partir du matériel issu du « complexe cultuel » de Termez. Annales d'histoire de l'art et d'archéologie.