Room 145.2
Dr. Sunil Gupta retired as director in charge of the Allahabad Museum (a national museum under the Indian government’s Ministry of Culture) in 2021. Post-retirement he worked as Officer on Special Duty at the Prime Ministers Museum in New Delhi. At the MPIWG he is conducting research on his project “Archaeology of the Astral: Mingling of Astrological and Cosmological Ideas in the Context of Sea Trade between Early Historic India and Roman Egypt (1st century BCE–5th century CE).” Dr. Gupta earned his doctorate on the subject of ancient sea trade between the Roman Empire and India at the Deccan College, Pune University, India. He broadened the scope of his work to the study of the early Indian Ocean World, focusing on themes such as long-distance exchange, syncretic techno-cultural traditions, and ancient globalization processes during the BCE–CE transition. He is a recipient of the Victoria and Albert Museum’s UK Nehru Fellowship, the postdoctoral Research Fellowship from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Vivekananda Fellowship for Museum Excellence at the Art Institute, Chicago, and a visiting fellowship at Ghent University, Belgium. He was also field director of excavations at the ancient port-site of Kamrej in Western India and has been a member of PhD examination committees in both India and Europe. Dr. Gupta is the editor of the Journal of Indian Ocean Archaeology, the author of the book Early Sculptural Art in the Indian Coastlands, and continues to contribute papers to journals, seminar proceedings, and edited volumes.
