THE KING'S SHADOW

A British historian resurrects the life of a self-taught archaeologist who discovered a lost civilization on the plains of Afghanistan.

Charles Masson (1800-1853) was a dreamer and military deserter who infuriated the East India Company’s army when he abandoned his post in 1827. He spent years ducking authorities and wandering in India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, stoking his simmering fascination with the lost cities of Alexander the Great. He became a man at war with himself: a groundbreaking archaeologist, an unwilling spy, and a bitter foe of his former employer. With assiduous research, assured authority, and lacerating wit, Richardson, a classics professor, re-creates this hair-raising story. Masson first emerges as James Lewis, working for the East India Company and hating every minute of it. After his desertion, he took on his pseudonym and embarked on a quest to reach Alexander’s lost city of Alexandria Beneath the Mountains. But Masson, the first Westerner to explore Afghanistan’s ancient past, discovered something more compelling: dazzling evidence of a lost Greek-Buddhist civilization. His most famous find was the Bimaran Casket, a first-century bejeweled reliquary engraved with “the very earliest dateable image of the Buddha which has ever been found.” Eventually, a company spymaster tracked Masson down and blackmailed him into becoming a British agent, “a spy for the people he despised most in the world,” gathering intelligence on his Afghan hosts as the company fomented a plot to invade. Readers familiar with Afghanistan’s Great Game will appreciate this version of an unfolding catastrophe. History buffs and espionage fans will be fascinated with Richardson’s cast of characters, which included Victorian megalomaniacs, Afghan princes, Russian adventurers, and corrupt East India employees. Masson seemed consigned to obscurity, but today his discoveries are collected and cataloged at the British Museum and the British Library. Richardson’s biography, of a man who burned with the fire of discovery, completes his story.

Captivating biography of an archaeological pioneer sure to please history fans and students of the spy game.