What started as a reasoned debate on funding turned, halfway through the 1890s, into something more conspiratorial.

Some reputations – notably those of Alois Führer, Vincent Smith, and Rhys Davids – need radical revision. Yet let us strive to look on the bright side. The Royal Asiatic Society (RAS) Council proved capable of purging one, at least, of the wrong-doers, and of preventing any more archaeological lies being disseminated in its name.

The wild story of how the British Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) actually went down.