Charles Masson

Charles Masson (1800–1853) was the pseudonym of James Lewis, a British East India Company soldier, independent explorer and pioneering archaeologist and numismatist. He was the first European to discover the ruins of Harappa near Sahiwal in Punjab, now in Pakistan. He found the ancient city of Alexandria in the Caucasus (modern Begram) dating to Alexander the Great. He unlocked the now-extinct script known as Kharoshthi. At the time of the 1838 First Anglo-Afghan War, Masson had spent more time in Afghanistan than any other British subject. He was a minority voice critical of the invasion and accurately predicted it would be a disaster for the British Empire. Provided by Wikipedia