This paper adds to the history of Indian archaeology a new chapter. It discusses and analyzes Simone Corbiau’s archaeological expedition to North-West Frontier Province and the Malakand Political Agency in 1938. Corbiau was a Belgian archaeologist having interest in pre-/protohistoric terracottas. In the first place, we give a scholarly background to her research so as to understand the importance of the work. In the early 1930s, D.H. Gordon published some terracotta objects from the then NWFP and Corbiau’s disagreement with him about dating the materials brought her into India in 1936. She did fieldwork and its results were immediately published. Corbiau visited India for the second time in 1938 but her expedition this time could not meet success. She made an unsuccessful attempt to work at Malakand and Swat, in addition to Peshawar, Mardan and Swabi, and it is this obscured story in the history of the area’s archaeology that this paper entirely deals with. We argue that despite the desperate support provided by the Archaeological Survey of India to the party, colonial geostrategic politics coupled with some inherent operational shortcomings in the project doomed it to failure.

中文翻译：

---

追寻前史/原始史：西蒙娜·科比奥 (Simone Corbiau) 对英属印度西北边境省的考古探险失败

这篇论文为印度考古学的历史增添了新的篇章。它讨论和分析了 Simone Corbiau 于 1938 年对西北边境省和马拉坎德政治机构的考古考察。Corbiau 是比利时考古学家，对史前/原始史前兵马俑很感兴趣。首先，我们为她的研究提供学术背景，以便了解这项工作的重要性。在 1930 年代初期，DH Gordon 发表了一些来自当时 NWFP 的赤土陶器，Corbiau 与他在 1936 年将她带到印度的材料约会的问题上存在分歧。她进行了实地调查，其结果立即发表。科比奥于 1938 年第二次访问印度，但这次她的探险未能取得成功。除了白沙瓦，她还尝试在马拉坎德和斯瓦特工作，但没有成功，Mardan 和 Swabi，而本文完全处理的正是该地区考古史上这个晦涩难懂的故事。我们认为，尽管印度考古调查局为该党提供了绝望的支持，但殖民地缘政治政治加上该项目中一些固有的操作缺陷，注定了它的失败。