The project focuses on towers constructed for the purpose of surveying and mapping India in the 19th century by the GTS. Led by George Everest in the 1820s and 1830s, teams of skilled surveyors used these towers for their trigonometrical survey work, covering the entire sub-continent with a network of ‘triangulation stations’. With the approaching bicentenary marking when George Everest first began his work with the Great Trigonometrical Survey (GTS) of India, the time is right to raise greater awareness and appreciation of the cultural legacies of the GTS, including its surviving monuments and infrastructure.

Today, these GTS survey towers stand as a testament to the enterprise, determination and ingenuity of all those who mapped India two hundred years ago. Based on the research carried out through the Surveying Empires project, this web-site shows something of what survives in the landscapes of West Bengal from this huge and ambitious effort to map India.

The project web-site is accessible here-- http://surveyingempires.org/

"Surveying Empires" is a collaborative project between Queen’s University Belfast (UK) and the University of Calcutta (India) and benefitted from funding granted by the British Academy through its International Mobilities and Partnerships programme. The project has drawn from the expertise and support of the Centre for Data Digitisation and Analysis (CDDA) and Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork at Queen’s University Belfast, and the Department of Archaeology of the University of Calcutta.

The project was directed by Professor Keith Lilley, an historical geographer at QUB, and Professor Bishnupriya Basak, an historical archaeologist at UC.

The fieldwork and project also involved Dr Satish Kumar, a development geographer at QUB, Dr Siobhán McDermott, a field archaeologist based at QUB in the Centre for Archaeological Fieldwork (CAF), Dr Sharmistha Chatterjee, a landscape archaeologist at UC, and Professor Rajat Sanyal, a buildings archaeologist at UC.