Imtiaz Qureshi: Added some details w/ sources

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Added some details w/ sources

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'''W. K. Tucker''' (born about 1875, died 15 May 1934, in [[Nairobi]]), otherwise William King-Tucker, known as Colonel W. K. Tucker. He served in various branches of the Indian Army mainly in the Supply and Transport Corps. His official honours and gazetted dates included C.B.E. (Commander of the [[Order of the British Empire]]), awarded 3 June 1919 in the King’s Birthday Honours for valuable services rendered in India in connection with the [[World War I]]. In the 1920s, following his retirement from the Indian Army, he moved to [[Nairobi]], [[Kenya]], where he became a prominent political figure and a member of the [[Legislative Council of Kenya]] (LegCo).

Aside from his administrative and later political contributions, Tucker is known for his archaeological excavations in [[Sulur]] (a town and taluk in the [[Coimbatore]] district). These focused on Megalithic burial sites (often called 'graves' in older records) in Sulur. The materials were gifted to the [[British Museum]] by Tucker's wife, Constance Mary Tucker in 1935 after her husband's demise.<ref>The Tucker material in the British Museum is in the 1935,0419 series, see https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/. Constance Mary Tucker died in [[Bath, Somerset]] in 1951 and is not to be confused with the earlier [[Charlotte Maria Tucker]].</ref>
[[File:Small finds from Sulur.jpg|thumb|Sulur (Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu). Selection of small finds from [[Sulur]] excavated by Col. W. K. Tucker, now in the [[British Museum]]]]
Horace C. Beck analysed the materials excavated by Tucker.<ref>H. C. Beck, "Notes on Sundry Asiatic Beads," ''Man'' 30 (Oct. 1930), pp. 166-82 (No. 134), online: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2790463</ref> His study provided a detailed analysis of the beads, and the Eran-type punch-marked coin found by Tucker in the Sulur graves help point to an early date for the sites. The pottery analysis includes the first formal descriptions of the 'graffiti' or symbols found on the pottery that Tucker unearthed. The pottery has drawn the particular attention of Iravatham Mahadevan. He uses the Sulur pottery and other graffiti as critical evidence for the 'Deep Dravidian' roots of the Indus script.<ref>I. Mahadevan, "The Indus-like Symbols on Megalithic Pottery: New evidence," ''Studia Orientalia'' 94 (2001), pp. 379-386. https://journal.fi/store/article/view/43982, with online versions available on different platforms. Also see Mahadevan, ''Early Tamil Epigraphy From The Earliest Times To The Sixth Century A. D.'' (Chennai, 2003), online at: https://archive.org/details/iravatham-mahadevan-early-tamil-epigraphy-from-the-earliest-times-to-the-sixth-century-a.-d./mode/2up.</ref>

Tucker's work is sometimes cited in general surveys of South Indian prehistory, such as ''The Megalithic Culture in South India'' by B. K. Gururaja Rao and ''The Iron Age in South India'' by K. Rajan.<ref>B. K. Gururaja Rao, Megalithic Culture in South India (Prasaranga, University of Mysore, 1972); K. Rajan, ''Archaeological Gazetteer of Tamil Nadu'' (Thanjavur: Manoo Pathipakam, 1997).</ref> Rajan in particular describes Tucker as a pioneer and credits him with some of the earliest recorded observations of the Noyyal River Valley sites that modern archaeology has confirmed to be one of the most densely populated Iron Age regions in the world.

==References==
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[[Category:British India]]
[[Category:1934 deaths]]
[[Category:Year of birth missing]]
[[Category:Indian Army]]
[[Category:People from British India]]
[[Category:Archaeology]]
[[Category:History of Kenya]]
[[Category:1870s births]]

W. K. Tucker - Revision history

Imtiaz Qureshi: Added some details w/ sources