Kurush F Dalal is the Director of the School of Archaeology at INSTUCEN Trust. He has a BA in Ancient Indian History and History from the University of Mumbai, an MA in Archaeology as well as a Ph.D. in the Early Iron Age in Rajasthan, both from Deccan College, Pune University. Subsequently, he shifted focus to the Early Medieval Period predominantly on the West Coast of India, and excavated the sites of Sanjan, Chandore, and Mandad. These excavations and the data recovered have had a strong impact on scholarship in the region. The recent Mandad excavations have revealed a brand new hitherto unknown Indo-Roman Port site with antecedents going back even further. Dr. Dalal also actively works on Memorial Stones and Ass-curse Stones in India and dabbles in Numismatics, Defence Archaeology, Architecture, Ethnoarchaeology, and allied disciplines.
He is the Co-Director of the Salsette Explorations Project, a massive Urban Archaeology Project documenting the Archaeology of Mumbai since 2015, thus extending his interest from the Medieval into the Colonial Period. He has published over 35 papers and has read many more at National and International Seminars. He is a visiting lecturer at various Universities, Colleges, Schools, and Government Institutions. He taught archaeology and allied subjects at the University of Mumbai for 10 years. He has recently blended his passion for food and archaeology into research in Culinary Anthropology and Food Archaeology. He runs a very successful course called The Studying Food Workshop teaching food beyond the usual topics. He has made the most of the lockdown teaching via Instagram Lives and by teaching at various online platforms like Mythopia and INSTUCEN.