A commissioned survey is a kind of archaeological and social survey performed in return for money or goods.
Typically, they were conducted in the pre colonial Era

Colony

In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies. Some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception....

, as part of Age of European Enlightenment to study territories before colonization. They would usually extend to significant and detailed efforts by trading companies to study institutions of indigenous communities as a precursor to colonial powers exerting colonial supremacy. An example would be when soldiers of East India Company

East India Company

The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...

 were paid a fees to study exotic lands, customs, cultures and literatures of the colonized world.
The end product of a commissioned survey would usually be a report or book in a European language

Languages of Europe

Most of the languages of Europe belong to Indo-European language family. These are divided into a number of branches, including Romance, Germanic, Balto-Slavic, Greek, and others. The Uralic languages also have a significant presence in Europe, including the national languages Hungarian, Finnish,...

, which could form a basis for law making

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

by colonial powers.