Discovering the Harappan civilisation
Cunningham, Marshall, Wheeler and how archaeologists pieced together the past.
The essentials
Harappan sites were known long before anyone realised how old they were. Alexander Cunningham, the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), visited Harappa in the nineteenth century, but he was mainly interested in the period described by Chinese Buddhist pilgrims and in early historic India. He did not recognise how ancient the site was, even when a seal was found there.
In the early twentieth century, seals were found at Harappa by Daya Ram Sahni, and at Mohenjodaro by Rakhal Das Banerji. Comparing them, John Marshall, then Director-General of the ASI, announced the discovery of a new civilisation in the Indus valley in 1924. This changed the understanding of Indian history, pushing it back by many centuries.
Marshall dug in uniform horizontal units across the whole mound, ignoring the stratigraphy (the layers) of the site. As a result, objects from different layers were grouped together and much information about their context was lost. R.E.M. Wheeler, who became Director-General in 1944, corrected this by following the layers of deposits.
Key points
- Stratigraphy: the study of layers of a site; lower layers are generally older.
- After Partition (1947), major sites like Harappa and Mohenjodaro fell in Pakistan, so Indian archaeologists explored sites in India, such as in Gujarat, Rajasthan and Haryana.
- Archaeologists use "frames of reference" to classify finds by material, function and context.
- Interpretation is often indirect: an object's use is guessed from its shape, where it was found, and comparison with present-day practices.
Exam tips
- Match each archaeologist with what he did: Cunningham (first DG, missed the antiquity), Marshall (announced new civilisation, horizontal digging), Wheeler (stratigraphy).
Common mistakes
- Thinking Cunningham discovered the Harappan civilisation. He visited Harappa but did not identify it as a separate, older civilisation.
- Assuming Marshall's method was scientific by modern standards; it ignored layers.