Wonder land: Discovery of Harappa and Mohenjodaro 100 years ago

A hundred years ago, on September 20, 1924, John Marshall, the then Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), wrote in the Illustrated London News announcing to the world the discovery of Harappa in western Punjab and Mohenjodaro in Sindh.

Daya Ram Sahni had begun excavating Harappa in 1921 and Rakhal Das Banerji initiated excavations at Mohenjodaro from 1922 onwards. It was only when the three sat together in June 1924 that they realised that similar artefacts had been found at both these sites and these belonged to a much earlier civilisation than what was historically known at the time.

Prior to 1924, it was the Mauryan dynasty that marked the beginning of the historical period in the subcontinent. Thus, the significance of the discovery was fourfold — it was not just that our history was pushed back by several centuries, but we also got to know about cities that had once existed in the deep past and had long been forgotten, about which there were no references in our historical texts. Above all, it marked the beginning of the golden years of archaeological research in South Asia.

What this discovery enabled was the recognition that there could be other ways of knowing the past and one that was not dependent on textual evidence. The discovery of Harappa and Mohenjodaro triggered a search for more such cities that belonged to the Indus civilisation and over the next several decades, hundreds of these sites — large, medium and small — were found in an area extending from Afghanistan to Baluchistan, Punjab and Sindh in Pakistan, as well as Haryana, Punjab, western Uttar Pradesh, northern Rajasthan and Gujarat in India.

Other than Harappa and Mohenjodaro, remains of three other big cities — Ganweriwala in the Cholistan desert in Pakistan, Rakhigarhi in Haryana and Dholavira in Gujarat — have been found. Equally important was the discovery of Indus objects in Mesopotamian cities and vice versa. The realisation that there were so many settlements in northwest India which used the same kinds of objects and that there had been contact between the Mesopotamian and the Indus people in turn triggered a host of questions for the archaeologists to think about and carry out further research. For instance, if similar objects are used across different sites, does this mean a common ideology, or do these mark social or political boundaries? Could finding Indus objects in Mesopotamian cities and Mesopotamian objects in Indus cities indicate movements of people and goods across seas?

Along with people and objects, seeds too were transported, introducing new crops. For instance, sesame may have been introduced to Mesopotamia due to contact with the Indus people.

In the 1920s, the archaeologists remained focused on the large cities of Harappa and Mohenjodaro, but in 1931, a much smaller town, Chanhudaro in Sindh, was excavated by NG Majumdar. With the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, the ASI turned its attention to Indus sites such as Kalibangan in Rajasthan, Lothal in Gujarat and Banawali in Haryana. Along with the ASI, several Indian universities too began excavating many of the smaller Indus sites in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Haryana.

The two largest Indus sites in India, Rakhigarhi and Dholavira, even though they had been discovered in the 1960s, were excavated by the ASI from 1990s onwards.

It is also interesting to track the changing nature of archaeological research over the last 100 years. During the first 60 years or so, archaeologists limited the excavations to exposing the larger buildings and finding objects. However, from the 1980s, more attention began to be given to recovering micro artefacts, along with faunal and plant material. This kind of data helped us to better understand Indus crafts, technologies, agriculture and pastoralism. In the last two decades, there has been a further advancement in archaeological practices, including paleopathological studies of human skeletal remains, ancient DNA studies, starch and lipid residue analyses, climate proxy record about rainfall distribution and intensity, which have opened possibilities to understand matrilocality migrations, stress, trauma, climate change, health, diet and nutrition.

At the same time, archaeologists have also begun exploring issues related to households, women, children as well as social stratification and inequalities that may have marked Indus communities.

Initially, it was thought that all the Indus cities were quite like each other, including the houses people lived in as well as the objects they used. However, with growing archaeological research, it soon became evident that there were substantial differences across various sites. For example, Harappa was not the same as Mohenjodaro, Dholavira or Rakhigarhi. Not just in the form of the cities and houses, but also in the kinds of objects found. There were divergent water management systems too across settlements. While numerous wells were found at Mohenjodaro, very few existed at Harappa, suggesting that the residents would have relied on the Ravi river for water. In contrast, at Dholavira, we come across stone-built reservoirs for storing water as well as dams built across seasonal streams. At Rakhigarhi, the residents would have relied largely on ponds and wells for water.

In many ways, the history of archaeological research on the Indus civilisation over the last 100 years is the story of the discipline of archaeology in India. It was the discovery of Harappa and Mohenjodaro that got us attention from across the world. The announcement made people realise that South Asia had a civilisation that was almost as old as that in Egypt and Mesopotamia. As archaeological methods became more and more sophisticated, many of these were used to pose challenging questions about the Indus civilisation. At the same time, I cannot help but flag a fallout too of this great revelation. Undoubtedly, fascinating archaeological research on this civilisation has been undertaken not just in the past but continues even now, but it has been at the cost of all other chronologies and geographies in the subcontinent.

What are the possible reasons for the neglect of other equally compelling places that lie buried or traces of which are found above ground in South Asia and whose stories remain to be told? Is this the only civilisation in South Asia that matters for the identity of our nation? And what happens when the settlements that were once part of this civilisation get divided across two nations? How do the narratives of the same civilisation get impacted across these countries? Are there any lessons to be drawn from this civilisation that spread across Afghanistan, Pakistan and India? What kept it together for 700 years? Was it relative egalitarianism and collective action that held together this civilisation over this long period, despite a wide range of communities with varying identities living in the different settlements over this vast territory?

The writer is Professor of Archaeology at Azim Premji University. The opinions expressed are personal