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encyclopedia
ARCHAEOLOGY
Preliminary excavations at Harappa by D.R. Sahni in 1921 and
by R.D. Banerjee at Mohenjo-Daro in 1922 were reported by John
Marshall in the
Illustrated London News
on September 2C}, 1924.
Excavations on a large scale were conducted by Marshall and
E.J.H. Mackay at Mohenjo-Daro from 1924 onward and reports
were published in 1931 and 1938. Simultaneously M.S. Vats
excavated the already quarried mound of Harappa and published
the report in 1940. Aurel Stein surveyed Baluchistan, Swat valley
and South-Eastern Iran and published his reports on the chal-
colithic sites, most of which yielded pre-Harappan or Harappan
artefacts. Among them Amri, Rana Ghundai, Kulli and Nundara are
important. In post-partition India there was hardly any trace of
Indus Civilisation except at Rangpur in Saurashtra and Kotla
Nihang in Punjab. S.R. Rao excavated Rangpur in 1953-54 after
three earlier excavators Vats, Gurhye and Sankalia had differed on
the Harappan affinity of Rangpur. Rao found brick platforms,
drains, pottery, beads, weights and blades characteristic of mature
Harappa Culture. He also brought to light the destruction of the
town by floods and subsequent decline in the cultural equipment
ending in a transformation by 1700 B.C. The cultural sequence of
Rangpur clearly distinguishing the mature and late phases of Har-
appa Culture as well as the post-Harappa Culture using the Lus-
trous Red Ware pottery is taken as an index for excavations at
other Harappan sites. Rao continued the survey of the Sabarmati
estuary and discovered the Harappan port city of Lothal in Novem-
ber 1954 and excavated the site from 1955 to 1962. The reports are
published in two volumes. In the north A. Ghosh’s survey of the
extinct Sarasvati (Ghaggar) and Drishdvati (Chautang) rivers in
Rajasthan resulted in the discovery of Kalibangan and Sothi Cul-
ture sites. B.K. Thapar and B.B. Lai excavated Kalibangan from
1961 to 1969 but the report is not yet published. Extensive explo -
ration of Gujarat carried out by Rao, R.N. Mehta and P.P. Pandya, in
Gujarat added 277 sites of Indus Civilization and its devolutionary
phases. Similarly 65 sites in Haryana, 100 sites in Punjab (India),
83 in Rajasthan and 81 in Uttar Pradesh have been located by Y.D.
Sharma, Suraj Bhan, K.N. Dikshit and others. (Rao. S.R. 1991
Appendix II). Among the recently excavated sites Dholavira (Ko-
tada) and Surkotada in Kutch are important. Wheeler’s excavation
of Harappa in 1946 brought to light the fortifications and the
relative sequence of mature Harappa and Cemetery ‘h
1
cultures.
Excavation by G.F. Dales at Harappa in 1986 and at Mohenjo-
Daro in 1964-66 not only disproved the invasion and massacre
theories of earlier excavators but also supplied enough evidence for
the simplification of the Indus pictorial script into a cursive script in
the late levels confirming the earlier evidence from Lothal and
Rangpur and thereby facilitating the decoding of the Indus script
(Rao S.R. 1982 and 1991). Till recently the Harappa Civilisation
was believed to have sprung suddenly in its mature urban form at
Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and Chanhu-Daro, but recent researches
at Kalibangan and Surkotada in India and Kot Diji and Amri in
Pakistan have revealed the devolutionary phases of the Indus
Civilisation.
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