Story of Discovery of Mohenjodaro

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By the beginning of the twentieth century, archaeologists and historians in India were becoming familiar with an ancient city located in the Indus Valley which was known as Harappa. However, people did not know who had built and lived in the city or when it had been built.

About 600 kilometres away from Harappa was the site of another ruined city. Local people knew of these ruins which were close to the modern town of Dokri. However, the site was not thought to be very old.

In about 1910-11, archaeologists from the Archaeological Survey of India visited the site near Dokri. They examined a stupa from the second century B.C. which stood high on a mound of bricks and earth. The archaeologists also noted many large mounds of earth covering a large area of ground.

Several years later, an archaeologist named Rakhal Das Banerji visited the site. Banerji believed that buried beneath the mounds of earth were the ruins of an old city. In the next few years, Banerji visited Mohenjo-daro several times and began to believe that it was in fact a very ancient site. Early excavations at Mohenjo-daro

In about 1920 there was enough interest in the site of Mohenjo-daro for the archaeologist Rakhal Das Banerji to excavate there. In the 1921-22 season Banerji began his excavations.

In this first season Banerji’s team found the remains of a large city built mainly from baked brick. However, they did not know when it might have been built or who might have built it.

Banerji’s team found objects such as weights, beads and finely painted pottery. Perhaps the most important finds were small square seals like the ones found at Harappa in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1924 the objects found at Mohenjo-daro were compared with some found at Harappa. Many objects were so similar in material and construction that the archaeologists believed they might have been made by people sharing the same culture.

The work at Mohenjo-daro was successful. The possibility that objects from the site might be related to those from Harappa was exciting for the archaeologists. The next step was to explore the site more completely. So large-scale excavations were planned for Mohenjo-daro under the guidance of Sir John Marshall who was the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India.

Excavations continued throughout the 1920s and 1930s with several teams of excavators. During this period, the site was divided into different areas. Each area was given a ‘title’ based on the name of the archaeologist working there.
HR Area = Harold Hargreaves
DK Area = Kashinath Narayan Dikshit
L Area = Ernest J.H. Mackay
VS Area = Madho Sarup Vats
SD Area = A.D. Siddiqi

Ernest J.H. Mackay followed Sir John Marshall as the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India. He continued working at Mohenjo-daro until about 1934. For several years afterwards, he worked on writing a report of the excavations at Mohenjo-daro.

Around 1935 excavation stopped at Mohenjo-daro. However, Sir Mortimer Wheeler began excavations at the site again in 1950. Wheeler was able to build upon the work of the previous excavators and bring modern archaeological methods to the study of the site and objects found there.

Source:British Museum

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