banner 1 banner 2 banner 3

An Upper Paleolithic Shrine in India?

Jonathan Mark Kenoyer

Although some have their doubts about religious interpretations for what they call "esoteric archaeological finds,' nevertheless it is stated in this article that there is a very probability that the structure and the stone represent a shrine to the goddess, or female principle, 'Shakti.' There is also a podcast about the article. >

An Interview with Asko Parpola

An exclusive interview with Dr. Asko Parpola, the leading scholar of the ancient Indus script and author of numerous books on the subject. Few scholars have looked at ancient Indus signs for as long, or as carefully and in the context of what we know about other contemporary Bronze Age civilizations. >

An Indus Concordance and Tamil Potsherds, Now Online

For nearly fifty years one the more useful object in Indus script studies has been a book almost nobody could get hold of: Iravatham Mahadevan's The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables (1977, Memoir No. 77 of the Archaeological Survey of India). It is the reference many researchers work from. >

The Unicorn and the Dancing Girl

During a recent online discussion, Salima Hashmi, daughter of the great Pakistani poet poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz, mentioned that he had written a single English poem, The Unicorn and the Dancing Girl. It was published, amended most likely by Faiz himself, in the book The Unicorn and the Dancing Girl in 1988. The original version was published in 1961. >

Richard Meadow (1946-2026)

It is with real sadness that I report the passing away of Dr. Richard H. Meadow, Director of the Zooarcheaology Laboratory at the Peabody Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology at Harvard University. He was also one of the key contributors to Harappa.com – in fact it was an email from him in 1995 that set me down the road to building Harappa.com as a website that ultimately became fully dedicated to the ancient Indus civilization. >

Sunset at Mohenjo-daro

The sun sets on the Stupa Mound at Mohenjo-daro in early 2026 [Image 1]. The so-called "Divinity Lane" at Mohenjo-daro [2] separates the Stupa from the Great Bath, "College" and other areas. >

Mohenjo-daro Movie at Two Indian Film Festivals

Mohenjo-daro: Unsealing an Ancient Indus City has been selected for two upcoming film fests in India, the 15th Bangalore Shorts Film Fest, where it will be shown on June 21st, 2026. It has also been selected for the 9th South Asian Short Film Festival (SASFF) in Kolkata, where it will be shown on July 8th in the 1 pm slot at NANDAN – The Film Centre. >

A Visit to the Metropolitan's Indus Collection II

A decade after writing about a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York's small Indus collection, I returned to find a number of new objects on display and others removed from view. Unfortunately. the larger issue with the display had not been solved. >

Mohenjo-daro in the 1960s

You could walk through the Great Bath, women wore saris, and in Karachi and Bombay, people were listening to the Beatles Yesterday on Radio Ceylon. >

An Archaeological Site in the AI Jungle

What are the AI platforms doing to websites like Harappa.com which have been around since the dawn of the Internet? Like colonial powers, they happily claim territory through extra-legal procedures (although they are said to be far more intelligent than human beings, they can't understand our terms of service which kindly asks them to not crawl!). >

An Interview with Romila Thapar

An exclusive interview with Dr. Romila Thapar, one of India's most distinguished historians, author of numerous books on early Indian history, and winner of the US Library of Congress Kluge Prize for lifetime achievement. >