Excavations at Chanhu-daro 1935-36
The original article by Ernest Mackay on the excavations he led at a key ancient Indus site known for fine craftsmanship, with all 10 plates.
New! Unearthing the Mysteries of Harappa 1923-24
We are delighted to publish a new set of over 50 photographs from Daya Ram Sahni's second season at Harappa in 1923-24, before he or anyone knew about the ancient Indus civilization. Unearthing the Mysteries of Harappa is unique contribution to Indus archaeology curated by Dr. Nadine Zubair with contemporary commentary by Dr. Jonathan Mark Kenoyer.
Building a Heterarchic Society The Concept of City and Urban Life in the Indus Civilization
27:51
Drs. Dennis Frenez and Massimo Vidale, two leading Indus scholars discuss the layout and features in Mohenjo-daro, including the so-called "Little Great Bath" and Indus water symbolism. Interesting conjectures around, for example, structures around trees in the city, as well as some of the more interesting houses in the city's HR-A area, including Marshall's House VIII that suggests some houses endured, with changes, for centuries. Were each of the mounds built with separate citadels? Could different groups have been in power at different times, instead of single kings ruling?
A Toponym in Chanhu-daro?
Can potential place-names in Indus inscriptions be isolated?
Dr. Asko Parpola, in by far best single book on the subject, Decipering the Indus Script, after discussing how place names survive in people's names in Dravidian-speaking South India today, where "the name of the ancestral village often forms the first element of a person's proper name," continues by saying that "a similar survival of Harappan place-names in the Greater Indus Valley is not at all unlikely (§ 9.4).
Chanhu-daro in Boston
The Museum of Fine Arts (MoFA) in Boston, USA has the largest collection of Indus artifacts outside India and Pakistan. MoFA collaborated with the American School of Indic and Iranian Studies in 1935-36 to excavate Chanhu-daro in Sindh, Pakistan, then British India. This mysterious, small and sophisticated craft manufacturing town about 80 miles south of Mohenjo-daro was discovered by N. G. Majumdar in 1931. He and the leader of the Chanhu-daro excavations Ernest J.H.
Queen Puabi of Ur's Burial Shroud
It is ironic that what is possibly one of the most spectacular examples of Indus craftsmanship and artistry was found not at Mohenjo-daro or Harappa, or even in the subcontinent, but in ancient Mesopotamia.
