Visits to ancient Indus objects in museums on three continents.

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. Mackay had both worked at Mohenjo-daro earlier in the decade, so one can only imagine how thrilled they were to find another p… >

A Visit to the Metropolitan's Indus Collection

On a recent trip to New York, I was able to get away for an afternoon to explore the ancient Indus collection at that battleship of a museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. I found the Indus collection split between two rooms, 234 in the Asian Art and 403 in the Ancient Near Eastern Art sections, with a nice long walk in between. >

The Great Jar of Chanhu-daro

"Jar painted with birds. 2600-1900 BC, Terracotta with red slip and black painted decoration," is what the unvarnished description at the Museum of Fine Arts (MoFA), Boston reads; in truth this is one of the largest and most richly painted ancient Indus pots ever found. >

A Carnelian Feast at the British Museum

On a recent visit to London, I decided to have another look at the British Museum's handful of Indus objects. They are usually displayed – with little celebration, given their importance, like the first seal ever found at Harappa . . . >

More on Queen Puabi of Ur

A look at some of the other artifacts we have from this extraordinary female ruler of the Mesopotamian city-state of Ur around 2500 BCE. >

Sumatran Ship Cloths

A recent exhibition of Sumatran (Indonesian) ceremonial hangings in cotton and silk from the 19th century at the De Young Museum in San Francisco made me wonder whether such textiles were also in vogue in another maritime culture, the ancient Indus, whose boats would not seem out of place in these examples. >

Indus Objects at the National Museum of Pakistan, Karachi

A new 37 (to start) slide section takes the viewer through the ancient Indus pieces at the National Museum of Pakistan in Karachi. Pakistan's ancient Indus holdings are actually scattered across provincial, national and site museum collections. >

An Awesome Indus Exhibition Catalogue (free!)

Rediscovering Harappa | Through the Five Elements, A Special Exhibition at the Lahore Museum is an awesome catalogue that speaks to the process of coming to grips with Indus artefacts at the Lahore Museum in 2016. >

Ancient Indus @ the Ashmolean Oxford

On a recent visit to Oxford, I used my iPhone 15 to take a closer look at a diverse set of ancient Indus objects, some of them acquired after colonial times, in one of the world's great university museums. >

The Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project

A really nice and well-written blog entry about the analysis of bones and other material from ancient Dilmun [Bahrain], before we even knew where the civilization lay. >