The Rediscovery of the Ancient Indus Civilization, 1924

The re-discovery of the ancient Indus Civilization actually was announced in yesterday's version of a tabloid, the pictorial weekly The Illustrated London News on September 20, 1924. "The two sites where these somewhat startling remains have been discovered are some 400 miles apart – the one being at Harappa in the Montgomery District of the Panjab, and the other at Mohenjo-daro in the Larkana District of Sindh. At both these places there is a vast expanse of artificial mounds evidently covering the remains of once flourishing cities, which . . . must have been in existence for many hundreds of years." The excavations at Mohenjo-daro were made by Mr. Banerji. "At Harappa, Mr. Daya Ram Sahni's excavations disclosed as many as seven or eight successive levels, demonstrating the long and continuous occupation of the site during many hundreds of years prior to the third century B.C." However, it would take a letter to the editor in the next issue to allow the archaeologists to fix a set of dates for this civilization, so unexpected was its appearance.