"A second trench was started in the western portion of this mound, but I was so completely bewildered by the enormous accumulations of earth that had to be cleared away that it appeared futile to continue it at the present stage."
At this point Sahni is also able to reflect back and assess Cunningham's description of the mounds at Harappa:
"General Cunninghan states in his Archaeological Survey Report (Volume V, page 108) that Harappa had yielded thousands of coins of the Indo-Scythians and their successors. Neither Pandit Hira Nanda nor Mr. Hargreaves and Mr. Gupte obtained any such coins during their visits to Harappa, and although I myself saw a few Mughal coins with the villagers, there was not a single one of a pre-Mohammadan period. It appeared strange, therefore, that if coins of the Indo-Scythians and their successors had been as abundant on this site as described by General Cunningham, our enquiries for them should have been so futile. My excavations prove the General’s statement to be definitely incorrect, for although hundreds of other small thing.s were found, the operations did not bring to light a single coin of any kind. Why this is so I am at present unable to explain.
"Nor did I find any stone images. That stone was employed in the construction of houses on this site in the Maurya arid later periods is apparent from the few pieces found in the area to the west of the Naogaza. The only other objects in this material that were discovered during my excavations and those of General Cunningham were a number of small implements in a soft, dull cream-coloured kind of stone which the (General believed to have been used for scraping wood or leather.1
No objects in any kind of metal were found except one or two iron nails and a hollow bead of gold, which latter might have been dropped on the site in modern times."
- Daya Ram Sahni, Annual Progress Report of the Archaeological Survey [of India], Hindu and Buddhist Monuments, Northern Circle for the Year Ending 31st March 1921, p. 11-12.
"It is not clear where this excavation is, but similar deposits were encountered by Wheeler when he excavated a long trench along the western edge of the mound. Eventually he was able to identify the mudbrick perimeter wall surrounding Mound AB. In excavations by the HARP, after removing the overlying debris layers it was possible to identify massive mudbrick platforms of the Harappa Phase and beneath was the undisturbed Early Harappa Mound."
- Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, 2021.