How was the Indus Valley discovered?
The Indus river became the centre of an ancient civilisation known as the Indus Valley
Civilisation. Unlike the Egyptians, the Indus people did not leave huge monuments behind
with treasure filled tombs depicting their history. In fact, very little was known about the
Indus Valley civilisation until quite recently.
In the Indian village of Harappa there was a very old ruined castle that stood on a hill,
although visitors to the village were shown the ruins, no one really knew what they were for
or where they had come from (some believe that the castle belonged to an evil king).
In 1823, an English traveller, Charles Masson visited North West India. During his visit to
Harappa, in 1826, he too was shown the ruins and described what he saw: “In Harappa a
ruined brick castle with very high walls and towers, built on a hill.”
Some years later, in 1853, an archaeologist named Sir Alexander Cunningham visited the
same location. However, on arrival he noticed that any ruins had been completely knocked
down and only a huge mound of stone and rubble now marked
the site of what once may have been a grand building.
Sir Alexander didn’t leave despite his findings, but instead was
more intrigued. He searched carefully through the rubble and
was rewarded when he found some small square stones. These
stones stood out from the rest as they were highly polished
and were engraved with pictures of animal and other designs,
designs which no one had found in India before.
In 1856 Robert Brunton was supervising British engineers who were building the first
railway from India to Pakistan. He order them to use bricks from the ruins for the railway
not realising these were part of an ancient civilisation. The local people told the engineers
about this ancient city but thousands of ancient bricks had already been used under the
railway.
A mound of ruined bricks, similar to that in Harappa, was located four hundred miles away.
The locals believed that this was a very old burial site, and called it Mohenjo-daro (which
means Mound of the Dead).
Another archaeologist R D Banerji, who searched the remains in 1919 and 1920, found
polished stones. The stones found are believed to be approximately 3500 years old. It was
Banerji who began to think there was an ancient city buried beneath mounds of earth and
believed that they area should be protected from further destruction.
In 1921 an Indian archaeologist, known as Daya Ram Sahni was paid by the Indian
Government to supervise the excavation of Harappa. He uncovered evidence of an ancient
civilisation. Sahni discovered the ruins of a very large building with six large halls and,
although no one knows for sure what the building was really used for, some people believe it
may have been a palace. Many houses were also found beneath the surface. Within them,
archaeologists found a great deal of objects such as jewellery (made from precious metals
and stones), tools (made from copper) and toys (made from stone).
Nobody knows much about the people who lived in the
Indus valley 4500 years ago, but we do know they were
some of the first people on earth to live in cities.
New discoveries are being made all the time, especially
as the latest archaeological expedition only began in
Harappa in 2013. Unfortunately time is against us as only
about 10% of the ancient city Mohenjo-daro has been
uncovered and water from local farms is eroding the
bricks meaning that the city may be lost forever in the
next twenty to thirty years.