Chennai honours the pioneering Indus Valley archaeologist Sir John Marshall

Bishop Dr J Ravikumar Stephen G, of Chennai, reports on a statue honouring the centenary of the work of Sir John Marshall, the archaeologist who identified the Indus Valley civilisation:

‘I am pleased to share with you that the Government of Tamil Nadu has paid tribute to Sir John Marshall, the esteemed Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, by installing a statue in his honor. The statue has been placed in front of the historic Museum Theatre in Madras (now Chennai), a location that holds great cultural and historical significance.

As a pioneering archaeologist, Sir John Marshall’s contributions to the exploration and preservation of India’s heritage — particularly his role in uncovering the grandeur of the Indus Valley Civilization — have left an indelible mark on the field of archaeology. This gesture by the Tamil Nadu government serves as a fitting recognition of his remarkable legacy’.

The Bishop is anxious to obtain photographs of any memorials to Marshall in the UK (or elsewhere) and would like to contact Marshall’s descendants:

‘The Centenary Celebrations of the Indus Valley Civilization excavations will continue until September 2025, and the Government of Tamil Nadu wishes to involve the family members of Sir John Marshall in these events as a tribute to his legacy’.

John Marshall 1876-1958

John Marshall’s pioneering work at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, uncovering the Indus Valley’s sophisticated planned cities of well-built brick houses and water conduits dating from around 3000 BC, began in the 1920s.

Born in Chester in 1876, Marshall was educated at Dulwich College, London, and King’s College, Cambridge. After receiving ‘an excellent training in classical archaeology’, he worked on the excavation of various sites in Crete, including Knossos, under Sir Arthur Evans and the British School in Athens, and was appointed Director of the Archaeological Survey of India in 1902.

Full of enthusiasm to fulfil this role – which the new Viceroy, Lord Curzon, made clear included responsibility for preserving ancient monuments as well as conducting archaeological research – Marshall and his wife arrived in India in spring 1902. Over the next decade he implemented strictly scientific methods in archaeological excavations – at Charsadda on the Swat river (identified with Pushkalavati, the ancient capital of Gandhara); at Rajgir (formerly Rajagriha, the ‘mountain-girdled’ capital of Magadha); at Sarnath (near Varanasi, famous as the site of Buddha’s first sermon); at the site of the ancient city of Sravasti and the adjoining Buddhist monastery Jetavana, and at Bhita, near Allahabad.

During the ensuing 20 years Marshall oversaw the three momentous archaeological projects for which he became internationally recognised: Sanchi in Central India – with a fascinating group of early Buddhist monuments, described in his 1940 monograph; Taxila in the Punjab, and Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, where the trial digs directed by his colleagues Mr Daya Ram Sahni and Mr Bannerji respectively were gradually bringing to light ‘the grandeur of the Indus Valley Civilisation’.

In an exciting 1924 article in the Illustrated London News Marshall alerted readers to the potential significance of these discoveries:

‘Not often has it been given to archaeologists, as it was to Schliemann at Tiryns and Mycenae, or to Stein in the deserts of Turkestan, to light upon the remains of a long-forgotten civilisation. It looks, however, at this moment, as if we are on the threshold of such a discovery in the plains of the Indus’

Given that ‘great river tracts’ contribute to the development of a ‘dense and settled population’, by providing fertile soil, an unfailing water supply, and easy communication, Marshall pointed out that ‘the debt, which, in the early stages of its development, the human race owed to the Nile, the Danube, the Tigris and the Euphrates is already well-known. But how much is owed to the Indus and the Ganges has yet to be determined’.

Both Harappa and Mohenjo-daro showed a vast expanse of artificial mounds evidently covering the remains of once-flourishing cities, which would have existed for many years prior to the rise of Maurya power in the third century BC.

At Mohenjo-daro Mr Bannerji reported that the main street of the old city could still be discerned as a broad highway running from the south bank of the river towards the southeast, with houses fringing it on either side.

At Harappa Mr Daya Ram Sahni had identified 7-8 successive levels of buildings made of good quality burnt brick, demonstrating the lengthy, continuous occupation of the site over several centuries.

Although the Harappa site had suffered from ‘the depradations of railway contractors and others’, the smaller antiquities – new varieties of pottery (both painted and plain), terracotta, toys, bangles, coins, tokens, knives, cores of chert (stone used as source material for flaking and creating stone tools), dice and chessmen, stone rings, and a number of engraved and inscribed seals – found there were generally identical in character to those 400 miles away in Mohenjo-daro; some were ‘even better preserved’.

At this early stage Marshall considered the stone seals the most valuable finds, ‘not only because they are inscribed with legends in an unknown pictographic script, but because the figures engraved on them, and the style of the engraving, are different from anything of the kind hitherto met with in Indian art’.

His article was accompanied by several black and white photographs illustrating the buildings and the ‘smaller antiquities’ found at these two sites. Marshall suggested that the magazine should include all his photographs of seals, ‘so that there may be a greater chance of any expert readers helping to elucidate the script’.

His resulting 3-volume work Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilisation was published in 1931. He retired from his post in 1931, and left India in 1934.

After returning to the UK Marshall settled at Guildford, Surrey, where he died, ‘after a long illness, bravely borne’, on 17 August 1958. A notice in The Times informed readers that a service was to be held at Christ Church, Guildford, followed by a ‘private cremation’.

Internet rumours of a gravestone at St Margaret’s Church, Ifield, Crawley, have, sadly, turned out to be unfounded. If you know of any memorials to Marshall, or can help contact his descendants (he had a son and a daughter) please get in touch!

Rachel Magowan
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Wanted!

Book Reviewer: Naga tribe of Assam, late 1930s

Rosemary Llewellyn-Jones, editor of Chowkidar, writes: ‘I’m looking for someone to review a book on the Naga tribe of Assam – it’s a newly published book on the tribe in the late 1930s’.
If you would like to do this, please email Rosie directly (rosieljai@clara.co.uk).

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Diary Dates

BACSA Newsletter readers, family and friends may be interested in the following events:

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