In her book Marshalling the Past Ancient India and its Modern Histories, Nayanjot Lahiri notes that 'John Hubert Marshall, one of the acknowledged figures of South Asian archaeology, presents a strange enigma. 12-13).ĭespite this impressive record of achievement, not much has been written or is known about John Marshall. 166-7): 'Not often has it been to archaeologists, as was given to Schleimann at Tyryns and Mycenae, or to Stein in the deserts of Turkestan, to light upon the remnants of a long forgotten civilization.' In his three volume report on the excavations at Mohenjo-daro in 1925-26, Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization, Marshall recounted that 'I myself unearthed the Great Bath and other blocks of buildings in the SD Area and explored as far as was possible the earlier remains beneath and around the Buddhist monastery' (pp. In 1924, Marshall had the honor of publicizing this discovery, in an ' uncharacteristically dramatic note' notes Sudeshna Guha in The Marshall Albums (pp. However his contributions to archaeological practice in general, his role in steering the attention of Indian archaeologists, including Daya Ram Sahni, Madho Sarup Vats and Rakhaldas Banerji, towards the largely unexplored sites of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro led to the recognition of the presence of a singular ancient civilization that once stretched across much of the western Indian subcontinent. As one of the most important Director-Generals of the Archaeological Survey of India, he is primarily remembered as an excavator of Buddhist sites, especially ancient Taxila, in northern Punjab near Islamabad. Marshall departed from India in 1934 and lived in England until his death in August 1958.įew people are as closely tied to the discovery of the ancient Indus Civilization as Sir John Marshall. Marshall retired from the post of Director General of Archeology in India in 1928 but was reemployed as a special officer for preparing reports on Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Taxila, Multan, Mandu, Delhi, Sanchi, and Agra, some of which have been published. Marshall was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in June 1910 and knighted in January 1915. In 1913, he began the excavations at Taxila, which lasted for two decades. Marshall modernised the approach to archaeology, introducing a programme of cataloguing and conservation of ancient monuments and artefacts. After gaining experience at excavations in Knossos and various other sites on Crete between 18, he was appointed Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India in 1902 by Lord Curzon, and he held the post till 1928.

John Hubert Marshall (1876-1958) was born in Chester and educated at Dulwich College and King's College, Cambridge.

John marshall history