John Marshall

(archaeologist)

Sir John Hubert Marshall CIE FBA (19 March 1876, Chester, England – 17 August 1958, Guildford,
England) was the Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India from 1902 to 1928.[1] He
oversaw the excavations of Harappa and Mohenjodaro, two of the main cities that comprise the
Indus Valley Civilization.
 Sir

John Marshall
CIE FBA

Born 19 March 1876

Chester, England

Died 17 August 1958 (aged 82)

Guildford

Alma mater King's College, Cambridge

Known for Excavations in Harappa, Mohenjodaro, Sanchi,

Sarnath, Taxila, Crete and Knossos

Awards CIE
Knighthood
FBA

Scientific career

Fields History, archaeology

Institutions Archaeological Survey of India

Influences James Prinsep, H. H. Wilson, John Leyden, Henry

Thomas Colebrooke, Colin Mackenzie and William
Jones

Personal history and career

Marshall was educated at Dulwich College as well as King's College, Cambridge.[2] In 1898, he
won the Porson Prize.[3] He then trained in archaeology at Knossos under Sir Arthur Evans, who
was rediscovering the Bronze Age Minoan civilization.[4]

In 1902, the new viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, appointed Marshall as Director-General of
Archaeology within the British Indian administration. Marshall modernised the approach to
archaeology on that continent, introducing a programme of cataloguing and conservation of
ancient monuments and artefacts.

Marshall began the practice of allowing Indians to participate in excavations in their own
country. Most of his students were Indian, and so, Marshall gained a reputation for being very
sympathetic to Indian nationalism. Marshall agreed with Indian civic leaders and protesters who
wanted more self-government for India or even independence for India. Marshall was highly
admired by Indians during the time he worked in India. In 1913, he began the excavations at
Taxila, which lasted for 21 years.[5] In 1918, he laid the foundation stone for the Taxila Museum,
which today hosts many artifacts and one of Marshall's few portraits. He then moved on to other
sites, including the Buddhist centres of Sanchi and Sarnath.

His work provided evidence of age of Indian civilisation, particularly that of the Indus Valley
Civilization and the Mauryan age (Ashoka's Age). In 1920, following the lead of his predecessor,
Alexander Cunningham, Marshall initiated at dig at Harappa with Daya Ram Sahni as director. In
1922, work began at Mohenjo-Daro. The results of these efforts, which revealed an ancient
culture with its own writing system, were published in the Illustrated London News on 20
September 1924.[6] Scholars linked the artifacts with the ancient civilisation of Sumer in
Mesopotamia. Subsequent excavation showed Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro to be sophisticated
planned cities with plumbing and baths.[7] But Marshall ignored stratigraphy of the site, and
excavated along regular horizontal lines. This mixed up the artefacts from different stratigraphic
layers, causing much of valuable information about the context of his findings lost forever. This
mistake was corrected by R.E.M. Wheeler, who recognised that it was necessary to follow the
stratigraphy of the mound rather than dig mechanically along uniform horizontal lines. Also a
military precision was brought to archeology by Wheeler.[8]

Marshall also led excavations at the prehistoric Sohr Damb mound near Nal in Baluchistan; a
small representative collection of pottery vessels from the site is now in the British Museum.[9]
He is also known for his important part in excavations at Knossos and various other sites on
Crete between 1898 and 1901. He was awarded an honorary degree, Doctor of Philosophy, by
Calcutta University in 1921.[10]
Marshall was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in June 1910[11]
and knighted in January 1914.[12]

Marshall retired from his post in 1934 and then departed India. He died on 17 August 1958, at
his home in Guildford, Surrey, which is located about an hour by car southeast from
London.[13][14]

Publications

Marshall, John (ed.) (1931). Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus Civilization (https://archive.org/detail
s/in.gov.ignca.48270) . {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help)
Volume 1 (https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.722)

Volume 2 (https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.62023)

Marshall, John H. (1960). The Buddhist Art of Gandhara: the Story of the Early School, Its Birth,
Growth and Decline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Marshall, John H. (1960). A Guide to Taxila (4th ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Taxila Achaeological Excavations Vol.III (https://archive.org/details/in.gov.ignca.27261/p
age/n7)

Marshall, John H.; M. B. Garde (1927). The Bagh Caves in the Gwalior State (https://archive.or
g/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.43551) . London: The India Society.

Marshall, John H.; Foucher, Alfred (1902). The Monuments of Sanchi (3 vol.) (https://archive.or
g/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.532799) .

Marshall, John H. (1918). A Guide to Sanchi (https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.459

148) . Calcutta: Superintendent, Government Printing.

In British Academy

Sir John Marshall was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 1936 .

See also

Indus Valley Civilization

R. D. Banerji
 References

1. "Banerji robbed of credit for Indus findings" (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/banerji-robb

ed-of-credit-for-indus-findings/articleshow/59101966.cms) .

2. "Marshall, John Hubert (MRSL895JH)" (http://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search-2018.pl?sur=&suro=w&fi

r=&firo=c&cit=&cito=c&c=all&z=all&tex=MRSL895JH&sye=&eye=&col=all&maxcount=50) . A Cambridge
Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.

3. The India List and India Office List for 1905, London: Harrison and Sons, 1905, p. 562.

4. Possehl, Gregory A., The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective, p. 10, 2002, AltaMira Press,
ISBN 9780759101722, 0759101728, google books (https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Indus_
Civilization/pmAuAsi4ePIC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Mohenjo-daro+Priest-king&pg=PA10)

5. "Taxila in Focus: 100 years since Marshall" (https://stories.durham.ac.uk/TaxilaInFocus/) .

stories.durham.ac.uk. Retrieved 5 April 2022.

6. "The First Images of the Announcement: The Illustrated London News | Harappa" (https://www.harappa.c
om/blog/first-images-announcement-illustrated-london-news) . www.harappa.com. Retrieved 5 April
2022.

7. Jane McIntosh, The Ancient Indus Valley: New Perspectives ; ABC-CLIO, 2008; ISBN 978-1-57607-907-2 ;
pp. 29–32.

8. Themes in Indian History. NCERT.

9. British Museum Collection (https://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/search.aspx?peo

ple=138912&peoA=138912-3-13)

10. The Times, 19 December 1921.

11. London Gazette, 23 June 1910 (http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/28388/supplements/4478)

12. "Sir John Hubert Marshall | British archaeologist | Britannica" (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joh

n-Hubert-Marshall) . www.britannica.com. Retrieved 5 April 2022.

13. "John Marshall | Harappa" (https://www.harappa.com/content/john-marshall) . www.harappa.com.

Retrieved 5 April 2022.

14. "John Hubert Marshall 1876-1958" (http://www.emersonkent.com/history_notes/sir_john_hubert_marsha

ll.htm) . www.emersonkent.com. Retrieved 5 April 2022.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: John Marshall (archaeologist)

 J. H. Marshall, "The Date of Kanishka" (http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-ENG/mar.htm) ,
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1914, pp. 973–986.

Sir John Marshall, A Guide to Taxila. Calcutta: Superintendent Government Printing, India, 1918
(https://archive.org/details/cu31924024121125) , archive.org.

"Sir John Hubert Marshall" (http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9051114/Sir-John-Hubert-M

arshall) , britannica.com.

Director General of the Archaeological

Preceded by Succeeded by
Survey of India
James Burgess Harold Hargreaves
1902 - 1928

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