John Marshall (archaeologist)

Sir John Hubert Marshall CIE FBA (19 March 1876,

Sir
Chester, England – 17 August 1958, Guildford, England)
was an English archaeologist who was Director-General of John Marshall
the Archaeological Survey of India from 1902 to 1928.[1] He CIE FBA
oversaw the excavations of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro,
two of the main cities that comprise the Indus Valley
Civilisation.

Personal history and career

Marshall was at school at Dulwich College before King's
College, Cambridge,[2] where 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 Born 19 March 1876
British Indian administration. Marshall modernised the Chester, England
approach to archaeology on that continent, introducing a
Died 17 August 1958
programme of cataloguing and conservation of ancient
(aged 82)
monuments and artifacts.[5]
Guildford
Marshall began the practice of allowing Indians to Alma mater King's College,
participate in excavations in their own country.[6] Most of Cambridge
his students were Indian, and so, Marshall gained a
Known for Excavations in
reputation for being very sympathetic to Indian
Harappa,
nationalism. Marshall agreed with Indian civic leaders and
protesters who wanted more self-government, or even Mohenjodaro, Sanchi,
independence for India. Marshall was highly admired by Sarnath, Taxila, Crete,
Indians during the time he worked in India. In 1913, he and Knossos
began the excavations at Taxila, which lasted for 21 years.[7] Awards CIE
In 1918, he laid the foundation stone for the Taxila Knighthood
Museum, which today hosts many artifacts and one of FBA
Marshall's few portraits. He then moved on to other sites,
including the Buddhist centres of Sanchi and Sarnath. Scientific career
Fields History, archaeology
His work provided evidence of the antiquity of Indian
Institutions Archaeological Survey
civilisation, particularly that of the Indus Valley civilization
of India
and the Mauryan age (Ashoka's Age). In 1920, Marshall
initiated at dig at Harappa with Daya Ram Sahni as
director. Mohenjodaro was discovered by R. D. Banerji in 1921, and in 1922, work began there.
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.[8] 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.[9] But
Marshall ignored the stratigraphy of the site, and excavated along regular horizontal lines. This
mixed up the artifacts from different stratigraphic layers, causing much valuable information
about the context of his findings to be lost forever. This mistake was corrected by Mortimer (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.[10]

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.[11]

Retirement and death

Marshall retired from his post in 1934 and then departed India. He died on 17 August 1958, at
his home in Guildford, Surrey, some 28 miles southwest of London.[12][13]

Honours
Marshall was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire (CIE) in June 1910[14]
and knighted in January 1914.[15]

He was awarded an honorary degree, Doctor of Philosophy, by Calcutta University in 1921.[16]

He was elected as a Fellow of the British Academy in 1936.

Publications
▪ Marshall, John H. (1931). Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus Civilization (https://archive.org/detail
s/in.gov.ignca.48270).
▪ 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 Archaeological 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://archiv
e.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.43551). London: The India Society.
▪ Marshall, John H.; Foucher, Alfred (1902). The Monuments of Sanchi (3 vol.) (https://archiv
e.org/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.

References
1. "Banerji robbed of credit for Indus findings" (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/b
anerji-robbed-of-credit-for-indus-findings/articleshow/59101966.cms). The Times of India. 12
June 2017.
 2. "Marshall, John Hubert (MRSL895JH)" (http://venn.lib.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/search-2018.pl?sur
=&suro=w&fir=&firo=c&cit=&cito=c&c=all&z=all&tex=MRSL895JH&sye=&eye=&col=all&max
count=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://books.google.co
m/books?id=pmAuAsi4ePIC&dq=Mohenjo-daro+Priest-king&pg=PA10)
5. Allen, Charles (2012) Ashoka: The Search for India's Lost Emperor, chap. 15
6. Allen, Charles (2012), Ashoka: The Search for India's Lost Emperor, chap. 15, passim
7. "Taxila in Focus: 100 years since Marshall" (https://stories.durham.ac.uk/TaxilaInFocus/).
stories.durham.ac.uk. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
8. "The First Images of the Announcement: The Illustrated London News | Harappa" (https://w
ww.harappa.com/blog/first-images-announcement-illustrated-london-news).
www.harappa.com. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
9. Jane McIntosh, The Ancient Indus Valley: New Perspectives ; ABC-CLIO, 2008;
ISBN 978-1-57607-907-2 ; pp. 29–32.
10. Themes in Indian History. NCERT.
11. British Museum Collection (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/x22143)
12. "John Marshall | Harappa" (https://www.harappa.com/content/john-marshall).
www.harappa.com. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
13. "John Hubert Marshall 1876-1958" (http://www.emersonkent.com/history_notes/sir_john_hu
bert_marshall.htm). www.emersonkent.com. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
14. London Gazette, 23 June 1910 (http://www.london-gazette.co.uk/issues/28388/supplement
s/4478)
15. "Sir John Hubert Marshall | British archaeologist | Britannica" (https://www.britannica.com/bi
ography/John-Hubert-Marshall). www.britannica.com. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
16. The Times, 19 December 1921.

External links
▪ 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.
▪ A collection of 5000 images from John Marshall's personal archives at Durham University's
Oriental Museum (https://stories.durham.ac.uk/TaxilaInFocus/)

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