DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

NOTES TO CHAPTER III 77
R. E. M. Wheeler gives an excellent discussion in his prologue volume to the
Cambridge history : The Indus civilization; in Ancient India 3, (1947) p. 81 ff. he
discussed the archaeological evidence for Aryan conquest and occupation at
Harappa, while criticizing the deplorably inadequate work of the predecessors ; J.
Marshall : Mohenjo-daro and the Indus culture, 2 vol. (London 1931) ; E. J. H.
Mackay : Further excavations at Mohoenjo-daro, 2 vol. (Delhi 1938). For
Harappa, see M. S. Vats : Excavations at Harappa (Delhi 1940). A readable
summary by S. Piggott : Prehistoric India (Pelican Books, A 205, London, 1950)
is perfunctory for the vedic period. All of these lack any careful study of techniques
whereby implements and utensils were produced and utilized. R. D. Bannerjee, who
first excavated the stupa mound and guessed that the site was the original source of
the mysterious seals that had been known before, as well as K. N. Dikshit who drove
the first trench across the main site, used to say that the discovery of the Indus
civilization was delayed by laziness on the part of a predecessor. This worthy
reported, on the strength of Indus brickbats (which were of almost British
dimensions) brought to him by his workmen that he had inspected the ruins only to
conclude that they were modern. Brick-size is a useful index in the Gangetic basin,
where the bricks decrease steadily from the enormous pre-Asokan fabric to the little
ones of the late Mughal period.
3. This suggestion was, so far as I know, first made by the late Birbal Sahni, who
noted the occurrence of stone-age tools on the Zogi-la pass, reasoning that it must
have been free from snow, hence at a lower altitude when the tools were first made.
This meant the rise of the Himalayan ranges in proto-historical times.
4. C, J. Gadd : Proc. Brit. Acad. 13, 1932, pp. 191-210 ; Henri Frankfort ;
Cylinder Seals (London, 1939), pp. 304-307 ; Henri Frankfort, rather reluctantly, in
his report Ann. Bibliography Ind. Archaeology (Leiden, 1934), p. 11, without following
it up to logical conclusions. Any attempt at dating must now be corrected according to
W. F. Albrighf s chronology, which places Hammurabi in the year 1728-1686 B.C.
instead of 200 to 300 years earlier; cf. BASOR, 126, pp. 20-26 ; 88.28-36.
5. Pran Nath : Ind. Hist. Quarterly VII. 1931, 1-52; first pointed this out in a
paper which otherwise confuses the reader.
6. L. A. Waddell : Indo-Sumerian seals deciphered (London, 1925) ; B. Hrozny
: Die dheste Geschichte Vorderasicns und Indiens (Prag. Melantrich, 1941-3). H.
Heras, summarizing his own work in his Studies in Proto-Indo-Mediterranean culture
vol. I, Bombay 1953 [see also Ampturias (Barselona, ^940) No. 1, pp. 5-81], read
the sign as proto-Dravidian. For other references, see A. L. Basham, BSOAS, 13.
(1951), 140-5, a critical review, to which add G. Piccioli IA. 62, 1933. 213-5 for
Etruscan parallels. Dr. Basham himself adds J. Q. Vives : Aportaciones a la
interpretacion de la escritura proto-lndica, Madrid-Barcelona, 1946.
7. The late R. D. Bannerjee used to tell his friends that he had discovered a