Banerjee, an intrepid explorer and talented epigraphist, worked for the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) when the country was under British colonial rule. He spent months travelling to distant corners of the subcontinent, looking for ancient artefacts, ruins and scripts. But while his discovery of Mohenjo-daro was ground-breaking, Banerjee's legacy is clouded by disputes.
søndag 20. april 2025
The forgotten Indian explorer who uncovered an ancient civilisation
An Indian archaeologist, whose career was marked by brilliance and controversy, made one of the world's greatest historical discoveries. Yet he remains largely forgotten today. In the early 1900s, Rakhaldas Banerjee (also spelled Banerji) unearthed Mohenjo-daro - meaning "mound of the dead men" in the Sindhi language - in present-day Pakistan. It was the largest city of the thriving Indus Valley (Harappan) Civilisation, which stretched from north-east Afghanistan to north-west India during the Bronze Age.
Banerjee, an intrepid explorer and talented epigraphist, worked for the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) when the country was under British colonial rule. He spent months travelling to distant corners of the subcontinent, looking for ancient artefacts, ruins and scripts. But while his discovery of Mohenjo-daro was ground-breaking, Banerjee's legacy is clouded by disputes.
Banerjee, an intrepid explorer and talented epigraphist, worked for the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) when the country was under British colonial rule. He spent months travelling to distant corners of the subcontinent, looking for ancient artefacts, ruins and scripts. But while his discovery of Mohenjo-daro was ground-breaking, Banerjee's legacy is clouded by disputes.
