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. He oversaw the excavations of Harappa and Mohenjodaro, two of the main cities that comprise the Indus Valley Civilization.

Quotes

• These discoveries establish the existence in Sind (the northernmost province of the Bombay Presidency) and the Punjab, during the fourth and third millennium B.C., of a highly developed city life; and the presence, in many of the houses, of wells and bathrooms as well as an elaborate drainage-system, betoken a social condition of the citizens at least equal to that found in Sumer, and superior to that prevailing in contemporary Babylonia and Egypt. . . . Even at Ur the houses are by no means equal in point of construction to those of Mohenjo-daro.
  • Marshall, Sir John, The Prehistoric Civilization of the Indus, Illustrated London News, Jan. 7, 1928, 1. quoted in Durant, Will (1963). Our Oriental heritage. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Quotes about Marshall

• Marshall thus provided the foundation for a regional myth in India to assist perhaps innocently the 'divide and rule' policy of British Imperialism.
  • Amrit Pandya, Quoted from B.B. Lal in : Indian History and Culture Society., Devahuti, D., & Indian History and Culture Society. (2012). Bias in Indian historiography.