‘AN EPOCH IN MODERN DISCOVERY’: THE DARTINGTON HALL COPY
MARSHALL, John, Sir, editor.
Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus civilization being an official account of archaeological excavations at Mohenjo-daro carried out by the Government of India between the years 1922 and 1927 ... In three volumes, with plan and map in colours, and 164 plates in collotype ...
London, Arthur Probsthain, 1931.
3 vols, folio, pp. xxvii, [1 blank], 364, with 14 plates, and 2 folding maps in rear pocket; xiii, 365-716; xi, [1 blank], plates XV-CLXIV; an excellent, crisp and clean copy in original light brown cloth, spines lettered in gilt, gilt embossed design to covers; small bumps to top edges of vols I and II, slightly marked; armorial bookplates of L. K. Elmhirst, ink stamps of Dartington Hall Library (including withdrawn stamp) to front flyleaves and titles.
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Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus civilization being an official account of archaeological excavations at Mohenjo-daro carried out by the Government of India between the years 1922 and 1927 ... In three volumes, with plan and map in colours, and 164 plates in collotype ...
Scarce first edition, a handsome set, of Marshall’s outstanding contribution to archaeology, documenting discoveries made in the Indus valley of the Punjab and Sind. ‘His announcement in 1924 that he had there found a new civilization of the third millennium marked an epoch in modern discovery; the so-called Indus valley civilization is now recognized as the most extensive civilization of the preclassical world’ (ODNB).
Marshall’s ‘mass excavation of large areas at Mohenjo-daro ... published in 1931, showed a great city, dating from before and after 2000 BC, planned and drained on a vast scale and in a regimented fashion, with wide thoroughfares and closely built houses and workshops. Detail ... was lost; but, like Schliemann before him, Marshall got to the heart of the matter and gave what was needed first in the current state of knowledge, namely the general shape, the sketch, of a hitherto unknown civilization. He was a pioneer of a high order’ (ibid.).
Provenance: from the collection of Leonard Knight Elmhirst (1893-1974), agricultural economist and philanthropist, first director of the Institute of Rural Reconstruction at Santiniketan, Bengal, and founder, with his wife Dorothy, of the Dartington Hall project in progressive education and rural regeneration.
