The End of Civilization

The end of civilization has been discussed as having been discovered by British explorers and archaeologists. But this sort of narrative discounts whatever local knowledge there was of these sites before. The first excavations at Mohanjadaro were actually begun by the Bengali archaeologists Rakhaldas Banaji. Many colonial or orientalist ideas have persisted and proved extremely frustratingly difficult to shift in both an academia and in popular culture. For me it's crucial that we understand the Indus on its own terms because a lot of misinterpretation has come from comparisons to Mesopotamian civilisation.