The location of the ancient city of Taxila (Takshshila), mentioned in ancient Indian texts, was identified by
- (a)Alexander Cunnigham
- (b)R. D. Banerji
- (c)John Marshall
- (d)Daya Ram Sahni
Correct — A, Alexander Cunnigham. Taxila had been famous in Sanskrit, Pali and Greek sources for centuries — as Takshashila in Indian texts and Taxila in the accounts that came down from Alexander's campaign — but nobody knew where it had stood. Alexander Cunningham, the founder and first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India, matched the descriptions and distances given by the Chinese pilgrims against the ground north-west of Rawalpindi and identified the ruins there as Taxila in 1863 to 1864. That is the act the question is asking about: an identification made from texts and topography, not an excavation. Half a century later Sir John Marshall began digging the sites, working there over twenty years from 1913 and uncovering the successive cities of Bhir Mound, Sirkap and Sirsukh. Note that the booklet prints the surname as Cunnigham, a slip of a letter, and Takshshila for Takshashila.
- (b)R. D. Banerji — R. D. Banerji's name belongs to Mohenjo-daro, where in 1922 he recognised that the mound around a Buddhist stupa was far older than anything Buddhist. He worked in Sindh, not on the Taxila valley.
- (c)John Marshall — John Marshall is the strongest wrong answer, because he really did make Taxila's archaeology — but as its excavator from 1913, not as the man who located it. The site had been identified half a century before he arrived.
- (d)Daya Ram Sahni — Daya Ram Sahni excavated Harappa in 1921, the discovery that with Banerji's at Mohenjo-daro announced the Indus civilisation. He too was later Director-General of the Archaeological Survey, but Taxila is not his site.
Nineteenth-century Indian archaeology worked backwards from texts. Cunningham's method was to take the itineraries of the Chinese pilgrims Faxian and Xuanzang, convert their stated distances and directions, and walk the ground until the ruins matched. Taxila, Sarnath, Sankisa and several other classical sites were relocated this way before large-scale excavation began.
The item separates two things students routinely merge — finding a site and digging it. Cunningham identified; Marshall excavated. The same distinction is worth carrying to the Indus sites, where Sahni at Harappa in 1921 and Banerji at Mohenjo-daro in 1922 did the digging while Marshall, as Director-General, made the announcement in 1924 that the two belonged to one unknown civilisation. Present-day note: Taxila lies in Punjab province of Pakistan, about 35 km north-west of Rawalpindi, and was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1980.
- Alexander Cunningham identified the site of Taxila in 1863 to 1864; he founded the Archaeological Survey of India in 1861 and was its first Director-General.
- Sir John Marshall excavated Taxila over twenty years from 1913, exposing Bhir Mound, Sirkap and Sirsukh.
- Taxila is about 35 km north-west of Rawalpindi on the Pothohar plateau in Punjab, Pakistan, and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1980.
- Daya Ram Sahni excavated Harappa in 1921; R. D. Banerji recognised the antiquity of Mohenjo-daro in 1922.
- Cunningham's identifications were made by matching the Chinese pilgrims' distances and directions against the ground.
- Giving the credit for a site to whoever excavated it rather than to whoever located it.
- Assuming Taxila is in India; it lies in present-day Pakistan.
- Reading the printed spelling Cunnigham as a different person — it is the booklet's own slip for Cunningham.
As a site-to-archaeologist attribution, or as a matching list of excavators and the sites they worked on.
Recently, archaeological studies at which one among the following revealed that by 1200 BCE there was a flourishing agrarian civilization and the cultivation of rice was well-established at this place?
- (a) Raichur Doab
- (b) Krishna Delta
- (c) Vicinity of Vamsadhara river
- (d) Vicinity of Thamirabarani river
Answer(d) Vicinity of Thamirabarani river
Archaeology as a source, at the other end of the timeline. That item rewards knowing which recent excavation changed a dating; this one rewards knowing which nineteenth-century survey first put a famous city back on the map.
- practice — not a real PYQ
Alexander Cunningham is best described as
- (a)the first Governor-General of Bengal
- (b)the founder and first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India
- (c)the decipherer of the Brahmi script
- (d)the first excavator of Mohenjo-daro
Answer(b) the founder and first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India — the Brahmi script was deciphered by James Prinsep, and Mohenjo-daro was dug much later.
- practice — not a real PYQ
The excavation of Harappa in 1921 was carried out under the direction of
- (a)R. D. Banerji
- (b)Daya Ram Sahni
- (c)Alexander Cunningham
- (d)Mortimer Wheeler
Answer(b) Daya Ram Sahni — Mohenjo-daro followed in 1922 under R. D. Banerji, and Mortimer Wheeler came to the Survey only in 1944.