Mohenjo-daro and the Indus Civilization (1931) — John Marshall
The foundational excavation report for Mohenjo-daro, compiled by John Marshall as Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India. It first published and formally described the steatite seal known as the "Pashupati seal" (Mohenjo-daro DK 1928–29), proposing that the horned, seated figure depicted was a precursor to the Hindu deity Shiva in his aspect as Pashupati ("Lord of Animals"). Marshall's identification became the dominant framing in popular and much scholarly literature for decades. The source matters for Dharmic origins research because it is the primary document from which the proto-Shiva hypothesis propagated — and because its archaeological methodology (1920s–30s) predates radiocarbon dating and modern stratigraphic standards.
"In the right corner of the seal… is a human figure in the attitude of a yogi, with his heels together and his toes pointing downwards. He is seated on a throne or dais in a typically Indian cross-legged posture… On his head is a pair of horns, and he is surrounded by animals… He is without doubt a prototype of the historic Shiva." (Marshall 1931, vol. 1, p. 52–53, paraphrase from standard secondary accounts; exact pagination varies by edition)
The seal bears Indus script that remains undeciphered to this day; Marshall's religious identification relied entirely on iconographic analogy, not textual decipherment.
Marshall's identification is influential but methodologically weak by modern standards. Key problems:
1. The Indus script is undeciphered. No textual confirmation of any name, deity class, or cultic function is possible from the seal itself.
2. Marshall's iconographic reading is contested. Doris Meth Srinivasan (1976, "Unhinging Shiva from the Indus Civilization," Journal of the Oriental Institute 25) systematically dismantled the proto-Shiva reading: the posture is not demonstrably yogic; the "headdress" may be a buffalo-horn motif unrelated to later Shaivite iconography; the figure may represent a "lord of animals" archetype found across Eurasia (parallels in Proto-Elamite Susa, ca. 3100 BCE).
3. Continuity gap. The Indus Civilization collapsed c. 1900 BCE; the Rigveda's composition begins c. 1500–1200 BCE. The ~300–400 year gap makes direct religious transmission unprovable. No chain of custody for the iconographic tradition has been demonstrated archaeologically.
4. Marshall's school and era. He was working within a diffusionist, empire-oriented British Indological framework that sought Hindu "roots" in prehistoric India; this predisposes toward continuity readings.
pashupati-seal-proto-shiva-controversy (tier-2 claim, not yet written)
vedic-religion (tradition profile — background context for IVC → Vedic continuity debate)