Harappa Archaeological Site and Museum

The Harappa archaeological site occupies a set of mounds beside the Ravi River in Sahiwal District, marking the location of one of the two largest cities of the Indus Valley Civilization, alongside Mohenjo-daro in Sindh. Excavations led by archaeologist Daya Ram Sahni in 1921 and later Mortimer Wheeler and others through the 20th century uncovered evidence of a planned urban settlement dating to the Mature Harappan phase, roughly 2600 to 1900 BCE, with a grid street layout, standardized fired-brick construction, and granary structures suggesting centralized food storage. Harappa's excavation in the 1920s was the first systematic exploration of an Indus city and gave the wider Bronze Age civilization its common name, the Harappan or Indus Valley Civilization. Extensive brick robbing in the 19th century, when British railway engineers quarried the site's fired bricks as ballast for the Lahore-Multan railway line, destroyed large sections of the ancient city before archaeological protection began, and the surviving mounds represent only a portion of the original settlement. The on-site museum, established in 1926 and rebuilt in more recent decades, displays artifacts recovered from the mounds, including seals carved with the undeciphered Indus script, terracotta figurines, pottery, beads, and tools, alongside models illustrating the city's original layout and drainage systems. Interpretation at the site is organized around the different excavated mounds, labeled AB through F, each representing different quarters of the ancient city such as the citadel area and residential and craft-working zones. Conservation has focused on stabilizing exposed brick structures against weathering, though much of the site remains unexcavated. Harappa is one of several Indus Valley sites Pakistan has proposed for expanded UNESCO recognition.