Ahmad Hassan Dani (Urdu: احمد حسن دانی) FRAS, SI, HI (20 June 1920 – 26 January 2009) was a Pakistani archaeologist, historian, and linguist. He was among the foremost authorities on Central Asian and South Asian archaeology and history. Throughout his career, Dani held various academic positions and international fellowships, apart from conducting archaeological excavations and research. He is particularly known for archaeological work on pre-Indus civilization and Gandhara sites in northern Pakistan.
Biography
Early life
Ahmad Hasan Dani, was born on 20 June 1920 into an ethnic Kashmiri Muslim family of traders of the Wain clan, in Basna, in the Central Provinces and Berar in British India (now in Chhattisgarh, India). He graduated in 1944, with an MA degree in Sanskrit, to become the first Muslim graduate of Banaras Hindu University. He stayed there for six months. In 1945, he started working as a trainee in archaeology under the guidance of Mortimer Wheeler.
Visiting, research and honorary positions
During his associate professorship at Dhaka University, Dani worked as a research fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (1958–59). He also made a number of discoveries of Gandhara sites in Peshawar and Swat Valleys, and worked on Indo-Greek sites in Dir. From 1985, he was involved in research focusing on the documentation of the rock carvings and inscriptions on ancient remains from the Neolithic age in the high mountain region of Northern Pakistan along with Harald Hauptmann of Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, University of Heidelberg. He also led the UNESCO teams for the Desert Route Expedition of the Silk Road in China (1990) and the Steppe Route Expedition of the Silk Road in the Soviet Union (1991). Nor was there any invasion from the seaside during the Bronze Age, although the coastline facilitated maritime trade. The major influence, according to Dani, came from Central Asia in the west. He asserted that the hilly western borderland that appears as a boundary to the external eye is actually a network of hill plateaus where the local people have always moved freely. He therefore argued that the cultural history of Pakistan is more closely related to Central Asia through Buddhist, Persian and later Sufism influences.
Awards and honours
Despite being the first Muslim student of Banaras Hindu University, Dani also scored highest in the graduation exams and received the J. K. Gold Medal from that university in 1944.
- 1998 Légion d'honneur, President of the French Republic