Eternal India Encyclopedia

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ARCHAEOLOGY

Lower town The arterial street was flanked by a number of shops and large houses of wealthy merchants. One of the houses had seven rooms and a verandah. The merchant was engaged in overseas trade with Sumer as can be judged from a distinct pottery known as the Reserved Slip Ware of Sumerian origin. The merchant was wealthy as indicated by gold jewellery and seven seals found in his house. Close to the merchant’s house are small shops of shell workers, coppersmiths and lapidafies. Obviously, the Harappan society was not strati- fied, and therefore the rich and the poor could live together. Both enjoyed the same civic amenities. Warehouse The warehouse consisting of sixty-four cubical blocks stood on a massive podium of mud bricks. The superstruc- ture was made of timber. The cargo was kept duly sealed by the ruler or his agent for identification and authentification of the goods. One of the major floods destroyed most of the

cubical blocks, leaving only twelve of them. By 2000 B.C. the warehouse shrank in size but its function as a clearing house continued for more than a hundred years. Sometime in 1900 B.C. there must have been an accidental fire which reduced the cargo and the timber superstructure to ashes, leaving however the clay sealings fixed on the packages well preserved due to baking. These sealings, found in the course of excavation of the warehouse, have provided valuable evidence for the com- mercial use of the Indus seals, for they bear clear impression of the seal on one side and of the packing material, such as bamboo mats, reeds and woven cloth on the other. Even the impressions of cords tied into knots can be seen on the seal- ings, which attest to the commercial use of seals. Cemetery The Harappans practised both burial and cremation. The post-cremation remains including charred bones and ash de- posited in urns buried in the ground have been exposed in Harappa (Vats 1942), Mehi (MA SI 43) and Damb Buthi (MA SI 48). Recently post-cremation burials have been reported from Dholavira (Bisht. 1992). The cemeteries of Lothal, Kali- bangan, Ropar and Surkotada contain extended burials of adults and children. They are oriented north-south with head to the north. In Dholavira, however they are oriented east- west. An indication of post-cremation deposits is furnished by pots with ash and no bones at Lothal as well as Kalibangan. A very significant type of disposal of the dead at Lothal is the double burial in Phase III but not in Phases IV and V when single burial was the order of the day. In two out of three double burials of Lothal there is a female and a male each (Chatterjee and Kumar 1963) suggesting immolation of the wife on the death of the husband... a form of Sati which was given up in the later days at Lothal. There is a reference in the Satapatha Brahmana, a Vedic text which indicates only sym- bolic observance of the Sati without allowing the wife to die. (Vedic Index I).

Fig : 12— Lothal Ware House