It has been suggested that the Harappan polity was made up of a number of "domains" (Possehl 1982, 19), each dominated by a city. Three of these, Mohenjo-daro (Sindh), Harappa (Punjab), and Dholavira (Gujarat) have been extensively investigated; of the other two identified cities, Ganweriwala (Cholistan) has seen no excavation while Rakhigarhi (East) is still in the early stages of investigation. A number of other sites of comparable size have been located, including 100-hectare Pathani Damb in the Kachi plain. Three huge surface scatters of Sothi-Siswal and Mature Harappan material were found at Gurnikalan I (144 hectares), Hasanpur II (100 hectares), and Lakhmirwala (225 hectares) within 30 kilometers of each other on old beds of the Naiwal River, a tributary of the Saraswati; two of them were also occupied in later times. The coexistence of three cities so close together would seem implausible, though it is perhaps possible that they were successive settlements. Sothi-Siswal material is hard to date in vacuo, since it was used continuously from Early Harappan to post-Harappan times. Other massive surface spreads of settlement debris have been found in the Saraswati Valley, Sindh, and elsewhere. Without excavation, however, it is impossible to determine anything useful about these sites.
Although the evidence is limited, it is likely that the cities were the administrative, religious, economic, and social centers of their respective domains and that a significant proportion of their residents were engaged in nonsubsistence activities. The central location of Mohenjo-daro, its size, and its unique features, particularly the Great Bath, suggest that this city may have been the capital of the Harappan polity, but this is by no means proven and Harappa may have enjoyed equal importance. Both cities had some unique types of inscribed materials, which are likely to have had administrative significance, and they shared other types not found in any other site.
Mohenjo-daro. Mohenjo-daro is the best-known and best studied Indus city. Its history is uncertain. The high water table has prevented excavation of its lowest levels, but it is likely that it was a new foundation in the Transition or early Mature Harappan period. Test bores have shown that the occupation evidence continues for at least 7 and perhaps 15 meters below the present ground surface, but there is no evidence of settlement preceding the construction of the city. On the contrary, Jansen (2002) notes that the ancient location of the Indus west of the city posed annual risks of flooding that would have made it impossible to occupy the site before the construction of the platforms on which the city was built above flood level, a mammoth undertaking. Most of the exposed architecture belongs to the later part of the Mature Harappan period.
Later occupation (Jhukar period) was uncovered in some parts of the city: Poor-quality housing, corpses thrown into disused buildings and streets, and kilns and industrial waste in former public and residential buildings attest to the decline in civic standards in this period.
Mohenjo-daro lies in a central location in the Indus realms, between the great northern settlement of Harappa and the southern city of Dholavira, and close to the great north-south highway of the Indus River, which integrated the land from the Himalayas to the sea. From Mohenjo-daro routes stretched into the upland region of southern Baluchistan, closely tied to the Indus lowlands, while to its east lay the rich valley of the Saraswati. It was therefore ideally situated to control communications throughout the Indus realm and was perhaps founded specifically for this purpose. Its workshops housed the full range of craft activities practiced by the Indus people and produced some objects unique to the city. Many inscribed materials, including seals, copper tablets, and stoneware bangles, hint at a well developed bureaucracy organized from this center. Its unique Great Bath highlights the settlement's importance and suggests its role in serving the entire Indus realms.
The city, as it is known today, consists of a western citadel mound and an eastern Lower Town, separated by a deep depression that may have been a major thoroughfare. The citadel was created by constructing an enormous platform of sand and silt within a 6-meter-thick mud brick retaining wall. Several enlargements of the platform brought it eventually to a height of 7 meters and an extent of 200 by 400 meters. Each of the structures of the citadel had its own additional platform, including the Great Bath, a religious installation likely to have had statewide importance, the "granary," and a pillared hall. Bathrooms and residential buildings were also present on the citadel.
A number of residential areas were investigated in the Lower Town, which was also constructed on an artificial mound; parts of the retaining wall have been identified. Two or three main streets and a number of minor ones ran north-south with streets and lanes running east-west from them, separating the city into a number of residential blocks, with two-story and even perhaps three-story houses. Most of the houses had a series of rooms off a courtyard, but some were small buildings with only two or three rooms. Workshops were identified in some of the houses, as well as areas of concentrated industrial activity in some parts of the periphery. In addition there were a few structures that were probably not ordinary houses; one was identified as a possible temple and another as a possible caravanserai. Around seven hundred wells were constructed as part of the original plan of the city, and it seems none were added later. As the street and house level rose, new courses of bricks were added to raise the wellheads. An excellent network of drains was present throughout the city, and a number of cesspits were also found.
The mounds alone cover a substantial area, but recent investigations have shown the city also to have had extensive suburbs, particularly south and east of the Lower Town, but also to the north, now buried under the alluvium of the surrounding plain. Several rescue excavations uncovered baked bricks and baked brick structures, including a well, and elsewhere an extensive industrial area was found. Traces of baked brick architecture have also been found in the modern bed of the Indus River, almost 2 kilometers to the east. The city was probably more than 250 hectares in extent, and it may have housed as many as a hundred thousand people.
Harappa. Located in the north of the Indus realms, Harappa's position enabled it to control the routes through the mountains; the exploitation of their resources, including metals and timber; and the channelling of these into the Indus realms. Like Mohenjo-daro, Harappa's excavated mounds have revealed a range of industrial activity, some impressive public and private architecture, and a great quantity and variety of inscribed objects, some unique to this city. Unlike Mohenjo-daro, however, the settlement has a long history, and, unlike many Early Harappan settlements, it was not rebuilt to a new plan during the Transition Period but grew organically.
The first settlement at Harappa was established in the fourth millennium, and by the early third it was an important and innovative town, more than 25 hectares in extent, with many flourishing industries foreshadowing those of the Mature Harappan period. Already the settlement consisted of two areas (AB and E). A street excavated in mound E was orientated north-south. It was possibly in this region that the transformation of the Early Indus culture into that of the Mature Harappan civilization occurred and from here that the changes spread into other regions.
What remains of the city today consists of a number of mounds around a central depression, which may have held water as a reservoir in the Mature Harappan period. The highest mound (AB, the citadel mound), on the west, was massively plundered for baked bricks during the nineteenth century CE, and little is known of the structures that once stood on it. The rest of the settlement also suffered brick robbing, so the architecture is known only from the mud brick foundations of baked brick walls, wall stubs, robber trenches, and walls overlooked by the robbers.
The remains of a substantial wall surround mound AB. When Cunningham visited it in the 1850s, before the site was plundered for railway ballast, he observed a flight of stairs ascending to the summit from each side of the citadel. East of this mound and south of the depression lies mound E and its later eastward extension, mound ET. Mound E was walled at the beginning of the Mature Harappan period. During the twenty-fifth century BCE, civic standards on mound E declined, the streets developing potholes and accumulating rubbish, and houses falling down. In the subsequent phase of urban renewal, Mound ET, which had been occupied since the Transition period, was surrounded by a wall, joined onto that of mound E. At the intersection, a massive gateway was built, giving access for carts as well as foot traffic, and a major street ran from this gateway north along the eastern side of mound E's perimeter wall.
New houses were constructed on solid mud brick platforms. The walls were repaired around 2250 BCE, with a massive bastion being added on the southeastern corner of mound E. Toward the end of period 3C (ca. 2000/1900 BCE) a corbelled culvert was constructed, the open end of which passed through the gateway, probably limiting traffic to pedestrians; this replaced an earlier covered drain that had passed under the wall by the gateway and had become clogged.
It is mainly in these mounds that remains of the city have been excavated, including houses and industrial areas. To the south of the mounds are two cemeteries, one (R-37) dating from the Mature Harappan period, the other (Cemetery H) from the Late Harappan period. Also to the south was a small mound with houses and bathing platforms.
The modern town of Harappa lies in the northeast, overlying further Harappan structures and preventing their investigation. Observations in this area, however, indicate that this mound was not walled in Harappan times. In the area between the north of mound AB and the river (mound F), a number of Harappan buildings have been excavated, including the so-called Granary and a number of working platforms inside buildings. Here, too, craft activities seem to have been undertaken. This area also had a massive perimeter wall, 14 meters thick, parts of which have been traced along the north and west sides of the mound. As at Mohenjo-daro, surveys and casual finds of bricks and artifacts at Harappa show that during the Mature Harappan period a huge area outside the walled mounds was also occupied, giving the city an area of around 150 hectares, with a population of perhaps sixty thousand.
The upper deposits document the slow transition to the Late Harappan occupation when the urban layout was no longer respected, overcrowded housing being constructed in streets and former open areas.
Dholavira. At the opposite end of the Indus realms, Dholavira on Khadir Island in Kutch was around 60 hectares in extent (perhaps 100 hectares including suburbs) and had a population greatly in excess of that supported by the whole island today. This was made possible by the creation of substantial reservoirs. The city was well placed to control communications and the movement of local raw materials and overseas imports between the southern domain and the rest of the Harappan realms.
Settlement probably began in this locality around 3000 BCE. During the Early Indus period, a small town developed, surrounded by a wall of stones and clay mortar. At the beginning of the Mature Harappan period, a bipartite citadel was constructed over the remains of the earliest settlement, and the area immediately to its north was cleared of housing and paved to form an esplanade where public events may have taken place. Beyond this lay a walled residential area (the Middle Town), with cardinally oriented streets and with jars and sumps instead of drains. At least sixteen massive water storage tanks were constructed along the inner faces of an outer wall that surrounded the whole city. The geometric layout of the city is particularly striking: It is formed of a number of rectangles, each divided into smaller rectangles or squares, and the excavator (Bisht 1999) points out various regularities in the proportions of these.
Following a major earthquake, perhaps around 2200 BCE, the city was rebuilt and expanded to the east (Lower Town), and the city walls were extended to include this new residential area. Possible suburban occupation is also reported outside the walls, as well as a cemetery. Stone was used for the house foundations, topped by mud brick walls, and for facing the city walls. Many workshops were located in the residential areas. Unusually, Dholavira's houses seem not to have had bathrooms.
After about 2000 BCE, the city saw a decline and was eventually abandoned. After an interval, a small part of the city was reoccupied by people who constructed houses from stone rubble robbed from the earlier city. The reservoirs were no longer maintained but were used as rubbish dumps. After another period of desertion, the site was again reoccupied for a while by people who lived in round huts.
Ganweriwala. Located in Bahawalpur in the fertile Saraswati Valley, Ganweriwala covers 80 hectares and was divided into citadel and lower town. It was identified as a city on the basis of its size, but this needs to be tested by excavation.
Rakhigarhi. Although excavations have taken place at Rakhigarhi, situated on what was then the north bank of the Drishadvati, only brief accounts of the discoveries have been published. The site, which covered at least 80 and perhaps more than 100 hectares, today exists as five mounds, unfortunately covered to a
The enormous reservoirs are the most striking feature in the city of Dholavira. Steps down the side gave access to the water held in them. (Namit Arora)
Significant extent by two modern villages. The settlement was probably founded in the late fourth millennium and, during the Early Harappan period, developed into a town with flourishing industries. The settlement greatly expanded in the Mature Harappan period when, it is thought, there were several walled residential areas with cardinally oriented streets. Mound 2, in the northwest of the site, was the high mound (citadel); part of a wall of mud brick faced with baked brick has been traced in its southeast corner, implying that it was separately walled. Within the citadel a platform with fire altars, pits containing cattle bones, and a well was found. Public and domestic drains and soakage jars (jars set in the ground that allowed liquid waste to drain away but retained solid waste), a storage facility, and a lapidary's workshop have also been discovered within the city and a cemetery outside it to the north.
Towns
Harappan towns were laid out like the cities with separate public and residential areas and cardinally oriented streets, but they had a more restricted role and served a smaller area. They were generally very small, around 4 to 16 hectares. While some towns had many functions—residential, industrial, religious, and administrative— and served their local area, others seem to have had a more focused role, related to external and internal trade. These were entry or transit points for goods and materials, located in key places with respect to resources and communications. Those at the interface with the outside world, in the Makran, in Gujarat, and perhaps on the margins of Baluchistan, had strong walls. Some also processed local raw materials on an industrial scale. Large-scale storage facilities are known from some of these settlements, such as Lothal and Kuntasi. Generally there was also an attached, unwalled suburban residential area, presumably housing workers and service personnel, while those responsible for running the establishment occupied housing on the citadel or in the walled town. The main role of these settlements would have been to acquire and, if relevant, process raw materials and finished goods from neighboring areas or overseas and to organize their distribution to other parts of the Indus realms or their dispatch as trade goods. Examples of this type of town include Lothal, Kuntasi, Shortugai, Sutkagen-dor, Gola Dhoro, and Surkotada. Sotka Koh, Desalpur, Pathani Damb, and a number of other sites that have seen little or no investigation may also have been such settlements.
Chanhu-daro (Sindh). Though now more than 10 miles (15 kilometers) from Chanhu-daro, originally the Indus flowed close to the town, which was about halfway between Mohenjo-daro and the Gulf of Kutch and therefore well placed in the communications network. Three mounds constitute the remains of the site today, but originally this formed a single mound of around 5 hectares. The town was constructed on mud brick platforms. Limited excavations exposed a single street with drains, brick-lined wells, and a number of houses with bathrooms, as well as a beadmaking factory. Other craft activities were also practiced in the town. Chanhu-daro conformed to Harappan norms: The street was oriented north-south, houses followed the usual courtyard model, and there are drains. No citadel was identified, however.
Nausharo (Kachi Plain). Settlement at Nausharo began during the Early Harappan period in the northern part of the mound. This was destroyed by fire and a new settlement was built farther south. In the Mature Harappan period, when the nearby town of Mehrgarh was abandoned, the remains of both earlier occupations were covered by a leveled layer of soil and debris on which a planned settlement was built. Detailed investigation of one area showed that the Harappan houses were arranged in blocks, separated by north-south and east-west streets; the houses were generally quite small, comprising a courtyard from which two or three rooms opened, one of which was generally a bathroom. Along the southern edge of the northern mound, part of a massive brick platform accessed by a stair was uncovered, but erosion made it impossible to gain information on the structures that had originally stood on it. South of this platform a potter's workshop was uncovered.
Kalibangan. A substantial parallelogram-shaped walled settlement existed at Kalibangan in the Ghaggar (Saraswati) Valley during the Early Harappan period. This was abandoned, perhaps due to an earthquake, but in the Mature Harappan period a new settlement was constructed, a citadel on the west being built over the remains of the earlier settlement and a separate walled lower town in the east. Parts of the earlier settlement's walls were reused, the east wall forming part of the west wall of the new lower town and the rest being incorporated into the citadel's walls. The streets of the lower town and the structures in the citadel were orientated north-south. There was therefore an uncomfortable mismatch between the parallelogram shape of the town conditioned by the refurbished walls and the cardinally orientated street plan dictated by Mature Harappan ideology.
The citadel was divided into two by a wall running east-west. Part of a street with houses was uncovered in the northern half, possibly elite residences. A gateway from here gave access to the southern part where there were a number of separate platforms, each accessed via a stair; one held seven fire altars. An impressive southern gateway with towers gave access from the plain to the southern half of the citadel: This may have been the public entrance. In the lower town there were four or five main streets running north-south and at least three running east-west between them, though frequently these were staggered. Unlike many settlements, Kalibangan did not have a regular system of drains. Fender posts at street corners suggest that carts were regularly brought into the town and the courtyards of the houses often had a wide entrance that would have allowed access for a cart; some courtyards had rectangular troughs constructed of mud bricks, probably to hold food or water for animals
To the east of the settlement, a small mound was found on which there was a single walled structure containing fire altars. A cemetery was found to the southwest of the settlement. There may also have been suburban occupation in the area south of the citadel.
Banawali. Founded in the Early Harappan period, Banawali was a walled town on a branch of the upper Saraswati River. An elevated citadel (Acropolis) was partitioned off from the rest of the town by an elliptical wall with bastions that joined the inside of the wall surrounding the town. A wide ramp, surfaced with baked bricks, linked the citadel with the lower town, and there was another entrance near the southeastern corner. The citadel was built on the remains of the earlier settlement, augmented by mud brick platforms. Houses built along a network of streets were uncovered in both the lower town and the Acropolis, the streets in the latter sometimes paved with bricks. Both the number of rooms in these houses and the objects found in them suggest that the town's inhabitants were prosperous. There seems little or no difference between the houses in the citadel and in the lower town. In the Late Harappan period, houses of packed earth were constructed in one part of the settlement and pits were dug in various places, including into the earlier town wall.
Balakot. The settlement of Balakot was located in the eastern Makran, originally on the coast, and its inhabitants combined marine fishing and shellfish procurement with the manufacture of shell artifacts. The mound was divided into two, with the higher citadel in the west. The main street on the citadel ran east to west and was flanked by large houses of mud brick, some with thinly plastered floors, associated with baked brick drains. Their kitchens had hearths and storage jars. In one house was a bathroom with a terra-cotta bathtub, a sunken water storage jar, and a hearth. The southern edge of the citadel mound was badly eroded, but part of a large building was recovered in which one room had a floor paved with clay tiles decorated with a pattern of intersecting circles. Another room, perhaps part of the same complex, had a fine lime-plastered floor with a central depression that had probably held a wooden column, and adjacent rooms seem to have been used for storage, since they contained large sunken jars. At a later stage, a room slightly to the north of these was paved with bricks and had a ceramic basin set in its center. Also on the citadel was a building with a large courtyard with pilasters in its wall. Working floors, where shell artifacts were made, were also located on the citadel. It is possible that the citadel was originally walled. Architecture in the eastern part of the mound (the Lower Town) was badly damaged by erosion, but in this area too there was evidence of a substantial nondomestic structure as well as houses. Kilns for firing pottery and terracotta figurines were found outside the settlement, indicating suburban occupation and industry.
Sutkagen-dor (Makran). The westernmost Harappan settlement, the port town of Sutkagen-dor was enclosed by natural ridges to north and south and walls made of large stone slabs set in clay mortar along the west and east sides. A gate flanked by two towers was identified in the southwest corner. A large mud brick and stone platform was built against the western wall, and there were traces of mud brick housing on stone foundations in the northern and eastern parts of the settlement. Traces of suburban settlement have been found outside the walls.
Shortugai. The Harappan outpost of Shortugai in Afghanistan was, despite its distance from the Indus, a typical settlement built of mud bricks in the usual 1:2:4 proportions. Inside the houses that have been exposed, there were internal partition walls of pise (packed mud). One room was paved with bricks. Local copper was smelted and local lapis made into beads to be sent back to the Indus realms, while, conversely, beads were made of imported carnelian for local use and export.
Allahdino (Sindh). This tiny settlement (1.4 hectares) is extremely unusual and has been interpreted in various ways, for instance, as the residence attached to a rural elite estate, as a local administrative center, or as a storage and transit depot. It was situated on a tongue of land between rivers and had good alluvial land beside it.
The mound is unwalled and was centered on a courtyard on the summit, surrounded by small buildings separated by passageways. A stone well and a terra-cotta bathtub, decorated with intersecting circles, were found in one building, and a line of wells in another; in a third was a bathroom lined with stone. The largest building was built around an internal courtyard and included chambers containing storage jars. Another building was also used for storage in large jars. There was also a building housing ovens, apparently used for firing clay objects made there. At least some of these buildings are likely to have had a second story. A jar containing a hoard of jewelry made of gold, silver, and other valuable materials buried in one of the rooms suggests both the affluence of at least one of the residents and the sudden abandonment of the settlement in adverse circumstances.
Lothal. The town of Lothal in Saurashtra was a major center of trade and industry. Its walled area was approximately square, with one elongated and rounded corner. Along its east side ran the "dock" and associated quay. Adjacent to this in the southeast corner of the town was the Acropolis (citadel) built on a raised platform, while the rest of the walled area was occupied by a lower town with planned streets paved with mud bricks, blocks of housing, and numerous workshops related to a range of crafts, particularly in the north and southwest. Houses were also present on the citadel, and in both areas the streets were cardinally orientated. One block on the citadel had a row of twelve bathing platforms at the rear connected to a large drain, possibly a public facility used by citizens of Lothal or part of a row of small houses. There were a number of wells. A warehouse was also located on the citadel. In the uppermost levels, belonging to the Late Harappan period, brick-built houses were replaced by huts of wattle and daub. According to the excavator, S. R. Rao, the settlement experienced a number of episodes of flooding, a problem that the inhabitants attempted to counteract by constructing their houses and other buildings on individual platforms. A cemetery was located to the west, between the town and the river. Scatters of potsherds and brick south of the settlement suggest the existence of unwalled suburbs.
Brick platforms uncovered at Lothal were the base of a warehouse, probably with a light wooden superstructure. It was destroyed by fire, which baked (and therefore preserved) the clay sealings fastened to goods stored here. (Namit Arora)
Surkotada (Kutch). The small town of Surkotada, 1.4 hectares in extent, was roughly rectangular, divided by a wall into two equal parts, an eastern residential area and a western citadel raised on a one-meter-thick rammed earth platform. Single-story houses were excavated in both parts and were similar, though those on the citadel are said to be somewhat larger. There were also drains. Outside the walls lay the cemetery and, to the southwest, an industrial area where stone tools were made; to the southeast a very eroded mound may also have been the remains of extramural settlement, though little Harappan material has been found to support this interpretation.
Kuntasi (Bibi-no-Timbo). The port of Kuntasi near the northern coast of Saurashtra had two parts, a 2-hectare walled settlement and unwalled suburbs. A stone platform ran along the western side of the wall, and adjoining this inside the walled town were a substantial industrial complex and a number of storage facilities. A centrally placed house with a number of rooms, including a private kitchen, was thought by the excavator to have belonged to the person in charge of the complex. Other houses lay in the north and west of the walled area, mainly large rectangular buildings, sometimes subdivided and often with a veranda. They had stone foundations and walls of mud bricks in Harappan proportions but unusually large (9.5 by 19 by 38 centimeters). In the southwestern corner was a large isolated room identified as a kitchen serving most of the settlement. The buildings were arranged around a large open space, perhaps for public assemblies or for sorting out consignments of goods. From the residential area, a postern gate in the northern wall led to the flimsy suburban housing. Although Kuntasi was not laid out according to the cardinal directions, it appears to have been a planned settlement, organized for the production, storage, and movement of goods. In the Late Harappan period, the settlement declined, and only a small number of artisans still worked there, living in poor-quality houses of mud with thatched roofs.
Gola Dhoro (Bagasra). Situated at the head of the Gulf of Kutch, Gola Dhoro was an industrial settlement of just under 2 hectares. A massive wall surrounded the northern part of the town, enclosing an area of 0.25 hectare; the rest of the settlement, to the south, was unwalled. An area where fish and animals were butchered was uncovered in the latter and mud brick houses in both. Gola Dhoro specialized in the production of shell bangles and gemstone beads, as well as objects of copper and faience. While bead manufacture took place mainly in the unwalled area, faience was made only in the walled town, where shell was also worked and jasper and shell were stored for local working and onward distribution. Large blackware storage jars suggest the settlement engaged in overseas trade since such vessels were used for transporting goods to Magan (Oman).
World History
