Since intensive recent excavations, the mature Harappan can now be divided into three phases, all of which are represented on Mound E. During this long phase there was continuity in material culture and construction techniques with Period II, but with the addition of a range of new artifacts and developing preferences in the form and decoration on ceramic vessels. Pottery production continued, with the presence of firing kilns, and massive new walls were built on the Period II walls. The interior of the lower city incorporated mud-brick platforms, which were added to throughout the phase, together with streets and a drainage system. The walls at the southern periphery incorporated a large gateway 2.8 meters (9.2 ft.) wide, faced with fired bricks and giving access to a city street on a north-south axis. The full gamut of Indus Valley civilization artifacts was associated with this phase, including weights, figurines, STEATITE seals, terra-cotta sealings, and figurines, but there were also internal developments, wherein tiny steatite and FAIENCE tokens were introduced during Period IIIB. Since these tokens also recur on Mound F to the north, it is evident that the excavations there during the 1920s and 1930s had encountered an area belonging to the mature period of the city’s history The development of the city, however, was not without periods of urban decay The division between Periods IIIA and IIIB, for example, saw clogged sewers and animal carcasses littering part of Mound E before a period of urban renewal began.
The earlier reports of prewar excavations, while representing less precise excavation techniques than those employed more recently, did have the one advantage of opening large areas to reveal the structures of the mature city Excavations in 1931-32 on Mound F for example, revealed a series of narrow lanes giving access to small, individual dwellings of identical plan. Small passages led off the lanes into rectangular houses, each with three rooms. Each house measured about 15 by six (50 by 20 ft.) meters. This same part of the city also included six granaries, disposed in rows, associated with circular brick working floors. The presence of chaff from wheat and barley on these floors leaves no room for doubt that they were for threshing grain. Significantly, these threshing floors were located near the ancient river bank, suggesting that the grain may have been shipped to the city by barge. This same period saw the construction of the elite structures on the citadel mound, though these are little known because of the activities of brick robbers.
World History
