The Rohri Flint Quarries
Slideshow on the Rohri Flint mines used by the ancient Indus Valley peoples to excavate and gather natural resources and raw materials for use and trade. Almost all known human sites from 100,000 to 3000 BCE in South Asia could fit into the Rohri flint quarries, so large was this enterprise. By Paolo Biagi.
|
1. The Indus River The Indus River as it flows in the Bukkur Gorge between the towns of Sukkur and Rohri some 20 kilometers (km) north of the excavation areas. In the background is the temple island of Sadhbela. |
|
2. Rohri Hills The Rohri Hills as they appear along the western fringe of the plateau, facing the fertile Indus Valley, where most of thhe Harappan flint quarries and workshops have been discovered. (The shadow is… |
|
3. Rohri Hills The Rohri Hills as they appear along the western fringe of the plateau, facing the fertile Indus Valley, where most of the Harappan flint quarries and workshops have been discovered (map). |
|
4. Rohri Hills The Rohri Hills as they appear along the western fringe of the plateau, facing the fertile Indus Valley, where most of the Harappan flint quarries and workshops have been discovered. |
|
5. Flint Quarries The first Harappan flint quarries here were discovered during a preliminary survey carried out in January 1986 by the writer and Prof. M. Cremaschi of Milan University (standing close to one of the… |
|
6. Quarries Around the quarries, thousands of flint artefacts were found lying on the surface. This shows that peliminary chipping of the artefacts took place on top of the mesas, or flat limestone terraces. |
|
7. Flint Quarries The presence of Harappan flint workshops in the hills close to Rohri had been discovered by Bridget Allchin in 1975. The impressive mining activity in the hills is particularly well-represented near… |
|
8. Small Quarries Small workshops are represented by small scattered groupings of flint, including flakes, blades and sometimes cores. |
|
9. Flint Cores The cores are of a type typical for Harappan culture, both conical and elongated. The blades have been struck off with the pressure technique. This involves pressing the surface of a flint or flake… |
|
10. Balloon During the surveys, a Castiglioni Brothers helium balloon was employed to take photographs from various altitudes. Thanks to this technique, 800 slides and black and white photographs were taken in… |
|
11. Aerial View One of the main minig areas from an altitide of 80 metres. The quarry pits are lighter, semi-circular spots which show areas where sand blown from the neighbouring Thar Desert has been trapped in the… |
|
12. Quarry Pit The excavation of one of these quarry pits was carried out in February 1995. The excavation took place over a small 2 by 3 meter area facing the Indus Valley. |
|
13. Pit 862 The excavation of quarry-pit 862 underway with Drs. F. Negrino (archaeologist), C. Ottomano (paleopedologist) and E. Starnini (archaeologist). |
|
14. Quarry Pit 862 The excavation of quarry-pit 862 (map) underway with Drs. F. Negrino (archaeologist), C. Ottomano (paleopedologist) and E. Starnini (archaeologist). |
|
15. Quarry Pit 862 Excavation of site 862 revealed that the pit had been used by Harappan miners down to a depth of 1.30 meters where the flint vein was encountered. From this pit, a radiocarbon reading of a small… |
|
16. Flint Workshop Some of the workshops are huge masses of flint debitage (scrap) more than 70 centimeters thick. |
|
17. Soil Sampling Soil samples were taken for thin section analysis in various areas of the hills to try to understand the climactic variations that took place in the area before, during and after the rise of Harappan… |
|
18. Excavations Four Harappan workshops were excavated, including site 480 from which more than 35,000 artefacts were collected. Most of them were debitage flakes, but also included narrow blades, bladelets and… |
|
19. Bladelets Some of the narrow bladelets discarded by Harappan flint-knappers are only 2-3 millimeters wide. Bladelets were later retouched into insturments in the Indus Valley cities. They were often shaped… |
|
20. Bullet Cores Two bullet cores from which very narrow bladelets have been removed, and which were then discarded. The blades were made by specialists. |
|
21. Subconical Core A characteristic Indus subconical core from which parallel sided blades have been removed before it was discarded. |
|
22. Flint pre-core An almond shaped pre-core recovered from the bottom of quarry pit 862. A pre-core is the working stage preceding the manufacturing core. Any nodule from which a few flakes have been removed in order… |
|
23. Kot Diji Southwest of the hills lies the famous pre-Harappan and Harappan site of Kot Diji. From the surface of the site, it is very easy to collect flint artefacts obtained from Rohri Hills raw material. … |
|
24. Baluchi workers The wadi bottoms of the Rohri Hills are today seasonally inhabited by groups of Baluchi families. They work in service to contractors to dig up the limestone terraces, which seriously damages the… |
|
25. Unfinished biface from ZPS1 The exact date of the Ziarat Pir Shaban Late Palaeolithic site is difficult to establish. It is reasonable to attribute it to the start of the middle Palaeolithic period, or some 100,000 years ago. |
|
26. Acheulian Workshop The Acheulian workshop of Ziarat Pir Shaban 1 (ZPS1). The Acheulian is a Paleolithic Culture (about 50,000 B.C.) characterized by the presence of bifaces and handaxes. Very little is known about the… |
|
27. Unifinished biface from ZPS1 The exact date of the Ziarat Pir Shaban Late Palaeolithic site is difficult to establish. It is reasonable to attribute it to the start of the middle Palaeolithic period, or some 100,000 years ago. |
|
28. Late Palaeolithic workshop Around the Tomb of Adam Sultan many late Paleolithic workshops were found. Some were of impressive diameter. The most characteristic tools are subpyramidal bladelet cores. The sites are attributed to… |
|
29. Late Palaeolithic workshop Ziarat Pir Shaban 2 is a Late (Upper) Palaeolithic site. It is two miles southeast of the Tomb of Ziarat Pir Shaban in the Shadee Shaheed Hills. |
|
30. Late Palaeolithic Workshop The surface of one of the late Palaeolithic workshops discovered in the survey of February 1997. One pyramidal, bladelet core is in the middle of the slide. |
|
31. Rohri Map |