Posts on recent and historic ancient Indus excavations.
April 30th, 2016
"The economy of these people must have relied largely on agriculture. Although no cereals were found in the course of excavating the discovery of a ploughed field [1], situated to the south-east of the settlement outside the town-hall, is highly significant."
April 24th, 2016
"For the astounding remains of Mohenjo Daro, discovered in 1922 and excavated during the following years, are for the most part in a state of utter disintegration and decay and are rapidly approaching the point of total destruction."
April 4th, 2016
"The discovery of a rich hoard of Harappan jewelry from the village of Mandi (29-26 degrees 10' North, 77 degrees 34-35'E) in Muzzaffarnagar district, western Uttar Pradesh, has surprised the archaeological world for several reasons. First, Mandi is located to the east of the Yamuna river, and this area has been considered peripheral to the main distribution area of the Harappan civilization."
March 28th, 2016
"The site Kalibangan - literally 'black bangles' - derives its name for the dense distribution of the fragments of black bangles which were found at the surface of its mounds. . ." writes Madhu Bala. "Evidence of this period consists of a citadel area over the 1.6 metre-thick early Harappan deposit in KLB-1 (the western mound of the site [Image 1]), a chessboard pattern 'lower city' in KLB-2 (the lower and larger eastern mound), and a mound full of fire altars in a much smaller mound further east (KLB-3).
The citadel complex of KLB-1 is roughly a parallelogram (240 by 120 metres) divided into
March 17th, 2016
These images that show how difficult if not impossible it is to ascertain Mohenjo-daro's age; the water table even 50 years ago was doing great damage to the city's remains and making deep digging impossible.
March 9th, 2016
"Remarkable as it may seem, the [estimated 700] well locations at Mohenjo-daro seem to have been laid out when the original platforms were built."
March 8th, 2016
Surkotada is a small, 3.5 acre site northeast of Bhuj, in Gujarat. "The mound has an average height of five-to-eight metres (east-to-west) and was discovered by the author during the course of his explorations in Kutch in December, 1964," writes Jagat Pati Joshi in Excavation at Surkotada and Exploration in Kutch.
March 4th, 2016
The correct answer is Harappa, excavated for 26 seasons, compared to Mohenjo-daro at 15 and Kalibangan at 10 when Gregory Possehl wrote in 1990: "Harappa has been the most frequently investigated of any of the ancient settlements of the Harappan cultural tradition.
February 22nd, 2016
"In January 1927, Mackay began working in L-Area, ca. 28 meters south of the Stupa on the Mound of the Great Bath. He uncovered the so-called 'Assembly Hall' and other architectural remains that are not well understood, even today. He also found three pieces of limestone sculpture: a seated torso (L-950), a reasonably well-preserved bust (L-898) and a very poor, abraded head, possibly of a woman (L-127)."
February 2nd, 2016
A workman handing over the Priest King at the time of excavations in I, Block 2 of DK-B Area during the John Marshal led 1925-26 excavations at Mohenjo-daro. Possehl writes "many classic Harappan style artifacts came to light at this time, including the so-called Priest King which emerged from Dikshit's excavations in DK-B Area, in a building that the excavators thought may have been a hammam or hot bath."
