Terra cotta toy boat from Harappa, approximately 6 cm across.
Harappa’s rock and mineral assemblage from the perspective of the greater Indus Valley’s complex geology, the distance one would have to travel to acquire certain materials and a discussion of the differing motivations behind the acquisition and transport of rock and minerals in the greater Indus Valley region.
Abstract
The prehistoric urban center of Harappa is located in the middle of the Punjab plain of northwestern South Asia. there are no stone resources of any kind nearby, only sand and silt. Yet a great diversity of rock and mineral types are present at the site. This paper first examines Harappa’s rock and mineral assemblage from the perspective of the greater Indus Valley’s complex geology. The subsequent sections will consider the scale − both quantity and bulk size − of the materials that were transported to Harappan cities. Next, the distance one would have to travel to acquire certain materials will be examined from the standpoint of the lack of stone resources around Harappa and the nature of the materials themselves. an outline of the several possible modes by which the physical movement of lithic commodities took place will follow. I conclude with a discussion of the differing motivations behind the acquisition and transport of rock and minerals in the greater Indus Valley region.