The Indus Civilization Read online

  Paleobotanical research played an important role in the excavations at Rojdi. A systematic sampling and intensive recovery program was developed with the collection of soil from each stratum. This work yielded about 10,000 seeds from over seventy different plants. The ancient inhabitants of Rojdi did not rely on barley and wheat, as their cousins in Sindh and the Punjab did, but they had a diversified farming and collecting economy based on hearty species of plants that were drought resistant and needed little cultivation and care. For example, the ancient people of Rojdi used millets, such as ragi and jowar, still important in Saurashtra today. The millets were probably cultivated, but the use of wild plants was also significant. Because we know the life cycle of these plants, we were able to determine that Rojdi was occupied year-round.

  Figure 3.23 Architecture on the Main Mound at Rojdi

  The Material Culture

  Much of the pottery from Rojdi is a hard, red to buff ware made from well-prepared clay. There are classic Indus forms, especially the dish, both as a plate and as the dish-on-stand. Many of the jar forms, especially the smaller ones, are alike, but the large storage jars are different, with various rims and none of the pointed bases found in Sindhi sites. Several of the diagnostic pottery types of Sindhi Harappans are not found in Saurashtra: The ubiquitous pointed-base goblet is missing, but so are the beaker, teacup, knobbed ware, feeding cup, and the elegantly tall, slender S-form jar with flanged rim. On the other hand, the Harappans of Saurashtra had many pottery forms and types not found in other domains of the Mature Harappan world. For example, the most frequently found vessel form in Saurashtra at this time is the hemispherical red ware bowl, often with a stud handle, which accounts for over one-half of all the sherds recovered from Rojdi. Its function seems to have been as a drinking bowl.

  The pottery often has graffiti with signs from the Indus script, such as the jar sign. There is also a short inscription in Harappan writing on the rim of a potsherd, as well as Indus weights, all seen in figure 3.26.

  There is a reasonable amount of metal from Rojdi. Most of it is copper-based, but both gold and silver artifacts have also been found. Four complete flat axes of copper or bronze were found and another broken example, all in Rojdi C contexts. These are stylistically more like the axes of the Deccan Chalcolithic than the long, narrow axes of Sindh and the Punjab. There is also a very fine knife, or parsu, with an endless knot design, and an interesting ribbed object, possibly an ornament of some kind. Finally, there are fishhooks, and fish bones as well, but one of the hooks is flat, not fashioned from a round wire. Rather than having a loop on one end to fasten the line, there is a notch; not as good as a loop, but far better than nothing at all.

  Conspicuous by their absence in any phase are signs of industrial and manufacturing activity at Rojdi. There are no furnaces, kilns, wasters, or slag. In seven seasons of excavation we have found one bead broken while it was being drilled. Thus, if we look at Rojdi, with its houses, compounds, and food-processing and storage facilities, its overall character suggests a farmer’s village. But the regional centrality of Rojdi, its comparatively large size, and the stability of a year-round settlement suggest that it was important in other ways and was not just another ordinary Sorath Harappan village. We are not yet clear about this part of the Rojdi story, but the search should be pursued with further digging there.

  Figure 3.24 Rojdi Gateway (after Possehl and Raval 1989)

  The New Chronology for Bronze Age Sites in Saurashtra

  The seven seasons of excavation at Rojdi between 1982 and 1995 produced a number of important results. Prior to 1982 it was assumed, actually for no particularly good reason, that the Harappan sites in Saurashtra dated to the Posturban, or Late, stage of the civilization. The renewed excavations at Rojdi were an opportunity to assess this. The new work confirmed three periods of occupation, called Rojdi A, B, and C. Twenty radiocarbon dates have allowed us to estimate the absolute chronology of Rojdi as follows:

  Rojdi C 1900—1700 B.C.

  Rojdi B 2200—1900 B.C.

  Rojdi A 2500—2200 B.C.

  These dates confirm that there are posturban Harappan sites in the region, but many of the sites are earlier, going back to the very beginnings of the Harappan Civilization circa 2500 B.C. Other research in Gujarat informs us that farmers and herders were present in the region even prior to 3000 B.C., but that is another story.

  The Sorath Harappan

  The ancient inhabitants of Rojdi were not “stamped-out” Harappans, clones of their cousins in Sindh and the Punjab. The Harappans of Saurashtra had their own way of life, their own farming economy, which was probably a unique blend of farming and pastoralism. Their architecture is also distinctive, with no drains and other water facilities so much a part of Harappan life in other Indus domains. The people of Rojdi built in stone and mud, not baked brick. Their material culture sets them apart from Harappans found elsewhere. The broad picture that emerges is that the Harappans of Saurashtra were part of the larger cultural mosaic we now call the Indus Civilization, but they had their own “flavor” and unique characteristics. Their ancestry goes back to Sindh and the old Neolithic homeland in Baluchistan through the Early Harappans, who are documented in North Gujarat.

  Although their cultural heritage is the same as the Sindhi and Punjabi Harappans, they were also distinct, singular in their way of doing things, possibly with their own traditions and identity. In an effort to capture this sense that the inhabitants of Rojdi and their neighbors were both part of a larger Indus world, yet unique within it, I coined the term Sorath Harappan.84

  Figure 3.25 Large Square Building (after Possehl and Raval 1989)

  Rojdi and the Indus Civilization

  What do the seven seasons of excavation at Rojdi contribute to our knowledge of the Indus Civilization? There are three main points.

  First, the new chronology moved many of the villages, camps, and hamlets back in time by about 500 years. This correction brings the inhabitants of these places into a time when the Indus Civilization was flourishing. The Bronze Age peoples of Saurashtra can no longer be treated as “Late Harappan refugees” from Sindh or any other domain of the Indus Civilization.

  Second, the investment the excavation team made in recovering bones and paleobotanical materials allowed them to define the Rojdi subsistence system. It was based on hardy, drought-resistant crops, adapted to the semiarid monsoon climate of Saurashtra. The inhabitants of Rojdi were also cattle keepers par excellence. Rojdi is also one of the sites documenting the integration of the African millets into the Harappan subsistence system. This led to widespread double cropping in the Subcontinent, using both the rabi and kharif seasons. The work on the Rojdi subsistence system, taken as a whole, is a striking reminder that the Indus Civilization is best analyzed and discussed in terms of its various regional manifestations. This is the principal justification for speaking of the Harappans in Saurashtra as Sorath Harappans.

  Perhaps the most important result of these excavations is an implication about the transformation of the Indus Civilization. Rojdi C, which begins at about 1900 B.C., is defined by several important changes. Just as Mohenjo-daro was being abandoned, Rojdi was expanding in size. New houses and other structures were constructed on the fill of the South Extension; the Main Mound was rebuilt. The Large Square Building was constructed on the North Slope. The circumvallation, with a major gateway, was constructed around the landward side of the settlement, enclosing the South Extension and Large Square Building, as well as space between it and the Main Mound. This took the size of Rojdi from 2.5 to 7.5 hectares.

  At about 1900 B.C., just as the major investments were made in the prospering community at Rojdi, Mohenjodaro, Harappa, and many other Indus sites in Sindh and the Punjab were being abandoned or were shrinking in size. The excavations at Rojdi seem to inform us that the peoples of Saurashtra were solidly buffered against the dramatic changes taking place in many domains of the Indus world. This offers a caution that the so-called
eclipse or end of the Indus Civilization might well be an overstatement and in need of radical reexamination.

  NOTES

  1 Possehl 1999b; J. Shaffer has also dealt with this theme, personal communication.

  2 R. Ehrenreich, C. Crumley, and J. Levy 1995.

  3 R. Blanton et al. 1996.

  4 Jansen 1993a.

  Figure 3.26 Sorath Harappan graffiti and artifacts (after Possehl and Raval 1989)

  5 Wheeler 1968: 110.

  6 Varma 1990.

  7 Vidale and Miller 2000: 124—25.

  8 Lamberg-Karlovsky 1975: 362—63.

  9 Marshall 1931f: 91, 102—3. This is one of the themes that Wheeler and Piggott also took much to heart, but this observation speaks to order, discipline, a commitment to standards, the value of sociocultural homogeneity, and a single, overarching ideology.

  10 Marshall 1931f: 95.

  11 Mackay 1948: 25.

  12 Shaffer and Lichtenstein 1989: 123.

  13 Herodotus book III, 98; Godley 1926.

  14 Shinde, Thomas, and Possehl 2001.

  15 Marshall 1931e.

  16 Hemphill, Lukacs, and Kennedy 1991: 172.

  17 Kennedy 2000: 306.

  18 Kennedy 2000: 302—7.

  19 Dani 1970—71: 48.

  20 Thomas and Allchin 1986; Allchin and Knox 1981: 106—8.

  21 Possehl 1999b: 712.

  22 Dani 1970—71: 47—48.

  23 Khan, Knox, and Thomas 2000: 9—10.

  24 Possehl 1999b: 727—845.

  25 Mughal 1997; Possehl 1999b: 372—84.

  26 Possehl 1979.

  27 Possehl 1999b: 702 for map. These sites were first reported by Joshi 1986.

  28 Possehl 1999b: 189—91.

  29 Possehl 1999b: 191.

  30 See Sharma 1974; Bokonyi 1997; Meadow and Patel 1997.

  31 Belcher 1991: 114.

  32 Possehl 1999b: 249—51.

  33 Possehl 1999b: 250—51.

  34 Jarrige et al. 1995: 248.

  35 IAR 1986—87: 132.

  36 Aitken 1907: 255.

  37 Aitken 1907: 236.

  38 Jarrige et al. 1995: 318—19.

  39 Jarrige et al. 1995: 451, 461.

  40 Flam 1981: 151—52.

  41 Possehl 1975.

  42 Weber 1991: 182—83.

  43 This theme is developed in Possehl (1999b).

  44 Possehl 1999b: 157—72.

  45 Government of India 1884: 3.

  46 Jansen, Mulloy, and Urban 1991.

  47 See Indian Archaeology, A Review for yearly reports and Bisht 1991 and 1999.

  48 Suraj Bhan 1975: 95—102.

  49 Nath 1998, 1999.

  50 See Nath 1999: 47, for a description of Period I.

  51 Nath 1999: 48.

  52 Nath 1998: pl. IV.

  53 Khan 1965.

  54 Mughal 1970.

  55 Khan 1965: pls. XXVI, XXVIIb.

  56 Mughal 1970.

  57 Majumdar 1934: 35—44.

  58 Mackay 1943.

  59 Mackay 1943: 38.

  60 Mackay 1943: 41—45.

  61 Mackay 1943: pl. LVIII, nos. 1 and 2.

  62 Possehl, 1994.

  63 Mackay 1943: 157, pl. LV, nos. 10, 11, 13, 14, 15.

  64 Shar and Vidale 1985.

  65 Lal 1979, 1981; Thapar 1975, 1989.

  66 Lal 1970—71.

  67 Thapar 1989: 196.

  68 Sharma 1999.

  69 Stein 1931: 118—27.

  70 See Possehl 1986b: 51—55, for a description of Nindowari.

  71 Possehl 1986b.

  72 Stein 1931: 60—71.

  73 Dales and Lipo 1992.

  74 Stein 1931: 66—67.

  75 Dales and Lipo 1992: 139.

  76 Stein 1931: 63, 69.

  77 Mackay 1937—38: pl. CXXI, nos. 1—5.

  78 Dales and Lipo 1992: 148.

  79 Rao 1979, 1985.

  80 Leshnik 1968; Possehl 1976.

  81 Rao 1963b.

  82 Sarkar 1985.

  83 Possehl and Raval 1989.

  84 Possehl and Herman 1990; Shinde et al. 2001.

  CHAPTER 4

  The Technology of the Indus Age

  The combination of elaborate social and economic organization over a huge empire with an isolation which rendered many of its technological processes astonishingly primitive makes one think not so much of contemporary Sumer or Egypt, but rather of the Central American, pre-Columbian Civilizations.

  —S. Piggott, Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C.

  INTRODUCTION

  Stuart Piggott’s statement on the technological sophistication of the Indus Civilization is very much outdated today. The high degree of Indus artistic and technological achievement can be seen in the cutting, polishing, etching, and drilling of the very long carnelian beads, the preparation of metal alloys, especially bronze, the use of lost wax casting and the very substantial quantity of metal, the quality of the carving of the square stamp seals, the manufacture of high-quality faience, and finally the preparation of very high quality ceramics, especially stoneware.1 Equally apparent was the sophistication of the Harappan engineer. The building and maintenance of Mohenjo-daro is sufficient testimony to this skill, with the maintenance of the grid town plan, the elaborate drainage system that would have had to be regularly releveled as the contours of the city grew and changed, the digging of wells on a massive scale (estimated to be 700 at Mohenjo-daro alone), the engineering and architectural sophistication of the Great Bath. Contemporary thoughts on Indus technology are very much in line with the following:

  Although a large amount of field and laboratory research will be necessary to test many of the proposed interpretations, the available evidence is substantial enough to give a picture of the puzzling degree of sophistication of Harappan pyrotechnology . . . in artifacts such as the stoneware bangles we find not only the crystallization of impressive amounts of labor-force and specific know-how, but also the accumulated experience and skill needed to acquire and master a wide and diversified knowledge of chemistry.2

  This high degree of technological sophistication, as well as accomplishment, was well enough developed that I think of it as a part of the Indus ideology. M. Vidale and H. Miller have used the phrase “Indus technological virtuosity” to describe the Harappan mastery of materials.3 Theirs was not just a knowledge of pyrotechnology, it extended to techniques for crushing and refining, drilling, polishing, sophisticated engineering, city planning, and deep-water ocean sailing, including navigation, boatbuilding, and maintenance. There was also the work and skill needed to acquire the proper raw materials, some of which were fluxes and catalysts, that are not apparent parts of the finished product. Since the Indus virtuosity in such a wide a range of technological pursuits did not happen by accident, I have proposed that it was institutionalized within the ideology, which supported and promoted it.

  Before moving to the substance of this discussion, I should make it clear that this is not an exhaustive coverage of Indus technology. There is much that could not be covered here, and some of it important.

  PYROTECHNOLOGY AND THE INDUS AGE

  Introduction

  It can be shown that humans had an early interest in fire and heat. In the beginning this centered on practical, functional matters such as cooking, security, light, and warmth. These are matters of the hearth. But there seem to be other dimensions to humankind’s interest in fire that go beyond the hearth and give the human species a prolonged interest in pyrotechnology.

  Lime Plaster

  Lime plaster and other products deriving from hydrated lime are useful materials for humankind. They have been manufactured for many millennia, going back to the seventh millennium in the Near East. Creating plaster begins with the heating of limestone. By placing the lime source in a kiln, the lime burner drives off carbon dioxide from the parent material and produces a substance called quicklime. This new product is a lively one, and the lime burner has to be careful since it can combine with water in a v
olatile way, expanding and producing heat.

  Lime when combined with sand and water makes a fine mortar for binding bricks and stone together. Lime mortar was used at Mohenjo-daro, although simple earth was the mortar of choice in an overwhelming way.4 Quicklime was also found in the bead factory at Lothal, near the updraft kiln there.5 There is some indication that it might have been used for the dehydration of steatite.