Journey
Harappan frontiers
How far the Bronze Age network actually reached, which is much further than the map of its cities suggests: an outpost on the Amu Darya beside the lapis mines, a fortified place on the Makran coast, a site on the Godavari, and Harappan seals and weights in Sumerian and Gulf cities.
Stops (12)
- Shortugai · c. 2200–2000 BCE
A Harappan settlement on the Amu Darya plain in north-eastern Afghanistan, eleven hundred kilometres beyond the nearest Indus city, with Indus pottery, seals, weights and etched carnelian beads and no local antecedents. It sits where the lapis of Badakhshan and the tin of Central Asia enter the trade, which is presumably the point of it.
- Sutkagan Dor · the western edge
Sutkagan Dor near the Makran coast, a walled settlement on the route toward Iran and the Gulf and the westernmost Harappan site known. It is small and fortified rather than urban, which is what this network's frontier consistently looks like: a garrisoned relay rather than a colony. The frontier is a garrisoned relay rather than a colony, which is itself informative.
- Miri Qalat / Sassi Punnun's fort · the Makran interior
Inland from Sutkagan Dor, in the Kech valley near Turbat, and occupied from the fourth millennium BCE. The French mission under Roland Besenval established a sequence running from the Chalcolithic to the Islamic period, which is the anchor for Makran's prehistory in a region that offers very few. Between this mound and the coastal outpost lie the land and sea arms of the same movement of goods west — the reason Indus seals, carnelian and lapis reach the Gulf at all. Locally it is not a prehistoric site but Punnun's fort, from the Balochi romance.
- Surkotada · c. 2300–1700 BCE
A small fortified settlement in Kachchh, controlling the route between Sindh and Gujarat. The horse bones reported from its upper levels are among the most disputed finds in South Asian archaeology, because a Harappan horse would bear directly on the Indo-Aryan question. A Harappan horse would bear directly on the Indo-Aryan question, which is why a handful of bones from one small fort in Kachchh have been argued over for fifty years.
- Ganweriwala · essentially undug
Ganweriwala in Cholistan is one of the five largest sites of the civilisation and has never been properly excavated. It sits on the dry Hakra, in what is now desert, and what it holds is unknown. It is included because the scale of what has not been dug belongs in an honest account.
- Kunal · pre-Harappan
Kunal in Haryana, a pre-urban settlement with pit dwellings, silver and gold ornaments and early Harappan pottery, which helps anchor the chronology before the mature cities. The eastern plains had their own developmental sequence rather than receiving a finished civilisation from Sindh. The eastern plains had their own developmental sequence rather than receiving a finished civilisation from Sindh, and the silver and gold from its levels are unusually early.
- Farmana · c. 2500 BCE
Farmana, a settlement with an adjacent cemetery of some seventy burials, one of the main sites for Harappan mortuary practice. Its burials differ in orientation and grave goods from Harappa's, which is evidence for real regional variation inside what is usually described as a uniform culture. Real regional variation inside what is usually described as a single uniform culture.
- Rupnagar (Ropar) · c. 2500–1000 BCE
Rupnagar, at the Punjab's eastern limit where the Sutlej leaves the hills, the first Harappan site excavated after 1947, and one where Harappan levels lie directly under Painted Grey Ware. Very few sites carry the bridge between the two urbanisations in a single section. Very few sites carry the bridge between the two urbanisations in a single section.
- Alamgirpur · the eastern limit
Alamgirpur on the Hindon near the Yamuna is the easternmost Harappan site, about eight hundred kilometres from Mohenjo-daro. Its material is late and thin, which is consistent with a frontier rather than a province, and it sits in what became the heartland of the second urbanisation. Its material is late and thin, which is consistent with a frontier rather than a province.
- Daimabad · c. 2200–1000 BCE
Daimabad on the Pravara in Maharashtra is the southernmost Harappan-related site and the findspot of the great bronze chariot, buffalo, rhinoceros and elephant now in Pune and Mumbai. The Jorwe culture here is not Harappan, but the bronzes and some pottery show contact eight hundred kilometres beyond the network's edge.
- Dilmun / Qalʿat al-Bahrain · c. 2200 BCE
Dilmun on Bahrain, the transhipment point between the Indus and Sumer, where Harappan weights, Indus-style seals and a local hybrid seal type have all been found. Its excavated weights follow the Harappan standard in some levels and the Mesopotamian in others, which is what an intermediary looks like. Mesopotamian texts call the source of the goods Meluhha, generally taken to mean the Indus.
- Ur · c. 2500 BCE
Ur's royal graves held long carnelian beads etched in white, made on the Gujarat coast and carried up the Gulf, and Harappan seals and cubical stone weights have been found in the same city. Mesopotamian texts call the source of these goods Meluhha, which is generally taken to mean the Indus.