Place · Harappan town · India
Rupnagar (Ropar)
The Harappan site at Ropar in Rupnagar district, Punjab, India — the first Harappan site excavated after Independence (by Y.D. Sharma 1953-55) and the one where Harappan levels sit directly under later Painted Grey Ware (c.1000 BCE) and historic strata, giving an unbroken sequence of occupation on the Sutlej. The town flourished c.2500-1700 BCE and declined into the Painted Grey Ware period with no major break. Ropar's position in the sub-Himalayan Punjab makes it one of the easternmost mature Harappan outposts, and the stratigraphic continuity has been central to arguments about Harappan-to-later Vedic cultural continuity.
- Function
- Archaeology & heritage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 30.970, 76.530
Connections (2)
- Succession in timeAtranjikhera
Rupnagar has Harappan levels directly under Painted Grey Ware; Atranjikhera in the upper Ganges plain has the fullest Painted Grey Ware and iron sequence anywhere. Together they are the bridge between the first urbanisation and the second, which is otherwise a gap of seven hundred years with very little in it.
- River adjacencyŚutudrī / Sutlej
Rupnagar sits where the Śutudrī leaves the Shivaliks for the plain, and it was the first Harappan site excavated in independent India. It marks the eastern edge of the Harappan world on this river and the western edge of the country the later Vedic texts move into, so the Sutlej here is a hinge between two phases rather than a boundary between two peoples.
On these journeys
Sources
Ropar excavation reports
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