Place · chariot burial ground · India
Sanauli
Also known as Baghpat, Bronze-Age chariot burials, Sanauli, Baghpat, Sinauli
The Chalcolithic burial site at Sanauli in Baghpat district, Uttarakhand (Uttar Pradesh), excavated by the Archaeological Survey of India from 2005 and 2018. The 2018 excavation yielded wooden coffin burials c.2000-1800 BCE with what the excavators Sanjay Kumar Manjul read as solid-wheeled carts or chariots, decorated weapons, antenna-hilted swords and a copper 'crown'. The identification as chariots was contested by Asko Parpola and others as cart-wagons rather than horse-drawn chariots. The site has become central to debates about Indo-Aryan arrival and chariot technology; a 2020 Discovery documentary (Secrets of Sinauli) brought wide attention.
- Function
- Burial and funerary
- Confidence
- Qualified / contested
- Location
- 29.140, 77.220
Worth knowing
The vehicles found here are either the earliest chariots in South Asia or ox-carts, and which one you think they are tends to track what you already believe about the second millennium BCE. The excavators say chariot; several specialists say cart.
Whether the vehicles are chariots or ox-carts is disputed, and the dispute is not merely technical.
Connections (1)
- Succession in timeAlamgirpur
Sanauli in the upper Doab and Alamgirpur on the Hindon are both at the eastern edge of the Harappan world and both around the end of the mature phase. Sanauli's cart burials, copper swords and helmet have no Harappan parallel at all, which is why what they represent — late Harappan, a different population, or something in between — is one of the most contested questions in Indian archaeology.
On these journeys
Sources
Sanauli excavation reports, ASI 2018
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