Digging deeper for Harappans, Kushans, Guptas

dhalewan (mansa): it’s a barren stretch of land, scorched further in the blazing sun of midsummer. looking at it, one would hardly imagine that this arid land was once the lush plains, housing one of the most ancient and vibrant civilisations. but then one got to dig deeper to find the truth. which is what a team of dedicated archaeologists excavating the historic dhalewan site has done.and to their joy and surprise they have found this mound (about 81,000 square metre area and of 8 metre height) which deceptively hides the history of one of the four earliest ancient civilizations of the old world - indus valley civilization, developing in the northwest of the indian subcontinent about 2,500 bc. in a feverish hunt to find more indus valley sites, dr jp joshi, a renowned archaeologist, explored 25 sites of early, mature and late harappans in the arid area of mansa in 1984 but excavation at dhalewan during the last four months is now being categorised as ‘‘remarkable.’’ as civilisations centred around rivers, the excavation at the dhalewan mound provides clues that that the arid land of area of the present day was once the lush plains. with 25 identified sites of harappan in mansa, the archaeological evidence is strong that there was once a river of some sort in the area and the river provides tantalising reference to today’s ghaggar which was once the mighty sarasvati. to trained eyes the excavated mound reads like a calendar in centuries: each layer revealing a snapshot of past years, of hundreds of years. according to madhu bala, in-charge of excavation work here, all magnificent remains of the grid-planned civilization of the indus valley are found during the excavation here. the remains recovered at dhalewan provide evidence that people of three periods of harrapan, kushan and gupta lived here. the remains of houses made of mud bricks of 1:2:3 size ratio, the cluster of house or village fortified with a wall of 6-metre width and grid-panned streets and house at dhalewan site are all reminiscent of harappans. the harappan period items recovered from dhalewan are scripted rim of a pot, terracotta (baked mud) stamp of bull mark, hopscotch, terracotta sling balls, terracotta triangular cake which was used as heat preserver or heat generation, copper made kadda (male bangle), bifacial games man with bulls carved on both sides, bone points, pendant-cum-spacer made of shell, a small inlay made of shell, terracotta bangles, copper ear or nose ring, a gold bead, and carnelian beads of different size and semi-precious stones in agnate beads. the recovered remains of kushan period are 52 disc-shaped beads of shell, bone dice, bone pointer, terracotta weight and nutshaped beads. a terracotta stamp on which a couple is carved, terracotta buffalo head, copper coin and a script in brahmi. of gupta period, a terracotta stamp, a terracotta buffalo head and a script in brahmi language which reads rajad, are recovered from the site. according to madhu bala, the ornaments mainly recovered are made of shell, mud and copper. it is believed that the civilization here perished in fire.