LO AND BEHOLD - LOTHAL

AS IT MAY HAVE BEEN

One fine day I just decided that I would avail of the opportunity to buy air tickets on the last day of the air ticket sale. My fingers typed and lo and behold the tickets appeared taking me to and fro  Ahmedabad.

For a long-long  time it had been my heart's desire to visit the Harappan sites of Lothal and Dholavira. The Rann of Kutch festival was also still on and so I was delighted with my choice of place.

I quickly  took myself to the Gujarat tourism office which is located on the 3rd floor of a building which once upon a time housed the  Gujarat Emporium on Baba Khadak Singh Marg in Delhi. I got great guidance, route planning and beautiful brochures with which I could plan my trip in greater detail.

After landing at Ahmedabad my first stop had to be Lothal, the 3500 year old dock belonging to the Indus Valley Civilisation. Lothal is only 78 kms away from Ahmedabad by road.

As we drove along the beautiful roads with chana(gram) farms and then cotton crops on both sides of the road, I waited with bated breath to set my eyes on this wonderful place which once thronged with people, who carried on business with people from some other civilisation of that era. That period was the "Bronze Age", iron had not yet been discovered. Did they have bronze nails in the place of iron nails in their boats? 

What was their language, what did they wear, did they have interpreters? How did they carry on their business with people from Mesopotamia? How do I know that they traded with Mesopotamia? Indus seals have been found in what was Mesopotamia and the scribes of Sargon of Akkad (2334 to 2279 BC) kept record of ships that went there. According to those records, trade was carried on between Mesopotamia and Meluhha in gold, copper, beads and jewellery, cotton textiles,  timber and precious woods, ivory, lapis lazuli, and luxury goods such as carnelian and glazed stone beads, in exchange for pearl from the Persian Gulf besides silver, tin, perhaps oil and copper ingots. We understand that  Meluhha, was their name for the Indus Valley civilisation and Lothal was the port of this civilisation.  

 

THE DOCK

With my mind full of questions and a heart full of joy I walked to the dock which was in the middle of land, not on the sea coast. The Lothal dock was built in 2350 B.C. The massive floods of 1900 B.C. destroyed the town and silted up the dock. This dock was lined with kiln fired bricks numbering to about one million, making it the largest brick structure of the Harappans.  The dock was massive, its dimensions were 217 metres x 37 metres with a maximum depth of 4.3 metres. The dock  was connected to the Bhogava river which was a tributary of the Sabarmati river which in turn was connected to the sea. It was located away from the main current of the river to avoid silting. This was a tidal dock and boats could reach Lothal during high tide.  It is thought that a 20 metre  long boat with 75 ton capacity could be manoeuvred in this dock. There are no flights of steps or ramp at this dock.

 

THE WAREHOUSE

On the west of the dock we find the wharf, which was  245 metres x 20 metres and  was built of sun dried bricks. This wharf was used for handling cargo. Further on was a sun dried brick platform which was about 18200 sq feet. This was a warehouse with platforms at different levels with intervening passages, and was used for storage of cargo. The goods were stored and despatched from here after inspection is evident from the fact  that about 65 seals were found in this area. The location of the warehouse and dock near the Citadel which housed the mansions of the rich  indicate that trade was carried out by these people  of the upper town, who could watch and control the activities of the warehouse.

BRICKS

As we walked down the warehouse I found that the bricks  were quite visible and I was quite intrigued to see the size of the bricks as well as the material used for making the brick. The size ratio was 3:2:1.They also had radial bricks with a smaller breadth which were used for constructing circular structures like a well.  These measured 27x14x7 cms. They also made T shaped bricks to close gaps.

 

DRAINAGE

On the right of the warehouse there was a row of rooms with a drain coming out from each room. These drains joined a main drain which went into the dock area. These were the toilet blocks. I was delighted to see  the great thinking and planning of the planners of those times to have so many toilets for the people working in the dock and warehouse. Even today I do not see such facilities for employees in many establishments. Remember, I am talking of an establishment which cared for the basic necessities of its people 3500 years ago!

 

A CLAY POT IN A KITCHEN

As we moved beyond the dock, the wharf and the warehouse, we reached the Citadel where the rich people had houses.The unique characteristic of urban Harappan settlements is in the division of the city into a citadel or ‘Upper Town’ and a ‘Lower Town’. It is assumed that social differentiation existed in Harappan society, and that the ruling or richer class, would have lived in the Upper Town, which had paved bathing spaces, underground drains and a well for potable water. The citadel was on a 3.5 metre high podium of mud bricks. All the construction was made of kiln dried bricks, lime and sand mortar and not by sun dried bricks and these bricks are still intact even after 3500 years. They are still bonded together with the mortar bond. I came across a water pot in the corner of a house which most probably was a kitchen. Some of the houses in the main area were quite large, with four to six rooms, bathrooms, a large courtyard and verandah.

Householders possessed a sump, or collection chamber to deposit solid waste in order to prevent the clogging of city drains. Drains, manholes and cesspools kept the city clean and deposited the waste in the river, which was washed out during high tide. 

THE LOWER TOWN

As we walked further away from the Citadel we reached  the lower town where the general public lived. The houses were in rows and  were set out neatly like a two bedroom, hall, kitchen of modern times. There was excellent drainage system in every house.The streets were paved with mudbrick, with a layer of gravel on top. Houses belonging to artisans such as coppersmiths and beadmakers have been identified from the presence of kilns, raw materials and artefacts.

 

BEADS WERE MADE HERE

Here we saw the ruins of a house where beads were  being  manufactured. Lothal was know for its beads and it seems as though beads were made in every house. They made beads out of shells, Ivory, gold, stone and also clay. Beads were exported by the sea route from Lothal to Mesopotamia and perhaps even Greece.

 

MAGNIFYING GLASS WITH TINY BEADS

Having seen Lothal as it was, we then went to the Museum and I was amazed to see the precision with which some beads were made. They were tiny and very precise. There was a magnifying glass kept in front of very tiny beads so that we could see their  uniformity. How advanced they were in the use of tools was quite an eye opener for me. 

 

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES

Tools made of stone were displayed in the museum. Weights and measures were standardised. There was an ivory scale used for measuring lengths which has the smallest known decimal divisions. The scale is 6 millimetres thick, 15 mm. broad and the length was 128mm. Stone weights were in different calibrations and had blunt edges.   Clay seals from the Indus Valley  were  used to seal bundles of merchandise, as clay seal impressions with cord or sack marks on the reverse side were  found in the warehouse. A number of these Indus Valley seals have also been found at Ur and other Mesopotamian sites. 

A PERFORATED URN

Displays at the Museum include terracotta ornaments, beads, seal and sealing replicas, shell, ivory, copper and bronze objects, figurines representing animals and humans, gorgeous painted pottery, perforated jars as well as fascinating objects recovered from burials in the cemetery site. One of the most fascinating finds in Lothal during excavation was a burial of two people together in a brick-lined grave, a replica of which has been kept in the museum.

 

WHARF

What exactly happened and how this civilisation disappeared is still being researched into. It was constantly threatened by tropical storms and floods which caused immense destruction. The Lothal planners tried to protect the area from consistent floods by building the town on high platforms made of sun dried bricks.   Perhaps it was the changes in climate and floods which led  people to migrate. Their written script has not yet been deciphered.The writing was from right to left.

It was a delight to talk with the local people of Lothal. The people working at the museum were very proud of their heritage although it is known that the people of the Indus Valley migrated lock stock and barrel, so the people living here would not be descended from them.

After seeing all the places I sat down on a chair meant for an attendant at the Museum. As he came towards me, I asked him, "Is this your chair?" and  started getting up. He said,

" Madam, please keep sitting. It is because of you people who visit this place that we earn our living."

I liked his approach. I have seen many others in other places answering "Yes, this is my chair" and proceeding to sit on it with the authority that resides in the chair!

My trip to Lothal was delightful and left me more awed with the bricks, structures, roads, water flushing toilets and of course the magnificent dock.

I am quite sure the intrigue of the Harappan/Indus Valley Civilisation will continue to hold me in awe until someone deciphers their script and unravels the mystery of this very advanced civilisation which simply vanished.