Maritime history: India
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Ancient India
Lothal and Dholavira
Vasant Shinde, Oct 23, 2022: The Indian Express
The writer is Founding Director General, National Maritime Heritage Complex, Gandhinagar, and CSIR Bhatnagar Fellow at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology
Lothal and Bet Dwarka, also in Gujarat, were excavated by the late Archaeological Survey of India director Dr Shikaripura Ranganatha Rao. Dating back over 4600 years, the dockyard in Lothal is the oldest man-made dockyard, built of burnt bricks, roughly 240 m long, 37 m wide and 4 m deep, with a warehouse located next to it.
The Lothal site lay on a trade route between the Harappan cities in Sindh and the Saurashtra peninsula, when Kutch was part of the Arabian Sea. Lothal flourished with advanced technological marvels that initiated India’s rich maritime history, but declined mysteriously. The evidence from Lothal suggests that the Harappans were highly disciplined people who believed in orderliness, visible in the planning of towns and cities, uniform system of weights and measures, enforcement of trade regulations, efficient administration and standardization of goods and services to facilitate production.
The noteworthy artefacts found in Lothal include models of boats, Persian Gulf seals, bangles, a model of a terracotta mummy, a terracotta pyramid, Sumerian head, precious and semi-precious stones like carnelian, lapis lazuli.
Being a port town, Lothal hosted traders from different parts of the world and civilizations. Along with trade products, their cultural beliefs and values, ideas and innovative techniques also transferred to Lothal, making it the hub of the culture and economy of the world. Dholavira in Kutch district lies on the Khadir Bet island, surrounded by the salt waste of the Great Rann of Kutch. It is also known locally as Kotada timba, and is one of the largest sites where the remains of the Harappan civilization have been found. Two monsoon channels — the Menhar and the Mansar — embrace the settlement. The ruins, including the cemetery, cover over 70 hectares, half of which is appropriated by the fortified Harappan settlement alone.
The moundsare located less than a kilometre northwest of Dholavira village. The groundwater reserve here in its soft sedimentary limestone deposits did not fail it even during the severest droughts in Gujarat in the ’80s.
This Harappan city was discovered in 1968 by former ASI director general Jagat Pati Joshi and excavated for 13 field seasons between 1989 and 2005 led by Ravindra Singh Bisht.
Dholavira is unique because remains of a complete water system have been found here. The people who lived there for an estimated 1,200 years are noted for their water conservation system using rainwater harvesting techniques in an otherwise parched landscape.
Evidence of inter-regional trade with other Harappan cities, as well as with cities in the Mesopotamia region and the Oman peninsula, have also been discovered. Ten large inscriptions, carved in the Harappan Valley script, were found which was billed as the world’s earliest signboard.
The site comprises two parts: a walled city and a cemetery to the west of the city. In 2021 it was on the list of UNESCO’s list of World Heritage Sites.
There is evidence that the Rann of Kutch was navigable in Harappan times, which would have given Dholavira direct or indirect access to the sea. It flourished during the Mature Harappan phase, between 2600 and 1900 BCE.
Dholavira followed a strict plan, but one of its kind with multiple enclosures. The overall plan has an acropolis or upper town, consisting of a massive “castle” located on the city’s high point and an adjacent “bailey”; a middle town, separated from the acropolis by a huge ceremonial ground; and a lower town, part of which was occupied by a series of reservoirs.
The principal building material was stone, although sun-dried bricks were also used. Houses, wells and drains were normally made of local sandstone.
Dholavira had an efficient water management system. Both the monsoon channels were spanned with weirs at certain points, not only for ponding water but also diverting it to the cascading series of reservoirs on the east, south and west.
The reservoir to the east of the castle was the largest among all, ascertained to be 10.6 metres deep with flights of 30 steps.
