Harappa
was like any other metro: US prof
http://www.hvk. org/articles/ 1206/191. html
Author: Anjali Joseph
Publication:
The Times of India
Dated: December 21, 2006
A great trading city teeming with different communities that existed
together and enjoyed civic infrastructure like a water supply
and drains; a manufacturing centre where textiles that were exported
around the world were made. It's not a description of 19th century
Mumbai, but of cities like Harappa and Mohenjo Daro in the Indus
valley as early as 4th millennium BC, said Jonathan Mark Kenoyer,
associate professor in anthropology at the University of Wisconsin,
Madison, at a lecture in the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vaastu
Sangrahalaya on Tuesday.
Kenoyer has been working on excavations in the Indus Valley, particularly
in Harappa, since 1974. Drawing on recent discoveries at Harappa,
Kenoyer explained the inferences made by archaeologists and anthropologists
about life in the Indus valley, which is now believed to have
extended in the area surrounding not only the Indus, but also
the now-dried up Saraswati river. Kenoyer said modern archaeological
findings do not support the idea of an Aryan 'invasion,' but show
that Vedic people were among those who lived in cities such as
Mohenjo Daro in Sindh and Harappa in Punjab towards the end of
the Indus civilisation, which stretched between 7,000 BC and 1,900
BC. "These were sophisticated cities with wide roads, gates
designed to keep intruders out and where those coming in or going
out of the city with goods could be taxed. There was a water supply
and proper drains. It was only when the Saraswati dried up and
Mohenjo Daro and Harappa
"There was no single ruler in these cities. We've found no
palace. Instead, there seems to have been a republic in which
a group of elders ruled," said Kenoyer.
What was earlier believed by archaeologists to be a grain store
in Harappa now seems likely to have been a textile weaving centre,
and fine cloth from the area was exported far away, he said.