Kalibangan : A Short Description
Kalibangan lives along the left bank of the now dry river Ghaggar (ancient Saraswati) in Rajasthan. It comprises two mounds, the smaller one to the west and the larger is the east.
The excavation brought to light the grid lay out at a Harappan metropolis. The
discoverly of a non-Harappan settlement immediately underlying the Harappan citadel is
significant.
The pre Harappan settlement was fortified parallelogram. The fortification wall being built of mud bricks. The houses within where also made of mud bricks. The pottery was significantly different from that of succeeding Harappans. An outstanding discovery was a plonghed field perhaps the earliest plonghed field excavated so far for showing a grid of furrows, situated outside the town wall.
In Kalibangan during the Harappan period the strictural pattern had two distint parts : the citadel on the west and the lower city on the east. The former was located atop the remains of the preceeding occupation to gain an eminence city. The citadel complex was a fortified parallelogram consisting of two equal but separately patterned parts. The fortifications where built throughout of mud bricks. The southern half lof the citadel contained some five to six massive platforms, perhaps used for religious purposes. The northern half contained the residential building of the elite. The lower city was also fortified. Within Un walled city was a gridiron plan of streets running north-south and east-west, dividing the are into blocks. The houses were built of mud-bricks backed bricks being confined to drains, wells, sills etc.
Besides, there was a third structure also a modest one - containing four to five 'fire alters', which could have been used for ritnal purposes.
At Kalibangan, a cylinder seal and an incised terracotta cake are perhaps worth mentioning finals.
The cemetery, located to the west-south-west of the citadel, showed three types of burial extended inhumation in rectangular or oval gravepits containing only pottery and other funerary objects in the later no skeletal remains were found.
Kalibangan - A journy into the hoary past - by Dr Lavanya.