robbers who, in the nineteenth century, had extracted huge quantities of dried mud-brick for use as ballast on the Lahore-Multan railway. Nevertheless, from the remains which survived, the excavators were able to establish that the city had a circuit of not less than three miles, and that its main features were a strongly-walled citadel on the west and a "lower city" to the east and south-east. The citadel, a rough parallelogram 460 yards long by 215 yards wide, was surrounded by a huge defensive wall of mud-brick, 45 feet wide, with an external revetment of backed-brick 4 feet wide. Bastions projected at intervals to strengthen the defences and there were ramps and terraces approached by gates, and supervised from guard-rooms. The citadel stood on a brick platform, high above the plain, from which it was probably approached by flights of steps. The buildings which had stood within these defensive walls were too badly damaged to be identified. When the archaeologists began to examine the mounds north of the citadel they were luckier. Here, close to the old river-bed (the river is now six miles away) three important groups of buildings were uncovered. "Towards the south, close to the citadel, is a double range of barrack-like dwellings. Further north are remains of five rows of circular working-platforms; and beyond these is a double range of granaries on a revetted platform. The ensemble shows co-ordinated planning, and, although the methods of the excavators were not such as to yield stratigraphical evidence of the requisite intricacy, it may be supposed that the whole layout is of approximately one date."13 |
The two lines of barrack-like dwellings were incomplete, but sufficient survived to show that each dwelling consisted of two rooms, with floors partially paved with mud-brick, fronted and backed by narrow lanes, the whole being enclosed within a wall. "It is evident," writes Wheeler, "that the original scheme was both distinctive and uniform, and was in fact a piece of government planning. ... It may here be added that on and about the site of these coolie-lines, but at higher levels, sixteen furnaces were found. . . . The precise function of these furnaces is doubtful, but a crucible used for melting bronze was found in the vicinity.” The seventeen circular brick "working-platforms" were evidently used for pounding grain. One had held a wooden mortar, and round the central hole where this had stood were fragments of straw or ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 3Wheler, Sir Mortimer: The Indus Age, Cambridge University Press. |