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Banawali An Indus Site in Haryana

September 25th, 2016

"The centralized planning of the Harappan settlements," writes thearchaeologist write Dilip Chakrabarti, "is one of their most famousfeatures. Although they were not laid strictly on chessboard patterns withinvariably straight roads, they do show many signs of careful planning.Places like Mohenjodaro, Harappa, and Kalibangan had low, large eastern

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Banawali An Indus Site in Haryana https://www.harappa.com/blog/banawali-indus-site-haryana

1 of 2 9/29/16, 12:14 AM

sectors and separately walled, higher but smaller western sectors. Thereis clear evidence that the buildings of western sectors were laid out on ahigh artificial mud platform (80,000 square metres and 7 metres high inthe case of Mohenjodaro), fortified with bastions and towers. The easternsector too lay within a wall but the scale of fortification here was lessimpressive.

"The practice of putting a wall around a settlement dates to the EarlyHarappan period but its division into two separately enclosed sectorsappears to coincide with the Mature Harappan stage. Because thewestern sector is raised higher than the eastern one and it is enclosed,archaeologists suggest that it may have been reserved for publicbuildings, the performance of ceremonies, and the residences of theelites. The rest may have dwelt in the eastern sector which had closelybuilt burnt-brick or mud-brick houses lining streets which are often morethan ten metres wide and lanes which are less than two metres wide. Themulti-roomed houses arranged around courtyards sometimes possessmore than one storey, but there are examples of single-roomed, single-storyed buildings.

"Some excavated sites such as Surkotada show no evidence of twinsectors, having only a single sector on the model of the western sector ofKalibangan. Lothal and Banawali each lay within a single enclosure wall.In Banawali, the main streets were winding rather than straight . ..."

Dilip Chakrabarti, Ed. Indus Civilization Sites in India New Discoveries, pp.12-13.

Wikipedia entry on Banawali

Excavations

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Banawali An Indus Site in Haryana https://www.harappa.com/blog/banawali-indus-site-haryana

2 of 2 9/29/16, 12:14 AM