Wednesday, 18 May 2016
Monday, 2 May 2016
Rakhigarhi more important than Mohenjo Daro: Data
CAPITAL OF CIVILISATION
Deepender Deswal
Tribune News Service
Rakhigarhi (Hisar), May 2
Archaeological findings and scientific data have indicated that Rakhigarhi had been the more important centre of the Indus Valley Civilisation than the townships of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro located in Pakistan.
The team of archaeologists revealed that the excavation at this site is all set to change the view that Mohenjo Daro was the capital city of the Indus Valley Civilisation. “Instead, the scientific data collected on the basis excavations here have strongly pointed that Rakhigarhi, a metropolis, was perhaps the capital of its times about 5,000 years ago,” said Prof Vasant Shinde, in charge of the excavation and Vice Chancellor of Deccan College, Pune. Deccan College and the Haryana archaeological department have been jointly carrying out the excavation at the site from last three years.
To prove his point, Prof Shinde said this site was spread in over 550 hectares, which is about double than that of the Mohenjo Daro site, which was considered the biggest site till now.
“We have collected evidences of massive manufacturing and trade activities in this town, which revealed the economic organisation and the foreign links of people here. They had trade links with people in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Baluchistan and even Afghanistan. The city flourished during the early Harappan era dating back to around 3,300 BC and existed till 2000 BC,” he said.
Moreover, the DNA samples collected from the skeletons at the cemetery here are set to crack a major mystery surrounding their lives, character, diseases and race of the people who lived here 5,000 years ago.
“Scientists have, for the first time ever, succeeded in extracting DNA from the skeletons of the Indus Valley Civilisation. More skeletons have been found during the ongoing excavation season from mound no.2 for further analysis. Three different institutes of world repute are conducting the DNA analysis for a foolproof study, so that there is no scope of any contradiction,” Prof Shinde said.
He said this was the best and most unexplored site related to the Indus Valley Civilisation so far. “So much material is available here that it would take 100 years to complete the study on uninhabited mounds on the outskirts of the village.
Health Minister Anil Vij, who visited the site on Saturday, said since Rakhigarhi was turning out to be the biggest and most crucial Harappan site in the world, the state government had decided to set up a museum, research centre and a hostel for the researchers in the village.
Yog.
See also :
Rakhigarhi: Indian town could unlock mystery of Indus civilisation
Upcoming Paper on Sindhu-Sarasvati Valley Civilization
 |
| Workers carry out excavation work at Rakhigarhi village in Hisar district. Photo: Sunil Phogat |
Deepender Deswal
Tribune News Service
Rakhigarhi (Hisar), May 2
Archaeological findings and scientific data have indicated that Rakhigarhi had been the more important centre of the Indus Valley Civilisation than the townships of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro located in Pakistan.
The team of archaeologists revealed that the excavation at this site is all set to change the view that Mohenjo Daro was the capital city of the Indus Valley Civilisation. “Instead, the scientific data collected on the basis excavations here have strongly pointed that Rakhigarhi, a metropolis, was perhaps the capital of its times about 5,000 years ago,” said Prof Vasant Shinde, in charge of the excavation and Vice Chancellor of Deccan College, Pune. Deccan College and the Haryana archaeological department have been jointly carrying out the excavation at the site from last three years.
To prove his point, Prof Shinde said this site was spread in over 550 hectares, which is about double than that of the Mohenjo Daro site, which was considered the biggest site till now.
“We have collected evidences of massive manufacturing and trade activities in this town, which revealed the economic organisation and the foreign links of people here. They had trade links with people in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Baluchistan and even Afghanistan. The city flourished during the early Harappan era dating back to around 3,300 BC and existed till 2000 BC,” he said.
Moreover, the DNA samples collected from the skeletons at the cemetery here are set to crack a major mystery surrounding their lives, character, diseases and race of the people who lived here 5,000 years ago.
“Scientists have, for the first time ever, succeeded in extracting DNA from the skeletons of the Indus Valley Civilisation. More skeletons have been found during the ongoing excavation season from mound no.2 for further analysis. Three different institutes of world repute are conducting the DNA analysis for a foolproof study, so that there is no scope of any contradiction,” Prof Shinde said.
He said this was the best and most unexplored site related to the Indus Valley Civilisation so far. “So much material is available here that it would take 100 years to complete the study on uninhabited mounds on the outskirts of the village.
Health Minister Anil Vij, who visited the site on Saturday, said since Rakhigarhi was turning out to be the biggest and most crucial Harappan site in the world, the state government had decided to set up a museum, research centre and a hostel for the researchers in the village.
Yog.
See also :
Rakhigarhi: Indian town could unlock mystery of Indus civilisation
Upcoming Paper on Sindhu-Sarasvati Valley Civilization
Friday, 29 April 2016
Suzanne Sullivan : Some interesting readings
What is the current state of knowledge about Indus Valley Civilization?
The Indus Valley empire stretched from Afghanistan to Bangladesh, in a band across northern south Asia. Despite the failed arguments of nay-sayers Witzel and Farmer, the IVC was a literate culture whose Indus script later developed into Brahmi script, the source of all non-Arabic south Asian writing systems.
The earliest IVC sites are in Haryana, North India (7380 BC) and Merhgarh, Pakistan (8th millennium BC). The culture declined around 2000 BC, probably as a result of drought and famine caused by changes in monsoonal rain. The largest IVC sites are in north India and include Rakhigarhi.
The Indus Valley empire traded with Sumer and Egypt, and may have been mentioned as Meluhha in Sumerian clay tablets describing ships at Sumerian docks. However, the Sanskrit word mleccha actually means non-Hindu barbarian. There are mentions of a place called 'Aratta' in Sumerian texts, described as full of artisans and fabulous wealth, and the homeland of the goddess Inanna. (Arata is a Sanskrit name for the Punjab, in northwest India/Pakistan.)
There have long been furious on-going arguments as to whether the IVC was Indo-Aryan, Dravidian or something else. There is good linguistic evidence for an Indo-Aryan Indus Valley culture, based on comparison of the Indus script signs with Brahmi script and the few known signs of Linear Elamite. However, some theorists still insist that the speakers of Sanskrit and Prakrit were not indigenous to India and did not live there during the IVC. The whole controversy reminds me of the archeological and linguistic authorities of the period telling Michael Ventris that Linear B could not possibly encode Greek, because the Linear B tablets were 'too old.' (As it turned out, Ventris was right, and he managed to decipher Linear B by identifying repeated strings of Linear B signs as the names of certain towns on Crete.)
Yog.
See also :
Tuesday, 29 March 2016
Ancient Brahmi epigraphic text found ?
 |
| An ancient Brahmi inscription found at Mayiladumparain Kannur. |
An inscription found on a granite rock at Mayiladumpara in Malur panchayat here is said to be an ancient two-line epigraphical text that can be dated back to a period between 3500 and 1700 BC.
The inscription was discovered and deciphered by a team of epigraphy enthusiasts headed by P. Pavithran, former head of the Department of Malayalam Studies of the Kozhikode University, who is currently UGC Emeritus Fellow involved in research of epigraphical texts in Kerala and Sri Lanka. The discovery of this five-letter Indus inscription in an area known for its Adivasi settlement is a continuation of earlier finding and deciphering of such scripts in other parts of the region.
“This ancient Brahmi script is in Sabarpari style as it is written from bottom to top and right to left,” said Dr. Pavithran. He said he deciphered the script as a reference to a resolute ruler. The inscription is believed to be older than the inscription he found in the Maruthom forest area of Kasaragod, which, he said, was Boustrophedon style, and the scripts found at Edakkal in Wayanad.
Dr. Pavithran had earlier deciphered a coin inscription found from Madayipara and a two-line Brahmi inscription found at Makreri Subramanya Temple at Peralassery here. But it is for the first time that the Indus inscription has been found in the district. He says the inscriptions found in the region, especially in the tribal settlements, could be information meant for ancient traders who had used the route. More excavations are required to unravel the history of these ancient inscriptions in the region, he added.
These inscriptions are often mistaken for ancient drawings, he noted.
See also :
Wednesday, 23 March 2016
Tuesday, 22 March 2016
Upcoming Paper on Sindhu-Sarasvati Valley Civilization
The papers abstract seems fantastic. Unfortunately it is not available yet.
Astha Dibyopama1, Vasant Shinde1, Dong Hoon Shin2, Chang Seok Oh2 and Nilesh P. Jadhav1
1Department of Archaeology, Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, India
2Institute of Forensic Science, Seoul National University, Korea
Harappan civilization flourished mainly in northwestern province of Indian subcontinent, roughly from between 4000 to 1500 BCE. There are about more than fifty burial sites of the Harappa Civilization discovered so far most of them belonging to a period between 2500-1500 BCE. Lothal, Kalibangan, Rupar, Rakhigarhi, Farmana, Tarkhanwala Dera, Sanauli, Bedwa, Puthi Seman, Bhorgarh, etc. are major sites yielding the remains of Harappan burial. Until the early 1980’s, the study of human skeletal were primarily focused to answer specific questions pertaining to establishing the ethnic or racial identity of the concerned population and was used primarily to complement archaeological hypotheses of cultural migration or diffusion. Recently, however, efforts are made to study diet, health and composition of Harappan population. Some of these issues are tackled by using Stable Isotope and DNA analyses. The aim of present paper is to focus how these scientific methods that are recently applied to Harappan burial studies are quite useful for reconstruction of various aspects of Harappan civilization.
UPDATE : 24.03.2016
The papers abstract is modified :
Harappan civilization flourished mainly in northwestern province of Indian subcontinent, roughly between 4000 to 1500 BCE. There are about more than fifty burial sites of the Harappa Civilization discovered so far. Of them, Lothal, Kalibangan, Rupar, Rakhigarhi, Farmana, Tarkhanwala Dera, Sanauli, Bedwa, Puthi Seman, Bhorgarh etc. are major sites yielding the remains of Harappan burial. Until the early 1980’s, the study of human skeletons was primarily focused to answer specific questions pertaining to establishing the ethnic or racial identity of the concerned population and was used primarily to complement archaeological hypotheses of cultural migration or diffusion. Recently, however, more efforts are also made to study diet, health and genetics of Harappan population. The aim of present paper is to show how these scientific methods that are recently applied to Harappan burial studies are useful for the complete reconstruction of Harappan civilization and its people.
UPDATE II : 26.03.2016
Another modification :
Harappan civilization flourished mainly in northwestern province of Indian subcontinent, roughly between 4000 to 1500 BCE. There are about more than fifty burial sites of the Harappa Civilization discovered so far. Among them, Lothal, Kalibangan, Rupar, Rakhigarhi, Farmana etc. are major sites yielding the remains of Harappan burial. Until the early 1980’s, the study of human skeletons was primarily focused to answer specific questions pertaining to establishing the ethnic or racial identity of the concerned population. Recently, however, more efforts are made to study the diet, health and DNA of Harappan population, assuming a new aspect of research trends on this. The aim of present paper is to show how the scientific methods applied to Harappan burials are used for the complete reconstruction of Harappan civilization and its people.Queries about this poster might be sent to A.Dibyopama(astha2sep@gmail.com), the major author of this study.
Yog.
See also :
Rakhigarhi: Indian town could unlock mystery of Indus civilisation
Rakhigarhi more important than Mohenjo Daro: Data
Harappan Burial Sites in India: Recent Research Trends
Astha Dibyopama1, Vasant Shinde1, Dong Hoon Shin2, Chang Seok Oh2 and Nilesh P. Jadhav1
1Department of Archaeology, Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, India
2Institute of Forensic Science, Seoul National University, Korea
Harappan civilization flourished mainly in northwestern province of Indian subcontinent, roughly from between 4000 to 1500 BCE. There are about more than fifty burial sites of the Harappa Civilization discovered so far most of them belonging to a period between 2500-1500 BCE. Lothal, Kalibangan, Rupar, Rakhigarhi, Farmana, Tarkhanwala Dera, Sanauli, Bedwa, Puthi Seman, Bhorgarh, etc. are major sites yielding the remains of Harappan burial. Until the early 1980’s, the study of human skeletal were primarily focused to answer specific questions pertaining to establishing the ethnic or racial identity of the concerned population and was used primarily to complement archaeological hypotheses of cultural migration or diffusion. Recently, however, efforts are made to study diet, health and composition of Harappan population. Some of these issues are tackled by using Stable Isotope and DNA analyses. The aim of present paper is to focus how these scientific methods that are recently applied to Harappan burial studies are quite useful for reconstruction of various aspects of Harappan civilization.
UPDATE : 24.03.2016
The papers abstract is modified :
Harappan civilization flourished mainly in northwestern province of Indian subcontinent, roughly between 4000 to 1500 BCE. There are about more than fifty burial sites of the Harappa Civilization discovered so far. Of them, Lothal, Kalibangan, Rupar, Rakhigarhi, Farmana, Tarkhanwala Dera, Sanauli, Bedwa, Puthi Seman, Bhorgarh etc. are major sites yielding the remains of Harappan burial. Until the early 1980’s, the study of human skeletons was primarily focused to answer specific questions pertaining to establishing the ethnic or racial identity of the concerned population and was used primarily to complement archaeological hypotheses of cultural migration or diffusion. Recently, however, more efforts are also made to study diet, health and genetics of Harappan population. The aim of present paper is to show how these scientific methods that are recently applied to Harappan burial studies are useful for the complete reconstruction of Harappan civilization and its people.
UPDATE II : 26.03.2016
Another modification :
Harappan civilization flourished mainly in northwestern province of Indian subcontinent, roughly between 4000 to 1500 BCE. There are about more than fifty burial sites of the Harappa Civilization discovered so far. Among them, Lothal, Kalibangan, Rupar, Rakhigarhi, Farmana etc. are major sites yielding the remains of Harappan burial. Until the early 1980’s, the study of human skeletons was primarily focused to answer specific questions pertaining to establishing the ethnic or racial identity of the concerned population. Recently, however, more efforts are made to study the diet, health and DNA of Harappan population, assuming a new aspect of research trends on this. The aim of present paper is to show how the scientific methods applied to Harappan burials are used for the complete reconstruction of Harappan civilization and its people.Queries about this poster might be sent to A.Dibyopama(astha2sep@gmail.com), the major author of this study.
Yog.
See also :
Rakhigarhi: Indian town could unlock mystery of Indus civilisation
Rakhigarhi more important than Mohenjo Daro: Data
Tuesday, 15 March 2016
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