How do we know that people of the Indus Valley Civilisation were engaged in trade by land and over sea?
Answers
Explanation:
Until recently it was generally believed that the Indus civilization was land-locked and its limited trade route leading to Mesopotamia and Elam lay along through Baluchistan and southwestern Iran. It was even said that there was hardly any sizable international trade which could have intensified the cultural activity of the Indus people. Recent explorations have, however, brought to light several Harappan ports giving a coastal aspect to the Indus civilization and suggesting a brisk sea-borne trade between the Indus people and the Sumerians in the late third and early second millenniums B.C.
Harrappan Ports
In the course of a rapid survey of the coast line of Kutch, Kathiawar and South Gujarat undertaken by the writer during the years 1954 to 1958, several Harappan settlements came to notice, most of them being ports situated at the mouths of the rivers. Todio is a small Harappan port on the southwestern coast of Kutch which afforded shelter to the ships plying between the Indus estuary and the Gulf of Cambay in the second millennium B.C. Amra and Lakhabawal are two other ports situated near Jamnagar on the northwestern coast of Kathiawar, while Kindarkhera near Porbander, Prabhas (Somnath) near Veraval, and Kanjetar near Kodinar are on the main trade route. They are important estuarine ports of the late Harappa period on the western coast of Kathiawar.
Land or Sea Route
Some scholars have suggested that the Harappans might have taken a land route to Kathiawar from Sind via Desalpur in Kutch and Rojdi in Central Saurashtra. Recent excavations have clearly established that Desalpur was a small HArappan settlement which borrowed certain elements (such as the stud-handled bowl and coarse grey ware) from Lothal and certain others from Mohenjo-=daro. Sri K.V. Soundararajan, the excavator, has assigned the early levels of Desalpur to about 2000 B.C., which would be contemporary with phase IIIB of Lothal A and the early levels of Rojdi, both of which have been dated by the Carbon-14 method. In this connection it may be mentioned that the two cultural periods, A and B, of Lothal represent respectively the mature and the degenerate (or late) Harappa cultures. Period B consists of structural phase V while the earlier period A consists of phases I through IV, numbered from the bottom up. Below Lothal IIIB, dated 2010 – 115 B.C., lie five structured levels: IIIA, IIC, IIB, IIA, and I. Hence the Lothal port must have been occupied by Harappans a few centuries before the two inland settlements at Desalpur and Rojdi came into existence.
Lothal: The Dock
One of the important results of the excavation of Lothal is the welcome light it has thrown on the maritime activities of the Indus people.
The largest structure of baked bricks ever constructed by the Harappans is the one laid bare at Lothal on the eastern margin of the township to serve as a dock for berthing ships and handling cargo. It was built in phase IIA about 2300 B.C. It is trapezoid in plan with brick-built walls enclosing an excavated basin.