A History of India, Third Edition

EARLY CIVILISATIONS OF THE NORTHWEST

that the spread of the Mature Harappan culture was accompanied by war
and conquest. After the burning down of old Kot Diji there followed a new
phase of reconstruction noticeably influenced by Mohenjo-Daro.

Kalibangan

Kalibangan in Panjab experienced a similar upheaval in the latter part of
the third millennium. Situated on the then Ghaggar river, this city was next
to Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. What is most interesting about
Kalibangan is not its size, but the excellent preservation of its Early
Harappan strata. This makes Kalibangan an eminent witness of the
circumstances which accompanied the transition from the Early Harappan
to the Mature Harappan period.
Kalibangan was founded around 2900 BC and included some features
then which later became standard for the cities of the Indus civilisation.
For instance, it was a planned city of rectangular shape, about 750 feet
long and following a north-south axis. The city was fortified and the
houses were constructed with adobe bricks of 10 by 20 by 30 centimetres.
The sewerage system was constructed with regular bricks fired in a kiln.
Kalibangan’s ceramics produced on the potter’s wheel were of excellent
quality and nicely decorated, their patterns being clearly different from
those of the subsequent period. But since this early Kalibangan had so
many features similar to those of the later Mature Harappan period some
scholars refer to it as Early Harappan rather than Pre-Harappan.
Nevertheless this first city of Kalibangan is clearly characterised by a
regional style of its own.
Sometime around 2650 BC, when the expansion of the Mature
Harappan culture started, Kalibangan was abandoned for reasons which
are not yet known. It was reconstructed only 50 to 100 years later and its
new pattern reflected the design of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Now for
the first time there was a clear distinction in Kalibangan between an
acropolis and a separate lower town. The acropolis was built on the ruins
of old Kalibangan which had become partly covered by sand. The lower
town was situated at a distance of about 120 feet from the acropolis and
was about four times larger than old Kalibangan. The acropolis was
divided by a wall, the southern part containing what seem to be public and
religious buildings, and the northern part, the residential quarters of the
dignitaries. The lower city was planned on the same regular pattern as the
lower cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. In fact, standards were
extremely rigid: the various streets of the city had a width of 12, 18 or 24
feet according to their relative importance. The bricks, which had been
made to strict specifications even in old Kalibangan, were now fashioned
according to the uniform measure of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro (7.5 by
15 by 30 cm).