By T.S. SUBRAMANIAN
An oval furnace with a hub in the middle for keeping the crucible where artisans kept the copper ingots before fashioning them into artefacts. The furnace has holes for aeration and for inserting tuyeres to work up the flames. PHOTO/V. V. Krishnan
The latest round of the Archaeological Survey of India’s excavations at 4MSR in Rajasthan gives valuable insights into how the Harappans made the transition from an agricultural society into an industrial one.
A circular flat-bottomed terracotta vessel with a pronounced knob at the centre is among the artefacts that are engaging the attention of archaeologists at 4MSR, a Harappan site about 10 kilometres from Anupgarh town in Rajasthan. They found not one but two such vessels, but in the second one the knob had broken off. “This is a unique find,” says Sanjay Kumar Manjul, director of the excavation for the 2017 field season, the third so far, at 4MSR. (No one seems to know what 4MSR stands for.) “It is probably a ritualistic vessel. Similar type of pot depictions have been found on seals from Harappan sites in India and Pakistan,” he added. The vessel has been depicted on Harappan seals, placed in front of a unicorn, and on copper plates along with a seated “yogi” with a horned headdress. Manjul, who is also Director of the Institute of Archaeology, the academic wing of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), New Delhi, and other scholars make intelligent guesses that it may be a ritual/ceremonial vessel, an incense burner, or a massive dish that is placed on a stand.
The bowl takes pride of place in the huge tent pitched on the dry bed of the Ghaggar river near 4MSR that houses all artefacts excavated at the site. Another exciting find was two tortoise shells amid charred bones of the tortoises. This suggested that tortoises formed an important part of the food of the Harappans who lived at 4MSR about 5,000 years ago.
Among the artefacts discovered were seals; fragments of gold foils and gold beads; miniature beakers probably used for measuring liquids; painted pottery; perforated jars; goblets and storage pots; beads made of steatite, agate, jasper, carnelian, lapis lazuli, and other semi-precious stones; earrings; fish hooks; spear-heads and arrowheads made of copper; bangles made of conch shells; and terracotta figurines. The trenches also yielded hundreds of terracotta cakes in shapes that ranged from oblong (popular among archaeologists as idli-shaped) to triangle and similar to a clenched fist (mushtika). They also yielded 10 pieces of weights made of banded chert stones.
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