Lothal

A Harrapan town, one of the most important of the southern Indus Civilization sites, at the head of the Gulf of Cambay, northwestern India. Besides typical Indus structures like a walled citadel, granary, drainage system, and a grid street plan, it had a dock faced with baked brick. There were residential and craftworking (shell, bone, bead, copper, gold) areas. The site was important for its sea trade, as shown by the discovery of a Dilmun seal from the Persian Gulf. There were also contacts with the Chalcolithic cultures of the Deccan peninsula and the practice of rice cultivation which had been introduced from further east. There was much local non-Harappan pottery in the Mature Harappan levels. Radiocarbon dates place it in the later 3rd millennium BC (c 2400-2100 BC).

An important port site of the Harap-pan civilization, situated not in the Indus Valley itself, but in Gujarat near the head of the Gulf of Cambay. The town originally covered cl 2 hectares, and was surrounded by a wall; later it expanded outside the wall to cover 24-5 hectares. It had a fortified acropolis on an artificial mound like other Harappan towns, but in this case enclosed within the main town wall. A mud-brick structure excavated on the acropolis may be the base of a granary like that on the Mohen-jo-Daro citadel. The town had the characteristic Indus Valley gridiron street plan and drainage system. As well as comfortable dwelling houses, a bead factory has been excavated and a bazaar where shell-workers, bone-workers, coppersmiths and goldsmiths lived and worked. The most interesting structure is a large rectangular enclosure on one side of the mound, measuring c225 metres by 37 metres and faced with baked brick. It had a sluice gate at one end, and is interpreted by the excavator, S.R. Rao, as a dock for ships, although this interpretation has been challenged by other authorities. Radiocarbon dates from Lothal fall in the 1950-1700 be range (c2400-2100 bc).