Lothal

[Guest guest]

" But Lothal had a unique feature, a large basin 770 feet long, about

150 feet wide and 15 feet deep, east of the city. The walls were made

of hard brick and had two openings which are believed to have been

sluice gates. Four large round stones with holes in their middles

were found at the bottom of the basin. It is thought that may have

served as anchors for ships which used this basin as a dock. A raised

platform between the basin and the city also seems to indicate that

this was the dock of a major port, an emporium of trade between the

Indus civilization and Mesopotamia. Critics have doubted this

interpretation and pointed out that the " dock " may have been a water

reservoir which served the city and was used for irrigating the

neighboring fields. But regardless of the use of this basin, there

seems to be no doubt that Lothal was an important trading center and a

major sea port.

May tools, stone beads were found in Lothal, among them the famous

" Persian Gulf seal. " Probably Lothal not only served long distance

trade but also supplied the cities on the Indus with raw materials

from cotton from Gujarat and copper from Rajasthan. This would

explain why Lothal was founded at a rather late stage when the demand

for these raw materials was at its highest in Harrapa and Mohenjo-Daro.

Although Lothal must have been an important entrepot, it was not a

very large city, only about 900 feet long and 750 feet wide. Its size

was thus akin to that of later emporia in the classical period of

Indian history (Kulke and Rothermund 200 pp. 26-27). "

Kulke, H. and Rothermund, D. (2004). A history of India. New York:

Routledge. ISBN:0415329205.

 

 

(posted by Kelkar)

[Guest guest]

" Lothal was clearly an important commercial and manufacturing center.

Present at this site is a variety of raw materials and finished

products, among them stone anvils, bronze drills, crucibles, slag,

copper ingots, gold, remnants of conch shell, whole and partially

sawed elephant tusks, steatite, carnelian, opal, rock crystal, and

other semiprecious stones. The bead industry centered on a single

building complete with a kiln was especially important if the number

of beads is an accurate index of production. The total impression is

that the productive capacity of this settlement was far greater than

the needs of the relatively small number of inhabitants (Possehl and

Kennedy 1979, p. 592). "

" Lothal was, then, a vibrant and economic center producing a wide

range of goods. Apparently in excess of its needs. Its surroundings

were not graced with the resources being used in these manufacturing

processes, but it lay on the edge of a plain across which they could

be found. How these materials were obtained presents an interesting

problem. There is no direct evidence that collection parties of

Harrapans were sent from the settlement to the source areas, and the

location of the site would to argue against this. So too at least, to

some degree, does the excess productivity. An alternative

hypothesis—that the inhabitants of Lothal had an exchange relationship

with a group (or groups) of people who procured raw materials and

tended them for the surplus finished products—does however have some

support in the archaeological record (Possehl and Kennedy 1979, pp.

592-3). "

Possehl, G. and Kennedy, K. A. R. (1979). Hunter

gatherers/agriculturalist exchange in prehistory: an Indian example.

Current Anthropology, 20(3), pp. 592-593.

 

M. Kelkar