Some Legacy of the Early Iron Age Burials: Harappan Burial

Some Legacy of the Early Iron Age Burials: Harappan Burial Tradition

Shantanu Vaidya1 and Yogesh Mallinathpur M.1 1. Deccan College Post Graduate and Research Institute, Pune 411006, Maharashtra,

India

Received: 22 September 2013; Accepted: 11 October 2013; Revised: 20 October 2013 Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology 1 (2013): 244‐261

Abstract: Burials are known in the archaeological cultures of the Indian subcontinent from the Mesolithic period. By the Early Iron Age period these burials become very elaborate and dominate the landscape as monuments generally termed as megalithic monuments. However these burial traditions which appear in the Early Iron Age period have had a background of the earlier burial traditions. In the Harappan context, there have been excavated many sites which have yielded burial grounds prominent among them are Harappa, Kalibangan, Mehrgarh, Sanauli, Farmana, Lothal and so on. An examination of the burials with reference to the appendages, burial traditions such as grave offerings, positions and physical types involved, it can be said that the burials of the Early Iron Age period did have an influence of these Harappan traditions on them. An attempt is made here to understand the influence or rather the legacy carried forward by these Early Iron Age burials from the Harappan burial traditions along with the traditions which they had inherited from the local Neolithic and Chalcolithic communities.

Keywords: Burial Practices, Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Harappan Civilization, Early Iron Age, Peninsular India, Grave Goods

Introduction The phenomenon of progress in life towards ultimate end was probably understood much earlier than the concept of death related ritual began. Mourning or a kind of feeling penitence for loss of near and dear ones are even seen in the case of animals. The feeling of departing must have been painful to them, when one sees often, for instance, a mother monkey holding the dead baby till it decomposes and falls apart. It is also well evident in case of birds, especially crows and animals like elephants, who show similar kind of behaviour. The Early Man must have felt for the departing kith and kin and taken care for a respectable appropriate enduring parting. The ritual of burials for the dead can be traced back to the Neanderthals in Europe and Middle East. Evidence comes from the site of Kebara Cave in Israel where the skull of the dead is removed. Along with these, burials of children from Syria and France are found with stone slabs covering them (Stringer and Andrews 2012: 154‐5). Such convincing evidence has not been available as yet for any such practice of intentional burials

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during the Palaeolithic period in India. Archaeological evidences start appearing when we arrive at the Mesolithic phase of Stone Age. In India, Archaeological evidence for some such intentional burial custom appears in India during the Mesolithic period (Pal 2002, Sankalia et al. 1964).

Death of an individual is a passionate observable fact of all life forms including human beings and is, therefore, well represented and the concept of life after death is apparent in many cultures. This is very well represented in ancient cultures like the Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Chinese cultures. In the Indian context there are references in ancient literature about death as only mode of transformation and not an end to the process of birth and death. The phenomenon of death is regarded only as the death of the body and not of the soul, which is believed to take new forms and continue in the cycle of life and death of the world. In the Bhagvad Gita’s Adhyaya 2 (Sloak no. 22) Krishna says ‘Vasamsi Jirnani Yatha Vihay Navani Gruhnani Naroparani Tatha Sharirani Vihay Jirnani Anyati Sanyati Navani Dehe’ which conceptually tells the same process. Hence in the subcontinent, most probably, we come across the concept of life after death in a more elaborate way. Also it can be safely said that the funerary customs have continued in the Indian subcontinent though not physically.

The disposal of the dead is a very important rite in every society. It can be seen in various forms in all the cultures even today as it was seen in the past. It differs from community to community as the ideas and concepts change in terms of time, space and form. Even disposal of dead differs in the community with regards to age, sex, nature of death, economic conditions, strata of the society and changing concepts and ideologies of the society. It reflects the social and ideological background of the individual and the social group which is responsible for his particular position.

In Indian context, death ritual and physical types are known from the Upper Palaeolithic period but they are well documented and known properly from the Mesolithic period onwards.

The authors have made an attempt here to figure out if the Harappan burial tradition has in any way influenced the burial practices of the Early Iron Age period in peninsular India. It is first essential to briefly review the evidences earthed out pertaining to mortuary practices in both these cultural periods.

Burial Practices in the Harappan Civilisation The Harappan civilization is one of the most advanced and complex civilizations of the ancient world. Among the sites, cemeteries are found at Harappa, Nal, Lothal, Kalibangan, Sanauli and Farmana.

Mehrgarh At Mehrgarh, infant burials were found. 19 box‐like chambers made of mud‐bricks set on the edge of the site were found. The boxes were 60 cm in length, 45 cm wide and 15‐25 cm deep. Only one burial had an offering of two disc shaped beads in its neck.

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Burials of children around 3‐4 years of age were placed in flexed position in mud‐brick graves. In one of the clay box measuring 110 x 80 cm the skeleton was found lying on its right side in a flexed position oriented east‐west. The skeleton was associated with two plates, one below the hands and the other close to the arms and adorned with a necklace of white beads (probably steatite) alternating with carnelian and lapis lazuli beads and with bracelets of tiny white beads (probably steatite) around the wrists (Jarrige 1986, 1989).

Kalibangan At Kalibangan burials were of various types and placed in different localities in the cemetery. In one instance, an oblong pit contained the body laid in extended position in north‐south orientation. Pots were kept around the skull region (fig. 1) and the pit was filled either with same earth or mixed with compact white speckled clay. There were pot burials in oval or circular pits. It contained an urn surrounded by several pots without any skeletal material or ash. These burials were located to north of extended burial area. Similarly, one other pit burial type was of rectangular or oblong grave devoid of any skeletal material. However, they contain typical Harappan pots in varying numbers, almost always lying at the bottom. Uniformly laid bands of fine sand, clay and watermarks on the bottom suggest that the pit was probably kept open for subsequent ritual purpose. In a single group, there are maximum ten burials, their number varying from group to group, but generally in the range of six to ten. Each group consists of at least one rectangular pot burial and mostly extended human burials. Each clan or families had different groups of burials probably allotted a particular area almost of the same size in the cemetery which were used by the member of that particular family only. One of the burials had different architectural features. It was a rectangular grave pit measuring 4 x 2 m and was lined on all four sides with typical Harappan mud bricks (fig. 2). The walls stood in conical fashion, with the inner space gradually widening towards bottom and the inner sides of the walls were plastered with mud and lime plaster. The pit contained more than 70 pots of various shapes and sizes may be of an important man. In one of the burials three disarticulated skulls and several other fragmentary bones were found, probably died in same time accidentally (Sharma 1972, 1982, 1999).

Nal Two groups of burials were found during excavation, one group having a few bones in earthen vessels and the other group having fragments mixed with earth and kept in pots.

Harappa Though some skeletons were found while excavating in the settlement area, it was the excavation at cemetery R37 and H at Harappa, provided evidence of burial customs of the period. The deceased were buried in pits of varied dimensions. Mostly the body was placed in an extended position, with head approximately towards the north. Grave‐pits varied in dimensions, ranging from 10 to 15 feet in length, 2 ½ to 10 feet in


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width, and dug to a depth of 2 to 3 feet from the surface. The pit was generally wider towards the head. This was probably to accommodate large number of pots offered as grave goods. They were mostly kept near the head but some also at the feet and a few along the sides and occasionally below the body. Most of the pottery types were similar to the findings from the habitation of the Mature Harappan phase. In some burials, besides human skeleton remains, a few decayed animal bones were also present. A small handled lamp was placed at the feet of the dead. At cemetery H were found jar burials and also earth burials. Along with these, fractional burials were also noticed. In cemetery R37 in the mature phase were also found wooden coffins. Some burials had antimony rods, pearls and shells and mirrors as grave goods. In the excavation conducted in 1986‐90, almost 90 skeletons were recovered. They were in supine position and some had the wooden coffin marks on them (Dales and Kenoyer 1991). The burial pottery had painted motifs such as birds, goat (ram). This suggests the connection with animal sacrifices.

Farmana Near the habitation site of Farmana in the Ghaggar basin (Rohtak district, Haryana) was found a huge cemetery of the Mature Harappan phase. The cemetery was an accidental discovery, while the excavations at the habitation site were in progress in 2008. The cemetery is located outside the habitation as in the case of R37 and cemetery H. The cemetery is in the natural field and the dead have been interred in pits dug sometimes 50 cm deep and sometimes 1 m, in some instances pits were only at the surface level. Out of the 70 burials traced so far, 52 have been excavated. There were three types of burials viz. Primary, secondary and symbolic (Shinde et al. 2010: 19). In the primary burial, the dead were placed in supine position with head towards the north and legs towards the south. Thus it follows the orientation of Harappa (R37). However orientation like northwest‐ southeast and northeast‐ southwest is also seen. In secondary burials, only a few skeletal remains are found. In symbolic burials there are no skeletal remains. Instead only the grave goods like pottery and ornaments are found. In all the burials, pots were offered as grave good. Along with them ornaments such as anklets of beads of semi‐precious stones, amulets of beads, copper bangles were found as grave goods. In some cases a clay box/coffin is found to be made and the dead is placed within (Shinde et al. 2010: 18). This also reminds one of the Kalibangan cemeteries. The orientation NW‐SE is more dominant towards the end phase and is found later continuing at the Late Harappan cemetery of Sanauli (Shinde etal. 2010: 63). The number of burials is also more towards the end phase of the Mature phase (phase IIC here).

Sanauli Sanauli (fig. 3) was an accidental discovery in 2004 and is so far one of the finest necropolis of the Late Harappan period. It is located on Saharanpur road about 60 kms from Delhi. It was subjected to excavations in 2005 and 116 burials were excavated (Sharma et al. 2006). Out of these 52 were extended burials, 35 were secondary burials and 29 were symbolic burials. The dead were laid in an extended position and


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northwest‐southeast orientation. They were interred in pits. The grave goods generally had pottery and dish‐on‐stand dominated the ceramic assemblage. Among the inhumations (fig. 4) was found a double burial of two males and were probably brought from somewhere else and rituals were performed here (Sharma et al. 2006: 169). Beads of agate and steatite were found as grave goods. Such a double burial is also known from Lothal. There is also a unique example of triple burial (fig. 5) among the inhumations. Three skeletons along with two urn burials were found. The three skeletons were secondary in nature and interred together probably because they had some family ties. It has yielded pottery lids having the ox or bull figurines. The pottery, in all the burials was placed near the head. Among the symbolic burials no skeletal material is found. However there are a few symbolic burials with grave goods hitherto unknown in Harappan burials and signifying the high civic and complex attainment of the Harappan society. One burial was found with an antenna sword (fig. 6) and a sheath (Burial 14). Burial 28 was found with two dish‐on‐stands and copper container resembling a human torso having 28 tiny copper objects within. It also has a burnt brick wall running parallel to the burial on the eastern side. There were burials having gold objects in them. This was seen in both secondary and primary burials. Likewise, in Burial 95, it was a female who was ornamented with neck fitted gold and semi‐precious stone ornament, whereas a pair of heart shaped gold bangles were in her hands (fig. 7). A copper bowl was also placed below her hip. There were six child burials. One among them (Burial 36) had an amulet of agate bead around the left hand and a necklace of four agate beads around the neck (Sharma et al. 2006). Very interesting was the recovery of a trough like object of clay which seemed to have become hard and red due to firing. The excavators believe that it was used for cremation since ash and charred bones were found in it (fig. 8). At Sanauli there were also evidence of animals like goat and ox sacrificed along with the dead. Goat from Burial 5 and ox from burial 52 and 53 were recovered. Also lids with bird motifs were found. All these point towards the ritual aspect. The excavators have tried to link them to references in the Rig Veda and the AtharvaVeda (Sharma et al. 2006: 178).

Dholavira The site of Dholavira ia a massive and huge site of the Harappan civilization. It was excavated by R.S. Bisht from 1989 to 2003. It was extensively excavated and is one of the largest metropolises of the Harappan civilization. The site has given good evidences of extreme and advanced urban characters. The site has also yielded a cemetery along with the urban metropolis. There were various types and discussed by Bisht recently (Bisht etal. 2012). The site has yielded chambers like built up memorial, cists of stone slabs and having capstones, rock cut chambers. Along with these cairns, circular in plan and made by rubble filling and oval in plan were found. The third type was that large stone lined circles. These were excavated and not much information is published about their internal offerings and remains. But it has been established that inhumation, fractional and memorial burials were the forms of disposal. There were also large mounds and circular shaped burials. In these mounds were rock cut chambers containing funerary remains (Bisht et al. 2012).


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Figure 1: Symbolic Burial Type, Kalibangan (After Sharma 1998)

Figure 2: Burial Having Mud Brick Wall, Kalibangan (After Sharma 1998)


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Figure 3: Burial Ground, Sanauli (after Sharma et al. 2006)

Figure 4: Inhumation Burial, Sanauli (After Sharma et al. 2006)


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Figure 5: Triple Burial, Sanauli (After Sharma et al. 2006)

Figure 6: Symbolic Burial with Antenna Sword, Sanauli (After Sharma et al. 2006)


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Figure 7: Burial with Gold Ornaments, Sanauli (After Sharma et al. 2006)

Figure 8: Clay Trough for Cremation, Sanauli (After Sharma et al. 2006)

Burials in the Early Iron Age of Peninsular India The megalithic cemetery is located almost in all instances away from the settlement. The cemeteries are generally situated in a barren landscape, characterized by rocky outcrops, foothills, small hillocks and small streams. The habitations were separated from the burials by means of either a natural stream or river or natural landscapes.

Physical Types of Disposal of Dead in Early Iron Age Peninsular India The typology of the megaliths of South India was first discussed in detail and an attempt to classify them was done by Krishnaswamy (1949). Sundara (1979) has


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categorized the physical types of disposal of dead in three main types: Chamber tombs, unchambered burials and monuments.

The chamber is generally a box‐like, square or oblong in plan and has a slab upright following the plan, known as orthostat. On the top is a covering stone known as capstone. The chamber may be completely underground, partly concealed or it may fully raised from the ground. Accordingly it is called as cist, dolmenoid cist and dolmen respectively. The cist may have either a port‐hole or it may have a passage; both served the purpose of inserting periodical offerings. The burial also may have a slab in the centre which may create compartments and such a chamber is known as transpeted cist. The burial types in the chambered tombs are passage chambers, port‐hole cists, oblong chambers, topikals, kudaikals, rock‐cut caves.

The passage chambers are having three orthstats and on the fourth side there are two small slabs from both ends and having a small gap in between to provide an entrance. And there is rubble packing on all sides tp provide stability and the chamber is covered up to the top end of the orthostats. The passage chambers (cists) are either in Brahmi ‘Ka’ shape. There is sometimes a circle enclosing the cist and is much seen in northern Karnataka. The passage in the chamber continues to the peripheral boulders of the circle.

In port‐hole cists the shape is again Brahmi Ka type and also swastika type. The port‐hole is circular and sometimes of U shape. They however follow the plan and embellishment of the passage chamber (cist) type. They are abundant in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and also in parts of northern Tamil Nadu.

There are also oblong cists which are erected along the same plane as above. They are sometimes transepted along the length and sometimes also along the width making compartments in them. Yelleswaram, Brahmagiri (figs. 9‐11), Kesarapalle, Uppalpadu, Raigir (Nalagonda), Iralabanda, Satanikota, Agiripalli (Moorti 1994) are some major sites excavated yielding the chamber burials types such as those with port‐hole and having transepts.

Apart from these there are Topikals (Hat stones), Kudaikals (umbrella stones) and rock cut caves are also found (Sundara 1979). In the unchambered burials, there are pit burials, sarcophagus and urns. The pit burials are ovaloid, oblong or elliptical in plan. A pit is dug and then the skeleton or remains are interred in them. Pit circles are sometimes having peripheral stones without cairn packing and sometimes have a heap of cairn and rubble packing and it has a peripheral stone circle. Pit circles having rubble filling and peripheral stones are present in all sites in Vidarbha with some internal architecture (Deo 1985, Mohanty 1993) and known from Nagarjunakonda.

Sarcophagus means eating flesh. Sarcophagus is a burnt clay trough having two rows of hollow legs ranging from 4 to 12. It is sometimes boat shaped and sometimes of zoomorphic shape. The sarcophagus has a lid to cover it and in the trough mortal

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people. The megalithic sites yield similar remains. Sites like Ramapuram have yielded remains of goat/ram in the burials and there is depiction of ram on the lids of burial pottery from Vidarbha (Deo 1973). There is also evidence of bird motifs on the lids of copper vessels from Mahurjhari (Deo 1973). At Naikund, a bull is found in one of the burials (Deo and Jamkhedkar 1982). Thus the importance of these animals as a part of funeral practices was probably firmly established by this period. However it was Harappan civilization which established such practices and they were probably transcended to the other regions due to cultural contacts and later adopted by the Early Iron Age people.

Figure 16: Bull Figurine and Burial Pottery Lid with Bull Finials

(After Sharma et al. 2006)

It should also be noticed that the practice of symbolic burial, in which only the grave goods such as pottery and artefacts were offered was also a popular practice among the Harappans. This was also seen among the Early Iron Age people. The preceding cultures had a very few instances of such symbolic burials (one known from Inamgaon). However in the megalithic period there is an increase in such memorial monuments. They are known as avenues, menhirs and also alignments. Among the pit and chamber burials also one comes across similar symbolic and memorial burials and hence it can be termed as another cultural influence.

A brief review has helped to highlight how the legacy of the Harappan burial tradition was carried forward by the early Iron Age people. They adopted certain traditions which might have passed on to their predecessors i.e. Neolithic‐Chalcolithic people of the peninsula due to cultural contacts. However the physical types and ritual practices might have been only elaborated and energy towards developing a complex typology was only possible when the society had become more complex and the economic and social relations had intensified. This was probably happening in the megalithic society since it was a ranked society (Moorti 1994).

It can be said that there was a major cultural exchange among the populations of the South Asian region. It was only upon the economy and also the social relations that the traditions exchanged and transcended could appear or disappear. This small survey of mortuary influences and mortuary practices of two different regions has been carried out to show this same process of cultural change and cultural behaviour, due to which there are these appearances and disappearances of certain cultural traditions.


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Documents

Some Legacy of the Early Iron Age Burials: Harappan Burial