The Lost City

While the Harappan remains at Rakhigarhi await their much-deserved preservation, the elusive truth of this millennia-old civilisation continues to be shrouded in mystery

- Apeksha Priyadarshini

ALL is quiet at Ancient Mound No. I (RGR-I), in Rakhigarhi, Haryana, as a handful of people laze in the winter sun nearby. A couple of workers are laboriously covering the recently concluded excavation at the site, as a precautionary measure to the predicted rainfall. In a humble temporary structure, built close to the mound, lie the skeletal remains of a nearly 4,000-year-old man.

Embedded in a chunk of soil, the skeleton has been unceremoniously dumped at the back of the room, with a bunch of other excavated goods. "Ye uss time ka ladaku jawan tha. Shayad sena me bharti tha," Dharampal, a local villager explains. This deduction, he says, has been made due to the cut marks found in the skull. The skeleton was excavated from Mound No. VII, assumed to be a burial site of the Harappan people. Broken remains of pots of various sizes were found buried near the skeleton. "People of those times buried the belongings of the dead alongside their bodies," he says.

Dharampal has been a part of the Archaeological Survey of India's excavations at Rakhigarhi, Haryana, since 1997. Locals like him are recruited informally by the ASI to assist with the excavations, due to their knowledge about the area.

Dharampal proudly claims that he was trained in excavation procedures under the personal supervision of Amarendra Nath himself. Nath, who led the Rakhigarhi excavations between 1997 and 2000, was the then Director of the Institute of Archaeology under ASI. He was the first to carry out extensive excavations at one of the only two cities of the Indus Valley civilisation, which are located within presentday India and one of the five largest known sites of the period.