Fwd: [indictraditions] CACHE OF SEAL IMPRESSIONS DISCOVERED IN WESTERN INDIA

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[indictraditions] CACHE OF SEAL IMPRESSIONS DISCOVERED IN WESTERN

INDIA

Sat, 07 Jun 2003 16:17:19 -0000

"davesgirlkay" <davesgirlkay

indictraditions

 

 

http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/research/possehl/ahar-banas.shtml

 

CACHE OF SEAL IMPRESSIONS DISCOVERED IN WESTERN INDIA

OFFERS SURPRISING NEW EVIDENCE FOR CULTURAL COMPLEXITY

IN LITTLE-KNOWN AHAR-BANAS CULTURE, CIRCA 3000-1500 B.C.

* * *

Find Provides New Insight into Widespread Trade, Cultural Exchange in

Region

 

 

 

Excavating at the ancient town of Gilund in southern Rajasthan,

India, one of the largest sites of the little-known Ahar-Banas

culture, archaeologists led by teams from the University of

Pennsylvania Museum and Deccan College, Pune, India have discovered a

bin filled with more than 100 seal impressions (many shown here on

the left) dating to 2100-1700 B.C. The existence of the seals, and

their particular styles, offer surprising new evidence for the

apparent complexity of this non-literate, late and post-Indus

Civilization-era culture, according to Dr. Gregory Possehl, UPM

curator and excavation co-director.

 

Dr. Possehl, collaborator Dr. Vasant Shinde of Deccan College, Pune,

India, and their teams made-up of professionals and students from

around the world, have conducted excavations at Gilund over four

seasons, beginning in 1999. The team is working to understand the

social life, history and agricultural developments of these peoples,

separated by about 200 miles of largely mountainous and desert-like

regions from the powerful Indus Civilization that had its heyday 2500-

1900 B.C. They came upon the bin with its seal impressions in the

2002-2003 season completed in February.

 

The bin was in a large building that has not yet been completely

excavated but is known to be larger than 25 x 60 feet, composed of

parallel walls of well-made sun-dried brick. The size and nature of

the building suggests that it was a "public" structure, with walls

ranging in width from about 30 to 49 inches, and spaces between them

about the same width. The presence of the bin within the space

between two of the walls, and other signs of occupation, including

pits and living debris, indicate that the long, narrow "rooms" were

used for storage. While the exact nature of the commodities stored in

the warehouse is not known, agricultural or animal products, possibly

valuable processed items like ghee, oil and textiles, seem likely,

according to Dr. Possehl.

 

Clay, nature's soft and plentiful sealant, has been used by people

for millennia to keep containers closed. Seals, on the other hand,

frequently decorated with symbols to indicate a person or persons and

used to make seal impressions that lay claim or suggest special

rights to a container's contents, suggest a more stratified society.

While no actual seals were discovered at Gilund, the unexpected

collection of so many seal impressions strongly points to the

presence of a populate of elite citizens who used stamps as

identification of themselves and their elevated status--and who

marked commodities that were stored in this building under their

control. A large oval shaped bin about 5 feet deep and 2.5 feet in

diameter at its midpoint, to keep the seal impressions in--and

potentially keep others from duplicating specific impressions for

their own use--further indicates the elitist nature of this warehouse.

 

The impression designs (example shown at left, a), according to Dr.

Possehl, offer additional evidence for a more worldly-wise culture

than was formerly assumed to exist at Gilund. The impressions found

in the bin were made from seals both round and rectilinear. The

design motifs are generally quite simple, with wide-ranging parallels

from Indus Civilization sites such as Chanhu-daro, Pirak, Kot Diji

and Nindowari, 400 to 500 miles away. There are also distinct

parallels with seals from another cultural group archaeologists call

the Bactria-Margiana Archaeological Complex (BMAC), from as far away

as Central Asia and northern Afghanistan, 1,000 miles to the

northwest (examples of actual BMAC seals are shown at left, b).

 

"Gilund is providing us with good evidence for a stratified society

that had wide-ranging contacts between the peoples of western India,

Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia just at the end of the third

millennium and the beginning of the second millennium," noted Dr.

Possehl. "Archaeologists have known for a number of years that the so-

called BMAC peoples were in Sindh and Baluchistan, as well as Iran,

and even as far south as the Arabian Gulf. This, however, is the

first time that such evidence has come from so deep within India,

significantly expanding the geographic picture of a critical period

of regional change, when the once-powerful Indus Civilization is

undergoing a process of transformation."

 

That transformation, Dr. Possehl notes, eventually led to the

abandonment of the great Indus cities, the simplification of the

Indus people's socio-cultural system, the loss of much of their

technological virtuosity, and an end to their system of writing and

measurements. "Learning more about how cultures like the Ahar-Banas

and BMAC interacted with the Indus Civilization may help to broaden

our understanding of the rise, and fall, of great civilizations of

the world," said Dr. Possehl.

 

Excavations at Gilund will resume next winter, when the

archaeologists will explore the wall or walls discovered last season

around the site to determine if the town was fortified. They will

also further explore the large public building where the impressions

were found, seeking further evidence of the building's function.

 

Funding for the Gilund Project was made possible by grants from the

National Science Foundation, the University of Pennsylvania Museum,

private donors, and Deccan College, Pune, India.

 

Dr. Gregory Possehl (below, left) is Curator-in-Charge of UPM's Asian

Section. Information on Dr. Possehl's principal publications and

excavations at Rojdi may be found by visiting his homepage. Dr.

Possehl's collaborator, Dr. Vasant Shinde, of Deccan College, Pune,

India, is shown here (below right photo, on the left) with University

of Pennsylvania graduate student Praveena Gullapalli.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[Guest guest]

INDOLOGY, Manish Modi <manish.modi@b...>

wrote:

>

>

> ---------- Forwarded Message ----------

> [indictraditions] CACHE OF SEAL IMPRESSIONS DISCOVERED IN

WESTERN

> INDIA

> Sat, 07 Jun 2003 16:17:19 -0000

> "davesgirlkay" <davesgirlkay>

> indictraditions

>

>

> http://www.museum.upenn.edu/new/research/possehl/ahar-banas.shtml

>

> CACHE OF SEAL IMPRESSIONS DISCOVERED IN WESTERN INDIA

> OFFERS SURPRISING NEW EVIDENCE FOR CULTURAL COMPLEXITY

> IN LITTLE-KNOWN AHAR-BANAS CULTURE, CIRCA 3000-1500 B.C.

> * * *

> Find Provides New Insight into Widespread Trade, Cultural Exchange

in

>

 

 

Very interesting, more so as the seal impressions were found in a

bin.

 

Is there any site which has the photographs of all these seal

impressions?

 

What about their commonality with 'Indus Seals' found in places

South of Gilund, like Dholavira and Lothal?

 

best regards.