The Indus Civilization c6.52

c6.52

The few human remains that have come to light in the cities are either skeletons found in contorted attitudes which have obviously not had proper burial, or so-called fractional burials, where small fragments of human bones, including in one case a skull, were immured in jars, together with a very mixed assortment of objects which may or may not have had some relation to the bones buried with them. Mr. Vats found at Harappa a number of jars containing remains of this kind, and also several earthen utensils holding skulls, which, with one exception, were buried alone. These jars, however, are different in form and decoration from the ordinary painted ware of the Indus valley, and it is quite possible that they are of later date. The writer shares the opinion with others that the Indus Valley people cremated their dead on the banks of the river and that the ashes were then thrown into the water. A less probable theory is that the remains were buried in a powdered and friable state in jars; but the very few examples of what are claimed to be fractional burials which have come to light in a city as large as Mohenjo-daro, and which flourished for at least three hundred to five hundred years, make this most unlikely. If such burials really did take place amongst the general population, the cemeteries must be enormous, and it seems strange that no trace of them has yet been discovered, unless, as before mentioned, they lie very deep below the surface of the ground.