The Indus Civilization c9.11

c9.11

Poly-chrome pottery has, however, been unearthed at other sites in India, for Mr. Majumdar, in the course of excavations at Amri, a site about eighty miles south of Mohenjo-daro, found beneath a stratum of Indus Valley date numerous wares where red and black paints had been applied on a pink or cream-coloured ground, while at Nal in Baluchistan, about one hundred and ten miles north-west of Mohenjo-daro, Mr. Hargreaves discovered painted wares in polychrome, in which one of the colours used was the same kind of green as was sometimes used by the Indus Valley people. The date of this ware has not yet been definitely established, for Mr. Hargreaves considers it to be earlier, and Sir Aurel Stein regards it as later, than that of the Indus valley, while a third authority, Professor Childe, declares it to be roughly contemporary with that of Mohenjo-daro. The polychrome wares from both Nal and Amri, particularly those from the latter site, provide some evidence that this type of pottery was made in India before the rise of the Indus Valley civilization, although the craft seems to have almost disappeared during the time of its prosperity. The polychrome wares found at Mohenjo-daro were certainly not used for ordinary purposes, and the Nal pottery was, it is thought, used solely for burial purposes, like the early painted pottery of Susa in Persia.