Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c11.35

c11.35

It is possible to say a little more about the plans of individual buildings or groups of rooms. On no site does any building or group of ruins suggest a temple or palace, and the plans recovered all seem to belong to small private houses. At Nundara groups of rooms which may constitute associated elements fall into blocks about 40 feet square, within which there may be eight or ten subdivisions of sizes varying from large rooms or courtyards 15 by 15 feet or 15 by 10 feet, to small compartments 8 by 5 feet or less, and in two of the blocks there seems to be a fairly consistent plan of large rooms or courtyards, each associated with half a dozen smaller ones. Rooms of similar proportions also seem characteristic of the Sind sites; at Kohtras Buthi a structure interpreted by Majumdar as a bath occupied the corner of one room by the entrance, and in the same house the remains of a stairway, implying access to a flat roof or an upper storey, were found. Doorways of houses of which only stone foundations remained were rarely possible to identify, as such foundations would continue to form the door sill; but at Kargushki-damb a doorway was found still retaining traces of its wooden lintel, and at Rodkan, in a wall still standing 5 feet high, a window was preserved, 1 foot 4 inches wide, its top formed by overlapping corbelled courses of stone. At Nundara several chambers with walls preserved to a height of at least 10 feet, in one instance, had no openings in the wall and contained a massive square stone-built pillar in the centre. Such chambers can best be explained as cellars, entered by trap-doors from the room above, the central pillar acting as additional support to the floor.