Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.115

c12.115

Though not strictly concerned with trade and the transport of merchandise, this is a convenient place to draw attention to another type of vehicle in the Harappā Culture, known from a charming little bronze model from Harappā itself, and from another almost exactly similar from Chanhu-daro – a striking example of the uniformity of the culture in two places 400 miles apart. These models represent a little covered trap, very similar to the ekka of modern India, with a roof and curtains of fabric set up on four poles above the cart-frame: in the Harappā model a driver is seated in front, well forward between the shafts, with one hand on his knee and the other raised to hold the reins, and both models have lost the draught animal. But from Mohenjo-daro come two bronze oxen which evidently came from precisely such models, and provide the evidence missing at Chanhu-daro and Harappā; in both the cart and the oxen, bearings for the wheels are provided by loops of metal below the object, and there seems no doubt that they belong to models of almost identical type.