Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.144

c12.144

Scattered beads and fragments of jewellery are frequent finds, but there are several exceptional discoveries that have preserved intact entire parures, collars, girdles, and necklaces. One such find is almost certainly the result of a very successful burglary carried out in the third millennium B.C. For in a hole dug down 7 or 8 feet beneath one of the cottages in the coolie-lines at Harappā was found a great mass of jewellery of gold and semi-precious stones — there were nearly five hundred pieces of gold, ranging from armlets to beads, and many complete necklaces made up of multiple strings of beads and metal. The situation of the find makes it very unlikely that it was acquired by legal means, and it looks as if a patrician lady’s jewel-chest was rifled; or perhaps this was the stock-in-trade of a jeweller (who must have been the Cartier of Harappā!) carried off by a burglar who hid the swag but failed to recover it.