Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.38

c12.38

The distribution of Harappā settlements in North-Western India has already been commented on in general terms. Like the contemporary settlements of Sumer and Egypt, the Harappā Culture is essentially linked by great rivers, which have obviously been the decisive geographical factors in its expansion and in the subsequent preservation of its unity over so large an area. The two main cities lie, like the foci of an ellipse, one to the north and the other to the south of the known area of settlement – Mohenjo-daro on the right bank of the Indus in Sind and Harappā on the left bank of the Ravi in the Punjab. Extensive field-work has been carried out in Sind, and we probably have a fairly complete idea of the distribution of settlements there, except those later covered by medieval and modern towns or villages. It seems probable that intensive field-work in the Punjab would bring to light a great many more sites there; at present there is one village known not far from Harappā itself, and another in the Himalayan foothills at Rupar on the Sutlej River. But east of the Indus in Bahawalpur State and along the course of the now dry Ghaggar River, the Sarasvati of early Indian literature, are a dozen sites of villages or towns which, by their position, would seem politically to come within the ambit of the ruler of Harappā, and which might be taken as evidence of a northerly kingdom, to be amplified no doubt by further undiscovered sites in the Punjab (Fig. 17).