Prehistoric India to 1000 B.C. c12.97

c12.97

The water-supply of the two cities was obtained from excellently constructed wells with brick lining, and as successive rings of brickwork had to be added as the ground level within the town rose from long occupation and flood-silts, these wells now stand up in the excavated sites like grotesque factory chimneys. Some wells seem to have provided a private supply to individual houses, but others almost certainly were for public use, serving the purpose of the water-stall or *piau* of modern India. Round such well-heads have been found innumerable fragments of mass-produced little clay cups, suggesting that, as in contemporary Hinduism, there was a ritual taboo on drinking twice from the same cup, and that each cup was thrown away or smashed after it had been used.