The Indus Civilization (Cambridge History of India, Supplementary Volume) c13.13

c13.13

Only one regular cemetery (recorded as R37) of the Indus period has been brought to light: at Harappā itself where, to the south of the citadel on slightly rising ground, fifty-seven graves of the mature Harappan period were identified between 1937 and 1946.¹ With rare exceptions, the bodies were extended from north to south, the head towards the north, and lay in graves each large enough to contain also an average of fifteen to twenty pots, occasionally as many as forty. Personal ornaments were sometimes worn by the dead: shell bangles, necklaces and anklets of steatite or paste beads, a copper finger-ring, an ear-ring of thin copper wire. Furthermore, toilet and other objects were occasionally included: handled copper mirrors, mother-of-pearl shells, an antimony stick, a large shell spoon. In one grave a pottery lamp and bones of a fowl were found at the foot. But on the whole, the grave-goods were of a poor order, and it is clear that, as explored, the cemetery represents the average citizen of the later period of the civilization.²