The Indus Civilization (Cambridge History of India, Supplementary Volume) c13.17

c13.17

Two of the graves call for special mention. One of them was outlined internally with mud bricks, which thus formed a sort of structural coffin (pl. XVA), a procedure with analogies at Nal in southern Baluchistan, possibly at a somewhat earlier period.³ The other grave was notable for the fact that the body, probably of a female, had been buried in a wooden coffin, 7 ft. long and 2 to 2½ ft. wide, widening towards the head (pl. XVB). The thickness of the timbering of the coffin, as represented by a clear stain in the sandy soil, was 1½ in. Traces of the lid on the sandy material immediately overlying the skeleton were identifiable as deodar,⁴ such as grows abundantly on the foothills of the Himalaya and may have been river-borne to Harappā, and there was an ashy grey deposit on the bones which may represent a reed shroud of the kind that occurs with, or as an alternative to, wooden coffins in Sumer.¹ On the middle finger of the right hand was a plain copper ring, whilst a shell ring (probably an ear-ring) lay to the left of the skull and two others above the left shoulder. Of thirty-seven pots in the grave, only one had been inside the coffin; the majority lay huddled near and against its head. At present the burial is unique in India and the significance, if any, of its similarity with coffin-burials of the Sargonid and pre-Sargonid periods in Mesopotamia cannot be appraised, but the resemblance is worth noting.