An Encyclopaedia of Indian Archaeology v1.c9.s9.43

v1.c9.s9.43

Although the Indus civilization had been discovered in the early twenties, at least for two decades nothing was known about the disposal of the dead. However, in the forties a cemetery, called R 37, was located at Harappa, to the s.-w. of the Citadel. It was found that the burial method [12.4] was that of extended inhumation. The body was placed in a rectangular pit, sufficiently large to easily accommodate it. In some cases a mud-brick tumulus was erected over the grave. The body lay on its back, with the head towards the n. A few pots, cosmetic objects like the mirror [18.5] and antimony rod [18.1] and sometimes even edibles, in one case a fowl, were also placed alongside the dead, perhaps under the belief that these would serve the person in the next world. In one case the body had been placed in a wooden coffin. The interred person may have been a w. Asian, for coffin burials were common in Mesopotamia during the Sargonid times. At KALIBANGAN two more varieties of burials have been discovered. In one the pit and funerary objects were like those in the foregoing, but strangely there was no dead body. In the other variety the pit was circular and relatively small, there again being no skeletal remains, though pottery and other grave furniture were there all the same. Since these two varieties occur in the same cemetery complex which contains the normal extended burials, there is little doubt about their funerary association. However, future research alone can solve the riddle of their exact usage. At LOTHAL three graves contained two skeletons each, and although guesses have been hazarded about these having been cases of *satī* (wife immolating herself along with her dead husband), nothing definite can be said in the matter on account of the disputed identification of the sexes.