HARAPPAN CIVILISATION This gallery was jointly set up by the Archaeological Survey of India and the National Museum.

It has a rich collection of a large number of artifacts from the sites of Harappan Civilisation. The collection includes pottery, seals, tablets, weights and measures, jewellery, terracotta figurines, toys, etc. It also has copper tools from Harappan sites like axes, chisels, knives, etc. About 3,800 objects have been displayed in the modernised Harappan Gallery from the National Museum collection. This Gallery also has 1,025 excavated artifacts belonging to the Indian Harap

Indus Valley Civilization

Western mound known as Citadel The identity of Kalibangan as a pre-historic site was discovered by Luigi Pio Tessitori, an Italian Indologist (18871919) [4]. He was doing some research in ancient Indian texts. He was surprised by the character of ruins in that area, and he sought help from Sir John Marshall of the Archaeological Survey of India. At that time ASI had some excavations done on Harappa, but they never had any idea about the character of the ruins. In fact, Tessitori is the first person to recognize that the ruins are 'Prehistoric' and pre-Mauryan. Luigi Pio Tessitori also pointed out the nature of the culture, but at that time it was not possible to guess that Indus Valley Civilisation lay in the ruins of Kalibangan, and he died five years before Harappan culture was duly recognized. After India's independence, both the major Harappan cities together with the Indus became a part of Pakistan and Indian archaeologists were compelled to intensify the search for Harappan sites in India. Amlnand Ghosh (Ex. Director General, Archaeological Survey of India, or ASI) was the first person to recognise this site as Harappan and marked it out for excavations.[5]. Under the leadership of B. B. Lal (then Director General, ASI), Balkrishna (B.K.) Thapar, M. D. Khare, K. M. Shrivastava and S. P. Jain carried out excavations for 9 years (1960-9) in 9 successive excavation sessions. Two ancient mounds were excavated, spread over half kilometre (area quarter square kilometer). On western side is the smaller mound (KLB1), 9 meters high and known as citadel. Eastern mound is higher(12 meters) and bigger, known as lower city (KLB2). The excavation unexpectedly brought to light a twofold sequence of cultures, of which the upper one (Kalibangan I) belongs to the Harappan, showing the characteristic grid layout of a metropolis and the lower one (Kalibangan II) was formerly called pre-Harappan but now it is called "Early Harappan or antecedent Harappan".[6]

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Proto-Harappan Phase

Traces of pre-Harappan culture have been found only at the lower levels of the western mound. According to archaeological evidence, the Indus Valley culture existed at the site from the proto-Harappan age (3500 BC - 2500 BC) to the Harappan age (2500 BC - 1750 BC). This earlier phase is labelled Kalibangan-I (KLB-I) or Period-I.Similarity of pottery relates Kalibangan-I with the Sothi culture because this type of pottery was first discovered at Sothi village in Afghanistan.

[edit] Fort and houses

llection.

End of civilization

Robert Raikes [26] has argued that Kalibangan was abandoned because the river dried up. Prof. B. B. Lal (retd. Director General of Archaeological Survey of India) supports this view by asserting: "Radiocarbon dates indicate that the Mature Harappan settlement at Kalibangan had to be abandoned around 2000-1900 BCE. And, as the hydrological evidence indicates, this abandonment took place on account of the drying up of the Sarasvati(Ghaggar). This latter part is duly established by the work of Raikes, an Italian hydrologist, and of his Indian collaborators" [27].