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The Management of Water and Waste Water in some Towns of the Harrappa Civilization of South Asia
Guest lecture by Prof. Shereen Ratnagar
“The
Bronze Age civilization of Pakistan and India dates from about
2600-1800 BC. It is known for its wide geographic spread, the almost
exclusive use of baked brick in Mohenjo-daro its largest city, the use
of cloth made of cotton (in contrast to the linen of contemporary
Pharaonic Egypt and the wool of Sumer and Babylonia), its stamp seals
bearing writing and the images of wild and ferocious animals, for
exquisite cubical stone weights of a uniform standard, for
characteristic and ubiquitous terracotta ‘cakes’, flat and triangular,
occurring in quantity, for long blades of chert quarried on the middle
Indus, for a restricted range of copper/bronze tools, and mainly at
Mohenjo-daro, not only a large number of deep, brick-lined wells, but
also what appears to be a sophisticated street drainage system.”
• Were these elaborate systems of urban drainage maintained by an adequate flow of water, and if so where did this water come from?
• Were they used to carry solid excreta, or were they rather more designed for sullage and storm water management?
Biography
Prof. Shereen Ratnagar (Emeritus) was Professor of Archaeology and
Ancient History at the Centre for Historical Studies at the Jawaharlal
Nehru University, Delhi, and is currently an independent retired
researcher living in Mumbai.
She is noted for her considerable work on investigating the factors contributing to the end of the Indus Valley Civilization.
Prof. Shereen Ratnagar was educated at Deccan College, Pune, University
of Pune, but has also studied Mesopotamian Archaeology at the Institute
of Archaeology, University College London.
Publications
Ayodhya: Archaeology After Excavation, New Delhi: Tulika (2007)
Trading Encounters: From the Euphrates to the Indus in the Bronze Age,
Oxford University Press (2nd edition), ISBN 019568088X (2006)
Mobile and Marginalized Peoples, New Delhi: Manohar (2003)