2008 Gujarat, Rajkot & Lothal

ROHILAS IN GUJARAT AREA, INDIA - V

December 18-21, 2008

December 21

After breakfast next morning, we left for Lothal, 136 miles east of Gondal.

On the way, we stopped briefly at Rajkot, to take pictures of the house, where my wife and her family once lived.

Located about 440 miles southeast of Mohenjodaro, in Sindh, Pakistan, one of the most famous Indus Valley Civilization sites, Lothal is one of the several Indus Valley sites in Gujarat. Below is an artistic reconstruction by Indian archaeologists of Lothal, as it might have looked in its heydays, about 4000 years ag0.

This picture is displayed at the Lothal Museum. The Museum also displays objects discovered at the site - mirrors, seals, weights, and articles made from stone, chert, shell, and bone as well as those from Baharain, Sumeria, and Egypt, the countries with which Lothal had active trade relations. Unfortunately for us, the museum was closed that day.

But it is the only known Indus Valley seaport, and an important center of its bead industry, Also it has some of the most substantial remains of the Indus Valley culture dating from 2400-1500 B.C.

Indus Valley was unique among all contemorary and most subsequent civilzations of the world. Indus Valley settlements were characterized by advanced urban planning, with streets intersecting each other at right angles, and a system of underground drains and sewers. Lothal was no exception.

But unlike Mohenjodaro, the defensive wall at Lothal enclosed the Lower as well as the Upper Town. The wall probably protected the town from floods.

The Lower Town or the Workers' Area had a commercial as well as a residential area. Shops, artisan workshops, and probably homes of merchants lined the main streets, which ran north to south. Other streets, which had east-west orientation, led to individual residences.

The administrators and the upper class lived in the Upper Town, also called by some arcaheologists "the Citadel" or "the Acropolis." Homes here had private baths, which had slping floors for better drainage.

Also the Warehouse was located here. The Warehouse was built on a 12-ft high platform to protect goods from floods and tides.

The Warehouse was connected by a long wharf to the Shipping Dock, which was a unique feature of Lothal. It measured approximately 120 x 70 ft. A ship entered it through an inlet channel during high tide. Lock gates were then closed to allow the water level to rise an dfloat the ship.

Lothal was the last stop, before we returned to Anand, 38 miles away.