Rangpur

1.1 Where is the site?

Rangpur is a small village in Limdi taluka, in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. A taluka is an administrative block, like a sub-district. The area is now in Surendranagar district.

Rangpur is a key site for the Harappan story in Saurashtra. Its layers lie one above the other, so they show how the culture changed over time. Rao’s Period III here is known for Lustrous Red Ware.

1.2 Who dug it before 1953?

M.S. Vats of the ASI made trial digs at Rangpur in 1934-35. He thought the site was a southern outpost of the Harappan culture. Dr G.S. Ghurye also dug there in 1936.

In 1947 Dr M.G. Dikshit dug further. He felt Rangpur had no Harappan links. In his view its culture was later and took shape after the Aryans came.

So scholars disagreed. One side called Rangpur Harappan. The other called it later and different.

1.3 How did S.R. Rao settle the question?

The Western Circle of the ASI decided to dig the site properly. Its goal was to prove or reject the Harappan link once for all.

S.R. Rao led the work between 1953 and 1956. The first season was in the winter of 1953-54. It showed that Rangpur must have had Harappan contacts.

2.1 What layers did the 1953-54 dig show?

The trench showed three cultures, one above the other. They were microlithic, chalcolithic and late chalcolithic.

Microliths are tiny stone blades. Chalcolithic means a stone-and-copper age. People used stone tools, and they also used copper.

The lowest culture left crude microliths of jasper and agate. No pottery lay with them. They lay in gravel, pebbles and shell, which looked like an old river bed.

2.2 What marked the Harappan layer?

The middle culture used a thick red pottery. Its painting was black or chocolate over a red or buff surface. The designs were loops, dots, criss-cross lines, bands and circles. Pictures of real things were very rare in these early levels.

The special shapes were the perforated jar, the dish-on-stand and the shallow dish or basin.

The same layer held copper or bronze axes and bangles. It had faience and steatite beads and triangular terracotta cakes. Faience is a glassy material that is shaped and then fired. Steatite is a soft stone that is easy to carve. Terracotta cakes are small baked-clay pieces.

Harappa itself has similar tools. Among the microliths here was a chert blade of the Harappan kind. Together these finds left no doubt of a link with the Harappan tradition.

2.3 What did the 1954-55 dig add?

Rao dug again in 1954-55. Painted animals now appeared on the pots. They included the bull, the peacock and the deer.

A mud-brick fortification wall, 6 ft 3 in (about 1.9 m) thick, stood in the earliest period. A fortification is a defensive wall. Higher up, still in the same culture, drains and mud-brick buildings turned up at three different levels.

The first dig had found buff ware and red ware together. The second dig confirmed that both were made at the same time.

2.4 What did Lothal prove?

Indus seals turned up at Lothal in 1954-55. The pots there matched Rangpur’s red and buff ware. The two sites lie about 30 miles apart.

After that, no doubt remained. Rangpur was a Harappan settlement.

3.1 What are Rangpur’s periods?

Rao set out the periods in his own note. In Period I, people used microliths. Long after they left, the Harappans came, about 2000 BCE. They lived here until about 1500 BCE. This phase is called II a.

Their pots, tools and ornaments matched those of their neighbours at Lothal.

A flood then destroyed the whole township, about 1500 BCE. People stayed on, but with poorer goods. This weak phase, II b, ran from about 1500 to 1100 BCE.

Then people tried to revive painting and to make new shapes. This is II c. Some Harappan shapes still stayed in use. They were the dish-on-stand, jar, bowl and basin. Black-and-red ware became popular. Rao calls II c a Transition Phase of the Harappan culture.

Period III dates to about 1000-800 BCE. It is known for plenty of Lustrous Red Ware.

3.2 Did the culture end in a sudden crash?

Not at Rangpur. The 1954-55 report says the Harappan culture here died a natural death. It slowly grew weaker and changed into the next culture.

At Harappa and Mohenjo-daro the story was different. The cities there were destroyed.

Rao’s note adds a wider view. The culture lived on in Gujarat and Saurashtra for nearly eight centuries after Harappa and Mohenjo-daro fell.

3.3 What was the Lustrous Red Ware?

This ware has a shining red surface. Its vessels were smaller than the older Harappan pots.

The new potters kept some Harappan skills. They still used the Harappan technique of paring pottery. They also used some Harappan shapes for a while.

Slowly, thick pots gave way to thin ones. The paint changed too. It went from light black on a light red slip to deep black on pink or deep red.

In the top level, black-and-red ware appeared. It was painted in white or black. Crude microliths and terracotta animal figures were also found.

3.4 Did the Harappan script survive?

Some Indus signs remain on pots from II c and III. These scratched marks are called graffiti. Rao thought they hint that the script lived on.

This is Rao’s suggestion, not proof.

4.1 The periods at a glance

4.2 Why does Rangpur matter?

Rangpur showed that Harappan culture reached Saurashtra and lived on there. It gave a long, unbroken sequence from Harappan times to the pre-Northern Black Polished Ware period.

The Rangpur culture, Lustrous Red Ware and a smooth fade-out all started with this one site.