Rakhigarhi :---Rakhigarhi to be Developed as an Iconic Site

[srikanth chowhan]

Context:

Centre is moving ahead with its plan to develop Rakhigarhi as a tourist hub and set up a museum.

As part of encroachment removal at the Rakhigarhi heritage site, 152 households are being shifted to flats.

Background:

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the government’s plan to fund five on-site museums, including the under-construction museum initiated by the Haryana government at Rakhigarhi, in her Budget speech on February 1.

Other sites mentioned in the Budget — Hastinapur in Uttar Pradesh, Shivsagar in Assam, Dholavira in Gujarat and Adichanallur in Tamil Nadu.

What’s the issue now?

Rakhigarhi’s rise as a site of ancient curiosity has disrupted the villager’s life to an extent.

The ASI has been able to get under its control just 83.5 acres of the 350-hectare site that spans 11 mounds, after first taking over the site in 1996, due to encroachments and pending court cases.

 

About Rakhigarhi:

Rakhigarhi, in Haryana, became an archaeological hotspot when Amarendra Nath, former director of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), undertook excavations at the site in 1997.

• The ASI team unearthed a fire altar, parts of a city wall, drainage structures as well as a hoard of semi-precious beads.
• Villagers subsequently began to see the significance of the terracotta shards that littered Rakhigarhi.
• It is a 5,000-year-old site that showcases continuity from the Harappan age to the present times. The village also has havelis that are a couple of hundred years old.
• The site is located in the Sarasvati river plain, some 27 km from the seasonal Ghaggar river.
• In May 2012, the Global Heritage Fund, declared Rakhigarhi one of the 10 most endangered heritage sites in AsiA
• Union Budget (2020-21) has proposed to develop Rakhigarhi (Hisar district,Haryana) as an iconic site.
  • 4 other archaeological sites in Hastinapur (Uttar Pradesh), Shivsagar (Assam), Dholavira (Gujarat) and Adichanallur in (Tamil Nadu) will also be developed as iconic sites with onsite museums.

  Rakhigarhi

  • Rakhigarhi is the largest Harappan site in the Indian subcontinent.
    
    • Other large sites of Harappan civilization on Indian sub-continent are Harappa, Mohenjodaro and Ganveriwala in Pakistan and Dholavira (Gujarat) in India.
  • At Rakhigarhi, the excavations are being done to trace its beginnings and to study its gradual evolution from 6000 BCE (Pre-Harappan phase) to 2500 BCE.
    
    • The site was excavated by Amarendra Nath of ASI.

  Major Findings at the Site

  Settlements

  • The archaeological excavations revealed the mature Harappan phase represented by planned township having mud-brick as well as burnt-brick houses with a proper drainage system.

  Seals and Pottery

  • A cylindrical seal with 5 Harappan characters on one side and a symbol of an alligator on the other is an important find from this site.
  • The ceramic industry represented by red ware, which included dish-on-stand, vase, perforated jar among others.

  Other Antiquities

  • Blades; terracotta and shell bangles, beads of semi precious stones, and copper objects; animal figurines, toy cart frame and wheel of terracotta; bone points; inscribed steatite seals and sealings.

  Rituals and Burials

  • Animal sacrificial pit lined with mud-brick and triangular and circular fire altars on the mud floor have also been excavated that signifies the ritual system of Harappans.
  • The excavations have yielded a few extended burials, which certainly belong to a very late stage, maybe the medieval times.

  Recent findings

  • Recently, a study of DNA from skeletal remains excavated from the Harappan cemetery at Rakhigarhi found that the people in the Harappan Civilization have an independent origin.
  • This study negates the theory of the Harappans having Steppe pastoral or ancient Iranian farmer ancestry.

  Harappan Civilization

  • It is also known as Indus Valley Civilization.
  • It flourished around 2,500 BC, in the western part of South Asia, in contemporary Pakistan and Western India.
  • The Indus Valley was home to the largest of the four ancient urban civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China.
  • In the 1920s, the Archaeological Department of India carried out excavations in the Indus valley wherein the ruins of the two old cities, viz. Mohenjodaro and Harappa were unearthed.
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