Rakhigarhi – The largest site from the Harrapan culture

A recent piece of news, which has gone mostly unnoticed, yet can hold significant
future implications in the field of archaeology, was the reopening of the Rakhigarhi
site excavations in Haryana. During the early 20 th century, when Indian history had
no archeological records of the period between Stone age and the historic period
(termed as the Dark Age), the sudden discovery of the Bronze age Harappan
Culture came as a revolutionary find, which pushed back India’s antiquity by
nearly 2000 years at one go. After decades of debates and many further discoveries
it is now an established fact that the Harappan civilisation comprised of a number
of varying indigenous cultural identities with many regional urban centers, such as
Rakhigarhi, Dholavira, Mohenjo Daro, etc. These flourishing urban centres were
backed by smaller agriculture based rural settlements and craftsmen establishments
that provided for the economy of this Bronze age Culture, which was largely trade
based, both internal and international.

Rakhigarhi site

Among the 2000 sites excavated, Mohenjo daro (300 hectares) was considered the
largest site from the Harappan culture, until April 2012. It was at this time under
Professor Vasant Shinde a team of researchers and archeologists started fresh
excavations, and after mapping the site soon found that it is larger than the
Mohenjo Daro. Earlier Amarendra Nath (1997-1998, 2001) had conducted
preliminary excavations on the site and reported a cluster of seven mounds,
which he marked as RGR-1 to RGR-7, in close proximity to the current village of
Rakhigarhi, covering a total area of about 105 ha. By 2020, the total number of
mounds in Rakhigarhi amounted to 11, and the site size is now said to cover 550
hectares (5.5 km), of which only 5% has been excavated. As Prof Vasant Shinde,
in charge of the 2016 excavations had said in an interview,  “the scientific data
collected on the basis of the excavations here have strongly pointed that
Rakhigarhi, a metropolis, was perhaps the capital of its times about 5,000 years
ago. We have collected evidences of massive manufacturing and trade activities in
this town, which revealed the economic organisation and the foreign links of
people here. They had trade links with people in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Baluchistan
and even Afghanistan. The city flourished during the early Harappan era dating
back to around 3,300 BCE and existed till 2000 BCE… So much material is
available here that it would take 100 years to complete the study on uninhabited
mounds on the outskirts of the village.”

Once a thriving Bronze era urban centre, Rakhigarhi is now a small village, and the
site is situated at the centre of the Ghaggar-Hakra basin (in the valley of the now
dry course of the Drishadvati River, a tributary of the Saraswati River), in the
Narnaund Tehsil of Hissar district, Haryana. The excavations had started again on
1oth September 2021 from mound number one, a residential site in the Harappan
times; however the license has expired on 30th September as was reported.

Importance of Rakhigarhi in the study of the Harappan Culture

Back in 2008 the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and the Cambridge University
in collaboration had undertaken a monumental project work that unearthed a large
network of ancient habitations near Rakhigarhi. This project uncovered 127 sites
spanning a long period in history, starting from the proto-historic early Harappan
era settlements to early medieval (13th century) period. There are 182
archeological sites spread across the basin of Haryana’s largest seasonal river, the
Ghaggar, and it was a monumental find in the sense that 125 of the discovered sites
were unknown.
As Ravindra Nath Singh (department of ancient Indian history, culture and
archaeology at BHU, and a project leader) said in an interview (interview source:
Livemint, 2013), “In 2009, we excavated at Masudpur, which is 12km from
Rakhigarhi, and discovered 13 sites that date back to the Early Harappan phase …
It is highly likely that these sites fell under the socio-economic and political
catchment area of Rakhigarhi." Previous to this find, India had the Harappan sites
mostly from the mature phase, while Pakistan had many sites dating from the early
phase, giving rise to the theory that the Indus-Saraswati civilization took birth in
the area which is now known as Pakistan, and later spread eastward towards to
what is now India. In the context of these 2008 monumental findings near
Rakhigarhi, Prof. Shinde said in his interview (interview source: Livemint, 2013)
that “the evidence suggests possibly the opposite…We’ve got a few sites now in
Haryana which date all the way back to 6000 BCE, and it’s evident that this area
was one of the first places in the world where humans graduated from a nomadic
hunting-gathering lifestyle to settled agricultural communities."
Furthermore, carbon-dating tests on the artefacts (charcoal and shell bangles)
found at the Bhirrana site in Haryana date back to nearly 7380 BCE, and similar to
Rakhigarhi, Bhirrana too had settlements from the early phase of the Harappan
culture (the pre-Harappan phase) to the late Harappan phase. There were some
more significant discoveries, and the most noteworthy among them were the
finding of burnt rice near the site, which date back to 4000 BCE (dispelling another
myth that rice came from China to India sometime in 2500 BCE).

The current state of the Rakhigarhi site

The site, despite its historical significance, faces many issues, the gravest one
being that of security. The Harappan mounds, including the protected ones, are
encroached upon by modern structures, while some of the mounds are being used
as cowsheds. RGR-4 to RGR-5, two large mounds, have village establishments
(Rakhikhas and Rakhi Shahpur) on them, making RGR-5 inaccessible and RGR-4
only partly accessible for excavations. Besides land erosion, illegal encroachments,
and illegal sand mining, a general tendency of the locals to not co-operate with the
archeological teams stemming from a fear of loss of homes has caused many
damages to this important pre-proto historic site. There have been reports of
reckless hunting at the site for priceless antiquities, which sell at millions of dollars
in the global antique market; and coupled with a lack of official protection, there
have been reports of unscrupulous elements vandalizing the site and plundering it
for treasure. The villagers have reportedly said that for many years the antiquities
(such as, clay figurines and toys, terracotta items, copper objects, shells, semi-
precious stones, beads, etc.) that were recovered from the site during ploughing
and tilling have been sold for a mere trifle.

The importance of Haryana as the likely cradle of the Indian civilization cannot be
overlooked, and needs greater attention from the concerned authorities. More
researches must be conducted on the sites, and arrangements must be made for
protecting them. It is also essential that public awareness be raised on the
importance of these sites, and people made to understand as why it is necessary to
protect such sites.