Harrappa Cemetery H

The excavation at Harappa (District Sahiwal) Punjab Pakistan to the south of the citadel mound brought to light a Post - Harappan period cemetery. The burial are too meager to be considered as typical of the main body of the population and, therefore, be regarded as pertaining to a small section of the community. They fall in two categories, referable to an earlier and later strata of occupation. It is possible to assume that the complete and fractional burials were typical of distinct classes of people. The lower stratum of burials show examples of complete inhumation, in which the body was laid generally with hands turned up, the knees bent and the heads towards east or north east surrounded by a quantity of pottery, jars, cups, dishes and bowls.

By far the largest number of examples of burials found in the upper stratum of cemetery “H”, where over a hundred jars containing skulls and bones, constitute a system of fractional burials, only babies were enclosed complete in the embryonic position. The jar mouths were closed by lids or by pots.

The large number of jar burials found in the upper stratum are apparently of a later dated and from the fact that the skulls and bones were found in them show no signs of being burnt. It has been suggested that the bones were exposed to the birds and the bones collected later for inhumation.

The pottery associated with the funeral remains unearthed from cemetery is of a distinct type, which cannot be paralleled with the example from the ordinary pottery in the Harappa Culture cities. The decorations, vegetable patterns and animal representations are peculiar, and the forms of the vessels are also unlike those represented in the pottery in regular daily use. Certain animal designs depict composite representation; deer with log horns, vessels indicated that they were in some way connected with the ideas of the life after death and in some cases are supposed to have carried away the soul of the dead.

Grave pottery also a pot with a child's body seen

Written & Edited by Jamal Panhwar