An endless white expanse of saltpans, blue skies, and Dholavira.
If you are a history buff nothing quite prepares you for the ancient Harappan site of Dholavira. Perhaps you recall hearing about the place in school classrooms, or visits to museum galleries or books. Bits and pieces in our collective memory about the ancient civilisation that covered an area larger than known sites in Mesopotamia, Egypt, or China; cities with carefully designed streets, water supply and drainage systems, and of a script that is yet to be deciphered. And yet the scale of it all does not quite sink in until you see the place for yourself.
Kutch, the district in Gujarat where Dholavira is located, happens to the largest in India - 45, 674 sqkm! There are about a dozen Indian states that are smaller than this one district, including Kerala and Haryana. Most of Kutch district barren scrubland or saltpans dotted with solar and wind farms.
We reached the site after a long drive from Bhuj, with stopover at Hodka village, and a drive along the so-called "Road through Heaven" - a 50km road that cuts straight through an area that was once covered by the sea.
The open sea is today about 300km away from Dholavira. All available evidence suggests that maritime trade was the mainstay of this city with its seals and jewellery being found in the Nile Valley, Egypt.
Unlike most Harappan cities excavated so far, Dholavira is the only one which is built from stone. Most of this stone was quarried out of areas that became the large tanks for storing water. Canals, sluices and wells ensured that water was available throughout the city with special arrangements for those staying in the 'upper city', an area where the elites resided.
There is a nice ASI museum at the site but not much information seems to be available on the web, except for some websites aimed at attracting tourists to the luxury tent-cities that are built every year. YouTube does have some good talks on the Harappan sites in general but IO am yet to come across anything that does justice to the the oldest known port city in ancient India.
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REFERENCES and LINKS
YT - Michel Danino on Harappan Civilisation - https://youtu.be/_s5EDxuL0Vs
