Burial practices in the Indus valley civilization

by Sheikh Khurshid Hasan, Assistant Director (Admin) Department of Archaeology & Museums, Government of Pakistan.

1. BURIAL PRACTICES IN THE VALLEY CIVILIZATION
by
Sh. Khurshid Hasan
Assistant Director (Admin)
The Holy Quran says: "Verily everything that does exist on Earth and Universe will come to an
end". Death is perhaps the only common faith of the religious and the unreligious. The pre-eminence of
death has haunted the imagination of mankind from the earliest times which might have been occasion
of demise of the first homo-sapiens that walked in the primeval forest or Gain writhing in ground,
stabbed by Abel's knife.
The concept of death varies among people of different cultural orientation in different parts of
the world. Some people believe that death is the result of God's curse, some ascribe it to the action of
supernatural being like gods or spirits or witches. Whatever may be the beliefs, the horror of death is
universal among the mankind.
The beliefs professed by various communities regulate the mode of disposal of the dead bodies.
The ancient methods of disposal of the dead may be enumerated as Cannibalism, sub-aerial deposit,
cave deposit, water-burial, earth burial, preservation in huts, cremation, and mummification. All these
methods reflect the belief or concept of life after death in the next world. For instance, behind
cremation lies the idea of getting rid of the ghost of the dead person. Some thought that the cremation
ensured protection to the survivors against the malignance of the dead. Others regarded cremation as a
means to free the ghost from the bonds of earthly life and unite it with the society of the departed souls
in the life beyond.
Coming to the practice of disposing off of the dead prevalent in the Indus Valley Civilization,
which flourished between 2500 - 1700 B.C the skeletal material recovered during the course of
excavations at Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa, Lothal and Kalibangan in India have provided some information
on this aspect of social feature.
Mohenjo-Daro
It is unfortunate that at Moenjodaro, which is one of the earliest and biggest sites of the Indus
Valley civilizaiton, no systematic inhumation cemetery has so far been discoveered. It might be lying
buried in the area not yet excavated. During the coure o f excavation in 1922-27 and again in 1928-28,

2. the discovery of skeletal remains at Moenjodaro comprise 41 individuals. Leavinge stray bemes and
burials of doubtful period, the number of skeletal remains according to Wheeler come to 34, as detailed
below :-
(a) Skeletons of 13 adult males and females and a child, some still wearing bracelets, rings
and Beads were found in varied altitudes in Room 74 of House II, H.R. Area Section. It
was possibly due to simultaneous death.
(b) Six skeletons, 5 adults and one child were found from a street between two houses in V.
S. area. Animal vertebrae were found lying over two of the above skeletons.
(c) A skeleton was discovered in Dead man's Lane H.R. area Section A. The skeleton belongs
to a late period. Moreover, it does not represent systematic burial.
(d) Nine skeletons, 4 adults and 5 children were found in D.K. area in a pit with two tusks of
elephants. The skeletons were found in varied attitudes. Mackay is of the opinion that
the killed persons were ivory worker themselves. The raiders had no use for tusks and
did not, therefore take them away.
(e) Four skeletons were found in Block A DK area, G Section. Two persons were lying dead
on the stairs of a well room. It is probable that they were ran successfully trying to
escape b climbing the stair to the street. Remains of third and fourth body were also
found close by. It is almost certain that these four people were murdered.
It will thus be observed that the skeletons so far discovered at Mohenjo-Daro do not represent
the normal burials. These appear to be the victims of some disaster. Even Dr. Dales who carried out
excavations at Mohenjo-Daro in 1964 found five skeletons, but they were also not buried in orderly way.
Harappa
The skeletal remains so far discovered at Harappa are the largest. The cemetery at Harappa was
discovered in 1928 on the flat plain area towards the south of the mound. The excavations remained in
progress here for three years. It is known as Cemetery H. It comprises two strata. Stratum II consisted
of extended burials. The knees of the dead were slightly bend and the general orientation was from
east to west or north-east to south-east. The grave pottery was distinctive, showing no apparent affinity

3. with that of Harappa culture proper. Some of these burials were regarded as fractional. t is, however,
not certain whether these were true fractional burials or whether they were merely fragmentary
reburials after some kind of disturbance of the cemetery.
Stratum I represents the true fractional burials. The skulls with a few bones are put in large urns
with openings just large enough to put in the loose bones after exhumation. the mouth of the urns
were either closed by pots or by lids. One of the urns depicted a beaked man holding two bulls, of
which one is attacked by a dog, some peacocks, and a large bull bearing trident standard on its
spreading horns. The frieze depicts a scene which has been related to Vedic ideas of the migration of
the soul. The dead bodies were, however, found in the embryonic postures.
Another cemetery know as R-37 was discovered in 1937. The excavations during these years
yielded forty-seven graves. In the year 1946, Sir Mortimer Wheeler again carried out excavation at this
cemetery and was able to discover ten more graves. The bodies were normally extended with the head
to the north with only one exception in which the head was to the south. The grave pits were of the
various sizes ranging from 10 to 15 feet in length and 2 1/2 to 10 feet in width. The depth of the graves
on an average was 2 1/2 feet. These graves were made of large size, apparently to accommodate a
large quantities of pottery in them according to the custom prevalent in those days. The pottery was
mostly kept near the head, but some quantity of it was also found at the feet and occasionally below the
body. The number of pots found in a grave ranged from two to forty. Personal ornaments were also
worn by the dead although this feature was almost absent in the burials of Cemetery H, Stratum II,
except in two cases. Besides pottery and personal ornament some of the graves yielded toiled objects.
Mirrors of copper antimony sticks and large sheel ________.
Detailed report on Cemetery R-37 (1937-41) has not yet been published. However, from the
account given by Sir Mortimer Wheeler a number of interesting features of burials have come to notice.
Burial No. 5 was a coffin burial. It is the only of its kind so far discovered in the Indus Valley Culture. The
body was probably of a woman and placed in a wooden coffin, 7 feet long and 2 feet wide at its narrow
end and 2 1/2 feet wide towards the head. Traces of a reed-shroud from the pelvic girdle to the upper
parts were also noticed. The presence of some light green substance over and around the body
suggested the use of preservatives. Both the coffin and the reed shroud are familiar in Sumerian
cemeteries of the third millennium B.C. Burial 10 showed tow remarkable features. It had mud-brick

4. lining or coffin around the bdy and a heaped mud-brick filling on the southern end of the grave. The
grave-shaft was of unusual dimensions 15 feet long, 19 feet wide and 3 feet deep.
Lothal:
Ten burials were discovered at Lothal. Like Harappa, the orientation was north-south with
heeds to the north. One of the graves was built with mud bricks. The graves represent middle class
people as the material of inferior quality such as copper rings, shell beads and bowls suggest.
Kalibangan
Excavations at Kalibangan in India was carried out in 1962-63 and a cemetery similar to R-37 at
Harappa was laid bare. The Indian Archaeological Survey has excavated as many as seven graves. The
skeletons were found laid in an extended position with the head towards the north. In one of the
graves, a copper or bronze mirror was also discovered. The mirrors show great resemblance with those
found at Harappa.
At Kalibangan another interesting feature of pot burial has been noticed. Ten pits were dig out
which were either oval or circular on plan. The contained, besides an urn, other posts which were
generally found encircled round the former and varied from four to twenty nine in number. Besides,
pottery, some of the pits also contained beads, shell bangles and steatite objects. No skeletal material
was recovered from an of the urn or the pits as a whole nor were any other objects found within the
Urns. The precise nature and significance of these pits require further investigation.
Conclusion:
In the light of the latest discoveries it can safely be presumed that the system of disposal of
dead in the Indus Valley Civilization was inhumation. Unlike at Ur in Sumer, no royal burials have yet
been discovered at any of the sites of Indus Civilization. The grave objects are usually of inferior quality
and as such it can rightly be said that the burials represent the poor class of people.
The skeletal material so far analyzed cannot help much to determine the racial character of the
pre-historic man in Indus Civilization. Sewell and Gauha on the basis of the anthropological studies of
the skeletal remain at Mohenjo-Daro have identified four racial types viz Proto-Australoid,
Mediterranean, Mongoloid and Alpine. Latest researches carried out in this field, particularly by D. K.
Sen have revealed that the population was homogenous with regard at least to head-shape, nose-

5. shaped and stature. The population at these sites belonged to a single racial group rather than to
different anthropic species. It has also been said that the population, in the light of the available
evidence, appears to have remained more or less stable from Harappan times to the present day.