Urban Life in Early East Punjab - Rupnagar (Ropar)

An Ancient Town on the Bank of River Sutlej

Abstract

At a distance of about forty kilometres from Chandigarh, Ropar (Rupnagar) is situated in the Shivalik hills on the left bank of river Sutlej, and the archaeological excavation (1952-1955) under Yagya Datt Sharma has attested the presence of a town here from the Harappan period to nearly the present times with intermittent (apparently short) episodes of desertions. Unfortunately, Y. D. Sharma never published a detailed excavation report, and we only have short reports and articles by him on the archaeological remains from Ropar for the study of this town’s historical past. In the absence of a detailed excavation report, we do not have much information about the context of the artefacts that are found in excavation at Ropar. Therefore, in this paper, an artefact centric approach is adopted. This paper treats the artefacts that are found in Ropar as social products, and they are studied as integral part of everyday life of early Ropar’s residents. Following this presumption, it is proposed that the artefacts found in excavation at Ropar can be used as evidence by identifying their purpose, significance in human life, and consumption pattern, to uncover the complex character of the urban life in early Ropar. Several artefacts that are found in Ropar are similar to those artefacts that are discovered in several contemporary sites in the Ganga valley and Northwest as well as Central India. This scenario allows us to analyse the artefacts from Ropar in the light of previous studies on similar artefacts from other sites, and based on this analysis, an attempt is made in this paper to uncover this town’s early to the late historical past (from circa 600 BCE - CE 700) with a focus upon its urban life.