lothal2

Next to the Bead lapideries is the coppersmiths workshop, identified by its furnace, lined with bricks. It was found to be well equiped with required tools such as an anvil, copper chisel and clay crusibles. Niches in the workshop walls were probably where the coppersmith kept lamps to illuminate the workshop. At Lothal, metal smihs used nearly 100% pure copper imported from the middle east, alloyed with tin to make arrow heads, spears, fish hooks, tools and ornaments. They also knew how to make bronzes of birds and dancing girls.

Upper Town

A Fire altar indicates that Harrapans worshipped the fire God, and it is well known that they revered the sea God. But the industry of special interest in Lothal is pottery, which included beautiful jars painted with stags, bulls, cows, horses, sitting birds and more, terra cotta toys and figurines. Two styles of pottery have been discovered in Lothal-the stud handled convex bowl and the small flaring rimmed jar. While painting utensils, the Harrapans started with horizontal and verticle patterns, on which they added geometirc and non-geometric patterns. Peacocks and floral designs in black-on-red or brown-on-buff surfaces were popular motifs. Toy bullock carts show remarkable similarity to our own in terms of ratios and proportions. Other toys included animals that could move on wheels. Seals were another important part of the Harrapan lifestyle, and besides those with copper rings used as lables at the warehouse to authenciate contents or certify payment of taxes, there were others of religious and commercial importance. Writing and graffitti on seals and terra cotta combined pictographs, specially faunal figures, with phonemes. .The artists of Lothal developed a style based on realism, and showed animals in their natural habitat.

But perhaps the most unique aspect of planning during the Indus Valley civilisation was the system of underground sanitary drainage. The main sewer, 1.5 meters deep and 91 cm across, connecting to many north-south and east-west sewers, was made from bricks that were smoothened and jointed together so expertly that hardly a hair could pass through the connections. This expert masonry kept the sewer watertight, and drops at regular intervals acted as an automatic cleaning device. A wooden screen at the end of the drains, held back solid wastes, and the liqiuds entered a cess pool made from radial bricks. Tunnels carried the waste liquids to the main chanel connecting the dockyard with the river estuary. The commoner houses had baths and drains that emptied into undergound soakage jars. A cementery is situated on the western end of the periferal walls.

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