question_answer

Describe briefly what has been found in burials at the Harappan sites.

Answer:

The burials in Harappan sites have helped in knowing three things mainly:

1. If there was any instances of hierarchy in the society.

2. How the Harappans used to see death and what were rituals associated.

3. General information about social life through ornaments and artifacts etc.

The burials were in the form of pits and sometimes these pits were lined with bricks also. This might signify that people higher in hierarchy were buried in brick-lined graves.

Archaeologists also found jewellery, ornaments and pottery in burials of both men and women. This perhaps indicates a belief that these could be used in afterlife.

Example: In the excavations at the cemetery in Harappa in the mid-1980s, an ornament consisting of three shell rings, a jasper bead and hundreds of micro beads was found near the skull of a male.

In some instances the dead were buried with copper mirrors. But on the whole we find that Harrapans used to put ordinary jewellery and pottery etc., they did into believe in buying precious things with the dead.