Beginning with the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization, tracing the various stages of its excavation from Alexander Cunningham through John Marshall to Mortimer Wheeler and recent excavators, Harappan Architecture and Civil Engineering delineates the genesis and growth of urban architecture of the Harappan settlement, its distribution in different ecological zones and the regional variation in their architectural edifices. 

 

The architectural genius of the Harappans has been elucidated by a thorough treatment of the various aspects of town planning, fortification, gateways, streets, lanes, houses, drainage system, bathing floors, platforms for houses. Its legendary structures, the Great Bath, the granaries at Mohenjodaro and Harappa, and the college at Mohenjodaro, have been discussed in great detail. 

Discoveries such as the structure found at Edith Shahr, with Ziggurat features; the sacrificial cairn at Damb-Sadaat; the apsidal fire structure at Banawali; the Mundigak temple; and the altars at Kalibangan throw new light on the religious edifies of the Indus Valley Civilization. 

 

Science and technology have always been an important part of India’s story, as the substratum of its civilization’s rationality and secular progress, the basic for pre-colonial Indian Ocean global trade, the foundation for building India’s future knowledge society, and a key element in projecting Brand India. This volume is part of a multi-volume series on the subject.

 

About The Author:

Jagat Pati Joshi obtained his graduate and post-graduate degree from Lucknow University. He did a post-graduate diploma in archaeology in 1961 from the School of Archaeology of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

He joined the ASI in 1956 and retired as its director-general in 1990. He has been associated with several of its exploration, excavation and conservation projects. He specializes in the Indian Bronze Age and excavations of sites of the Harappan Culture. Among his many contributions to Indian archaeology are the discovery of the land routes of the Harappans in Kachchh; and the link between the painted grey ware of Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, and the late Harappan period.

Joshi has published excavation reports of major sites at Pauni (in collaboration with S.B. Seo), Surkotada, Bhagwanpura and Malvan (with Professor F.R. Allchin). He is also the author of Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions, Inventory of Centrally Protected Monumentsand approximately seventy-five research papers.