"In sum, however, the evidence from Baluchistan and from Sind and the Punjab is reasonably consistent in implying that at some period likely to have been before 1500 BCE (to use a convenient round figure), the long-established cultural traditions of North-Western India were rudely and ruthlessly interrupted by the arrival of a new people from the west. The burning of Baluchi villages and the equipment of the graves at Sahi Tump suggest that these new arrivals were predominantly conquerors who traveled light and adopted the pottery of the region in which they established themselves. In Sind, at Chanhudaro, a barbarian settlement appears [evidently the reference is to the Jhukar Culture] in the deserted ruins of the Harappan town, and here some local craftsmen may have remained to work for their alien masters, while the pottery suggests a resurgence of local, non-Harappan elements. At Mohenjo-daro, it seems clear that the civilization that had survived so long was already effete and on the wane when the raiders came, and at Harappa we know from the evidence of the rebuilding of the Citadel walls that the inhabitants were on the defensive in the last days of the city, though, these precautionary measures did not suffice to keep away the intruders, wherever they came from, who afterwards settled on the ruins and buried their dead in Cemetery H for generations."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
quoted in Lal, B. B. The Rigvedic People, 2015
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Stuart_Piggott
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Stuart Piggott
Stuart Ernest Piggott, (28 May 1910 – 23 September 1996) was a British archaeologist, best known for his work on prehistoric Wessex.
4 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Stuart Piggott →
Related Quotes
"These dates Mueller later insisted were minimum dates only, and latterly there has been a sort of tacit agreement... …"
"S. Piggott established the presence of a sophisticated type of vehicle with “one or two pairs of wheels with their ax…"
"The method has its dangers—the great Sanskrit scholar A. B. Keith once remarked that by taking the linguistic evidenc…"
"Since the normal tendency is to simplify, to trivialize, to eliminate the unfamiliar word or construction, the rule i…"
"There is a tiny pause, right at the start of the film that caught at my heart, but I didn't think anyone else would n…"
"Of the many metaphors for biography, two make useful starting points. One — a disturbing image — is the autopsy, the …"
"When I was very young, I think I was aware that I was reading different kinds of books, which slightly took my teache…"
"Emotions about our lost houses and gardens have to do with growing old and acquiring guilt: we are always leaving our…"
"Talking with a younger generation of readers, I see how Shelley has become increasingly a European figure, a Dante am…"
"The had promulgated an essentially private, elitist, specialist form of knowledge. Its ' was Latin, and its common cu…"