Name the major city of the Indus valley civilization that had trade with West Asia.

Question

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — C, Lothal. Of the three sites named, only Lothal is coastal, and its location settles the question: it stands in Gujarat with access to the sea from the Gulf of Khambhat, on a trade route that ran between the Harappan cities of Sindh and the Kathiawar peninsula. The Archaeological Survey of India discovered the site in 1954 and excavated it from 13 February 1955 to 19 May 1960, uncovering a mound, a township, a marketplace and the great brick-lined basin identified as a dock — by the ASI's reading, one of the earliest known anywhere, connected by inlet channels to an old course of the Sabarmati. Salt and gypsum crystals found in the rectangular structure indicate that sea water once filled it. The town was also a manufacturing centre for export: it produced beads, gemstones and ornaments that reached the far corners of West Asia and Africa, and its bead-making and metallurgical techniques are among the most sophisticated of the civilisation. One honest qualification belongs here. The identification of the basin as a dock is not universally accepted — some archaeologists have argued that Lothal was a comparatively small town of about seven hectares and that the structure was an irrigation tank. The trade link with West Asia rests on the goods and the seals, not on that single structure, so the answer stands either way. Since (c) is right, option (d) 'None of the above' fails.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) A Harappan site in Rajasthan on the dried course of the Ghaggar, far inland. It is famous for the earliest excavated ploughed field and for its fire altars — evidence about agriculture and ritual, not about maritime trade. An inland site on a seasonal river cannot be the answer to a question about trade with West Asia.  (b) Rupnagar, on the Sutlej in Punjab, at the opposite end of the Harappan world from the sea. It is remembered as one of the first Harappan sites excavated after independence and for a burial in which a dog was interred with a human. Again inland, and again with no maritime evidence.  (d) Correct only if all three named sites fail, and the third does not. Lothal's identification as the civilisation's outlet towards West Asia is one of the most firmly established facts about Harappan trade, resting on its coastal position and its export manufacture as much as on the disputed dock.

Concept: The Harappan civilisation traded across the Arabian Sea, and Mesopotamian records name the lands it dealt with — Meluhha, generally identified with the Indus region, reached through the intermediate ports of Dilmun and Magan in the Gulf. What archaeologists find at the Indian end are the goods and the instruments of that trade: carnelian beads, shell and ivory work, steatite seals, standardised weights, and occasional seals of Persian Gulf type. Lothal sits at the point where that traffic met the land routes, and its layout reflects a working town rather than a ceremonial one, with a warehouse on a platform, a bead factory and a marketplace. The wider site map is worth holding as a table, because examiners test it constantly: Harappa on the Ravi, Mohenjo-daro on the Indus with the Great Bath, Kalibangan in Rajasthan with the ploughed field, Dholavira in Kutch with its water reservoirs and signboard, Banawali in Haryana, Ropar in Punjab, Rakhigarhi in Haryana, and Lothal in Gujarat with the dock.

State PCS 2025 Q128 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q128 — History PYQ with Answer