ASI Claims to Have Found Harappan-Era 'Chariots' at Excavation Site in UP
New Delhi: The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has claimed that it has found the remains of two chariots in a burial pit in Sinauli, Uttar Pradesh, Outlook has reported.
The excavation team reportedly found two cart-like vehicles and eight well-preserved corpses in coffins that appeared to have been mounted on a pedestal. According to New Indian Express, the excavation they also found four copper antennae swords, copper crowns, grey-ware pottery, wheels (some without spokes), ornaments, helmets, shields, two daggers and seven channel-like objects.
Officials at the site speculate that the bodies may have been those of royalty.
Sanauli is considered an important burial site in the Baghpat district of Uttar Pradesh. ASI has been conducting excavations there since since February 15, 2018.
“This is the very first time such evidence has ever been recovered. The coffins and chariots are something we haven’t encountered before. This discovery is not only important in the context of India but also the world,” Sanjay Manjul, director of the Institute of Archaeology and who was overseeing the excavations, told The Print.
Remains of bodies unearthed at the site. Credit: Archaeological Survey of India
He also said that burial pots recovered with the bodies suggested that people belonging to that era may have believed in life after death. “Since this is the first discovery of burials, … we need to further examine it scientifically and arrive at an exact time period,” he added.
The remains could be from the later Harappan period, during the copper/bronze age. Manjul: “The artefacts probably belong to a period between 2,000-1,800 BCE. It can help us determine how those people lived. It may help re-evaluate how we understood the late Harappan contemporary culture.”
However, historians are doubtful. D.N. Jha told News18, “Horse-driven chariots are known in the Vedic period. However, iron makes [its] appearance in the post-Vedic [period], or not earlier than the late Vedic period. [So] this find cannot be dated to the pre-Vedic/Harappa phase.”
Ruchika Sharma, a historian at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, also said that the ASI would have to clarify what exactly it had found. "We should first obtain clarity on why ASI is calling them 'chariots'. It isn’t uncommon for a late Harappan site to have bullock carts. There is already evidence of such terracotta carts."
"ASI has a tendency to colour their discoveries from the lens of Hindutva. They had earlier interpreted female figures as ‘mother goddesses’, even though there was no evidence to suggest it,” she added.
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