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valley period. The Ancient Babylonians called cotton clothe as Sindhu as it arrived from the region of Sindhu River. 124 The abundantly growing cotton and traditional knowledge of making textile has survived even today.
While wine, olive oil, red coral, ivory, pottery, grinding stone must have been some of the imported goods. We find Amphorae for wine as well as olive oil. 7. Does this site fit in the chain of the events?
Indeed it fits. This site is an important bead in to the chain of events. It was a place where civilization has thrived from harrapan period. We find scanty evidence of Harrapan period but that is due to lack of planned excavation. The harrapan finds are likely to be in deeper layers not touched by and brought to the surface by the regular cultivation activity. We have abundant evidence of the active and bustling civilization, having trade relations with the Western World, Arab land and Sindh from early history period down tollth.cent AD. Somehow Periplus has not mentioned this site. That was perhaps due to the fact that the site was a river port where the large vessels could not come. The goods were transported to main ship by smaller boats, run by local sailors. And thus this window to the west was hidden from the historians for two thousand years.
The tradition of shipping established before two thousand years continued till the day. The merchants operate from Mandvi port and the sailors take their country crafts to ports of Middle East and Africa. The port of Mandvi is 5 kms from the site of Nani Rayan. The shift of the sea, silting of the bay and riverbed must be responsible for this change.
The Kshatraps ruled over Kutch and so did Gupta kings. We find coins of both from the site. The Brami script in vogue is also seen in the seals. In all respects, this site looks similar and in some way better then all the contemporary sites found from Gujarat and Other parts of India. The Cultural richness, love for nature and music, the fascination for the colors of life, so typical in our country are visible in almost anything that you find at this site. The ethnic and religious diversity is also clearly visible. 8. What buried the civilization?
We see rows of brick walls and many other things like potters kiln and hips of pottery 4 ft below the level of the ground. This indicates that the site must have received lots of silt from the river close by during the floods and must have been buried either at a stroke or in a piece meal manner. The newer inhabitants constructed their houses on this new land and cultivated the rich soil deposited by the river.
If only, surface finds can tell so much, a planned excavation of the site will certainly bring out many more buried facets of our history and trade links with the west. The buried walls, the buried culture await some explorer to come and unravel the mystery of Nani Rayan in its totality. Until that time the mother earth would protect it as it has done for thousands of years and men with their bulldozers will keep on destroying it, piecemeal as they have been doing for last couple of decades.
124 Sayes, in his Hibbert Lectures, page 136-138
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