Indus steatite seal in Mitathal

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Prabhakar V.N., et al., Man and Environment XXXV(1): 54-61 [2010].
© Indian Society for Prehistoric and Quaternary Studies

Mitathal: New Observations based on Surface Reconnaissance and Geologic
Provenance Studies
V.N. Prabhakar, Tejas Garge, Randall Law1 1 Department of Anthropology,
Archaeological Survey of India, 5240 Social Science Building,
Aurngabad Circle, 1180 Observatory Drive,
Aurangabad University of Wisconsin-Madison,
53706 USA

Abstract
The Indus Civilization settlement of Mitathal, District Bhiwani, Haryana is rapidly being leveled due
to agricultural activities. A short surface reconnaissance was conducted during which, among other
things, a steatite seal was recovered. A small fragment of that seal was analyzed using instrumental
neutron activation analysis (INAA) and determined to have been made from raw steatite that most
probably originated in the Alwar District of northern Rajasthan. This, along with evidence that rock
outcrops near the Haryana/Rajasthan border were being exploited for manufacture of grinding stones,
indicates that residents of the site had important trade relationships extending towards the south.

Introduction phase related to the Kalibangan I and ‘pre-defense’ (Kot
Diji Phase) at the site of Harappa, which in Haryana has
Mitathal (28o 53’ 31” N; 76o 10’ 11” E), in the Bhiwani
been called the Late Siswal culture, was identified. This
district of southwest Haryana, is an important site for
was followed by a continuous sequence through a Late
scholars investigating what Possehl (1992) has called the
Harappan phase. Bhan defined a Period I and Period II – c.
“Eastern Domain” of the Indus, or Harappan, Civilization
2000-1900 B.C. and c. 1900-1500 B.C., respectively. The
(Fig. 1). A brief surface reconnaissance was undertaken
classical phase of the Indus Civilization (Mature Harappan)
during a visit to the site by the authors of this paper on
was indicated at the site by the presence of well-planned
11th March 2007. The geologic provenance of several
mud-brick structures, beads of carnelian, faience, steatite
artefact types, including the first and only steatite seal yet
and terracotta, toy-cart wheels, wheeled toys, sling
recovered at Mitathal, was also assessed. These new studies
balls, discs with tapering ends, marbles and triangular
have provided a fresh glimpse into this ancient settlement
cakes of terracotta as well as stone objects such as balls,
and the surrounding region during the later part of what is
hammer stones, saddle querns and mullers, and cubical
commonly termed the Mature Harappan period (ca. 2600-
stone weights. The uppermost level (IIB) was designated
1900 B.C) of the Indus Civilization.
the “Mitathal” culture (Late Harappan). Some Siswal/
Kalibangan ceramic traditions survived and important finds
Site Location and Past Research from this phase include a celt, a parasu and a copper ring.
Mitathal is situated on the alluvial plain near a channel Bhan suggested that Indus culture transformed into the
between the Chautang and the Yamuna rivers and is in OCP and hinted that the possible genesis of the OCP lay in
close proximity (25 to 30 km) to the hilly outcrops of the Siswal phase (Bhan 1975: 3).
Kaliana and Tosham, which are rich in quartzite and meta- Mitathal’s twin mounds were christened as 1 and 2 by
volcanic rocks respectively. The site is approximately Suraj Bhan. He recorded Mound 1 as being 150 x 130 m in
120 km west-northwest of New Delhi, 10 km northeast area and 5 m in height, while Mound 2 was 300 x 175 m in
of Bhiwani – the headquarters of the district of the same area and 3 m above the agricultural fields. The two mounds
name, and 1.5 km northwest of Mitathal village. whose northern periphery was demarcated by a modern
Prior to excavation conducted by Kurukshetra irrigation canal (the Dang Minor) were 10 m apart.
University in 1968 under the direction of Suraj Bhan (Bhan
1969, 1975), copper artefacts, Indus-style pottery, beads A Brief Surface Reconnaissance
and faience bangles were discovered at Mitathal. Bhan’s
It was evident, both during our short visit to Mitathal
excavations, although small in scale, revealed much about
and from an examination of recent Google Earth satellite
the site and the region. Firstly, a pre-Mature Harappan
imagery (ca. December 2005), that large portions of the
mounds have been destroyed since the time of Bhan’s
Received : 31-08-2009 excavation due to agricultural activities. Mound 1 has
Revised : 26-11-2009 been reduced greatly on its south and to a little extent on
Accepted : 13-12-2009
Mitathal: Surface Reconnaissance and Geologic Provenance Studies

Fig. 1: Location of Mitathal in the “Eastern Domain” of the Indus Civilization.

its north. On the south, the mound was levelled for nearly (Period 3) levels at Harappa (Kenoyer 1992: 87, Fig. 3),
40 m and a section of nearly 1 m is exposed. Mound 2 while Bangle 5 and 6 have parallels in some terracotta
has likewise suffered extensive damage. A huge chunk bangles from the same site and period. The horizontal
measuring roughly 50 x 50 m has been lost on its eastern incised designs are not described among the major faience
side just in the past few years. Although this ongoing bangle styles from Harappa. Further analysis of faience
destruction is lamentable, it has provided a wealth of fresh bangles from Harappa and other Indus Civilization
archaeological materials for surface investigation. settlements like Mitathal may reveal evolutionary patterns
and regional variations, if any.
When walking across Mitathal one is struck by the
large number of blue-green faience bangle fragments Ash pits and kilns of considerable size were observed
visible on the site’s surface. Most are so fragmentary that on the northwestern and eastern peripheries of the site.
their complete forms are difﬁcult to judge. Nine examples One among these was a feature that is suspected to be a
worthy of shape determination are documented in Figure series of faience kilns. The surface evidence indicates an
2. Bangle 1 has a triangular section and is without any elliptical spread of furnaces in an east-west direction. The
decoration, while Bangles 2 and 4 are incised with diagonal furnace walls exhibit vitriﬁcation indicative of extremely
lines with triangular and ovular sections respectively. high temperature craft activities. In his discussion of
Bangles 5 and 6 have spiked triangular sections and small Indus faience production Kenoyer mentions (1994: 37)
pinched spike motifs. Bangles 3, 7, 8 and 9 have broadly the discovery of white rocky quartz at the site of Harappa,
similar horizontal banding and rectangular sections. If which might have been the raw material crushed to make
we take these surface decorations into account, parallels the silica powder. Our exploration of Mitathal also yielded
are found for Bangle types 2 and 4 in the Harappa Phase examples of white rocky quartz (Fig. 3). Its presence along

55
Man and Environment XXXV (1) – 2010

Fig. 2: Select faience bangles collected from the surface of Mitathal.

with the kilns and the unusually large numbers of faience Mound 2 not far from the canal. Suraj Bhan’s excavation
antiquities (both from the past excavation and from this report makes note of a seal (Bhan 1975: 82, Fig. 16)
surface reconnaissance) suggests that Mitathal might have collected from the surface of Rakhi Shahpur (Rakhigarhi),
been a major faience production centre. but no seal or sealing had previously been reported
from Mitathal itself. The seal recovered by our team is
Other common surface ﬁnds were non-diagnostic
rectangular in shape, trapezoidal in section and inscribed
bits of copper and identiﬁable copper-alloy objects such
on one side. The surviving portion measures 15.50 x 14.51
as bangle fragments (Fig. 4). Likewise abundant were
mm. The section of the top and bottom suggests that it
non-diagnostic fragments (Fig. 5), broken pieces and a
was, when complete, convex backed with a perforated
few complete examples (see Shinde et al. 2008, Fig. 87) of
hole through the width. Seals of this type were used at
stone querns and mullers. The large majority of these stone
the site of Harappa only during Period 3C (Meadow and
artefacts were composed of a reddish-coloured quartzite
Kenoyer 2001: 27) and so we can conﬁdently date this
with distinctive thin black seams.
surface ﬁnd to ca. 2100-1900 BC or the later part of what is
The most signiﬁcant ﬁnd by our team was of a broken commonly called the Mature Harappan Phase of the Indus
steatite seal (Fig. 6). It was found on the southern slope of Civilization.

56
Mitathal: Surface Reconnaissance and Geologic Provenance Studies

composed of seven vertical strokes/bars – having four
strokes in the ﬁrst row and three in the second. Scanning
electron microscopy (SEM) of the ﬁrst sign (Fig. 7)
was performed at the Department of Materials and
Metallurgical Engineering, IIT, Kanpur and suggested that
the seal’s deeply incised characters were created with a
sharp-edged metal tool.

Geologic Provenance Studies
Although our surface reconnaissance was brief, it
has nonetheless been possible to assess the geologic
Fig. 3: White quartzite cobble fragment from the leveled
provenance of some of the stone artefacts we documented
surface of Mound 2.
and collected at Mitathal.

Grinding Stone Sources
Co-author Randall Law compiled an extensive database
of sources for the grinding stones (querns, mullers,
whetstones, etc.) used by Indus Civilization peoples (Law
2008: Chapter 5). The milky white quartzite cobbles we
encountered came, in all likelihood, from the foothills of
the Himalayas, which are some 200 km to the northwest of
Mitathal. Such heavily water-worn cobbles (indicative of
a dynamic ﬂuvial environment) are not found in the nearby
northern Aravallis. They are, however, quite common in the
beds of the major rivers draining the Himalayas such as the
Ghaggar, Beas, and Sutlej (R. Law personal observations ).
The numerous artefacts composed of reddish quartzite
Fig. 4: Copper bangle fragment. with black seams can be traced to a series of small outcrops
(Fig. 8) in the vicinity of Kaliana village, some 35 km
due south of Mitathal in southern Haryana. This type of
stone is actually a variety of Delhi quartzite, which mainly
occurs along an extensive zone extending from Northern
Rajasthan to the city of New Delhi. However, the quartzite
along that zone is gray in colour, has a highly siliciﬁed,
often glassy texture and is generally unsuitable for use as
a grinding stone. The Delhi quartzite, found in the Kaliana
area outcrops (which are outliers around 50 km west of
the main Delhi quartzite formation) has a tightly packed
granular texture and is still used to make querns, mullers,
mortars and pestles today. Most importantly, only the
Delhi quartzite at this location has the highly distinctive
appearance – reddish in colour with black seams (Fig. 9)
– that is identical to the grinding stone artefacts observed
at Mitathal. In fact, it appears that peoples throughout the
Fig. 5: Reddish quartzite fragments with rife with black seams northern reaches of the Indus realm (Fig. 10) valued the
from the surface of Mound 2. stone from the Kaliana area outcrops. Law has observed
grinding stone artefacts from the Kaliana Hills at numerous
The ﬁrst sign on the face of the seal resembles a sites across that region including Siswal, Banawali, and
vertical eye enclosing a vertical ﬂaring stroke attached Kalibangan. Over 26% of all grinding stone artefacts
with three short oblique strokes. This sign corresponds to recovered from Period 3C levels at the site of Harappa
the sign no. 354 in Parpola’s “Sign List of Indus Script” came from this source (Law 2008: 216), which was nearly
(Parpola 1994: 77). The second sign, which corresponds 400 km away. Ongoing research by Garge and Law on
to sign no. 134 in the “Sign List” (Parpola 1994:73), is the collections from Rakhigarhi suggests that upwards of

57
Man and Environment XXXV (1) – 2010

90% of the grinding stones used, derived from the Kaliana
source. It is possible that residents of Mitathal, given their
relative proximity to that source, were to some degree
involved in the exploitation and distribution of raw material
from it.

The Mitathal Seal
The rectangular seal discovered at Mitathal was broken at
some point prior to its recovery in March of 2007. Whether
or not this occurred in antiquity or after it had eroded to the
site’s surface is unknown. The khaki-colour raw steatite of
its unheated interior was visible in the seal’s broken section
and at numerous places where the “glazed” portion of its
exterior was worn away. Some of this unﬁred material was
carefully collected and subjected to instrumental neutron
activation analysis (INAA) at the University of Wisconsin’s
Nuclear Research Reactor.
INAA is a highly accurate and precise method for
Fig. 6: Drawing of the seal from Mitathal.
quantifying the elemental compositions of materials.
Archaeologists around the world have long employed it
in efforts to determine the provenience of a wide range
of artefacts (see Glascock and Neff 2003 for a detailed
account of this technique and its application). In brief,
INAA involves the irradiation (or activation) of elements
within artefacts and/or source samples by exposing them
to a neutron ﬂux. Following varying periods of decay,
the gamma ray emissions they produce are detected and
counted. After the results are screened of elements that
failed to be detected in all samples or had high count-rate
standard deviations, data can statistically evaluated. The
elemental data produced during the analysis of the Mitathal
seal are listed in Table 1 in parts per million (ppm). Using
canonical distriminant analysis (a multivariate statistical
technique that is well-suited to differentiating various
raw material sources and assigning a possible provenance
Fig. 7: SEM image of the seal from Mitathal. to artefacts), the elemental composition of the Mitathal
seal was compared to INAA-derived geologic data from
37 steatite sources within and adjacent to the area across
which peoples of the Indus Civilization dwelled (Law
2008: Chapter 7). The locations of those 37 sources are
noted on Fig. 11. The results of the analysis – displayed as
a bivariate plot (Fig. 12) – indicate that the steatite the seal
is composed of most closely resembles that from a deposit
(Nangalhari-Bairaswas) in the Alwar District of northern
Rajasthan, some 150 km south of Mitathal.

Fig. 8: Delhi quartzite outliers near Kaliana, Bhiwani District,
Haryana.

58
Mitathal: Surface Reconnaissance and Geologic Provenance Studies

INAA studies conducted by Law (2008) on samples from
the sites of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro indicated that the
steatite was largely derived from deposits in the NWFP
of Pakistan and the Jammu region of India. It was not
surprising to ﬁnd that the Mitathal seal is composed of
steatite from the Alwar District, as that would have been
one of the nearest raw material source areas for people
dwelling in Haryana. However, a small percentage of
the samples analyzed from Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro
also appears to have come from Alwar and other northern
Rajasthan sources. What we might be seeing at Mitathal
then is a node near the beginning of a steatite trade route
through which raw material was transported westward
towards those distant cities. Hopefully, large-scale analysis
of steatite artefacts from major sites like Rakhigarhi can
one day be carried out in order to more effectively evaluate
Fig. 9: Detail of Delhi quartzite at Kaliana Hill in situ.
the extent to which raw steatite from northern Rajasthan
and other source areas was utilized in the “Eastern
Domain.”

Conclusion
This study highlights the utility of revisiting previously
excavated Indus sites even for a reconnaissance as brief
as the one described here. The condition of sites that have
often not been visited for decades can be re-assessed. The
information we gathered on Mitathal’s rapid destruction led
directly to a short salvage excavation (Shinde et al. 2008:
148-155) by the Indus Project team led by
Prof. Vasant Shinde (Deccan College, Pune) and Toshiki
Osada (Research Institute for Humanity and Nature,
Kyoto). Through the results of that operation as well as
the information gathered during our reconnaissance it was
possible to conﬁrm much of what Dr. Suraj Bhan reported
on the nature of this site over three decades ago, including
its apparent role as a major faience manufacturing centre.
New material also came to light, however, including
Fig. 10: Possible Harappan Period distribution route for the discovery of a steatite seal dating to the later part of
Kiliana quartzite. the Mature Harappan Period. While all of the evidence
indicates that the site was fully integrated into the
Table 1: INAA data for the Mitathal seal interaction system that was the Indus Civilization, geologic
provenance studies have revealed that there were important
Element ppm connections toward the south as well. The acquisition of
Al 2272 raw material for grinding stones from the Kaliana Hills and
Co 2.264 steatite from the Alwar region of northern Rajasthan likely
Cr 2.87 put residents of Mitathal in contact with, if only indirectly,
Eu 4.018 peoples of the Ganeshwar-Jodhpur cultural phase. Further
Fe 1939 evidence for this southern connection may come when the
La 0.9789 provenance of some of the many copper artefacts recovered
Mn 16.23 from the site is determined.
Na 1457
Sc 0.0614
V 9.567
Zn 16.13

59
Man and Environment XXXV (1) – 2010

Fig. 11: Steatite sources and select acquisition networks ca. 2200-1900 BC.

Acknowledgments Thanks also to Robert Agasie and Kevin Austin at the
University of Wisconsin’s Nuclear Reactor Laboratory.
We are thankful to B. Vikrama for accompanying us
Finally, a very special thanks to Prof. V. Shinde, T. Osada
during our ﬁeld investigation. H. Barapatre, Excavation
and their team for promptly taking up salvage operations
Branch I, Nagpur, deserves appreciation for his outstanding
at Mitathal on account of information we provided on the
drawings. We are grateful to Prof. R. Balasubramaniam for
rapid destruction of the site.
providing us access to the SEM facilities at IIT-Kanpur.

60
Mitathal: Surface Reconnaissance and Geologic Provenance Studies

Fig. 12: Bivariate plot comparing Harappan steatite artifacts to samples from 37 geologic sources.

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