Experts say pre-Iron age chariot found in UP excavation gives 'new dimension to history'

Representative image. Ruins of the 4000 year old Indus Valley Civilisation in Dholavira, Gujarat.

In a recent excavation in Sanauli, an archaeological site in the Baghpat district, Uttar Pradesh, where 100+ graves belonging to the Indus Valley Civilisation were found in 2005, burial pits have been found with chariots dating back to the Pre-Iron Age.

According to the experts involved in these excavations, these findings have created a scope for further investigations on the dating of the Mahabharata period and on the origins of the horse in the Harappa age.

On June 04, 2018, the archaeological team unveiled the excavations showing these burial pits with chariots from the pre-iron age. It is important to note that burial pits have been found in the past at Rakhigarhi, Kalibangan, and Lothal, but a chariot has been found for the first time.

Arvin Manjul, the co-director of the excavation at Sanauli said in a report by News18, “We have the place in the ancient global history. To name a few of our contemporary cultures, chariot appears in Mesopotamia, Georgia, Greek civilisations, and with this finding we can say that among our contemporary cultures in the Pre-Iron Age we too had chariots. This is giving our history and our past, a new dimension – we have to rethink our past and approach it with a fresh perspective – with the elements found in the burial pits it shows we were a warrior clan in the Pre Iron Age.”

The experts dug eight burial pits with each telling a different story about the life in the Pre-Iron Age era. Manjul added, “The challenges were many – we had to dig in a way that the structure standing tall does not get damaged in further deeper digging. This is the first time we used the X-Ray, CT scan to find the nails embedded in the wooden coffins.”

Let’s hope that the study provides some interesting insights into our country’s history.