Photo: Manoj nav at en.wiki · Public domainThe remains of the Maurya capital under modern Patna: a hall of polished stone pillars and long lines of timber palisade.
At Kumhrar Spooner found the remains of a great hall that had stood on 80 polished sandstone pillars in rows, of the same finish as Ashoka’s columns. At Bulandi Bagh lines of upright sal timbers were found, part of the wooden wall of the city. Megasthenes, Chandragupta’s Greek envoy, wrote that Palibothra was walled in timber, with 570 towers and 64 gates.
It confirms in the ground the Maurya capital that Greek and Indian texts describe.
ExcavationHundreds of sandstone shelters where people lived and painted for thousands of years, the oldest gallery of human art in Bharat.
ExcavationEleven molar crowns from nine adults with neat holes drilled into them, the earliest evidence of dentistry on living people anywhere.
ExcavationA Sarasvati-valley settlement whose levels run from Hakra ware pit-dwellings up to a mature Harappan town, and whose earliest dates are argued over.
ExcavationThe oldest ploughed field yet excavated anywhere, with its furrows still visible in a grid.
ExcavationA Harappan city in a dry land that lived by catching every drop: dams on two seasonal streams fed a chain of reservoirs cut into the rock around the town.
ExcavationThe first city of the civilisation to be dug, which gave its name to the whole culture.
ExcavationThe largest city of the Sindhu valley, laid out in a grid of baked-brick streets with covered drains and a great bath on its citadel.
ExcavationRows of small clay-lined fire pits on raised brick platforms, with a well and bathing floors beside them.
