Harappan Architecture and Civil Engineering by Jagat Pati Joshi

Author:Jagat Pati Joshi [Joshi, Jagat Pati]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Infinity Foundation India
Published: 2020-11-12T00:00:00+00:00

Streets

An important aspect of town planning in the Harappan towns and cities is a network of streets running mostly in the cardinal directions and cutting one another at right angles. These streets are generally straight and divide the township in blocks, and sub-blocks showing a chessboard pattern of the plan.

MOHENJODARO: At Mohenjodaro, two streets running north-south and east-west divide the entire habitation and smaller lanes sub-divide the blocks. While the major street is 9 m wide, the lanes’ width varies between 3 m to 1.5 m. The first street is the second important thoroughfare, 10.56 m wide at the southern end and 9.98 m on the northern end. It was equipped to take the heavy load of the town’s traffic. It had an underground drain also. It was paved with broken bricks. The west street is another important thoroughfare 5.22 m wide at the southern end and 3.24 m at the northern. This street also had a drain. None of the houses opened in the main street. The houses opened only in lanes and bylanes. The most important thoroughfare was between Block 1 and the Great Bath building. In the northern end, it was 4.04 m and in the southern, it was 4.84 m wide.

HARAPPA: In the recently conducted excavations, along with the fortification separating mound E from mound ET in the eastern side, a 0.82 m wide street has been found and to the east of it appears an industrial area wherein waste of shell, chert-weights, steatite disc beads have been found, which indicates that the area could have been a workshop site.

CHANHUDARO: As pointed out earlier, the streets at Chanhudaro were not following the cardinal directions. These were north to west-south-east and north-east to southwest oriented. The main street was 7.5 m in width. The streets were provided with covered drains.

NAUSHARO: At Nausharo in the Harappan township, the streets were cutting at right angles and a street also ran along the fortification.

KALIBANGAN: Excavation in the south-eastern part of the northern half of the citadel, in KLB-1 mound, revealed regular house blocks on either side of a 2 m wide street which was running obliquely from the eastern side of the two centrally located salients. It extended to the entrance in the re-entrant angle of the fortification wall.

At KLB-2, four arterial streets running north-south have been found and it is conjectured that three more were also existing (Fig. 5.10). The width of streets ranged from 1.80 to 7.20 m. While the north-south thoroughfares impeded the east-west running streets, the lanes were staggered on plan. There were no other encroachments on streets except rectangular troughs and bazaar platforms. Each house faced more than one street. The average house had a courtyard with a well and there were several rooms in a house.

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