Posted on: 23 June 2012

Shells, shell bangles and ivory from excavations. Brahmanabad and Depar Gangro, Hyderabad District. - 1896

Photograph of miscellaneous shells, shell bangles and ivory from excavations at Brahmanabad and Depar Gangro in the Hyderabad District of Sind in Pakistan, taken by Henry Cousens in 1896-7. Cousens wrote in Brahmanabad-Mansura in Sind Archaeological Survey of India, Annual Report 1903-04, "Both here and at Depar Gangro we found abundance of shells of sorts. They are scattered about, some of them very tiny; and in some places large areas are quite white from the quantities crushed and pulverised on the surface. From some of the excavations I got several old hindu conch shells, some quite decayed, and great quantities of fragments of shell bangles made from these, the shell being cut across in sections and joined together with wire...Such bangles are still worn, especially by the Brinjara tribe, the arms of whose women are covered with them from wrist to elbow. In many cases patterns were incised upon them; and, as they have somewhat the appearance of ivory, Mr Bellasis mistook them for such. I have several large fragments of these shells, some completely cut away down to the spiral core. Ivory I did find in lumps in a room, which must have been that of an ivory turner, since the pieces are partly turned; but the ivory is more or less disintegrated, whereas the shell seems to have suffered no harm whatever from long years of exposure or burial."

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Some more reference material on that area: 1. A. F. Bellasis, An Account of the Ancient & Ruined City of Brahminabad in Sind, Bombay, 1856, 2. Henry Cousens, Antiquities of Sind,Calcutta, 1929, 3. Pakistan Archaeology- V., 1968, 4. Farcoq, A. A., Excavations at Mansurah, Pakistan Archaeology, No.10-22, 1974 -1986, 5. lrshad Hussein Khan, Archaeology 44, Vol. II,No.1, 1990 6. A. N. Khan, ai-Mansurah, A Forgotten Arab Metropolis in Pakistan, Department of Archaeology and Museums, 1990, 7. Makin Khan. Town Planning and Architecture of ai-Mansurah, Journal of Central Asia, Vol. XV, No.2, Dec. 1992, 8. Farzaod Masih, Preliminary Report of Section IV Excavation of Mansura: 1986-87,Ancient Pakistan, Professor A. H. Dani Felicitation Volume, 993, 9. Qasim Ali Qasim, Archaeological Excavations at Mansurah (1997- 1998), Lahore Museum Bulletin, Vol. XIII, Jan- June 2000.

What is the dating of the above excavation?

The place Brahmanabad or al mansurah site was first explored and part excavated by By A. F. Bellasis 1852-57, it was then taken by Cousens 1896-98 ...and there after in 1966 which continued till 1998. As the name Brahmanand suggest it was ruled by the pushkarna brahmina dynasty and around 714 AD it was taken by Umayyad Caliphs ...and on the ruins of a Hindu city the first so called 'planned' Islamic city was built the principles of which were used to plan Baghdad.... it was later destroyed by a massive earthquake which actually changed the course of Indus river....to be rediscovered by Bellasis.

..some of the artifacts excavated by Cousens in Brahmanabad lay forgotten in one of the Mumbai museum basement....which include sections of a Buddhist Stupa.

I faintly recollect that D. R. Bhandarkar was associated with excavation of some area in Sindh. The Silk route was connected to Deval in Sindh through a Road along which there were many Buddhist monasteries. Gangro Daro, Deper Ghangro etc and other Buddhist establishments in Sindh were extremely wealthy. Thousands of coins have been found here. As R. Thapar also stresses, the links of the Buddhists with the rich merchants in a way alienated them from the larger society.

As S. G. Darian writes in his book "The Ganges in Myth and History" the Ganges later appropriated the mythological attributes of the Saraswati. From place-names such as Gangro Daro in Sindh it can be surmised that a river in Sindh was once called Ganga.

I have written in my website that Banbhore in Sindh was Vangala, the city of Dharmapala.