Our large scale excavations of the DK Area were begun on December 22nd, 1927; and throughout that season until March 9th, I. had the valuable assistance of Mr. N. G. Majumdar, Assistant Superintendent of Archeology for Exploration, and of Mr. H. L. Srivastava, who was then a Scholar in the Department.
In the following season, operations were resumed on October 24th, 1928, and . terminated on March 26th, 1929... Again for .a short time I had' the aid of Mr. Majumdar, who eventually was deputed to work at Jhukar, some 16 miles from Mohenjo-Daro, leaving Mr.' Srivastava with me and also Mr. C. R. Roy, an anthropologist from Calcutta University, who remained throughout the season. Mr. Srivastava again assisted me during the seasons 1929-30 and 1930-31. I have to thank these gentlemen cordially for the great help that they afforded me;' their duties were many and onerous. Thanks are also due to Mr. K: N. Puri, Excavation Assistant, and Mr. Devi Dayal Mathur for their share in the work j" for the many line drawings in this book I am indebted to the former. Mr. S. Mukerji, Mr. Nawab-ud-Din and Mr. Muhi-ud-Din are responsible for, the plans, which they so ably prepared under many difficulties.
Mr. A. S. Hemmy, who comprehensively dealt with the weights in the preceding book on this site, in the present book reviews the more recently found weights from material supplied to him by me. I have again to thank Khan Bahadur Muhammad Sana Ullah, Archaeological Chemist in India, for analyses and much help and advice in the determination of materials, and also Dr. M. A. Hamid for the careful cleaning and repair of the copper and other objects, for ascertaining numerous weights, and for the chemical examination of many substances.
Dr. L. Fermor, Director of the Geological Survey of India, has afforded me great assistance in the identification of various rocks and minerals, and Lieut. Col. R. S. Sewell and Dr. B. Prashad of the Zoological Survey of India have rendered invaluable help in the identification of zoological remains and shells.
Dr. B. S. Guha of the same department has again dealt with the skeletal material in a chapter in this book.
I have especially to thank Professor C. H. Desch, F.R.S., and Dr. E. S. Carey for the analyses of the copper and bronze and other metals appended to the chapter on Silver, Copper, Bronze and Lead Utensils and Other Objects. To Mr. Amarnath Gulati of the Cotton Technological Laboratory, Bombay was entrusted the task of examining the textiles, and despite many difficulties owing to the minute quantity and extreme fragility or the material that was sent to him he has been able to identify most of the specimens. I cordially thank the Director General of Archeology in India for his efforts in seeing this book through the press. To my wife I am indebted for valuable help that she has given me in reading through my manuscript and. correcting the proofs. Labour.-The number of workers employed was at times as many as 600, the majority of them inhabitants of the villages around, who returned home at night or else made themselves booths of tamarisk and grass in the vicinity of the excavations A number of Brahuis were also employed, who came from as far off as Kalat. in Baluchistan. We found them to be exceptionally good workers . and of stronger physique than the Sindhis. A -sprinkling of Baluchis proved to be intermediate between the Sindhis and Brahuis in their powers of work.
System of Leveling.-In order that our deep digging might be satisfactorily carried out, an extensive system of leveling was necessary... The levels. of every building and of every well were therefore taken, especial attention being paid to door-sills and pavements as being for purposes of stratification the most important parts of a building... In addition, both' the locus and level of every object found, whether it was regarded at the time as important or not, were noted in order not only to correlate each object with the building in which it was found, but also to facilitate the study of the development of art and technique. As some thousands of objects were unearthed in the sections that we excavated, it may be thought that this procedure was unnecessarily laborious. This, how- ever, was not the case. The leveling instruments were set up early in the morning and remained in position all day; and it was quite a simple matter to take the level of each object directly it appeared.
There are, however, limitations to the deductions to- be drawn from the levels at which objects are found. For instance, if a jar or a Real lies either below or at some distance above a pavement or door-sill, it is difficult to decide to what period it belongs. We, therefore, adopted the rule that all objects found in or near the foundations of a building be assigned to the period of that building rather than to the previous phase, unless they actually rested on the remains of a pavement of earlier date; for it is more than probable that they were dropped or left behind when the foundations were being made. This rule proved to be generally applicable, especially in the case of the better preserved houses, but exceptions occurred, as I shall point out below.
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