Ganweriwala

Discovery and scale

The site was identified by Rafique Mughal during surveys of the Cholistan region in the 1970s. Surface extent suggests an area of some eighty hectares, which would place it among the five largest Indus settlements, in the same class as Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Rakhigarhi and Dholavira.

It lies on the dry bed of the Hakra, the continuation of the Ghaggar, in a region that surveys have shown to have carried a dense concentration of settlements during the Indus period and virtually none since.

Unexcavated

Almost nothing has been dug. What is known comes from surface collection — pottery, a few seals and sealings, weights, and the visible outline of mounds — which establishes the period and the scale but not the plan, the sequence or the character of the place.

The reasons are practical: the site is remote, water is scarce, and excavation on that scale in desert conditions is expensive. Its condition is correspondingly good, since it has escaped both brick robbing and modern building.

Significance

Ganweriwala is a reminder of how partial the picture is. One of the largest cities of the civilization has never been properly investigated, and the settlement density Mughal's surveys revealed along the Hakra suggests the river system supported a major part of the Indus population.

That in turn bears directly on the argument about the civilization's decline, since a shift or failure of that river system would account for the abandonment of the whole Cholistan concentration.