HISTORIC-ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH OF THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF THE SACRED HEART OF MILANO ON THE INDUS DELTA (2019-2021)

HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Abstract

storic-Archaeological Research of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart of Milano on the Indus Delta (2019-2021). History and Archaeology, Science and Technology. During the last three years of field-work (2019-2021), in the central-western portion of the mound we came across a vast area stretching along the east-west main road-axis of past epochs, replanned and rebuilt as a market-zone, where luxury goods were produced by skilled craftsmen converged there from different parts of the Indian Ocean (see ibid preceding note 2018/2019 and Piacentini & Fusaro PSAS 2022). We were facing a new phase of the site’s life and model of peopling. This article aims at focusing on the historical stage of this last period (written data complemented and integrated with archaeological evidence), the role played by our site as crossroads within the international trades of its time on land, on river and on sea. How science and technology have complemented a theoretical panorama through archaeometric analyses and drone’s plans of the bastioned mound, its environment and excavated trenches (see here below the notes by Prof. Mario Piacentini, and A. Tilia & S. Tilia). Stratigraphic levels associated with pottery and other little objects found in situ provide a first image of the new urban plan, its political and institutional reorganization and economic system. Textual sources confirm and integrate. Archaeometric analyses have allowed chronologies (complementing historical texts), pottery’s provenience (produced in situ, imitation or imported), interesting notes on glass and metallurgy, plus some hypotheses on the significance of the rich variety of moulds found in situ (spare parts used and thrown away?) or around small smelting kilns. All in all, a vivid plastic image of the last phase of the site’s peopling and its abandonment.