CHANHU-DARO— MACKAY 47]^ 



very late remains, a few pieces were found, mostly intact, of a very 

 interesting dark gray, polished, hand-made ware with incised geometric 

 decoration (pi. 2, fig. 1). The exact date of this ware is at present a 

 matter of surmise, but in shape and technique it is entirely different 

 from anything produced by the two cultures whose remains we found 

 beneath it. I am inclined to think that this gray, hand-made pottery 

 was made by a primitive people who were the last to occupy the site — 

 and that only very briefly and in small numbers — and who may have 

 been a race allied to the Bhils, of whom there is a settlement close to 

 Chanhu-daro; these Bhils, however, have lost most of their ancient 

 customs and primitive way of living. 



In the stratum below this gray ware we came upon a large quantity 

 of wheel-made pottery, quite unlike the wai-es found either above or 

 below it. This pottery which was mostly polychrome, with devices 

 painted in black and red on a cream or pink slip, is represented mainly 

 by broken fragments of the pans and stems of offering-stands, though 

 pieces of other types of vessels also were found (pi. 2, fig. 2). Though 

 polychrome pottery was made at the latter end of the Harappa period, 

 the polychrome ware of the upper levels of Chanhu-daro in nowise 

 resembles it in shape or style of decoration. Its presence in consider- 

 able quantities therefore emphatically marks the occupation of the 

 site by a different people. At Jhukar also, where Mr. Mazumdar 

 first unearthed pottery of this land, it was in a stratum that showed 

 it to be of later date than the Harappa culture. A principal feature 

 of this Jhukar ware is that broad horizontal bands of red separate the 

 various devices that ornament it. Red was also used in combination 

 with black for certain motifs, a common one being a chevron pattern 

 of red and black alternately (pi. 2, fig. 3). The designs on the Jhukar 

 pottery are either geometric or very conventionalized, boldly painted 

 plant designs of leaives or buds joined together with curved stems. 

 As a rule these plant designs were painted in black, or a deep purple, 

 the red being used for the broad bands separating the registers, but 

 occasionally the interiors of the buds or leaves, if not hatched (pi. 2, 

 fig. 2), were colored red. 



The only other known wares that the Jhukar pottery resembles — 

 and only in the designs and use of colors, not in shape — are those 

 found by Baron Max von Oppenheim at Tell Halaf in northern 

 Assyria ^ and by M. E. L. Mallowan at Tell Chagar Bazar.^ At 

 both sites broad horizontal red bands were used to separate the 

 registers, and the very distinctive chevron pattern in alternate red 

 and black on a number of the Jhukar potsherds of Chanhu-daro is 

 identical with the chevron design on the later Tell Halaf pottery. 

 Other painted devices on these wares correspond very closely. Mr. 



* For a popular account see Baron Max von Oppenheim, Tell Halaf. 

 » Iraq., vol. 3, pt. 1, 1936. 



