Lothal

Lothal was one of the southernmost sites of the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation, located in the Bhal region of the Indian state of Gujarat. Construction of the city is believed to have begun around 2200 BCE.

The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the official Indian government agency for the preservation of ancient monuments, discovered Lothal in 1954. Excavation work in Lothal commenced on 13 February 1955 and continued till 19 May 1960.

Quotes

• The most remarkable structure, alongside the town’s eastern side, is a 217-m-long, 36-m-wide basin. (Its proportions, incidentally, are almost exactly in the ratio of 6:1.) If we consider that its 1.5 to 1.8 m-thick walls were made of millions of carefully adjusted baked bricks, we will have an idea of the energy and resources deployed on its construction. No other Harappan site has so far come up with such a huge water structure (as long as two-and-a-half football fields!). In view of stone anchors and marine shells found in it, S.R. Rao, the excavator, identified it as a tidal dockyard: at high tide, boats sailing up the Gulf of Cambay would have easily pushed on upstream the Bhogavo before berthing at Lothal’s basin.
  • Danino, M. (2010). The lost river : on the trail of the Sarasvatī. Penguin Books India.