"Within the limited area excavated, no definite plans of houses were obtained, but walls of mud and mud-bricks were duly encountered."
The statement was noted with reference to which of the following site?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 1
The correct answer is Option (1) → Hastinapur
This is what the archaeologist B.B. Lal noted about the houses of the second phase (c. twelfth-seventh centuries BCE) at Hastinapura in Meerut, which he excavated in 1951-52.
NCERT (2026-27): “6.3 The search for convergence … The Mahabharata, like any major epic, contains vivid descriptions of battles, forests, palaces and settlements. In 1951-52, the archaeologist B.B. Lal excavated at a village named Hastinapura in Meerut (Uttar Pradesh). Was this the Hastinapura of the epic? While the similarity in names could be coincidental, the location of the site in the Upper Ganga doab, where the Kuru kingdom was situated, suggests that it may have been the capital of the Kurus mentioned in the text. Lal found evidence of five occupational levels, of which the second and third are of interest to us. This is what Lal noted about the houses in the second phase (c. twelfth-seventh centuries BCE): ‘Within the limited area excavated, no definite plans of houses were obtained, but walls of mud and mud-bricks were duly encountered. The discovery of mud-plaster with prominent reed-marks suggested that some of the houses had reed walls plastered over with mud.…” |