The Archaeology Of Ancient Indian Cities

This book offers a definitive archaeological perspective on the history of early urban growth in India. It does this by looking at both the protohistoric and the early historic periods, coming down to about AD 300 and later. Geographically, it covers all the major areas of the subcontinent. The existing archaeological data have been synthesized to yield a comprehensive picture of the morphology of ancient sites and their place within what is currently known of their settlement perspectives. This book addresses itself to some of the cardinal issues of South Asian archaeology - the origin and decline of the Indus civilization; the issue of its merger in the main flow of India's later cultural development; the archaeological basis of its long chronology; aspects of Indus urbanism; the reasons for the growth of neolithic-chalcolithic inner India; and the patterns and problems of urban growth in the early historic period on the subcontinental scale. In each case the author's concern is with understanding the situation at the grassroots level within an essentially South Asian framework. The hypotheses offered in this book should lead to some major rethinking about the story of archaeological development in the subcontinent.

This, An Authorised Reprint Of An Annual Bulletin Of The Indian Archaeological Society, Has Been Offering Valuable Informations, Full With Rich Insights And Innovative Viewpoints, On The Indian Archaeology That Includes Excavations, Inscriptions, Temples, Mosques, Iconic Symbols, Paintings, Etc. This Yearly Bulletin Is Highly Recommended For Archaeologists, Epigraphists, Historians And Research Scholars Besides The General Readers Having Interest In Such Fields.

This book comprises a set of interrelated essays on some of the key issues which continue to excite historians and scholars of early India. It shows the profound impact of colonialism on the study of India's early past, the new methods and premises introduced into India by colonial studies, and the variety of departures from traditional, pre-colonial modes of history-writing. It goes on to show that post-Independence historiography has brought a fresh set of problems to the fore: such as the integration of archaeology with narratives of early Indian history; of the trajectories of social change and social formation; of the historical position of ideology and its shifts; and of the ways of communicating knowledge of a past which is now increasingly under non-academic fundamentalist onslaughts. With its diverse parts connected by strong threads of interest in the changing nature of history-writing on early India, this new book on the methodological changes that confront the historian of pre-colonial India will consolidate Professor Chattopadhyaya's reputation as one of the foremost thinkers in his area of ancient and early medieval history.

About the Book: The collection of stories in this book presents to you a graphic retelling of the rise and fall of some ancient cities of India. Packed with mythological tales and historical anecdotes each story lets you re-discover ancient India in a new light. Written in light story-telling fashion, the book will make you time-travel to the past to many mythical and imperial cities in different historical eras. Scattered across ancient undivided India and the subcontinent, each story traces a city of the past and how its destiny had unfolded over time. The stories in this book also present battle-scars, deluges and changing political scenarios, as well as the peaceful co-habitation and wonderful spread of religions, learning and culture. Tales of legendary kings, fierce warfare, spiritual leaders, foreign chroniclers and world travellers make these ancient cities come alive in this collection.About the Author: A post-graduate in English Literature from Kolkata, Sayan is an occasional author and a FinTech corporate trainer by profession. An avid traveller and reader, Sayan's avocation is writing. Sayan has published two novels "Friendship Calling" in 2013 and "A Case of Connections" in 2016, both based on his true-life experiences. Sayan continues to write short stories on his blog and as guest writer on other blogs. Sayan has keen interest in Indian history and mythology and Ancient Cities of India is his first attempt at re-telling and writing based on history. Sayan can be reached on his email: [email protected] and Twitter @Sayan74.

In 2008 for the first time the majority of the planet's inhabitants lived in cities and towns. Becoming globally urban has been one of mankind's greatest collective achievements over time, and raises many questions. How did global city systems evolve and interact in the past? How have historic urban patterns impacted on those of the contemporary world? And what were the key drivers in the roller-coaster of urban change over the millennia - market forces such as trade and industry, rulers and governments, competition and collaboration between cities, or the urban environment and demographic forces? This pioneering comparative work by leading scholars drawn from a range of disciplines offers the first detailed comparative study of urban development from ancient times to the present day. The Oxford Handbook of Cities in World History explores not only the main trends in the growth of cities and towns across the world - in Asia and the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and the Americas - and the different types of cities from great metropolitan centres to suburbs, colonial cities, and market towns, but also many of the essential themes in the making and remaking of the urban world: the role of power, economic development, migration, social inequality, environmental challenge and the urban response, religion and representation, cinema, and urban creativity. Split into three parts covering Ancient cities, the medieval and early-modern period, and the modern and contemporary era, it begins with an introduction by the editor identifying the importance and challenges of research on cities in world history, as well as the crucial outlines of urban development since the earliest cities in ancient Mesopotamia to the present.

Authored by one of the leading scholars of German Indology, “Fortified Cities in Ancient India” offers a comparative exploration of the development of towns and cities in ancient India. Based on in-depth textual and archeological research, Professor Dieter Schlingloff’s work presents for the first time the striking outcomes of intertwining data garnered from a wide range of sources. This volume scrutinizes much of the established knowledge on urban fortifications in South Asia, advancing new conceptions based on an authoritative, far-reaching study.

Cities and states developed in South Asia between c. BC 800 and AD 250, as Hinduism and Buddhism arose and spread. Drawing on archaeological studies and also on texts and inscriptions, this book explores the character of the early Indian cities, paying particular attention to their art and architecture and analyzing the political ideas that shaped the state systems. The study extends to the opening centuries of the Christian era, offering an Indian perspective on the contacts with the Greek and Roman worlds that followed the invasion by Alexander the Great.