Harappan Discovery: For The First Time, Joint Burial Of Couple Found In Haryana

For the first time, archaeologists from Deccan College Deemed University in Pune have discovered two skeletons, a young male and a female buried in the same grave at the same time with the man’s face turned toward the woman. This is the first time the joint burial of a couple in a Harappan cemetery has been anthropologically confirmed.

The 'couple's grave' was found in the Harappan settlements excavated some 150 km northwest of Delhi at Rakhigarhi in Haryana.

In spite of many settlements and cemeteries being discovered and investigated, no couple burial at Harappan cemeteries have been reported.

Vasant Shinde, the vice chancellor of Deccan College Deemed University and corresponding author of the research, remarked that archaeologists in India have often debated the historical meaning of joint burials and how the Harappans believed in life after death. “The pots may have contained food and water for the dead, a custom probably fuelled by the belief that the dead may need them after death. Hence, the contemporary view of life after death may actually be as old as 5,000 years,” he said, reports Times of India.

The ages of the skeletons have been determined to be between 21 and 35 and the height to be 5 feet 6 inches and 5 feet 2 inches of the man and the woman respectively.