Rang Mahal is a village and an ancient
Kushan era archaeological site on Suratgarh-Hanumangarh road in
Suratgarh tehsil of
Sri Ganganagar district
Sri Ganganagar district is the northernmost district of Rajasthan state of India.
History
Named after Maharaja Ganga Singh of Bikaner State, Bikaner, Sri Ganganagar district was part of Bikaner state. This was a mostly uninhabited region. T ...
in the
India
India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
n
state
State most commonly refers to:
* State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory
**Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country
**Nation state, a ...
of
Rajasthan
Rajasthan (; Literal translation, lit. 'Land of Kings') is a States and union territories of India, state in northwestern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the List of states and union territories of ...
. It can be reached from Hanumangarh, Pilibangan, Suratgarh. Suratgarh is the nearest major railway station to Rang mahal village.
Rang Mahal culture
Rang Mahal culture, a collection of more than 124 sites spread across Sriganganagar, Suratgarh, Sikar, Alwar and Jhunjhunu districts along the
palaeochannel
In the Earth sciences, a palaeochannel, also spelled paleochannel, is a significant length of a river or stream channel which no longer conveys fluvial discharge as part of an active fluvial system. The term ''palaeochannel'' is derived from th ...
of
Ghaggar-Hakra River
The Ghaggar-Hakra River () is an intermittent river in India and Pakistan that flows only during the monsoon season. The river is known as Ghaggar before the Ottu barrage at , and as Hakra downstream of the barrage in the Thar Desert. In pre-Ha ...
(
Sarasvati
Saraswati (, ), also spelled as Sarasvati, is one of the principal Devi, goddesses in Hinduism, revered as the goddess of knowledge, education, learning, arts, speech, poetry, music, purification, language and culture. Together with the godde ...
-
Drishadvati rivers) dating to
Kushan (1st to 3rd CE) and
Gupta (4th to 7th CE) period, is named after the first archaeological ''
Theris'' excavated by the Swedish scientists at Rang Mahal village which is famous for the terracota of the early gupta period excavated from the ancient ''
theris'' in the village.
Bikaner history
[Hanna Rydh, 195]
Rang Mahal: The Swedish Archaeological Expedition to India, 1952-1954
page 42. The Rang Mahal culture is famed for the beautifully painted vases on red surface with floral, animal, bird and geometric designs painted in black.[Chedarambattu Margabandhu, 1991]
Indian Archaeological Heritage: Shri K.V. Soundara Rajan Festschrift
page 233.[Virendra N. Misra, 2007]
Rajasthan: prehistoric and early historic foundations
Page 62. Several of these sites have layers representing Harappan culture, Painted Grey Ware culture
The Painted Grey Ware culture (PGW) is an Iron Age in India, Iron Age Indo-Aryan people, Indo-Aryan Archaeological culture, culture of the western Gangetic plain and the Ghaggar-Hakra River, Ghaggar-Hakra valley in the Indian subcontinent, conve ...
(PWC) associated with vedic period
The Vedic period, or the Vedic age (), is the period in the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age of the history of India when the Vedic literature, including the Vedas (–900 BCE), was composed in the northern Indian subcontinent, between the e ...
and post-vedic Rangmahal culture.[Urmila Sant, 1997]
Terracotta Art of Rajasthan: From Pre-Harappan and Harappan Times to the Gupta Period
page 59. Some of the mounds are up to 35 and 40 ft in height, and some even had mud fortification walls around them.[1967]
Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society
Page 140
References
See also
Black and red ware culture
Black and red ware (BRW) is a South Asian earthenware, associated with the Neolithic phase, Harappa, Bronze Age India, Iron Age India, the Megalithic and the early historical period. Although it is sometimes called an archaeological culture, th ...
Citations
Prehistoric India
Iron Age cultures of Asia
Archaeological cultures in India
Iron Age cultures of South Asia
Kushan Empire
Gupta Empire
Villages in Sri Ganganagar district
Archaeological sites in Rajasthan
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