Bricks used in Harappan houses were made in which fixed ratio of length, breadth and thickness?

The correct answer is B, Mohenjo-daro. The Great Bath stands in the citadel of Mohenjo-daro in Sindh. It is a brick tank about twelve metres long and seven metres wide, with flights of steps at two ends, small rooms around it and a layer of natural tar below the floor to stop water from seeping away. Scholars read it as a place of ritual bathing, which makes it the best known public building of the civilisation.

Option A, Harappa, is the site of the granaries and of cemetery R-37, not of the bath. Option C, Lothal in Gujarat, gave the dockyard, rice husk and a bead-making workshop. Option D, Kalibangan in Rajasthan, is remembered for its ploughed field and its row of fire altars. Each of these sites is tied to a different find, and the examiner is testing whether you can hold the pairs apart.

The correct answer is A, Lothal. Lothal lies on the Bhogava, a tributary of the Sabarmati in Gujarat, and its eastern side holds a large brick basin connected to the river by a channel. Most archaeologists read this as a dockyard where boats were brought in and loaded, which fits the bead-making workshop and the seals found at the site and marks Lothal as a port of the Harappan trade with the Gulf.

Option B, Surkotada in Kutch, is known instead for bones identified as those of the horse and for its stone-lined burials. Option C, Chanhudaro in Sindh, was a craft town making beads, bangles and seals, and is the only major Harappan town that has no citadel. Option D, Banawali in Haryana, gave a terracotta toy plough and stores of barley. None of these has a dock.

The correct answer is C, Daya Ram Sahni. He dug at Harappa on the bank of the Ravi in 1921, and the finds from that season identified a wholly unknown urban culture, which was named after the site. Option A, R. D. Banerji, made the companion discovery a year later in 1922, when he excavated Mohenjo-daro on the Indus and found the same seals and bricks, proving that the culture was spread over a vast area.

Option B, Sir John Marshall, was Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India at the time. He directed the work of both men and announced the discovery to the world in 1924, but he did not himself open Harappa. Option D, Mortimer Wheeler, came much later, in the 1940s; he is remembered for the theory that invading Aryans destroyed the cities, an explanation now rejected by most historians.

The correct answer is B, Kalibangan. Kalibangan stands on the dry bed of the Ghaggar in the Hanumangarh district of Rajasthan. A field there, belonging to the pre-Harappan level, carries two sets of furrows crossing each other at right angles, showing that two crops were grown in the same plot at the same time. Kalibangan also gave a row of fire altars and bones of the camel.

Option A, Dholavira in Kutch, is known for its division into three parts and for the stone reservoirs that stored rainwater. Option C, Rakhigarhi in Haryana, is the largest Harappan site in India but is not associated with the ploughed field. Option D, Alamgirpur in Uttar Pradesh, marks the eastern limit of the civilisation. The examiner pairs a site with a single famous find, so learn them together.

The correct answer is C, Meluha. Mesopotamian texts list Meluha among the lands that sent ships carrying carnelian beads, ivory, timber and copper, and the goods named there match what Harappan sites produced. The trade was carried on by barter, since no Harappan coins have ever been found, and seals of Harappan type have turned up in Mesopotamia itself.

Option A, Dilmun, is identified with Bahrain and Option B, Magan, with Oman; both lay on the sea route between Mesopotamia and the Indus, and served as halting points rather than as names for India. Option D, Sindon, is not a Mesopotamian word at all: it is the later Greek name for cotton, taken from the Indus, and it recalls that the Harappans were the first people to grow the crop.