Daimabad

Daimabad is a deserted village and archaeological site on the left bank of the Pravara River, a tributary of the Godavari River in Shrirampur taluka in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra state in India. This site was discovered by B. P. Bopardikar in 1958. It has been excavated three times so far by the Archaeological Survey of India teams. The first excavation in 1958-59 was carried out under the direction of M. N. Deshpande. The second excavation in 1974-75 was led by S. R. Rao. Finally, the excavations between 1975-76 and 1978-79 were carried out under the direction of S. A. Sali. Discoveries at Daimabad suggest that Late Harappan culture extended into the Deccan Plateau in India. Daimabad is famous for the recovery of many bronze goods, some of which were influenced by the Harappan culture. The excavations carried out in 5 m thick occupational deposit exposed evidence of five distinct Chalcolithic cultural phases, based on their characteristic painted ceramics: Phase I: Savalda culture (before 2300/2200 BCE) Phase II: Late Harappan culture (2300/2200-1800 BCE) Phase III: Daimabad culture (black on buff/cream ware) (1800-1600 BCE) Phase IV: Malwa culture (1600-1400 BCE) Phase V: Jorwe culture (1400-1000 BCE). There is a break in occupation for about half-a-century between the Phase II (Late Harappan period) and Phase III (Daimabad period). The houses of this phase in Daimabad were of mud walls with rounded ends, trilateral, of single room, two rooms and three rooms, with hearths, storage pits and jars. Sometimes there were courtyards in front and in one place, a lane has been traced. The plant remains included barley, lentil, common pea, grass pea and black gram/green gram. The excavation yielded copper-bronze rings, beads of shell, terracotta, carnelian and agate, microliths, tanged arrowheads of bone and stone mullers and querns. A phallus-shaped object made of agate was found inside a house. The ware of this phase was of medium-to-coarse fabric, made on slow wheel and treated with a thick slip showing crackles and turned light-brown, chocolate, red and pink in colour.