Researchers from Shah Abdul Latif University’s Department of Archeology have found traces of a third-century settlement in Brahmanabad, Sindh. Brahmanabad is believed to have been set up in the eighth-century by Muhammad Bin Qasim. The area was the historical capital of the Muslim Caliphate in Sindh during the eighth century, under the Umayyad Caliphate and then under the Abbasid Caliphate from the year 750 AD to 1006 AD.
According to a report in Arab News, a team of around 20 archaeologists started excavation on the site in December as part of a joint project of the Sindh culture department and Shah Abdul Latif University in Khairpur. The supervision was led by Dr Ghulam Muhiuddin Veesar.
Speaking to the publication, Veesar said: “Through [the] material we got, we can say that this settlement of Brahmanabad also existed in the third century AD and people lived here, proving that the settlement is of a pre-Islamic era.”
“We have done both vertical and horizontal excavations so that we may know its cultural phases to determine when the settlement started, how long people were living there,” said Dr Veesar, adding: “Another important feature we found is that the whole settlement is established on a riverbed. They formed the settlement on mounds of natural silt sand dunes of river bed.”
Sindh Minister for Culture, Syed Sardar Ali Shah referred to the findings as of “high importance”.
“It is a great achievement,” he said. “The detailed report is awaited, but in the future, these findings can be helpful in connecting the linkage with other archaeological sites like Mohenjo Daro.”
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This is the third such excavation on the archaeological site in the last 180 years. The first one took place in 1854 during British rule and the second one was in 1962 by a government of Pakistan team.
