Kulli and Nal: the Bronze Age cultures of Balochistan’s southern hills

Travel south from Kalat and the land breaks into a series of uneven valleys. There are Khuzdar, Nal and Wadh, and beyond them the hills of Mashkay, Kolwa and Makran. These areas rarely make the news today. Thousands of years ago, in the age of copper and stone, there were settlements here whose painted pottery gave experts the names of entire cultures. One is named after a red mound at Nal. The other takes its name from Kulli, a mound in Kolwa.

Sohr Damb: the red mound of Nal

In the Nal valley in Jhalawan there is a large mound called Sohr Damb, meaning “the Red Mound”. Its highest part was once burnt red by an intense fire, and that is how it got its name. According to Hargreaves’s measurements, it is about 1,000 feet long, 600 feet wide and some 40 feet high. Its story begins early in the British period. In 1903, Mirza Sher Muhammad of the Gazetteer staff carried out a small excavation here and recovered 59 vessels. Sir John Marshall described them in the Archaeological Survey’s annual report for 1904-05. In 1908 the army’s Hazara Pioneers regiment dug at the site and is said to have recovered about 250 vessels, but no record of the work was made.

The proper excavation took place in 1925. Harold Hargreaves of the Archaeological Survey reached Nal on 30 April and worked there in May and June. He found 271 vessels in all, of which 240 were nearly intact. On the western side of the mound he found thirteen rooms and courtyards with stone foundations. The whole area had been used for burying the dead, so it was a cemetery. His report was published in Calcutta in 1929 as “Excavations in Baluchistan 1925”. It introduced the Nal pottery to experts around the world.

The painted pottery of Nal

The Nal vessels are wheel-made. Over a white, pale yellow or greyish slip, designs are drawn in black and dark brown. In many vessels the spaces between the lines are filled with red, yellow, blue, green or black. No single vessel has more than three colours apart from the outline. This multicoloured style is the mark of Nal. Hargreaves observed that the colours were applied after firing and began to rub off at a touch. He therefore thought the vessels were made for burial rather than daily use. Some vessels also carry fine designs of fish.

The bones in the graves were found in pieces, not as complete skeletons. According to Hargreaves, at least some graves held only bones, not bodies, which means the flesh had been removed before burial. Only three regular graves held a whole body. Vessels had been placed with the bones. Copper tools, axes, saws and chisels were the most important finds in the cemetery. Hargreaves found very little silver: a small ring and eight pieces of silver foil that he could not identify. There were also many clay animal figurines, and all but one were humped bulls.

Nal pottery was not confined to Nal. Aurel Stein wrote that he found the type of funerary vessels seen at Nal at several other sites in southern Balochistan. On the hill of Gushanak in Kolwa he also found two sherds in the multicoloured Nal style. Later, at Nindowari in the Wadh area, Jean-Marie Casal found vessels in layers older than the Kulli period. One of their designs was identical to that on the Nal vessels.

Aurel Stein’s journey

On 28 November 1927 the famous archaeologist Aurel Stein left Quetta on a four-and-a-half-month journey through southern Balochistan. He returned to Quetta in mid-April 1928. In that time he surveyed an area in Kharan, Makran and Jhalawan of about 270 miles from north to south and more than 300 miles from east to west. In late March 1928 he was at Mehi Damb in the Mashkay valley, and he left there on the morning of 30 March. His report was published in Calcutta in 1931 as “An Archaeological Tour in Gedrosia”. Its chapters cover Kharan, Rakhshan and Parom, Kech and Dasht, the Makran coast, Kolwa and Mashkay, and the valleys of Jhalawan and Sarawan. On the same journey, from 5 to 11 March 1928, Stein carried out trial excavations on the mound of Kulli in Kolwa. Later experts named the whole culture after this site.

The Kulli culture

According to Stein, the Kulli mound is about 400 yards long, 330 yards wide and up to 30 feet high. It is the largest of all the mounds in Kolwa. Stone walls could be seen in many places on its surface. Stein thought it may have been the most important ancient settlement in Kolwa. On the way to the mound he saw old “gabar bands” and small dams on the hill slope, built to water fields with flood water.

In the excavation Stein found a stone house. Its walls were built of slabs set in mud mortar, and large stones were laid as paving outside. The rooms on the lower floor had no doors. Stein therefore concluded that they were entered from above by ladder, and stone steps led up to the upper floor. In one room a necklace of 27 beads of agate and black stone was found hidden in a jar. This led Stein to think the last occupants had left the house in sudden danger.

Kulli vessels are decorated in black on a light red or greyish ground, and often also have dark red bands. They show rows of long-horned mountain goats and humped bulls running among trees. According to Casal, the most striking Kulli design is “animals in landscape”: bulls with long striped bodies and round eyes, often tied to a plant and accompanied by birds and trees. The clay figurines include humped bulls and women adorned with bangles and necklaces. One important Kulli settlement is Nindowari, on the bank of the Kud river in the Wadh area. The French archaeologist Jean-Marie Casal began excavating there in the 1962-63 season. In 1966 he published his report, “Nindowari: a Chalcolithic Site in South Baluchistan”. According to him, the settlement there spread over 1,000 to 1,200 yards. In its middle stood a large stone platform approached by steps.

The link with Harappa

The relationship between Kulli and the Indus Valley civilisation has been a major question for experts. In the Kulli-period granaries at Nindowari, three seals were found. Two of them were Harappan seals showing the “unicorn” animal and the Indus script. Kulli vessels also carry designs found on Harappan pottery, such as pipal branches and intersecting circles. Casal concluded that the Kulli culture existed alongside the Harappan civilisation for at least some time. He said it was too early to decide whether the similarities were the result of trade or of influence from one side. Stein had also written that some clay figurines from Mohenjo-daro closely resemble those found at settlements in Makran and Jhalawan.

According to Casal, before the Nindowari excavation Kulli was regarded as merely a pottery style. The large platform, steps, granaries and abundance of figurines made him think Nindowari may have been a religious centre. The Kulli people were contemporary neighbours of the Indus Valley civilisation and were in contact with it. Like the people of Nal, however, they decorated their pottery with their own colours and designs.

Next Sunday: Makka and Gedrosia, when Balochistan became the edge of the Achaemenid empire.