{"id":83959,"date":"2026-09-07T18:31:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T13:01:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/?p=83959"},"modified":"2026-09-07T18:31:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T13:01:57","slug":"rajghat-excavation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/07-09-2026\/rajghat-excavation","title":{"rendered":"Rajghat Excavation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Syllabus: GS1\/Ancient History<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Context<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Rajghat excavation<\/strong> is important to go back to the <strong>history of archaeological excavations in Varanasi.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>About Rajghat<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Rajghat today refers to a <strong>neighbourhood located in eastern Varanasi.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>But the Rajghat archaeological site more specifically refers to the ancient settlement located in the northeastern outskirts of the city, <strong>near the confluence of the rivers Ganga and Varana.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Rajghat<\/strong> is identified as the<strong> capital of the Kashi Janapada.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Janapadas <\/strong>were territorial kingdoms or political units that emerged in ancient India, particularly <strong>during the later Vedic period.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Some of these janapadas grew into larger, more powerful kingdoms known as <strong>mahajanapadas by the 6th century BCE.\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Early Buddhist and Jain texts mention<strong> Kashi as one of 16 mahajanpadas <\/strong>in the Indo-Gangetic plain.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Sarnath emerged as a pilgrimage site,<strong> Rajghat developed as the main urban centre.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The remaining settlements, which are dated to be several centuries older, were peripheral, rural regions of Kashi.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Rajghat Excavation Findings<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The credit of the discovery of Rajghat<\/strong> goes to <strong>Krishna Deva<\/strong>, who took up trial excavation of the site on behalf of ASI in <strong>1940.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The lowest, and therefore oldest, layer of the settlement yielded <strong>pre-Northern Black Polished Ware (pre-NBPW)<\/strong>, a type of pottery associated with an <strong>earlier phase of the Iron Age.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Based on this evidence, the<strong> origins of the settlement<\/strong> at Rajghat were dated to around<strong> 800 BCE.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Among the artefacts recovered from the site are <strong>hundreds of seals and sealings.\u00a0<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Many of them carry <strong>Greek inscriptions, <\/strong>names of the a<strong>dministrative units and their officials.<\/strong><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Ivory and iron objects,<\/strong> punch-marked coins, and terracotta figurines have also been found.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source: IE<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong> Context <\/strong><\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\"> Rajghat excavation is important to go back to the history of archaeological excavations in Varanasi. <\/li>\n<p><\/p>\n<p><strong> About Rajghat <\/strong><\/p>\n<li class=\"ms-5\"> Rajghat today refers to a neighbourhood located in eastern Varanasi.\u00a0 <\/li>\n<li class=\"ms-5\"> But the Rajghat archaeological site more specifically refers to the ancient settlement located in the northeastern outskirts of the city, near the confluence of the rivers Ganga and Varana. <\/li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/current-affairs\/07-09-2026\/rajghat-excavation\" class=\"btn btn-primary btn-sm float-end\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-83959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83959"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83959\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83961,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83959\/revisions\/83961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nextias.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}