Michel Danino
Michel Danino encourages an unraveling of the fixed notions that popularly characterize the West as technological and scientific with the East or India as spiritual. The trip to Lothal, one of the most prominent cities of the Indus Valley civilization site, about 80 kms from Ahmedabad, is an eye-opener in this respect. The dominant sight at Lothal is the unique lockgated dockyard. It is perhaps the greatest instance of maritime architecture from the ancient world. Lothal developed as an important port, a crucial node in trade networks, and as a centre of the bead industry until 1900 BC when a great flood resulted in years of decline of the Harappan civilization. Lothal survived even after much of the Indus Valley civilization disappeared from the northern provinces, and its ruins and archaeological findings indicate a great maturity in town planning. Danino thus demonstrates that India has a sophisticated legacy of mathematics, metallurgy, astronomy, and town planning.
