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Updated on: October 15, 2019, 1:04 PM IST

October 15, 2019, 1:04 PM IST FOLLOW US ON: Facebook Twitter Instagram

For years now, scientists and historians have tried to discover facts about the ancient people from early civilizations, including Indus Valley and Harappa civilizations in Asia. Despite several findings and academic efforts to study the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC), there was no success in understanding the craniofacial appearance or facial structure of the people from Indus Valley Civilization.

However, in a first-of-its kind attempt, a team of scientists have investigated the IVC cemetery area of Rakhigarhi site, a place in the Hisar District in the state of Haryana in India, to do craniofacial reconstruction (CFR) procedure using computed tomography (CT) data of two Rakhigarhi skulls. These skulls were identified as A1 BR02 and A2 BR36, two IVC individuals who were buried about 4500 years ago.


This attempt is called to be a successful attempt to facially recognize people from IVC. The study, published in the reputed Anatomical Science International journal, was led by W J Lee and Vasant Shinde. The multi-disciplinary team consisted of 15 scientists and academics from six different institutes of South Korea, UK and India. The study was supported in part by a grant of the National Geographic Society.

The scientists used computed tomography (CT) data to understand the facial structure of the two individuals. These two deceased subjects were selected from the 37 bodies that were found during an excavation project between 2013 and 2016.


However, despite achieving success, the authors of the study believe that more investigation of graves and anthropological data is needed to form a comprehensive account on the subject.