Public displays and private values: A guide to buried wealth in Harappan archaeology

Abstract

The distribution of material goods in hoards and in funeral offerings is tabulated and summarized for the Harappan Civilization of Bronze Age South Asia. It is argued that hoards are private, secular deposits, while grave goods are public, ritualized objects and therefore ideological in nature. Comparing an overtly ideological wealth deposit with one less so can reveal discrepancies between public and private statements of value and status. It is concluded that hoarded items, those of high secular value, were not monopolized for the sole use of elites, seeming instead to have been available for the status rivalries of the general population. However, differences in funereal wealth, while severe, were not communicated with items commonly found in hoards; rather, the. public status distinctions of the dead were expressed with materials of low relative value. It is therefore suggested that the potential for an unequal distribution of secular wealth was veiled by an egalitarian ideology, one that permitted all social segments to participate and compete in public, if not in private, contests of status display.

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