Archaeologists uncovered a 4,000-year-old copper crown in the village of Chandayan, in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. According to Dr. Rakesh Tewari, the director general of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), this is only the second crown discovered at an Indus Valley site in either India or Pakistan.
     "The person wearing the crown could be an important person of the society," said Dr. A.K. Pandey, the director of the excavation at Chandayan and a superintending archaeologist at ASI. "It is not known if in those days, people used it as a crown or just as a head gear," he said.
     The copper crown, decorated with a Carnelian and a Fiance bead - both precious stones - was found on a skull and exposed by laborers while they extracting clay to make bricks in August 2014; ASI started excavating the site in early December. "Our objective was to undertake a salvage operation, just to look into what could be found around the site of the skeletal remain," Tewari said.
     During excavation, Pandey also found animal bones and mud pots at the same excavation depth as the burial site, but about 65 feet away. This suggests that an animal was sacrificed during a funeral ceremony for the person whose remains were found. According to Pandey, another piece of the same crown, a pelvic bone, and femur of the left leg of the person was unearthed along with 21 earthen pots. 150 feet away from the burial site, archaeologists also dug up a habitation site of the same period and found a compact floor, mud walls, and holes for fence posts.
     According to Pandey, the discovery is important because this is the first time evidence of a late Indus Civilization habitation was found so far east.

Edited from Epoch Times (1 January 2015)