Houses
Houses and other buildings were made of sun-dried or kiln-fired mud brick. These bricks were so strong, they have stood up to thousands of years of wear. Each house had an indoor and outdoor kitchen. The outdoor kitchen would be used when it was warmer (so that the oven wouldn’t heat up the house), and the indoor kitchen for use when it was colder. In present day, village houses in this region (e.g. in Kachchh) still have two kitchens. Indoor kitchens are used mostly as store houses and are only used for cooking when it rains. Otherwise, residents prefer to use the outdoor kitchens because the dry shrub and cow dung used as cooking fuel are very smoky, making indoor cooking difficult.
Read more about this topic: Harappan Architecture
Famous quotes containing the word houses:
“Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:
Come and see my shining palaces built upon the sand.”
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950)
“Do you see how the god always hurls his bolts at the greatest houses and the tallest trees. For he is wont to thwart whatever is greater than the rest.”
—Herodotus (c. 484–424 B.C.)
“Midway the lake we took on board two manly-looking middle-aged men.... I talked with one of them, telling him that I had come all this distance partly to see where the white pine, the Eastern stuff of which our houses are built, grew, but that on this and a previous excursion into another part of Maine I had found it a scarce tree; and I asked him where I must look for it. With a smile, he answered that he could hardly tell me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)