FARMANA THE SITE THAT IS ALMOST LOST

Farmana — A Site Being Lost

Documented by AINCERT, Ghaghar-Hakra Expedition 2026

Farmana is a Harappan settlement site located in Rohtak district, Haryana, on the banks of the seasonal Sahibi river. At its peak of occupation, approximately 2600 to 2000 BCE, it was one of the largest known Harappan settlements in the state of Haryana, covering an area estimated at approximately 40 hectares. Its material culture — the pottery, the standardised baked bricks, the etched carnelian beads, the copper tools — places it firmly within the mature phase of the Indus Valley Civilisation, the same civilisation that built Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Dholavira, and the dozens of sites along the Ghaggar-Hakra river system that AINCERT documented during the Ghaghar-Hakra Expedition 2026.

Farmana was excavated by a joint team of Deccan College, Pune and the University of Tokyo between 2006 and 2009. The excavations revealed human burials with grave goods, evidence of craft production, standardised brick sizes consistent with the IVC norm of 1:2:4 ratio, and evidence of long-distance trade connections extending to the Persian Gulf. The site briefly attracted significant academic attention from Indian and Japanese archaeologists.

That attention did not last. Farmana has since been removed from Haryana Tourism's official heritage documentation. The site has no protective boundary wall, no signage, no ASI notification as a protected monument, and no active monitoring. Parts of the site have been disturbed by construction activity including mechanical excavation. The stratigraphic record has been permanently compromised in sections.

What AINCERT Found

AINCERT visited Farmana on 29 June 2026 as the first site of the Ghaghar-Hakra Expedition. The site presents as open agricultural land with visible surface scatter of pottery sherds and fragmentary baked brick. The characteristic Harappan brick — fired at high temperature, of standardised proportion — is present on the surface in fragments. AINCERT documented the site through field photographs and recovered three fragments of Harappan baked brick from the surface for the permanent collection.

These three brick fragments are now in the AINCERT collection. They will be housed in a dedicated room in the planned Pant Museum. They are among the last physical fragments of Farmana retrieved with documented provenance before the site is entirely lost.

The Loss

In twenty years, when every other major IVC site along the Ghaggar-Hakra system has been documented, excavated, or formally protected by the ASI, Farmana will most likely be an agricultural field. There will be no sign, no museum, no protected zone, and no physical evidence above ground of one of the largest Harappan settlements in Haryana.

The AINCERT field research paper on Farmana is available on this website. The three Farmana Bricks are in the AINCERT collection. The GPS coordinates of the site are documented. The surface scatter is photographed. This page, the paper, and the bricks are the record that survives when the site does not.

What Should Have Happened

Farmana should have been notified as a protected monument under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act of 1958 following the 2006 to 2009 excavations. It should have a protective boundary, a site museum with the excavation finds, and active ASI monitoring. The mechanical excavation that damaged sections of the site should have been prosecuted under the AMAR Act. None of this happened.

AINCERT calls on the Archaeological Survey of India and the Haryana government to formally notify Farmana as a protected heritage site before further damage renders the question moot.

The Farmana Bricks

Three fragments of Harappan baked brick, surface-recovered from Farmana, Rohtak district, Haryana, on 29 June 2026 during the AINCERT Ghaghar-Hakra Expedition. These are physical fragments of a civilisation that flourished 4,500 years ago and a site that may not survive another generation.

Documented by Ujjwal BU Pant, Founder and President, AINCERT, Class 7A, Vishwa Bharati Public School, Noida.

The Farmana field research paper is available at sites.google.com/view/aincert or contact through ujjwalbup@gmail.com for queries or questions.

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