Type: Monument - Building
Province: Balochistan
District: Gwadar
Period: Historic
Relative Chronology: 1526 - 1857 CE
Description: The central part of the Gwadar plateau has an internal depression over-looked by a small hill called Koh Batil. This basin drains the rain-water which flows from the very large barren surface of the plateau above. At the beginning of the Ghorab Kaur gorge, the bottle-neck of the oasis, a long wall, partly destroyed in the eastern part, joins the rocky vertical bank and closes the passage. The length of the preserved wall is 37 m and the original was 54 m; the current preserved height above the ground is 2.50 m. In the middle of the wall an overflow goes right through the bulk of the stonework. The high workmanship of the stonework is very important for its dating. The face of the wall is formed of bossed ashlar-block masonry, organized in coursed (20 to 40 cm high), regularly bonded with header blocks for the linking with the rubble-filled behind. All the dressed-stones carved from the block. They have also dressed margins. The face of the all is recessed every two or three courses on its elevation. The thickness of the ashlar-block face is 70 cm. Behind the cut-stone facing, and linked with it, was a rubble-fill bulk of 4-5 m thick. The interpretation of this structure as a dam would be possible and it could have had several functions. Aurel Stein who visited the site in 1928 reported that local traditions dated the dam from the Portuguese occupation of Gwadar in the 16th-17th century. But the technical features leave no doubt about the date. This kind of ashlar masonry with bossed blocks and dressed margins are typical in classical Mediterranean architecture, from the 2nd century BCE/2-3rd century CE. But some details, like the bond with mortise and tenon carved from the block, are totally unknown in the west.
Latitude: 25.104166667
Longitude: 62.312500000
Ownership: Private
Legal Status: Not Protected
Title of Publication: Cartography of Ancient Settlements in Central Southern Pakistani Makran: New Data
Published In: Mesopotamia, Vol. 25
Year of Publication: 1990
Bibliography/Reference: Besenval, Roland, and Paul Sanlaville
