Lothal preserves the excavated plan of an Indus or Harappan settlement beside the Bhogava River system near the Gulf of Khambhat. Occupied principally during the third and second millennia BC, it combined an elevated sector, lower town, streets, drains, workshops, warehouse evidence and a large brick-lined basin widely interpreted as a tidal dock. The site is on India’s UNESCO Tentative List, not yet an inscribed World Heritage property.
Excavations led by archaeologist S. R. Rao from 1955 into the 1960s exposed the settlement and thousands of objects. Flooding repeatedly affected the town and influenced both massive perimeter construction and its later decline. Visitors should remember that reconstructed wall heights are modest: the importance of Lothal lies in the plan, engineering and recovered evidence rather than towering monuments.