Painted Grey Ware in the wider Punjab region

A pottery category and a regional comparison

Painted Grey Ware, often abbreviated PGW, gives its name to an archaeological category used across part of northern South Asia. Ravi Korisettar and Smitha Kumar place its principal concentration in the Indo-Gangetic divide, the Sutlej basin and the upper Ganga plains. They describe a distribution extending beyond those areas and a broad chronological range with local differences. The category is useful for comparing assemblages; it does not mean every settlement began at once, shared one government or had an identical relationship with earlier Harappan occupation.[1]

Two local sequences near Phillaur

Jalandhar’s official heritage account describes Nagar’s earliest recorded period as Painted Grey Ware with some Late Harappan sturdy red pottery. Associated finds include copper objects, bone implements, beads and terracotta objects. It separately describes Katpalon, excavated in 1976–77, where the earliest period combined PGW and Late Harappan pottery. These are specific local observations, rather than a statement that all Punjab followed one sequence. At Katpalon, the account also records an occupational break before the Kushan period and disturbance by pits in medieval layers.[2]

An overlap and a gap tell different stories

The university module distinguishes sites with an intervening break, including Rupar and Sanghol, from sites such as Dadheri, Nagar and Katpalon where PGW and Late Harappan phases overlap. That comparison makes stratigraphy central to interpretation. Similar pots in two places need to be checked against their layers and associated objects before continuity is claimed. The relation between pottery categories can differ even within the same modern state.[1]

Nagar’s heritage description calls the purpose of two burnt-earth structures probable rather than certain. Keeping that qualification matters: an excavated shape does not automatically identify a ritual practice or its worshippers. The page also contains an implausible printed longitude for Nagar, so that coordinate is not copied into the atlas. A concise official account is a useful starting point, with uncertainties retained rather than silently converted into precise facts.[2]