The most remarkable structure, alongside the town’s eastern side, is a 217-m-long, 36-m-wide basis (fig. 7.6) If we consider that its 1.5 to 1.8 m-thick walls were made of millions of carefully adjusted baked bricks, we will have an idea of the energy and resources deployed on its construction. No other Harappan site has so far come up with such a huge water structure (as long as two-and-a-half football fields!) in view of stone anchors and marine shells found in it, S.R. Rao, the excavator, identified it as a tidal dockyard: at high tide, boats sailing up the Gulf of Cambay would have easily pushed on upstream the Bhogavo before berthing at Lothal’s basin. There are other considerations, too; its vertical walls are ideal for such a purpose, and the flat top of the town’s eastern fortification would have acted as a wharf; the proximity of the warehouse with its numerous sealings is another clue to the export of goods; a seal evocative of contact with the Persian Gulf was found elsewhere at Lothal; and an inlet channel was identified at the basin’s northern end, while a spillway for the overflowing waters was spotted at the southern end. Page 163