Indus valley civilization

Indus Valley Civilization: Indus civilization, also called Indus valley civilization or Harappan civilization, is a Bronze Age culture, located in what is Pakistan and northwest India today, on the fertile flood plain of the Indus River and its vicinity. It stood toe to toe with the three other ancient heavyweights of the world — Egypt, Mesopotamia, and ancient China — often surpassing their scientific achievements; out of the four ancient cradles of civilization, the people of the Indus Valley could claim to be the largest and arguably most prosperous. The Indus Civilization had a writing system which today still remains a mystery: all attempts to decipher it have failed. This is one of the reasons why the Indus Valley Civilization is one of the least known of the important early civilizations of antiquity. Examples of this writing system have been found in pottery, amulets, carved stamp seals, and even in weights and copper tablets. The art of the earliest people in South Asia is of interest, this ranges from cave paintings (such as at Bhimbetka), Neolithic pottery glazed with patterns and decorations, terracotta figurines, cast bronze statuettes, seals and various figures ranging from priest figures to children’s’ toys. However, what is also important is to construct an overview of the Indus Valley culture, as the artifacts from here fall into distinct periods – cultural or temporal. Scholars construct four distinct periods in the Indus Valley timeline. The Neolithic period (when food production first became predominant) is from 7000-5500 BC, the Regionalization phase is from 5500-2600 BC, and the emergence of the Indus Valley Culture as a specific civilization as such is from 2600-1900 BC. This is also been called the Integration Era which sees towns and urban centers beginning to form the hub of civilization. Also noted for the use and dissemination of writing, the Integration Era in the Indus Valley Culture saw the production of seals and other associated artifacts. The final era is the so-called Localization Era (1900-1300 BC) which saw both the beginning of the eventual breakup of the Harappan culture, as well as its final concentration into towns and cities. Concept of beauty in Indus Valley: The idea of beauty in Indus Valley can be seen through various artifacts found. According to Partha Mitter, “Art generally means sculpture and painting, and often includes architecture, but human artifacts may embrace a wider category of material remains that include the decorative and minor arts, such as jewelry, pottery, metal and wooden utensils and even toys.” It is here, in the absence of much concrete architecture and built remains, that the artefacts of the Indus Valley Civilization or the Harappan culture are of interest as art, and it is in this way that we will study them. John Marshall, an archeologist at Mohenjo-daro is known to reacted with surprise when he saw the artifacts of Indus valley. He said ''When I first saw them I found it difficult to believe that they were prehistoric; they seemed to completely upset all established ideas about early art, and culture. Modeling such as this was unknown in the ancient world up to the Hellenistic age of Greece, and I thought, therefore, that some mistake must surely have been made; that these figures had found their way into levels some 3000 years older than those to which they properly belonged .... Now, in these statuettes, it is just this anatomical truth which is so startling; that makes us wonder whether, in this all-important matter, Greek artistry could possibly have been anticipated by the sculptors of a far-off age on the banks of the Indus" Modesty: A distinctive feature of the Indus people was that they didn’t really build to awe. We know they were able to build impressive structures, as they show an advanced understanding of architecture with dockyards, granaries, cisterns, warehouses, and fortifications. But there’s no conclusive evidence that they ever built any palaces. Neither of temples. In fact, the largest Indus buildings we’ve found so far were likely granaries. The nearest thing we’ve found to a ‘monument’ is in Mohenjo-daro — the Great Bath, a public bathing and social area. Standarization: One of the most striking features of Harrapan society was their propensity for standardization. Pottery and seals use surprisingly similar proportions. Bricks are virtually identical in size, shape, weight, and material, even among different cities. Weighs used in trading are also virtually identical. The level of standardization is so high, in fact, that some researchers claim it could only be the product of a single state authority enforcing them on all communities in the area. However, the pointed scarcity of weapons makes it more likely that the Indus Valley people were led by a number of leaders representing each major community or cluster of communities, all working together voluntarily. This view is supported by studies on Indus graves and human remains that show everyone enjoyed similar health. The relative scarcity of elite burials suggests they had no rulers, as we understand the term, and that everyone enjoyed equal status. Accuracy : The engineering skills of the people were “remarkable”, with great achievements in measurement accuracy and craftsmanship. Fine arts are surprisingly poorly represented in the Indus civilization, with only a few known sculptures in bronze and stone; what does survive, however,includes some pieces of the highest aesthetic standard. Figurative bronze casting and stone carving, however, were by and large a relatively late development in India, sculpture until the late first millennium BCE being largely confined to exuberant modeling in terra-cotta. Lively terra-cotta figurines of people and animals attest to Harappan participation in a long-lived and vigorous folk art tradition, and other models were executed in ivory, shell, or faience. Painted pottery also continued earlier traditions, including both representational and geometric designs. There may have been painted designs on other media such as cloth wall hangings, and there were probably wooden carvings, though none survive. The artistic abilities of the Indus people are reflected best in the images on their seals. Although the brick buildings of Indus towns and cities now seem austere, it is probable that in Harappan times a variety of decorations made them far more attractive. Brick walls were generally plastered; for example, at Dholavira in the phases preceding the earthquake, both the city wall and the walls and floors of houses were covered with white and pink-red plaster. Walls may also have been decorated with textiles or other hangings. Some door frames had holes at the top from which curtains or matting may have been hung. The wooden structural elements and fixtures, such as door and window frames, may have been carved with designs that might invoke divine protection and ensure good fortune, as well as being decorative. House models show that some windows and internal partitions had intricately carved latticework grilles; a few examples made of alabaster and marble survive from Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. Perhaps the best-known artifacts of the Indus civilization are a number of small seals, generally made of steatite (a form of talc), which are distinctive in kind and unique in quality, depicting a wide variety of animals, both real—such as elephants, tigers, rhinoceros, and antelopes—and fantastic, often composite creatures. Sometimes human forms are included. Other produced artifacts at the Indus Valley civilization are small figures and statuettes in terracotta. These figurines range in size from just a few inches high to over a foot (12”). Several of these figurines have been found, and consist of objects such as wheeled carts, cots, stylized female figures with exaggerated breasts and pudenda, with accessories such as necklaces and other ornaments. It is likely that wooden parts needed, for example, to make the wheeled carts work have not survived the ages. Amongst the most famous of these figurines is that of a mother deity or mother goddess, and is widely considered to represent ideals or abstract concepts of female fertility, thus also indicating that the Harappan culture knew and was able to put into concrete form abstract notions of worship and godhood. Bronze Dancing Girl, Mohenjodaro Amongst the most riveting pieces of art from the Indus Valley Civilization is the bronze figurine of a dancing girl, excavated from a Harappan house in 1926. The statue is that of a young woman, standing upright, with her head tilted back and her knee bent at an angle. Despite the absence of flesh or any carving that approximates correct human proportions, this statuette is remarkable for its dynamism of pose and the cultural proclivities that it demonstrates. The statuette has her right arm bent and hand placed behind the hip, while the left rests on the thigh of the left leg. A number of bangles, necklaces and pendants decorate the figures neck and arms, and the hair is coiled into a loose bun. Whether the figure actually represents a dancing girl is a matter of some conjecture, though certainly the restrained movement inherent in the pose, the provocative nature of the figure, and the numerous adornments indicate this profession. The statue led to two important discoveries about the civilization: first that they knew metal blending, casting and other sophisticated methods, and secondly that entertainment, especially dance was part of the culture. The bronze girl was made using the lost-wax casting technique and shows the expertise of the people in making bronze works during that time.[2] The statue is displayed at National Museum, New Delhi.[1] A similar bronze statuette was found by Mackay during his final full season of 1930–31 at DK-G area in a house at Mohenjo-daro. The preservation, as well as quality of craftsmanship, is inferior to that of the well known Dancing Girl.[8] This second bronze female figure is displayed at Karachi Museum, Pakistan.[9] To conclude, what classifies objects from the Indus Valley as art? If art is creating form and content that appeals to, and stimulates the imagination in an aesthetically pleasing way, then certainly the various artifacts from the Harappan culture imitate this concept in such as way as to classify them as ‘art’. While all the objects found from the Indus Valley do have a utilitarian purpose, yet it is in their details that art can be found – in the proportions of a seal, in the pose of a human figure, in the poise of a priest figure, and in the symmetry and fluidity of writing. The Indus Valley made significant steps in this direction, moves that were eclipsed by Aryan cultures that were to subsequently follow. one often wonders what impact the Indus Valley Civilisation has had on the generations to come. There has been very little evidence to support the art of painting for example, from this era. Though there are remnants of vessels with pigments and colours found all over the sites, the purposes of these are yet to be determined. While it seems that metallurgy found a strong hold in the Indus Valley Civilisation, the evidence of sculptures, figurines, jewellery and carvings seem to have been the precursors to the aesthetic art and artistic expressions in a 3D format. This was of course apart form the huge contribution towards architecture and town planning, water supply and drainage systems, along with the culture of trade or barter. When one looks back at a civilisation that died out and another one which steadily burgeoned there on, it has to be mentioned that it is not a strict cut-off point in time. This is a gradual evolution over hundreds of years. It is definitely possible that multiple layered belief systems co-existed and the dominant one having faded out, the ones that endured became the dominating culture in a specific ‘period’ in time Decline: The Harappans were one of the most mysterious groups to, tragically, never truly make it out of antiquity. Despite its status as an economic, technological, and social powerhouse, the Harappan civilization simply fell apart in a span of two or three centuries. The reasons as to why this happened are still a subject of passionate debate and they may be more relevant now than ever before.