Bricks beads and bones

The Harappan Civilization

Introduction
Indus valley civilization is also known as Harappan civilization.
It started flourishing along River Indus (now in Pakistan) at around 2600 B.C.
Harappan civilization was the largest Bronze age civilization in the world.
Harappa was the first site of this civilization discovered by archaeologists.
It was an urban civilization. Its writing is not deciphered.
After 1900 B.C., most of the sites were abandoned due to some reasons.
By 1900 B.C. major part of the civilization ended.

Discovery of Harappan Civilization

The discovery of the Harappan Civilization, also known as the Indus Valley
Civilization or Bronze Age Civilization, dates back to 1856 when railway line
construction work was underway in Punjab, in present-day Pakistan. During
this time, workers found some old bricks and remains, but they could not
understand their significance, and the railway line work continued.
In 1861, the Archaeological Department of India was established in Kolkata
to investigate and provide information related to the country's history.
Alexander Cunningham, known as the father of Indian history, became its
first director. He was succeeded by John Marshall, who served as the
director from 1902 to 1928.
Under John Marshall's leadership, Dayaram Sahni discovered the Harappan
Civilization in 1921. The civilization is called the Harappan Civilization
because the earliest remains were found at a place named Harappa. It is
known as the Indus Valley Civilization because it was located on the banks of
the Indus River. The term Bronze Age Civilization is used because the people
of this civilization discovered bronze by mixing tin with copper.

The Harappan seal

One of the most distinctive artifacts of the Harappan civilization is the
Harappan Seal.
The seals are made of a stone called steatite; seals often contain animal
motifs and signs from a script.
Believed to be used for commercial purposes. A standard Harappan Seal was
square shaped with a 2 by 2 dimensions.
Pictures of animals were there on all the seals with something written in a
pictographic script.

Time Period of Harappan Civilization:

Extent of Harappan Civilisation:

Important mature Harappan sites and their location:

Harappan Culture
The term “culture” is used by Archaeologists for a group of objects which
are distinctive in style and are usually found together within a specific
geographical area and period.
These distinctive objects include seals, beads, weights, stone blades, and
even baked bricks in Harappan Culture.
These distinctive objects were found in areas as far apart as Afghanistan,
Jammu, Baluchistan (Pakistan), and Gujarat.

Early Harappan Culture Features

Started in Period before 2600 BCE
Agriculture
Pastoralism
Some crafts.
Distinctive pottery
Small settlements
No cities
No large buildings.

Mature Harappan Culture features

Developed in the period between 2600-1900BCE

Civilized life
Seals
Script
Trade
Arts and Crafts
Large cities like Harappa and Mohenjodaro
Urban culture/city life
belongs to the bronze period
known metals: Copper, Bronze, Gold, Silver
Administration
Town Planning
The citadel
The warehouse
The Great bath
Drainage system
Mature Harappan Culture sites and importance:

Harappa
Harappa was destroyed by brick robbers. Alexander Cunningham noted that the
amount of brick taken from the ancient site was enough to lay bricks for “about
100 miles” of the railway line between Lahore and Multan.

Subsistence Strategies of Harappan people

Food habits of Harappan people

They ate plant and animal products, including fish.

Archaeologists found shreds of evidence from charred grains and seeds.
Bones of Wild species found
Bones of fish and fowl are found

Agricultural technologies of Harappa

Oxen were used for plowing (Representations on seals and terracotta

sculpture)
Terracotta models of the plow have been found at sites in
Cholistan(Pakistan) and at Banawali (Haryana).
Evidence of a plowed field at Kalibangan (Rajasthan)
The plowed field at Kalibangan had two sets of furrows suggesting that two
different crops were grown
 Traces of canals have been found at Shortughai in Afghanistan
Water reservoirs located in Dholavira (Gujarat)

Food processing technologies of Harappa

Processing of food required grinding equipment, vessels for mixing,

blending, and cooking.
These were made of stone, metal, and terracotta.
Saddle quern was used for grinding cereals.
Strategies of subsistence in Harappan civilization

Agriculture Technology

The people of Harappan civilization mainly crop wheat, barley, pulses, millet,
white gram, etc.
Canals and wells were used for irrigation
The pieces of Harappan get information by Taurus joins Bullock
they assumed that the people of Harappa use bullock for plough the field
Ploughs have also been found in many places, which shows that ploughing
was done in the fields for cultivation.
In Kalibangan and Rajasthan, there is evidence of a cultivated field, which
appears to have grown two different crops simultaneously.
For harvesting crops Harappan people use wood and stone.

Animal husbandry

Harappan sites received the bones of such animals like cattle, sheep, goat,
buffalo and pigs, which suggests that people raise these animals for their
personal use.

Prey

Here bones of fish, birds and wild animals have also been found, from which it is
estimated that the residents of Harappa used to eat the flesh of these animals.

Cunningham’s Illusion

Cunningham was the first Director General of the Archaeological

Department of India.

What did Cunningham make a mistake?

They felt that the Harappan civilization is not a big civilization but a small
civilization.
Failed to understand Harappan’s seal
 Failing to determine the period of Harappa , he linked the Harappan relics to
the Vedic period even though he was older than that.
He only relied on written evidence that led to his mistake.

Mohenjodaro
Mohenjodaro means 'mound of dead.’
It was a planned Urban Centre
Cities were divided into two parts:
1. The Citadel
2. The Lower Town

Citadel

A citadel or upper town is the core fortified area of a town or city.

It was built on the raised platform.
It was situated in the Western part of the city.
It consisted of large structures which functioned as administrative buildings.
Massive buildings, for example, a warehouse, great bath, granaries.
Small in size as compared to the lower town.
Citadel was walled in most of the cities

Lower town

It was located on the lower part of the town

It situated in the eastern part of the city
This part of the town was much more significant than the citadel.
This part of the town had residential housing.
The main activities of the people like trade, craft making, etc., were done
here.
The lower city also walled

The Warehouse (The Great Granary)

Found in Mohenjodaro
A massive structure found in the citadel
Lower part made of brick remain
Upper portions made of wood decayed long ago
Used to preserve grains

The Great Bath

The "great bath" is the earliest public water tank in the ancient world.
It was found in Mohenjodaro
 It was a large rectangular tank in a courtyard
Surrounded by a corridor on all four sides.
Two flights of steps (north and south)
The tank was made watertight by setting bricks on edge and using a mortar
of gypsum.
There were rooms on three sides
Large well in one room(water source)
Water from the tank flowed into a huge drain.
Across a lane to the north lay a smaller building with eight bathrooms.
Drains from each bathroom connecting to a drain that ran along the corridor.
Scholars suggest that the Great bath was meant for a unique ritual bath.

Drainage system

Harappan cities had a well-planned drainage system.

Roads and streets were laid out along an approximate “grid.” pattern,
intersecting at right angles.
Streets with drains were laid out first, and then houses were built along with
them.
The drains were made of mortar, lime, and gypsum.
ERNEST MACKAY noted: “It is the complete ancient system as yet
discovered.”
Every house was connected to the street drains.
The main channels were made of bricks set in mortar
Channels were covered with loose bricks that could be removed for
cleaning.
In some cases, limestone was used for the covers.
House drains first emptied into a sump or cesspit into which solid matter
settled.
Drainage channels had sumps for cleaning.
At Lothal, while houses were built of mud bricks, drains were made of burnt
bricks.

Domestic architecture/residential buildings in Mohenjodaro

Houses had a courtyard, with rooms on all sides.

Cooking and weaving done in the courtyard
No windows in the walls along with the ground level (privacy concerned).
The main entrance did not give a direct view of the interior or the courtyard.
(privacy concerned).
Every house had its bathroom paved with bricks
 The bathroom was connected with drains, and through the wall, it to the
street drains.
Some houses have remains of staircases to reach a second story or the roof.
Many houses had wells, often in a room
Passers-by could use wells.
The total number of estimated wells in Mohenjodaro was about 700.

Contact with Distant Lands

Harappans had trade relations with Mesopotamia, Oman, Bahrain
Shreds of evidence include Harappan seals, weights, dice, and beads,
depictions of ships and boats on seals.
Copper was also probably brought from Oman.
A distinctive type of vessel, a sizeable Harappan jar coated with a thick layer
of black clay has been found at Omani sites.
Harappans exchanged the contents of these vessels for Omani copper.
Mesopotamian texts that are datable to the third millennium BCE refer to
copper from a region called Magan.
The round “Persian Gulf” seal found in Bahrain sometimes carries Harappan
motifs.
Mesopotamian texts mention the products from Meluhha: carnelian, lapis
lazuli, copper, gold, and varieties of wood.
Contact with Oman, Bahrain, or Mesopotamia was by sea.
Seals and Sealing:-
They were used to facilitate long-distance communication.
Mouth of the bag was tied on the knot was affixed some wet clay on which
one or more seals were pressed.
The sealing also conveyed the identity of the sender.

Features of Harappan Script

The Harappan script has not deciphered yet (An enigmatic script)
Scripts are depicted on seals copper tools, rims of jars, copper and terracotta
tablets, jewelry, bone rods, and an ancient signboard.
The animal motif is used in the objects for those who could not read.
The script contains signs between 375 and 400.
The most extended script contains about 26 signs.
The Harappan script was pictographic, not alphabetic
Written from right to left
Images of some explored signs of Indus Script are given below.

Harappan Religion
Pieces of evidence for religious belief

Mother goddesses (terracotta figurines of women, heavily jeweled, some

with elaborate head-dresses)
Rare stone statuary of men like Priest-king (stone statuary of men in an
almost standardized posture, seated with one hand on the knee).
The Great Bath (ritual bath).
The fire altars were found at Kalibangan and Lothal.
Ritual scenes in the seals.
Unicorn (the one-horned animal) depicted on seals.
Plant motifs on seal(nature worship)
Proto-Shiva/Pashupati (a figure shown in seal seated cross-legged in a
“yogic” posture, surrounded by animals).
Conical stone objects- linga worship
Linga- A Linga is a polished stone worshiped as a symbol of Shiva.
Shamans- Shamans are men or women who claim magical and healing
powers as well as the ability to communicate with the other world
Weight for Exchanges
Exchanges were regulated by a system of weights.
Weights were made of a stone called chert.
Shape generally cubical with no markings.
The lower denominations of weights were binary (1, 2, 4,8, 16, 32, etc. up to
12,800)
The higher denominations followed the decimal system.

Ancient Authority
Some think there was a single ruler in Harappa.
Some feel there was no single ruler but several rulers.
Some archaeologists believe that Harappan society had no rulers.

Indirect Evidence of the presence of an Administration.

The similarity in artifacts

Labour was mobilized to make bricks and construct massive walls and
platforms.
The evidence for planned settlements
The standardized ratio of brick size
The establishment of settlements near sources of raw material.
A large building found at Mohenjodaro was labeled as a palace by
archaeologists.
A stone statue from Mohenjodaro was labeled as the “priest-king.
End of Harappan Civilization
Evidence for the End of Harappan Civilisation

By c. 1800 BCE, most of the Mature Harappan sites were abandoned.

Expansion of population into new settlements in Gujarat, Haryana, and
western Uttar Pradesh.
Few Harappan sites after 1900 BCE show the disappearance of the
distinctive artifacts of the civilization – weights, seals, unique beads.
Writing, long-distance trade, and craft specialization also disappeared.
House construction techniques deteriorated, and large public structures
were no longer produced.
Overall, artifacts and settlements indicate a rural way of life called “Late
Harappan” or “successor cultures.”

Possible causes for the end of Harappan Civilization

Climatic change
Deforestation
Excessive floods
Earthquakes
Epidemics
The shifting of rivers
The Drying up of rivers
Invasion of Aryans

Aryan Invasion Theory

R.E.M. Wheeler, then Director-General of the ASI, believes the Aryan

invasion destroyed Harappans.
There was evidence of a Massacre at Deadman Lane in Mohenjodaro.
Indra, the Aryan war-god, is called Puramdara, the fort-destroyer in Rigveda,
the earliest known text in the subcontinent.
In the 1960s, an archaeologist named George Dales questioned the evidence
of a massacre in Mohenjodaro.
Skulls found in Mohenjodaro do not belong same period
There was no evidence for war between Aryans and Harappans(only 26 dead
bodies found there)
Aryans reached India around 1500 BCE.