The Harappan Civilisation

(Time-span: c. 2600 to 1700 BC)

The Harappan Civilisation
The Harappan Civilisation, also known as the Indus Civilisation, was the culmination of a long and
sustained cultural evolution that took place in the plains, valleys, and surrounding regions of a
mighty river in the northwest of India: the Indus.

This river, with its many tributaries, is still the lifeline of Punjab and Sind – being the basis of their
agricultural prosperity; similarly, along the banks of the Indus developed the first major civilisation
of the Indian sub-continent. Substantial human settlements also existed along the banks of other
nearby rivers, the now dried up Ghaggar– Hakra, the Saraswati and the Drasadvati.

Our evidence of these settlements is drawn from the earliest of the Old Indian Vedic literature and
from the various modern geological and archaeological surveys
Harappan
Sites
• The mature phase of the
Harappan Civilisation, the
specifically urban phase,
lasted between about
2600 and 1900.
• The very first roots of this
civilisation go back even
farther, to 7000 bc, the
earliest date assigned to
the findings at Mehrgarh.
hindsight of history

• Ground breaking discoveries of the ruins at Mohenjo Daro and Harappa in the
1920s. Historians then radically revised their interpretation of early Indian history
in two stages.
• The belief that Indian civilisation started with the Aryans sometime around 1500
BC had to be discarded, and the new consensus was that it went back to at least
3000 BC.
• the Harappan Civilisation go back to the Neolithic villages of Baluchistan, as at
Mehrgarh, and there is no evidence of the Mesopotamian or any other foreign
influence at least in the shaping of the mature phase of this civilisation.
 • The first phase covered the nineteenth century. The
earliest pioneer was Charles Masson. travelled in the
1820s to the Punjab, where he first encountered the
remains of Harappa. He described the site as a
‘ruinous brick castle’ with high walls and towers, and
Phases of noticed a large number of fine and standard-size
bricks there.
progress in • Lieutenant Alexander Burns who, while making a

Harappan historic journey up the River Indus, also visited

Harappa. Burns described its ruins as extensive and

archaeology calculated that the place was 3 miles in

circumference. He too noted that there were a large
number of bricks, but that there was not an entire
building standing
Excavations
Alexander Cunningham, the first director general of the
Archaeological Survey of India, he decided to visit Harappa.

discovered was a seal made of unpolished but smooth black

stone, on which was deeply engraved a bull, without hump, with
two stars under the neck, along with an inscription in six
characters. This seal, which is now in the British Museum, is the
first of hundreds that are inextricably associated with the
Harappan Culture.

John Marshall, as the new director general of the Archaeological

Survey of India and ordered a systematic excavation of Harappa
in 1914. in 1920 that one of his deputies, Dahya Ram Sahni
found three more seals with further curious pictographic
legends.
 Excavations

From 1925 to 1927 Marshall, in collaboration with a team of

brilliant Indian deputies, such as M.S. Vats and K.N. Dikshit, worked
and ‘left India two thousand years older.

The third major phase opened in 1944 with the appointment of

Mortimer Wheeler as director general of the Archaeological with
new methods of controlled stratigraphic excavation and recording.

Fresh discoveries are continually being reported, such as the one

about a 3,500-year-old stone axe engraved with the Harappan script
being recently found in Tamil Nadu, indicating a much broader span
of Harappan influence in the sub-continent and a closer historical
link between the regions of India.

The most critical excavation of the postwar period took place at

Mehrgarh in Baluchistan in 1974–5, under the supervision of
Jean-François Jarrige, who led a joint Franco-Pakistani team. It was
the work of this team that demonstrated the thread of
archaeological continuity from the earliest foundations of Mehrgarh
in the seventh millennium bc to the great cities of the Indus.
Understanding the Mature Harappan
phase

• The mature phase is essentially the high urban phase. The

rich material evidence dug out from the ground by
dedicated teams of specialists and labourers and
systematically studied and interpreted.
• The evidence from the mature period covers a time-span
of some 700 years, but at any particular site one may
discover finds from different epochs.
• the Harappan script or the peculiarly shaped figurines and
strange animals on seals: it is very difficult to investigate
them
The extent and hierarchy of settlements- The first
tier

• Owing to the variability of their size and importance, a four-tier hierarchy

of settlement forms has been proposed.
• The first tier consists of five very large sites, at Harappa (west Punjab),
Mohenjo Daro (Sind), Dholavira (Gujarat), Rakhigari (Haryana) and
Ganveriwala (Bahawalpur). Three of these sites each cover an area of 100
hectares, or 250 acres, while each of the other two is 80 hectares, or 200
acres. The discoveries at Harappa and Mohenjo Daro have been like
benchmarks against which the relative urbanism of other sites can be
judged.
The Second and Third tier

• The second tier consists of thirty-two sites, each of which has an area of about
20 hectares, or 50 acres. Although smaller in size, they have walled enclosures
and other architectural features similar to the first-tier sites. The two prominent
sites in this tier are Kalibangan (Haryana) and Lothal (Gujarat).
• A third tier of settlements, more numerous than those of the second, consists of
such sites as Surkotada and Kuntasi (both in Gujarat), which cover on average 3
hectares, or 7.5 acres. Aspects of these sites, such as fortifications and their
ceramics, provide evidence of a distinct Mature Harappan style.
fourth and lowest tier

• consists of nearly 15,000 settlements, each covering about 1 hectare, or

2.5 acres. These were either villages or centres for specialised crafts.
Balakot (Sind) and Nageshwar (Gujarat) are typical sites.
• In the absence of substantial archaeological evidence of a central
political authority, one can only conclude that there was a great deal of
cultural but not political uniformity.
Civic planning and
great structures
Citadel and Great Bath

• There were many mud bricks that belonged to the period before the middle of the third
millennium bc, but the ones that truly fascinated the archaeologists were those from
about 2600 bc onwards.
• They were bricks baked in kilns fired with charcoal from the wood of the dense forests
which, at that time, must have been plentiful throughout the Indus valley.
• At Mohenjo Daro, there appeared, from below, the ruins of an entire city, extremely well
planned and divided into sectors or mounds. In the west there was a high citadel mound
with strong fortifications, and in the east was the lower city with smaller mounds.
• On the citadel mound there were the ruins of two or three large public buildings, of which
the Great Bath is the best known today
 CITADEL AND
LOWER TOWN
MOHENJODARO
 GREAT BATH

• Because of its size and

proximity to the Great
Bath, it was tentatively
identified as the house
of the chief priest or
several priests, and was
labelled the ‘college of
priests’.
Streets

• Another building looks like a granary,

although archaeologists are not entirely
sure; and a third building could possibly
be a great hall.

• In the lower city, the streets were

arranged in grid patterns, with major
north–south and east–west streets
intersecting each other, while numerous
smaller streets and alleyways
criss-crossed them. In between them
were constructed blocks of houses,
none of which opened onto the main
street.
Features of Houses

• A feature of houses, public buildings and streets that fascinates

the modern observer or tourist was a system of clean water
supply to the inhabitants, along with latrine facilities by which
the waste was channelled off without coming into contact with
clean water.
• Each house had its own well, and one authority has calculated
that there were nearly 700 wells in the city. These, along with the
cisterns and reservoirs, would have ensured that the citizenry
had sufficient water for drinking, cooking, bathing and cleaning.
• The skills of their engineers and plumbers in laying out separate
inflows and drains under the streets and buildings deserve
admiration.
Drainage System in Harappa

• Well laid-out streets and side lanes associated with an efficient and wellplanned
drainage system are other notable features of Harappan settlements.
• Even the smaller towns and villages had impressive drainage systems. The
sewage chutes and pipes were separate from drains for collecting rain water.
• Drains and water chutes from the second storey were often built inside the wall,
with an exit opening just above the street drain.
• terracotta drain pipes directed waste water into open street drains made of
baked bricks. These connected into large drains along the main streets, which
emptied their contents into the fields outside the city wall.
Water and Personal Hygeine

• The Harappans made elaborate arrangements for water for drinking and bathing.
The emphasis on providing water for bathing, evident at several sites, suggests
that they were very particular about personal hygiene.
• It is possible that frequent bathing also had a religious or ritualistic aspect. The
sources of water were rivers, wells, and reservoirs or cisterns
• Mohenjodaro is noted for its large number of wells. Harappa had much fewer
wells but a depression in the centre of the city may represent a tank or reservoir
that served the city’s inhabitants. There are a few wells at Dholavira, which is
noted more for its impressive water reservoirs lined with stone.
Profile of Harappa

• The mounds of Harappa cover an extensive area of about 150 ha. The Ravi river
flows some 10 km away from the site.
• The higher citadel mound lies to the west, with a lower but larger lower town to
its south-east. South of the citadel mound is a cemetery of the mature Harappan
phase. The citadel at Harappa was shaped roughly like a parallelogram.
• It was surrounded by a mud-brick wall with massive towers and gateways, and
the structures inside were raised on one or more high platforms. Because of the
damaged nature of the mound, clear profiles of the main citadel structures, such
as those available for Mohenjodaro, are lacking.
 CITADEL AND
ADJACENT AREA-
HARAPPA
Citadel and Granary

• To the north of the citadel complex, a number of structures were located on a mound
surrounded by a mud-brick wall. This seems to represent a northern suburb connected with
craft activity. One walled complex had at least 15 units each consisting of a courtyard in front
and a room at the back, arranged in 2 rows with a lane in between. This has been interpreted
as workmen’s quarters.
• To the north of this complex were at least 18 circular brick platforms, with an average
diameter of a little over 3 m, made of bricks set on edge. These may have been threshing
platforms for grain. A wooden mortar for pounding grain may have been fitted into their
centre, as husked barley and straw were found here.
• The ‘granary’ was located to the north of these platforms. It consisted of 12 units arranged in
2 rows of 6 rooms, divided by a central passage. There was probably a wooden
superstructure supported in places by large columns.
Kalibangan

• Kalibangan (literally, ‘black bangles’) gets its name from the thick
clusters of black bangles lying all over the surface of its mounds.
• This site lies on the banks of the dry bed of the Ghaggar river, in the
Hanumangarh district of Rajasthan. It is fairly small, with a perimeter
ranging from 1 to 3 km.
• There is a smaller western mound (known as KLB-1) and a larger eastern
one (known as KLB-2), with an open space in between. KLB-1 has
evidence of early and mature Harappan occupation, while KLB-2
represents only a mature Harappan occupation.
KALIBANG
AN MAIN
STREET
Citadal

• The mature Harappan settlement on the western mound at Kalibangan was divided into
two parts by an inner wall with stairs on either side. The southern sector had no houses,
but is noted for a series of mud-brick platforms with a row of seven clay-plastered pits.
Nearby were a well and bath pavements.
• The pits have been interpreted as fire altars, i.e., sacrificial pits in which offerings were
made into the fire, and the area seems to have been associated with community rituals.
• The buildings in the northern part of the citadel mound seem to have been houses where
people associated with the rituals performed in the southern sector may have lived.
There is a burial ground about 200 m west–south-west of the citadel. Apart from regular
extended burials, there were also some circular pits with grave goods (pottery, bronze
mirrors, etc.), but no human remains.
Streets and Sewages

• The lower town was a rough parallelogram in plan, enclosed by a mudbrick wall. Several
streets were traced here. Oblong fire altars were found in houses, with a central stele
(rectangular piece) around which terracotta cakes, ash, and charcoal were found.
• While corbelled drains made of bricks have been found on the citadel mound, street
drains of the Mohenjodaro type were absent in the lower town at Kalibangan.
• The sewage from houses was discharged into troughs or large jars embedded in the
ground outside. The large number of bangles of terracotta, shell, alabaster, steatite, and
faience at the site indicate that bangle making was an important craft.
• Other interesting artefacts include an ivory comb, a copper buffalo or bull, what appears
to be a stone phallic emblem with a base, and a terracotta fragment incised with a
horned figure.
Banawali

• Banawali in Hissar district (Haryana) is a

fortified site measuring about 300 × 500 m,
close to the dry bed of the Rangoi river. The
site shows evidence of the early, mature, and
late Harappan phases.
• A wall divided the fortified area into two
sections— a higher citadel area and a lower
town. The citadel was semi-elliptical in plan
and had its own mud-brick fortifications,
surrounded by a moat. A few streets and
structures were identified inside. A ramp led
from the citadel into the lower town.
Fire Altars

• The mud-brick houses had

raised platforms (chabutaras)
outside. Baked bricks were
used only for wells, bathing
pavements, and drains.
• Several houses at Banawali
gave evidence of fire altars. In
one place, these altars were
associated with an apsidal
structure which may have had
some sort of ritualistic function.
Lothal
• Lothal is located between the Sabarmati river and its
tributary, the Bhogavo, in Saurashtra in Gujarat. The sea is
now about 16–19 km away, but at one time, boats from
the Gulf of Cambay could have sailed right up to the place.
• It was a modest-sized settlement (280 × 225 m), roughly
rectangular in plan, surrounded by a wall which was
initially made of mud and later of mud- and burnt bricks,
with the entrance on the south. There was a burial ground
in the north-west, outside the enclosing walls.
Citadel and Terracotta

• The citadel (called the ‘Acropolis’ by the excavator S. R. Rao) was roughly
trapezoidal in plan and consisted of an area elevated on a mud-brick
platform in the southern part of the site.
• Remains of residential buildings, streets, lanes, bathing pavements, and
drains were traced here. To the south of the residential area was a
complex identified as a warehouse, where goods may have been packed
and stored.
• Sixty-five terracotta sealings with impressions of reed, woven fibre,
matting, and twisted cords on one side and impressions of Harappan
seals on the other were found here.
Dockyards

• The most distinctive feature of Lothal is

the dockyard, which lies on the eastern
edge of the site. This is a roughly
trapezoidal basin, enclosed by walls of
burnt bricks. The eastern and western
walls measured 212 m and 215 m
respectively in length, while those on the
north and south measured 37 m and 35 m.
• The dockyard had provisions for
maintaining a regular level of water by
means of a sluice gate and a spill channel.
A mud-brick platform along the western
embankment may have been the wharf
where goods were loaded and unloaded.
An alternative interpretation of this
structure as a water reservoir is not
convincing.
Dholavira

• Dholavira is located on Kadir island in the Rann of Kutch in Gujarat. In

protohistoric times, water levels in the Rann may have been higher than
they are today, allowing boats to sail from the coast right up to the site.

• The architecture of Dholavira shows a large-scale use of sandstone,

combined in places with mud-brick — a feature of the Harappan sites of
Gujarat. The layout of this settlement is unlike that of any other Harappan
site.

• A lower town lay to the east. An interesting feature is a large open area
(called the ‘stadium’) between the castle–bailey and the middle town,
which may have been used for special ceremonial occasions.

• There was also substantial evidence of habitation outside the fortification

wall, which may represent a suburb of the city. The site seems to be
looking out towards the sea and it must have been an important stopping
point on busy maritime trade routes.
Dholavira Tank Northern Gate
PLAN OF DHOLAVIRA

• The middle town of Dholavira was

surrounded by a 360 × 250 m wall
with four gateways. The lower town
gave evidence of houses and areas
where various types of craft activities
such as bead making, shell working,
and pottery making were carried out.
• Outside the city walls, there was
evidence of additional habitation and
burials. The cemetery area revealed
rectangular pit burials lined with
blocks of stone, but there were no
skeletal remains. These may have
been memorials to the dead.
Water Harvesting

• The city had an impressive and unique water

harvesting and management system. It can be
noted that this area receives less than 160 cm
of rain every year and is very prone to droughts.
• The site is flanked by two streams— the Manhar
and Mandsar. Dams were built across these to
channelize their water into reservoirs. Several
large, deep water cisterns and reservoirs (at
least 16) located in the citadel and lower town
preserved precious stores of rain water.
Food security, occupations and
trading systems
 • Wheat has been found a Mohenjodaro andt Harappa; barley at Mohenjodaro,
Harappa, an Kalibangan; and sesamum at Harappa. Harappa has also given

TERRACOTTA evidence of watermelon seeds, peas, and dates. Rice occurs at Harappa,
Kalibangan, Lothal, and Rangpur. Millets have been identified at Harappa,

PLOUGH Surkotada, and Shortughai. Grapes were known, so was henna (mehendi).
• Reference has already been made to the discovery of a ploughed field at early
FOUND AT Harappan levels at Kalibangan. The continuing use of the plough into the mature
Harappan phase can be inferred. Terracotta models of ploughs at Bahawalpur
BANAWALI and Banawali give further evidence of the use of this implement.
 Absence of a Unified Empire
• The absence of evidence indicating a unified empire or city-states in the
Harappan system does not imply an absence of organisation. The complex civic
planning of the settlements of the first three tiers and the standard of living of the
people, superior by far to the semi-rural level of the Early Harappan phase,
suggest to us a high degree of competency in management and administration
by those in authority.
• The western citadel area was, generally speaking, the headquarters of the elite,
although large public buildings have been identified in different parts of the
metropolitan cities.
food supply
• The paramount concern of those in charge of the large settlements
was to ensure a continuous food supply for the inhabitants; this was
less than difficult because the larger sites were in proximity to varied
geographical zones with rich farming plains, river and coastal
fisheries, grazing lands for domestic animals, and dense forests.
• Sufficient food was brought into the cities by farmers, who sold
them to the state officials overseeing the great granaries.
• The seeds of wheat, barley, peas, melons, sesame and mustard
have all been found,
weights and measures
• There is a high probability that there were granaries at
both Mohenjo Daro and Harappa, although the two
structures were built on different plans.
• Standardised weights and measures, in graduated sizes
and calculated by decimal increments, were used in
commercial exchanges between the farmers and the
granary officials. There were also stringent trading
regulations.
• Animal husbandry was an important aspect of farming,
with the faunal bone remains and terracotta animal
images indicating the Harappan familiarity with varied
types of domesticated and wild animals.
busy settlements

• A variety of craftsmen, traders and workmen were occupied

everywhere, particularly in the lower city. The most important
crafts were in the fields of textiles, ceramic manufacturing,
stone carving, household artefacts such as razors, bowls,
cups, vases and spindles, and the production of jewellery,
statuettes, figurines and children’s toys, some of which were
mechanical in function.
• The Harappans knew how to manufacture bronze by mixing
copper and tin, but both metals were difficult to obtain; so,
although the Harappans were the first Bronze Age people of
Indian history, there are few remains of bronze tools. Gold
and silver were widely used in the manufacture of pendants,
armlets, beads and other decorative ornaments.
Brick manufacture and masonry
engaged many workers, and a large
number of artisans were engaged in the
potter’s trade.
Seals
• The most captivating of the smaller material finds from the
ruins of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa are the nearly 2,000
inscribed steatite or soapstone seals, which indicate that the
making of seals and seal-cutting were extremely important
occupations; a specialised class of people were engaged in
their production.
Trade

• All traders had their stalls full of

consumer goods related to the
various crafts; food and drinks
were sold by both farmers and
city people. Unskilled labourers
would have worked in street
cleaning, garbage collecting,
well-digging, masonry and
transporting people in ox-drawn
wagons.
JEWELLERY NECKLACES OF CARNELIAN BEADS GOLD BANGLES OF TERRACOTTA COPPER
STONEWARE LAPIS LAZULI BEADS GOLD SPIRAL PIN GOLD AND TERRACOTTA BEADS

• The craft and manufacturing activities in

the settlements depended for their
prosperity on the internal and external
trade networks. Raw materials from
across the region were imported by the
middlemen who employed craftsmen and
skilled workers to manufacture the
finished products to satisfy the consumer
market.
• Certain places, particularly ports such as
Lothal, acted as or warehouse
depots. Copper ore was imported from a
number of sites for making sharp-edged
bronze saws that could efficiently cut
through hard shells, collected from a
number of coastal sites and passed on to
the jewellers who fashioned bracelets and
bangles from them.
Precious
Stones
• Precious stones were used
for making ornaments and
utensils. Agate and jasper,
the hard stones imported
from Kutch and Gujarat, were
much valued as they long
retained their brightness and
polish. The softer varieties,
such as turquoise, lapis lazuli
or carnelian, were used in the
manufacture of assortments
of much prized beads.
Harappan Trade
• Raw materials such as stones, marine shells and
precious metals were bulk-transported across land
by bullocks and buffalo-drawn carts and, on the
River Indus and its tributaries, and between coastal
ports, by boats, sometimes depicted on the
Harappan seals.
• Enterprising traders who pioneered commercial
links with foreign countries during the Mature
Harappan phase. The countries involved were
Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Mesopotamia and
Oman.
• The only Mature Harappan site outside the
sub-continent was at Shortugai in Afghanistan, and
it has been argued that its position as a transit
point for many routes in that region encouraged a
settlement of Indus traders engaged in the
exchange of goods.
Trade
have been found in both Turkmenistan and Iran, the latter country providing the main land
route to Mesopotamia. A flourishing sea trade linked the Indus settlements with Oman
and southern Mesopotamia.

A Mesopotamian text from the reign of King Sargon of Akkad refers to boats bringing the
cargo from a place called Meluhha, now identified as the Indus valley; these boats
probably sailed from the port of Lothal on the Gujarat–Kathiawar coast.

In the absence of reliable trade figures it is difficult to find out whether the balance of
trade worked in favour of the Indus zone or the foreign countries. However, far more Indus
valley products have been retrieved in regions outside India than foreign products within
the Indus zone.
Religious and Funerary
Practices
Mother Goddess

• The worship of female goddesses associated with fertility has long been held as
one of the major features of Harappan religion.
• This conclusion is based on the following factors: (a) the concerns that agricultural
societies are invariably known to have with fertility; (b) cross-cultural parallels with
other ancient civilizations; (c) the importance of goddess worship in later Hinduism;
and (d) the discovery of a large number of terracotta female figurines that were
labelled ‘Mother Goddesses’.
• The attributes of the figurines and the contexts in which they were found have to be
considered carefully before assigning them a religious or cultic significance.
variety in the form of female
figurines

• a religious significance is a slim female

figure with a distinctive fan-shaped
headdress, wearing a short skirt. She is
heavily ornamented with necklaces, armlets,
bangles, anklets, and earrings.
• Some of the figurines have cup-like
attachments and flowers on either side of
the head. In certain cases, the cup-like
attachments have traces of black residue,
suggesting that they were used to burn oil
or some sort of essence. Such figurines
may have been religious images
worshipped in households, votive offerings
made to a deity, or part of the
paraphernalia of domestic rituals.
Male God

• Marshall suggested that the

Harappans also worshipped a male
god represented on a steatite seal
discovered at Mohenjodaro, usually
referred to as the Pashupati seal.
This shows a male figure with a
buffalo horn headdress seated on a
dais with his legs bent double under
him, heels together, toes pointed
down. He saw a striking
resemblance between this deity
and the Shiva of later Hindu
mythology, who is also known as
Mahayogi (the great yogi) and
Pashupati (lord of the animals).
Harappan Seals
• The Harappan seals, sealings, amulets, and
copper tablets depict a number of trees,
plants, and animals, some of which may
have had cultic significance. The pipal
(Ficus religiosa) tree appears often and may
have been venerated.
• Some of the animals depicted on seals and
sealings— for instance, the humped and
humpless bull, snake, elephant, rhinoceros,
antelope, gharial, and tiger— may have had
cultic significance. The bull, a symbol of
male virility in many ancient cultures, seems
to have been particularly important.
Great Bath

• The Great Bath was probably the scene of an elite ritual activity involving
ceremonial bathing. A triangular terracotta cake found at Kalibangan has a carving
of a horned deity on one side and an animal being dragged by a rope by a human on
the other. The latter has been tentatively interpreted as suggesting the practice of
animal sacrifice.
• A Kalibangan cylinder seal shows a woman flanked by two men who hold her with
one hand and raise swords over her head with the other; this may represent a scene
of human sacrifice. The most striking evidence suggesting ritualistic practices
comes from the ‘fire altars’ found on the citadel mound at Kalibangan.
Harappan cemeteries

• Harappan cemeteries have been located at sites such as Harappa, Kalibangan, Lothal,
Rakhigarhi, and Surkotada. The most common method of burial was to place the body of the
deceased in an extended position, with the head towards the north, in a simple pit or brick
chamber.
• Grave goods including food, pottery, tools, and ornaments were placed along with the body,
but they were never too many or lavish. Clearly, the Harappans preferred to use wealth in life
rather than bury it with their dead.
• At Harappa, there was a coffin with a shroud made of reeds. Symbolic burials with grave
goods but no skeletons were found at Kalibangan. Fractional burials (where the body was
exposed to the elements and the bones then gathered and buried) were found at
Mohenjodaro and Harappa.
Sculpture, script and
mathematics
Harappan heritages

• a solid figure of a robed priest-king (only 17.

8 cm high), mentioned earlier, and the
figurine of the so called Dancing Girl of
Mohenjo Daro, in her graceful and elegant
pose, quite nude except for her bangles and
a necklace.
• The first one is wonderfully crafted in stone
and foreshadows the great stone art of
India in the historic period. The Dancing Girl,
on the other hand, is a bronze product,
made by the lost-wax process, and it too
provides a model for the later copper and
bronze objects made in the subcontinent.
scripts
• used for inscribing on a variety of objects:
soapstone or steatite seals, impressible
materials such as clay or soft metal, and
objects such as stone or copper tablets,
bracelets, marble, ivory, shells and bangles.
• Nearly 4,200 inscribed objects have been
recovered, with Mohenjo Daro and Harappa
accounting for some 85 per cent. These
signs are far too many to constitute an
alphabetic or syllabic script; they are mostly
logo-syllabic characters. Only eight texts
longer than fifteen signs have been found
 Dholavira ‘ signboard’

• The script was written from right to left, but started from the left when it carried on to the second
line.
• the most striking Harappan inscription – containing nine signs, each 37 cm high and 25 to 27 cm
broad, and each made by joining crystalline pieces and engraved on a wooden board – has been
found at Dholavira.
• The Dholavira ‘signboard’ may or may not indicate a high level of urban literacy, but it does
indicate a civic use of writing.
Harappan Writings
• The evidence of writing on pottery suggests a wider
use in craft production and economic transactions.
Harappan potters sometimes inscribed letters onto
pots before firing.
• a very small proportion of Harappan written material
survives, and that people wrote on perishable
material as well. The evidence of a common script
all over the vast Harappan culture zone shows a high
level of cultural integration.
• The virtual disappearance of the script by c. 1700
BCE suggests both a close connection of writing
with city life and the lack of sufficient downward
percolation of writing.
The Decline
of Urban Life
The eclipse of the Harappan Civilisation

• Decline had set in at Mohenjodaro by 2200 BCE and the settlement

had come to an end by 2000 BCE. In some places, the civilization
continued till 1800 BCE. Apart from the dates, the pace of decline
also varied. Mohenjodaro and Dholavira give a picture of gradual
decline, while at Kalibangan and Banawali, city life ended all of a
sudden.
• it was believed that the Indus cities were destroyed by the Aryans
who entered India from Iran and Afghanistan through northwestern
passes such as the Bolan and the Khyber. This theory was based on
two sets of evidence. One was the reference in the Rig-Veda, the
premier Vedic text, that the Aryan god Indra destroyed a hostile
people called the Dasas or Dasyus who lived in fortified places
called .
Theory of Aryan Invasions
admitted the validity of other reasons for the Harappan
decline, but nevertheless stuck to his claim about the
massacre

Wheeler also pointed to certain skeletal remains found at

Mohenjodaro as proof of the Aryan massacre. He
subsequently modified his hypothesis, to the extent that he
acknowledged that other factors such as floods, decline in
trade, and over-utilization of natural resources may have had
a role to play. But he insisted that the ultimate blow was
given by an Aryan invasion
Theory of Natural disasters

• Scholars now consider a combination of natural and socio-economic factors to be the most
likely reason for the decline of the Indus cities. Two of the natural factors could be the
geological and the climatic. It is presumed that the Indus region experienced severe tectonic
disturbances brought about by earthquakes at the beginning of the second millennium bc.
These upheavals not only affected the normal course of the Indus and its tributaries but also
helped dry up the nearby Ghaggar–Hakra river.
• M. R. Mughal’s (1997) study of settlements in this region shows a drastic reduction in the
number of sites as the river dried up.
episodes of Indus floods

• M. R. Sahni (1956), and later Robert L. Raikes (1964) and George F. Dales (1966), argued that the flood at
Mohenjodaro were the result of tectonic movements.
• Dales suggested that these may have occurred at a place called Sehwan, about 90 miles downstream from
Mohenjodaro, where there is evidence of rock faulting.
• The theory is that tectonic movements led to the creation of a gigantic natural dam that prevented the Indus from
flowing towards the sea, turning the area around Mohenjodaro into a huge lake. T
• H. T. Lambrick’s hypothesis (1967), describes as purely circumstantial evidence, that the Indus changed its
course, moving some 30 miles eastwards, starving Mohenjodaro and its inhabitants of water.
• Modern satellite imagery confirms the theory that the dramatic shifts in the river courses might have created
great floods that could have cut off the food-producing areas from the cities themselves.88 The quantities of silt
layers in the upper levels of Mohenjo Daro, which are today many feet above the river course, are also a witness to
those floods.
Rise in Rainfall

• Research into the history of rainfall patterns brings out the climatic factor of the decline.
During the Mature Harappan period, about 2500 bc, there was a great rise in the amount of
rainfall, but by the beginning of the second millennium bc it had dropped markedly. This
too would have had a damaging effect on food production, further resulting in
depopulation of the cities.
• One of the reasons for the rainfall’s unpredictability was the extreme deforestation and
loss of trees caused by the burning of charcoal in brick-baking kilns. With the rivers shifting
their courses, the rainfall declining and sufficient food failing to arrive from the countryside,
we have to recognise a slow but inevitable collapse of the Indus system
combination of factors

• The Indus cities no longer had surplus produce for trade, and the ensuing loss of
revenue would have affected all classes of people. The city authorities became
powerless to prevent civil unrest or brigandage, and groups of people were
continually leaving the cities for their own safety and survival.
• As the cities became poorer, their services declined dramatically. The drains and
sewers of Mohenjo Daro, kept in good and clean working order for centuries,
clogged up with waste and excreta, resulting in disease and pestilence. By about
1700 bc the desolated Mohenjo Daro had become a ghost town.
Continuity

• The collapse of the Indus system was really a collapse of its urban features. Its culture did not
cease to exist wholesale. The sophisticated lifestyle of the Indus people had certainly ended, but
their folk culture continued at the village level.
• Several of the beliefs and rituals, and the simple crafts and skills for making various utensils and
artefacts, along with many rural features, survived and developed into proto-historic cultures in
the surrounding regions.
• The two important migrations of people, caused particularly by the accelerated drying up of the
Ghaggar–Hakra river during the later phase, were in the direction of the Ganga–Yamuna doab
and Gujarat, leading towards the Deccan.
• Apart from these two big inter-regional movements, local migrations from the urban settlements
into the rural areas similarly occurred.
regional cultures

• Archaeologically speaking, the cultures that resulted were relatively quite advanced, in the
sense that they evolved as part of the Chalcolithic/Bronze Age, and did not regress to the
skills level of the Stone Age.
• Different names have been assigned to these lesser regional cultures, such as the
Ochre-Coloured Pottery Culture in the Ganges plain, the Jhukar Culture in Sind, the Cemetery
H Culture in the Punjab, the Banas Culture in Mewar in Rajasthan or the Malwa Culture of
Madhya Pradesh.
• Historians identify these cultures on the basis of their pottery styles, grave goods and burial
patterns and the quality of ornaments and tools, particularly those of copper. Some of these
cultures survived for many centuries, thus continuing many of the non-urban Harappan
traditions.