Ind Us Valley Civilisation

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Indus Valley CivilizationFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation , search

Extent of the Indus Valley CivilizationBronze AgeThis box:

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Chalcolithic

Near East (3300-1200 BCE)

Caucasus , Anatolia , Levant , Egypt , Mesopotamia , Elam , JiroftBronze Age collapse

Europe (3200-600 BCE)

Aegean (Minoan )CaucasusBasarabi culture

Co ofeni culturePecica cultureOtomani cultureWietenberg cultureCatacomb cultureSrubna cultureBeaker cultureUnetice cultureTumulus cultureUrnfield cultureHallstatt cultureAtlantic Bronze AgeBronze Age Britain

Nordic Bronze AgeItalian Bronze Age
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cities and settlements have been found, mainly in the general region of the Ghaggar-Hakra river and its tributaries. Among the settlements were the major urban centres of Harappa , Lothal , Mohenjo-daro (UNESCO World Heritage Site ), Dholavira , Kalibanga , and Rakhigarhi .

The Harappan language is not directly attested and its affiliation is uncertain since theIndus script is still undeciphered. A relationship with the Dravidian or Elamo-Dravidian language family is favourited by most accounts. [12]

Contents 1 Discovery and excavation 2 Chronology 3 Geography 4 Early Harappan

5 Mature Harappano 5.1 Citieso 5.2 Scienceo 5.3 Arts and craftso 5.4 Trade and transportationo 5.5 Subsistenceo 5.6 Writing systemo 5.7 Religion

6 Late Harappan 7 Legacy 8 Historical context and linguistic affiliation 9 Developments in July 2010 10 See also 11 Notes and references 12 Bibliography

13 External links

Discovery and excavation
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Extent and major sites of the Indus Valley Civilization . The shaded area does notinclude recent excavations.

The ruins of Harrappa were first described in 1842 by Charles Masson in his Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan, and the Punjab , where

locals talked of an ancient city extending "thirteen cosses " (about 25 miles), but noarchaeological interest would attach to this for nearly a century. [13]

In 1856, General Alexander Cunningham, later director general of the archeologicalsurvey of northern India, visited Harappa where the British engineers John andWilliam Brunton were laying the East Indian Railway Company line connecting thecities of Karachi and Lahore . John wrote: "I was much exercised in my mind how wewere to get ballast for the line of the railway". They were told of an ancient ruinedcity near the lines, called Brahminabad. Visiting the city, he found it full of hard well-

burnt bricks, and, "convinced that there was a grand quarry for the ballast I wanted",the city of Brahminabad was reduced to ballast .[14] A few months later, further north,John's brother William Brunton's "section of the line ran near another ruined city,

bricks from which had already been used by villagers in the nearby village of Harappaat the same site. These bricks now provided ballast along 93 miles (150 km) of therailroad track running from Karachi to Lahore" [14] .

Excavated ruins of Mohenjo-daro , with the Great Bath in the front

In 187275 Alexander Cunningham published the first Harappan seal (with anerroneous identification as Brahmi letters) .[15] It was half a century later, in 1912, thatmore Harappan seals were discovered by J. Fleet, prompting an excavation campaign

under Sir John Hubert Marshall in 192122 and resulting in the discovery of thecivilization at Harappa by Sir John Marshall, Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni andMadho Sarup Vats, and at Mohenjo-daro by Rakhal Das Banerjee , E. J. H. MacKay,and Sir John Marshall. By 1931, much of Mohenjo-Daro had been excavated, butexcavations continued, such as that led by Sir Mortimer Wheeler , director of theArchaeological Survey of India in 1944. Among other archaeologists who worked onIVC sites before the partition of the subcontinent in 1947 were Ahmad Hasan Dani , Brij Basi Lal , Nani Gopal Majumdar, and Sir Marc Aurel Stein .

Following the Partition of India , the bulk of the archaeological finds were inherited byPakistan where most of the IVC was based, and excavations from this time includethose led by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1949, archaeological adviser to the Governmentof Pakistan. Outposts of the Indus Valley civilization were excavated as far west as
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Sutkagan Dor in Baluchistan , as far north as at Shortugai on the Amu Darya (theriver's ancient name was Oxus ) in current Afghanistan .

Chronology

Main article: Periodization of the Indus Valley Civilization

The mature phase of the Harappan civilization lasted from c. 2600 to 1900 BCE. Withthe inclusion of the predecessor and successor culturesEarly Harappan and LateHarappan, respectivelythe entire Indus Valley Civilization may be taken to havelasted from the 33rd to the 14th centuries BCE. Two terms are employed for the

periodization of the IVC: Phases and Eras .[16][ 17] The Early Harappan, MatureHarappan, and Late Harappan phases are also called the Regionalisation, Integration,and Localisation eras, respectively, with the Regionalization era reaching back to the

Neolithic Mehrgarh II period. "Discoveries at Mehrgarh changed the entire concept of

the Indus civilization", according to Ahmad Hasan Dani , professor emeritus at Quaid-e-Azam University , Islamabad . "There we have the whole sequence, right from the beginning of settled village life." [18]

Date range Phase Era7000 - 5500

BCE Mehrgarh I (aceramic Neolithic)Early Food Producing

Era5500-3300 Mehrgarh II-VI (ceramic Neolithic)

Regionalisation Era5500-2600

3300-2600 Early Harappan3300-2800 Harappan 1 (Ravi Phase)

2800-2600 Harappan 2 (Kot Diji Phase, Nausharo I,Mehrgarh VII)

2600-1900Mature Harappan (Indus Valley

Civilization)Integration Era2600-2450 Harappan 3A (Nausharo II)

2450-2200 Harappan 3B2200-1900 Harappan 3C

1900-1300 Late Harappan ( Cemetery H ); OchreColoured PotteryLocalisation Era1900-1700 Harappan 4

1700-1300 Harappan 51300-300 Painted Gray Ware , Northern Black PolishedWare (Iron Age) Indo-Gangetic Tradition

Geography

The Indus Valley Civilization encompassed most of Pakistan , extending fromBalochistan to Sindh , and extending into modern day Indian states of Gujarat ,Rajasthan , Haryana , and Punjab , with an upward reach to Rupar on the upper Sutlej .The geography of the Indus Valley put the civilizations that arose there in a highlysimilar situation to those in Egypt and Peru , with rich agricultural lands beingsurrounded by highlands, desert, and ocean. Recently, Indus sites have been
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discovered in Pakistan's northwestern Frontier Province as well. Other IVC coloniescan be found in Afghanistan while smaller isolated colonies can be found as far awayas Turkmenistan and in Gujarat . Coastal settlements extended from Sutkagan Dor [19] in Western Baluchistan to Lothal [20] in Gujarat . An Indus Valley site has been foundon the Oxus River at Shortughai in northern Afghanistan [21] , in the Gomal River valley

in northwestern Pakistan [22] , at Manda on the Beas River near Jammu ,[23] India, and atAlamgirpur on the Hindon River , only 28 km from Delhi [24] . Indus Valley sites have

been found most often on rivers, but also on the ancient seacoast [25] , for example,Balakot [26] , and on islands, for example, Dholavira [27] .

There is evidence of dry river beds overlapping with the Hakra channel in Pakistanand the seasonal Ghaggar River in India . Many Indus Valley (or Harappan ) sites have

been discovered along the Ghaggar-Hakra beds .[7] Among them are: Rupar ,Rakhigarhi , Sothi, Kalibangan , and Ganwariwala. [28] According to J. G. Shaffer andD. A. Lichtenstein, [29] the Harappan Civilization "is a fusion of the Bagor, Hakra, andKoti Dij traditions or 'ethnic groups' in the Ghaggar-Hakra valley on the borders of India and Pakistan" [7].

According to some archaeologists, over 500 Harappan sites have been discoveredalong the dried up river beds of the Ghaggar-Hakra River and its tributaries [30] , incontrast to only about 100 along the Indus and its tributaries [31] ; consequently, in their opinion, the appellation Indus Ghaggar-Hakra civilisation or Indus-Saraswaticivilisation is justified. However, these politically inspired arguments are disputed byother archaeologists who state that the Ghaggar-Hakra desert area has been leftuntouched by settlements and agriculture since the end of the Indus period and henceshows more sites than found in the alluvium of the Indus valley; second, that thenumber of Harappan sites along the Ghaggar-Hakra river beds have been exaggeratedand that the Ghaggar-Hakra, when it existed, was a tributary of the Indus, so the newnomenclature is redundant. [32] "Harappan Civilization" remains the correct one,according to the common archaeological usage of naming a civilization after its firstfindspot.

Early Harappan

The Early Harappan Ravi Phase, named after the nearby Ravi River , lasted from circa3300 BCE until 2800 BCE. It is related to the Hakra Phase, identified in the Ghaggar-Hakra River Valley to the west, and predates the Kot Diji Phase (2800-2600 BCE,Harappan 2), named after a site in northern Sindh , Pakistan , near Mohenjo Daro . Theearliest examples of the Indus script date from around 3000 BCE. [33]

The mature phase of earlier village cultures is represented by Rehman Dheri and Amri in Pakistan. [34] Kot Diji (Harappan 2) represents the phase leading up to MatureHarappan, with the citadel representing centralised authority and an increasinglyurban quality of life. Another town of this stage was found at Kalibangan in India onthe Hakra River. [35]

Trade networks linked this culture with related regional cultures and distant sources of raw materials, including lapis lazuli and other materials for bead-making. Villagershad, by this time, domesticated numerous crops, including peas , sesame seeds , dates ,
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te_note-25http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization#cite_note-26http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dholavirahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization#cite_note-27http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hakrahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar_Riverhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization#cite_note-possehl-7http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruparhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakhigarhihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalibanganhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization#cite_note-28http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization#cite_note-29http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization#cite_note-possehl-7http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization#cite_note-30http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Riverhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization#cite_note-31http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization#cite_note-32http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravi_Riverhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kot_Dijihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sindhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohenjo_Darohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_scripthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization#cite_note-parpola-33http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehman_Dherihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amri_(Pre-Harappa)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization#cite_note-34http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kot_Dijihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalibanganhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization#cite_note-35http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapis_lazulihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_seedhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_(fruit)


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and cotton , as well as various animals, including the water buffalo . Early Harappancommunities turned to large urban centres by 2600 BCE, from where the matureHarappan phase started.

Mature Harappan

By 2600 BCE, the Early Harappan communities had been turned into large urbancentres. Such urban centres include Harappa , Ganeriwala , Mohenjo-Daro in modernday Pakistan , and Dholavira , Kalibangan , Rakhigarhi , Rupar , and Lothal in modernday India . In total, over 1,052 cities and settlements have been found, mainly in thegeneral region of the Indus Rivers and their tributaries.

Cities

Computer-aided reconstruction of coastal Harappan settlement at Sokhta Koh near Pasni , Pakistan

A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture is evident in the IndusValley Civilization making them the first urban centres in the region. The quality of municipal town planning suggests the knowledge of urban planning and efficientmunicipal governments which placed a high priority on hygiene , or, alternatively,accessibility to the means of religious ritual.

As seen in Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro and the recently partially excavated Rakhigarhi ,

this urban plan included the world's first known urban sanitation systems: seehydraulic engineering of the Indus Valley Civilization . Within the city, individualhomes or groups of homes obtained water from wells . From a room that appears tohave been set aside for bathing, waste water was directed to covered drains, whichlined the major streets. Houses opened only to inner courtyards and smaller lanes. Thehouse-building in some villages in the region still resembles in some respects thehouse-building of the Harappans. [36]

The ancient Indus systems of sewerage and drainage that were developed and used incities throughout the Indus region were far more advanced than any found incontemporary urban sites in the Middle East and even more efficient than those in

many areas of Pakistan and India today. The advanced architecture of the Harappansis shown by their impressive dockyards, granaries , warehouses, brick platforms, and
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protective walls. The massive walls of Indus cities most likely protected theHarappans from floods and may have dissuaded military conflicts. [citation needed ]

So-called "Priest King" statue, Mohenjo-Daro , late Mature Harappan period, NationalMuseum, Karachi, Pakistan

The purpose of the citadel remains debated. In sharp contrast to this civilization'scontemporaries, Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt , no large monumental structureswere built. There is no conclusive evidence of palaces or templesor of kings,armies, or priests. Some structures are thought to have been granaries. Found at onecity is an enormous well-built bath (the " Great Bath "), which may have been a public

bath. Although the citadels were walled, it is far from clear that these structures weredefensive. They may have been built to divert flood waters.

Most city dwellers appear to have been traders or artisans, who lived with others pursuing the same occupation in well-defined neighbourhoods. Materials from distantregions were used in the cities for constructing seals, beads and other objects. Amongthe artifacts discovered were beautiful glazed faence beads. Steatite seals haveimages of animals, people (perhaps gods), and other types of inscriptions, includingthe yet un-deciphered writing system of the Indus Valley Civilization . Some of theseals were used to stamp clay on trade goods and most probably had other uses aswell.

Although some houses were larger than others, Indus Civilization cities wereremarkable for their apparent, if relative, egalitarianism . All the houses had access towater and drainage facilities. This gives the impression of a society with relativelylow wealth concentration, though clear social levelling is seen in personaladornments.

Science

Further information: Indian mathematics - Prehistory
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Indus Valley seals, British Museum

The people of the Indus Civilization achieved great accuracy in measuring length,mass, and time. They were among the first to develop a system of uniform weightsand measures. A comparison of available objects indicates large scale variation acrossthe Indus territories. Their smallest division, which is marked on an ivory scale foundin Lothal , was approximately 1.704 mm, the smallest division ever recorded on ascale of the Bronze Age . Harappan engineers followed the decimal division of measurement for all practical purposes, including the measurement of mass asrevealed by their hexahedron weights. [37]

These chert weights were in a ratio of 5:2:1 with weights of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5,10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500 units, with each unit weighing approximately 28 grams,similar to the English Imperial ounce or Greek uncia, and smaller objects wereweighed in similar ratios with the units of 0.871. However, as in other cultures, actualweights were not uniform throughout the area. The weights and measures later used inKautilya 's Arthashastra (4th century BCE) are the same as those used in Lothal .[38]

Harappans evolved some new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper , bronze ,lead , and tin . The engineering skill of the Harappans was remarkable, especially in

building docks after a careful study of tides, waves, and currents. The function of theso-called "dock" at Lothal, however, is disputed.

In 2001, archaeologists studying the remains of two men from Mehrgarh , Pakistan ,made the discovery that the people of the Indus Valley Civilization, from the earlyHarappan periods, had knowledge of proto- dentistry . Later, in April 2006, it wasannounced in the scientific journal Nature that the oldest (and first early Neolithic)evidence for the drilling of human teeth in vivo (i.e., in a living person) was found in

Mehrgarh. Eleven drilled molar crowns from nine adults were discovered in a Neolithic graveyard in Mehrgarh that dates, from 7,500-9,000 years ago. According tothe authors, their discoveries point to a tradition of proto-dentistry in the early farmingcultures of that region. [39]

A touchstone bearing gold streaks was found in Banawali , which was probably usedfor testing the purity of gold (such a technique is still used in some parts of India). [40]

Arts and crafts
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The "dancing girl of Mohenjo Daro"

Chanhudaro. Fragment of Large Deep Vessel, circa 2500 B.C.E. Red pottery with redand black slip-painted decoration, 4 15/166 in. (12.5 15.5 cm). Brooklyn Museum

Various sculptures, seals, pottery , gold jewelry, and anatomically detailed figurines interracotta , bronze, and steatite have been found at excavation sites.

A number of gold, terra-cotta and stone figurines of girls in dancing poses reveal the presence of some dance form. Also, these terra-cotta figurines included cows, bears,monkeys, and dogs. The animal depicted on a majority of seals at sites of the mature

period has not been clearly identified. Part bull, part zebra, with a majestic horn, it has been a source of speculation. As yet, there is insufficient evidence to substantiateclaims that the image had religious or cultic significance, but the prevalence of theimage raises the question of whether or not the animals in images of the IVC arereligious symbols. [41]

Sir John Marshall is known to have reacted with surprise when he saw the famousIndus bronze statuette of a slender-limbed dancing girl in Mohenjo-Daro:

When I first saw them I found it difficult to believe that they were prehistoric; theyseemed 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
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these figures had found their way into levels some 3000 years older than those towhich they properly belonged. Now, in these statuettes, it is just this anatomicaltruth 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 onthe banks of the Indus.

Many crafts "such as shell working, ceramics, and agate and glazed steatite beadmaking" were used in the making of necklaces, bangles, and other ornaments from all

phases of Harappan sites and some of these crafts are still practised in thesubcontinent today. [42] Some make-up and toiletry items (a special kind of combs(kakai), the use of collyrium and a special three-in-one toiletry gadget) that werefound in Harappan contexts still have similar counterparts in modern India. [43]

Terracotta female figurines were found (ca. 2800-2600 BCE) which had red colour applied to the "manga" (line of partition of the hair). [43]

Seals have been found at Mohenjo-Daro depicting a figure standing on its head, andanother sitting cross-legged in what some call a yoga -like pose (see image, the so-called Pashupati , below).

This figure, sometimes known as a Pashupati, has been variously identified. Sir JohnMarshall identified a resemblance to the Hindu god, Shiva. [44] If this can be validated,it would be evidence that some aspects of Hinduism predate the earliest texts, theVeda.

A harp-like instrument depicted on an Indus seal and two shell objects found at Lothalindicate the use of stringed musical instruments. The Harappans also made varioustoys and games, among them cubical dice (with one to six holes on the faces), whichwere found in sites like Mohenjo-Daro. [45]

Trade and transportation

The docks of ancient Lothal as they are today Further information: Lothal and Meluhha

The Indus civilization's economy appears to have depended significantly on trade ,which was facilitated by major advances in transport technology. The IVC may have

been the first civililzation to use wheeled transport. [46] These advances may haveincluded bullock carts that are identical to those seen throughout South Asia today, as
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well as boats. Most of these boats were probably small, flat-bottomed craft, perhapsdriven by sail, similar to those one can see on the Indus River today; however, there issecondary evidence of sea-going craft. Archaeologists have discovered a massive,dredged canal and what they regard as a docking facility at the coastal city of Lothal in western India (Gujarat state). An extensive canal network, used for irrigation, has

however also been discovered by H.-P. Francfort.

During 43003200 BCE of the chalcolithic period (copper age), the Indus ValleyCivilization area shows ceramic similarities with southern Turkmenistan and northernIran which suggest considerable mobility and trade. During the Early Harappan period(about 32002600 BCE), similarities in pottery, seals, figurines, ornaments, etc.document intensive caravan trade with Central Asia and the Iranian plateau. [47]

Judging from the dispersal of Indus civilisation artifacts, the trade networks,economically, integrated a huge area, including portions of Afghanistan , the coastalregions of Persia , northern and western India, and Mesopotamia .

There is some evidence that trade contacts extended to Crete and possibly to Egypt. [48]

There was an extensive maritime trade network operating between the Harappan andMesopotamian civilizations as early as the middle Harappan Phase, with muchcommerce being handled by "middlemen merchants from Dilmun" (modern Bahrain and Failaka located in the Persian Gulf ).[49] Such long-distance sea trade becamefeasible with the innovative development of plank-built watercraft, equipped with asingle central mast supporting a sail of woven rushes or cloth.

Several coastal settlements like Sotkagen-dor (astride Dasht River, north of Jiwani),Sokhta Koh (astride Shadi River, north of Pasni ), and Balakot (near Sonmiani) inPakistan along with Lothal in India testify to their role as Harappan trading outposts.Shallow harbours located at the estuary of rivers opening into the sea allowed brisk maritime trade with Mesopotamian cities.

Subsistence

Some post-1980 studies indicate that food production was largely indigenous to theIndus Valley. It is known that the people of Mehrgarh used domesticated wheats and

barley [50] , and the major cultivated cereal crop was naked six-row barley, a crop

derived from two-row barley (see Shaffer and Liechtenstein 1995, 1999).Archaeologist Jim G. Shaffer (1999: 245) writes that the Mehrgarh site "demonstratesthat food production was an indigenous South Asian phenomenon" and that the datasupport interpretation of "the prehistoric urbanization and complex social organizationin South Asia as based on indigenous, but not isolated, cultural developments".Others, such as Dorian Fuller, however, indicate that it took some 2000 years beforeMiddle Eastern wheat was acclimatised to South Asian conditions.

Writing system

Main article: Indus script
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Between 400 and as many as 600 distinct Indus symbols [51] have been found on seals , small tablets, ceramic pots and over a dozen other materials, including a "signboard"that apparently once hung over the gate of the inner citadel of the Indus city of Dholavira. Typical Indus inscriptions are no more than four or five characters inlength, most of which (aside from the Dholavira "signboard") are tiny; the longest on

a single surface, which is less than 1 inch (2.54 cm) square, is 17 signs long; thelongest on any object (found on three different faces of a mass-produced object) has alength of 26 symbols.

While the Indus Valley Civilization is generally characterized as a literate society onthe evidence of these inscriptions, this description has been challenged by Farmer,Sproat, and Witzel (2004) [52] who argue that the Indus system did not encodelanguage, but was instead similar to a variety of non-linguistic sign systems usedextensively in the Near East and other societies. Others have claimed on occasion thatthe symbols were exclusively used for economic transactions, but this claim leavesunexplained the appearance of Indus symbols on many ritual objects, many of whichwere mass-produced in moulds . No parallels to these mass-produced inscriptions areknown in any other early ancient civilizations. [53]

In a 2009 study by P. N. Rao et al. published in Science , computer scientists,comparing the pattern of symbols to various linguistic scripts and non-linguisticsystems, including DNA and a computer programming language, found that the Indusscript's pattern is closer to that of spoken words, supporting the hypothesis that itcodes for an as-yet-unknown language. [54] [55]

Farmer, Sproat, and Witzel have disputed this finding, pointing out that Rao et al. didnot actually compare the Indus signs with "real-world non-linguistic systems" butrather with "two wholly artificial systems invented by the authors, one consisting of 200,000 randomly ordered signs and another of 200,000 fully ordered signs, that theyspuriously claim represent the structures of all real-world non-linguistic signsystems". [56] Farmer et al. have also demonstrated that a comparison of a non-linguistic system like medieval heraldic signs with natural languages yields resultssimilar to those that Rao et al. obtained with Indus signs. They conclude that themethod used by Rao et al. cannot distinguish linguistic systems from non-linguisticones. [57]

The messages on the seals have proved to be too short to be decoded by a computer.

Each seal has a distinctive combination of symbols and there are too few examples of each sequence to provide a sufficient context. The symbols that accompany theimages vary from seal to seal, making it impossible to derive a meaning for thesymbols from the images. There have, nonetheless, been a number of interpretationsoffered for the meaning of the seals. These interpretations have been marked byambiguity and subjectivity. [57] :69

Photos of many of the thousands of extant inscriptions are published in the Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions (1987, 1991), edited by A. Parpola and his colleagues.Publication of a final third volume, which will reportedly republish photos taken inthe 1920s and 1930s of hundreds of lost or stolen inscriptions, along with many

discovered in the last few decades, has been announced for several years. For now,researchers must supplement the materials in the Corpus by study of the tiny photos
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in the excavation reports of Marshall (1931), MacKay (1938, 1943), Wheeler (1947),or reproductions in more recent scattered sources.

Religion

The so-called Shiva Pashupati seal Further information: Prehistoric religion and History of Hinduism

The religion of Hinduism probably has its roots in the Indus Valley civilisation.Hindus and Indus people, both worship a 'mother goddess' her names include Parvatiand Sakti , and both regard the cow as sacred. Hindus and Indus people both bathe inthe River for religious purposes and consider rivers holy .[58]

Some Indus valley seals show swastikas , which are found in other religions(worldwide), especially in Indian religions such as Hinduism , Buddhism , Jainism .The earliest evidence for elements of Hinduism are alleged to have been present

before and during the early Harappan period. [59] Phallic symbols interpreted as themuch later Hindu Shiva lingam have been found in the Harappan remains .[60][ 61]

Swastika Seals from the Indus Valley Civilization preserved at the British Museum .

Many Indus valley seals show animals. One motive shows a horned figure seated in a posture reminiscent of the Lotus position and surrounded by animals was named byearly excavators Pashupati (lord of cattle), an epithet of the later Hindu gods Shivaand Rudra .[62][ 63] [64]

In view of the large number of figurines found in the Indus valley, some scholars believe that the Harappan people worshipped a Mother goddess symbolizing fertility,a common practice among rural Hindus even today .[65] However, this view has beendisputed by S. Clark who sees it as an inadequate explanation of the function andconstruction of many of the figurines. [66]
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There are no religious buildings or evidence of elaborate burials. If there weretemples, they have not been identified .[67]

In the earlier phases of their culture, the Harappans buried their dead; however, later,especially in the Cemetery H culture of the late Harrapan period, they also cremated

their dead and buried the ashes in burial urns.

It is possible that a temple exists to the East of the great bath, but the site has not beenexcavated. There is a Buddhist reliquary mound on the site and permission has not

been granted to move it. [68] Until there is sufficient evidence, speculation about thereligion of the IVC is largely based on a retrospective view from a much later Hindu

perspective. [41]

Late Harappan

Main article: Late Harappan

Around 1800 BCE, signs of a gradual decline began to emerge, and by around 1700BCE, most of the cities were abandoned. In 1953, Sir Mortimer Wheeler proposedthat the decline of the Indus Civilization was caused by the invasion of an Indo-European tribe from Central Asia called the " Aryans ". As evidence, he cited a groupof 37 skeletons found in various parts of Mohenjo-Daro, and passages in the Vedasreferring to battles and forts. However, scholars soon started to reject Wheeler'stheory, since the skeletons belonged to a period after the city's abandonment and nonewere found near the citadel. Subsequent examinations of the skeletons by KennethKennedy in 1994 showed that the marks on the skulls were caused by erosion, and not

violent aggression. [69] Today, many scholars believe that the collapse of the IndusCivilization was caused by drought and a decline in trade with Egypt andMesopotamia. [70] It has also been suggested that immigration by new peoples,deforestation, floods, or changes in the course of the river may have contributed to thecollapse of the IVC. [71]

Previously, it was also believed that the decline of the Harappan civilization led to aninterruption of urban life in the Indian subcontinent. However, the Indus ValleyCivilization did not disappear suddenly, and many elements of the Indus Civilizationcan be found in later cultures. Current archaeological data suggest that materialculture classified as Late Harappan may have persisted until at least c. 1000-900 BCEand was partially contemporaneous with the Painted Grey Ware culture. [72] Harvardarchaeologist Richard Meadow points to the late Harappan settlement of Pirak , whichthrived continuously from 1800 BCE to the time of the invasion of Alexander theGreat in 325 BCE. [70]

Recent archaeological excavations indicate that the decline of Harappa drove peopleeastward. After 1900 BCE, the number of sites in India increased from 218 to 853.Excavations in the Gangetic plain show that urban settlement began around 1200BCE, only a few centuries after the decline of Harappa and much earlier than

previously expected. [70] Archaeologists have emphasized that, just as in most areas of the world, there was a continuous series of cultural developments. These link "the so-called two major phases of urbanization in South Asia". [72]
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A possible natural reason for the IVC's decline is connected with climate change thatis also signalled for the neighbouring areas of the Middle East: The Indus valleyclimate grew significantly cooler and drier from about 1800 BCE, linked to a generalweakening of the monsoon at that time. Alternatively, a crucial factor may have beenthe disappearance of substantial portions of the Ghaggar Hakra river system. A

tectonic event may have diverted the system's sources toward the Ganges Plain ,though there is complete uncertainty about the date of this event, as most settlementsinside Ghaggar-Hakra river beds have not yet been dated. The actual reason for decline might be any combination of these factors. New geological research is now

being conducted by a group led by Peter Clift , from the University of Aberdeen , toinvestigate how the courses of rivers have changed in this region since 8000 yearsago, to test whether climate or river reorganizations are responsible for the decline of the Harappan. A 2004 paper indicated that the isotopes of the Ghaggar-Hakra systemdo not come from the Himalayan glaciers, and were rain-fed instead, contradicting aHarappan time mighty "Sarasvati" river .[73]

Legacy

Main article: Iron Age India

In the aftermath of the Indus Civilization's collapse, regional cultures emerged, tovarying degrees showing the influence of the Indus Civilization. In the formerly greatcity of Harappa, burials have been found that correspond to a regional culture calledthe Cemetery H culture . At the same time, the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture expanded from Rajasthan into the Gangetic Plain . The Cemetery H culture has theearliest evidence for cremation , a practice dominant in Hinduism till today.

Historical context and linguistic affiliation

See also: Substratum in Vedic Sanskrit

The IVC has been tentatively identified with the toponym Meluhha known fromSumerian records. It has been compared in particular with the civilizations of Elam (also in the context of the Elamo-Dravidian hypothesis) and with Minoan Crete (because of isolated cultural parallels such as the ubiquitous goddess worship anddepictions of bull-leaping ).[74] The mature (Harappan) phase of the IVC is

contemporary to the Early to Middle Bronze Age in the Ancient Near East , in particular the Old Elamite period , Early Dynastic to Ur III Mesopotamia , PrepalatialMinoan Crete and Old Kingdom to First Intermediate Period Egypt .

After the discovery of the IVC in the 1920s, it was immediately associated with theindigenous Dasyu inimical to the Rigvedic tribes in numerous hymns of the Rigveda .Mortimer Wheeler interpreted the presence of many unburied corpses found in the toplevels of Mohenjo-Daro as the victims of a warlike conquest, and famously stated that"Indra stands accused" of the destruction of the IVC. The association of the IVC withthe city-dwelling Dasyus remains alluring because the assumed timeframe of the firstIndo-Aryan migration into India corresponds neatly with the period of decline of the

IVC seen in the archaeological record. The discovery of the advanced, urban IVChowever changed the 19th century view of early Indo-Aryan migration as an
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"invasion" of an advanced culture at the expense of a "primitive" aboriginal population to a gradual acculturation of nomadic "barbarians" on an advanced urbancivilization, comparable to the Germanic migrations after the Fall of Rome , or theKassite invasion of Babylonia . This move away from simplistic "invasionist"scenarios parallels similar developments in thinking about language transfer and

population movement in general, such as in the case of the migration of the Greeksinto Greece (between 2100 and 1600 BCE), or the Indo-Europeanization of WesternEurope (between 2200 and 1300 BCE).

It was often suggested that the bearers of the IVC corresponded to proto-Dravidians linguistically, the breakup of proto-Dravidian corresponding to the breakup of theLate Harappan culture. [75] Today, the Dravidian language family is concentratedmostly in southern India and northern Sri Lanka , but pockets of it still remainthroughout the rest of India and Pakistan (the Brahui language ), which lends credenceto the theory. Finnish Indologist Asko Parpola concludes that the uniformity of theIndus inscriptions precludes any possibility of widely different languages being used,and that an early form of Dravidian language must have been the language of theIndus people. Proto-Munda (or Para -Munda) and a "lost phylum" (perhaps related or ancestral to the Nihali language )[76] have been proposed as other candidates.

The civilization is sometimes referred to as the Indus Ghaggar-Hakra civilization [4] or the Indus -Sarasvati civilization by Hindutva groups, which is based on theories of Indigenous Aryans and the Out of India migration of Indo-European speakers.

Developments in July 2010

Main article: 2010 Pakistan floods

On July 11, heavy floods hit Haryana in India and damaged the archaeological site of Jognakhera , where ancient copper smelting were found dating back almost 5,000years. The Indus Valley Civilization site was hit by almost 10 feet of water as theSutlej Yamuna link canal overflowed. [77]

Content from Harappa.com:-

Introduction

T he greater Indus region was home to the largest of the four ancient urbancivilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, South Asia and China. It was notdiscovered until the 1920's. Most of its ruins, even its major cities, remain to beexcavated. The ancient Indus Civilization script has not been deciphered.

Many questions about the Indus people who created this highly complexculture remain unanswered, but other aspects of their society can be answered
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through various types of archaeological studies.

H arappa was a city in the Indus civilization that flourished around 2600 to1700 BCE in the western part of South Asia.

Cities and Context

T he Harappans used the same size bricksand standardized weights as were used inother Indus cities such as Mohenjo Daro and Dholavira. These cities were wellplanned with wide streets, public andprivate wells, drains, bathing platforms and

reservoirs. One of its most well-knownstructures is the Great Bath of MohenjoDaro .

T here were other highly developedcultures in adjacent regions of Baluchistan,Central Asia and peninsular India.

Material culture and the skeletons from theHarappa cemetery and other sites testify to acontinual intermingling of communities fromboth the west and the east. Harappa wassettled before what we call the ancient Induscivilization flourished, and it remains a livingtown today.

The Saraswati River

In fact, there seems to have been anotherlarge river which ran parallel and west of the Indus in the third and fourthmillenium BCE. This was the ancient Saraswati-Ghaggar-Hakra River (whichsome scholars associate with the Saraswati River of the Rg Veda ).

Its lost banks are slowly being traced by researchers. Along its now dry bed,archaeologists are discovering a whole new set of ancient towns and cities.

Meluhha
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Ind Us Valley Civilisation

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