INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION (NOTES)

The Harappan Civilisation

1  1.       WHAT ARE THE SOURCES AVAILABLE TO UNDERSTAND (OR) TO STUDY HARAPPAN CIVILIZATION?

    *   The Harappan seal is possibly the most distinctive artifact of the Harappans or Indus valley civilisation. Harappan seals contain animal and plant motifs and signs from a script that remains undeciphered.

   *   We know a great deal of sources which were left by the people, such as their houses, pots, ornaments, tools and seals – in other words, archaeological evidence.

    2. WHY WAS INDUS VALLEY CIVILISATIONALSO CALLED THE HARAPPAN CULTURE?

        * Archaeologists use the term “culture” for a group of objects,distinctive in style, that are usually found together within a specific geographical area and period 

       *In the case of the Harappan culture, these distinctive objects include seals, beads, weights, stone blades and baked bricks.  

       * These objects were found from areas as far apart as Afghanistan, Jammu, Baluchistan (Pakistan) and Gujarat .

        *   Harappan civilisation is dated between c. 2600 and1900 BCE.

    3.  WHAT ARE SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN EARLY HARAPPAN CULTURES AND MATURE HARAPPAN CULTURES?

    a)    Early and later Harappan cultures were associated with distinctive pottery, evidence of agriculture and pastoralism, and some crafts.

   B)    In Early Harappan cultures Settlements were generally small, and there were virtually no large buildings. But in Mature Harappan culture settlements were large and buildings were also large.

    4.     WHAT ARE SUBSISTENCE STRATEGIES (DIETARY PRACTICES) OF HARAPPAN CULTURES AND MATURE HARAPPAN CULTURES?

     *  The Harappans ate a wide range of plant products. Archaeologists have been able to reconstruct dietary practices from finds of charred grains, seeds and bones.     * These are studied by archaeo-botanists, who are specialists in ancient plant remains.

     *  Food grains found at Harappan sites include wheat, barley, lentil, chickpea, sesame, Millets and rice.

   *  The Harappans ate a wide range of animal products.Archaeologists have been able to reconstruct use of animals from finds of charred animal bones found at Harappan sites. These include those of cattle, sheep,goat, buffalo and pig.  

    * These are studied by Archaeo-zoologists or zoo-Archaeologists who are specialists in ancient animal remains.

f   * Bones of wild species such as boar, deer and gharial were also found. We do not know whether the Harappans hunted these animals themselves orobtained meat from other hunting (tribal) communities.

5. PREVALENCE OF AGRICULTURE IN HARAPPAN CIVILISATION

     * Representations on seals and terracotta sculptureindicate that the bull was known, and oxen were used for ploughing.

     * Terracotta models of the plough have been found at sites in Cholistan and at Banawali (Haryana).

     *.  Archaeologists have also found evidence of a ploughed field at Kalibangan (Rajasthan).The field had two sets of furrows at right angles to each other, suggesting that two different cropswere grown together.

     *  Archaeologists have also identified thetools used for harvesting. Harappans used stone blades set in wooden handles and metal tools made of copper.

     *    Most Harappan sites are located in semi-aridlands, where irrigation was probably required for agriculture. Traces of canals, water reservoirs and wells have been found at the Harappan sites indicate that agriculture was practiced.

f     *  Archaeologists have also found charred food grains which indicate prevalence of agriculture.

   6. WHAT ARE THE UNIQUE FEATURES OF MOHENJODARO?

A.  DIVISIONS IN MOHENJODARO CITY

   The settlement is divided into two sections, one smaller but higher called as the Citadel and the other much larger butlower called the Lower Town.

    The Citadel owes its height to the fact that buildings were constructed on mud brick platforms. It was walled and physically separated from the Lower Town. We find evidence of structures that were probably used for special public purposes.

B.CITADEL

    The warehouse, a massive structure of which the lower brick portions remain, while the upper portions, probably of wood, decayed long ago.

    The Great Bath was a large rectangular tank in a courtyard surrounded by a corridor on all four sides. There were two flights of steps on the north and south leading into the tank. There were rooms on three sides, in one of which was a large well. Across a lane to the north lay a smaller building with eight bathrooms, four on each side of a corridor.Scholars suggest that it was meant for some kind of a special ritual bath.

C. LOWER TOWN

    The Lower Town was also walled. Several buildings were built on platforms, which served as foundations.

      Once the platforms were in place, all building activity within the city was restricted to a fixed area on the platforms. So it seems that the settlement was first planned and then built accordingly.

D.DRAINAGE SYSTEM

     One of the most distinctive features of Harappan cities was the carefully planned drainage system. If you look at the plan of the Lower Town you will notice that roads and streets were laid out along an approximate “grid” pattern, intersecting at right angles.

     It seems that streets with drains were laid out first and then houses were built along them.

DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE

I       The Lower Town at Mohenjodaro provides examples of residential buildings. Many were centred on a courtyard, with rooms on all sides. The courtyard was probably the centre of activities such as cooking and weaving, particularly during hot and dry weather. People were more concern for privacy: there are no windows in the walls along the ground level. Besides, the main entrance does not give a direct view of the interior or the courtyard.

J        Every house had its own bathroom paved with bricks, with drains connected through the wall to the street drains. Some houses have remains of stair cases to reach a second storey or the roof. Many houses had wells, often in a room that could be reached from the outside and perhaps used by passers-by.

   7. STRATEGIES TOFIND OUT WHETHER THERE WERE SOCIAL OR ECONOMICDIFFERENCES AMONGST PEOPLE LIVING WITHIN HARAPPAN CULTURE.

     *    At burials in Harappan sites the dead were generally laid in pits. Sometimes, there were differences in the way the burial pit was made – in some instances; the hollowed-out spaces were lined with bricks. These variations are an indication of social differences.

     *    Some graves contain pottery and ornaments,perhaps indicating a belief that these could be used in the afterlife. Jewellery has been found in burials of both men and women.

    *    In the cemetery found in Harappa in the mid-1980s, a burial contained ornament consisting of three shell rings, a jasper bead and hundreds of micro beads were found near the skull of a male.In some instances the dead were buried with copper mirrors. But the Harappans did not believe in burying precious things with the dead.

     *    Another strategy to identify social differences is to study artefacts, which archaeologists broadly classify as utilitarian and luxuries. The first category includes objects of daily use made of stone or clay such as querns, pottery, needles, flesh-rubbers are usually found distributed throughout settlements.

     *    Archaeologists assume luxuries objects are rare and made from costly, non-local materials or with complicated technologies such as little pots of faience, beads, micro beads etc were probably considered precious because they were difficult to make.Rare objects made of valuable materials are generally concentrated in large settlements like Mohenjodaro and Harappa

    7.     briefly describe CRAFT PRODUCTION IN INDUS VALLEY

       Mohenjodaro almost exclusively devoted to craft production, including bead-making,shell-cutting, metal-working, seal-making and weight-making.

             The variety of raw materials used to make crafts such as stones (carnelian - red stone, jasper-yellow stone, crystal- colourless stone, quartz and steatite) metals(copper, bronze and gold) shell and clay.

    The shapes of crafts were numerous – disc shaped,cylindrical, spherical, barrel-shaped,segmented. Some were decorated by incising or painting, and some had designs etched onto them. Some beads were made of two or more stones, cemented together, some of stones were decorated with gold caps

        Techniques for making beads differed according to the material Moulding, chipping,Grinding, polishing and drilling are some of the techniques used for making crafts.

         Chanhudaro, Lothal, Dholavira,Nageshwar and Balakot are some of the craft centres.

     8)     HOW DID ARCHAEOLOGISTS IDENTIFY CENTRESOF PRODUCTION?

      In order to identify centres of craft production, archaeologists usually look for the following: raw material such as stone nodules, whole shells, and copperore etc.

             Archaeologists also look for tools which were used for making crafts.

       Archaeologists look for unfinished objects, rejects and waste material. Waste is one of the best indicators of craft work. Sometimes, larger waste pieces were used up to make smaller objects.

  These traces suggest that apart from small, specialized centers, craft production was also undertaken in large cities such as Mohenjodaro and Harappa.

    10.    STRATEGIES FOR PROCURING RAW MATERIALS WITH IN THE SUB-CONTINENT

Transportation:

         Terracotta toy models of bullock carts suggest that this was one important means of transporting goods and people across land routes.

       Depictions of ships and boats on seals suggest that Riverine routes along the Indus and its tributaries, as well as coastal routes were also probably used for transporting goods and people.

Strategies for Procuring Materials

       The Harappans procured materials for craftproduction in various ways. For instance, theyestablished settlements where raw material was available.(Nageshwar andBalakot- shell, Shortughai- lapis lazuli, a blue stone, Lothal- carnelian, steatite and metal-Rajasthan and Gujarat)

      Another strategy for procuring raw materials mayhave been to send expeditions to areas such as the Khetri region of Rajasthan (for copper) and southIndia (for gold). These expeditions establishedcommunication with local communities.

       Occasional finds of Harappan artefacts such as steatite micro beads in the Khetri area indicates that the inhabitants of Ganeshwar-Jodhpura culture supplied copper to the Harappans according to the aggrement.

11. What is Ganeshwar-Jodhpura culture?
In the Khetri area archaeologists found a new culture and call it as the Ganeshwar-Jodhpura culture. Here they found distinctive non-Harappan pottery and an unusual wealth of copper objects. It is possible that the inhabitants of this region supplied copper to the Harappans.

12. what were the STRATEGIES FOR PROCURING MATERIALS FROM DISTANT LANDS?

        Recent archaeological finds suggest that copper wasalso probably brought from Oman, on the south eastern tip of the Arabian Peninsula. Chemical analyses have shown that both the Omani copper and Harappan copper artifacts have traces of nickel.

        A distinctive type of vessel, a large Harappan jar coated with a thick layer of black clay has been found at Omani sites. It is possible that the Harappans exchanged the contents of these vessels for Omani copper.

     Mesopotamian texts datable to the third millennium BCE refer to copper coming from a region called Magan, perhaps a name for Oman, and interestingly enough copper found Mesopotamian sites also contains traces of nickel.

        It is worth noting that Mesopotamian texts mention contact with regions named Dilmun(Bahrain), Magan and Meluhha (the Harappan region).They mention the products from Meluhha: carnelian, lapis lazuli, copper, gold, and varieties of wood.

        A Mesopotamian myth says of Meluhha: “May your bird be the haja-bird, may its call be heard in the royal palace.” Some archaeologists think the haja-bird was the peacock.

f       Mesopotamian texts refer to Meluhha (the Harappan region) as aland of seafarers. Besides,we find depictions of shipsand boats on seals.

HARAPPAN SEALS

    Seals and sealings were used to facilitate long distance communication. Imagine a bag of goods being sent from one place to another. Its mouth was tied with rope and on the knot was affixed some wet clay on which one or more seals were pressed,leaving an impression.

         If the bag reached with its sealing intact, it meant that it had not been tampered with. The sealing also conveyed the identity of the sender.

     Harappan seals usually have a line of writing and animal midifs. Scholars have also suggested that the motif (generally an animal) conveyed a meaning to those who could not read.

HARAPPANSCRIPT

    Harappan seals usually have a line of writing. Most inscriptions are short, the longest containing about 26 signs. Although the script remains undeciphered to date, it was evidently not alphabetical but syllable.It has just too many signs –somewhere between 375 and 400.

        It is apparent that the script was written from right to left as some seals show a wider spacing on the right and cramping on the left, as if the engraver began working from the right and then ran out of space.

       A variety of objects on which writing has been found: seals, copper tools, rims of jars,copper and terracotta tablets, jewellery, bone rods, even an ancient signboard. Remember, there may have been writing on perishable materials too such as cloth, animal skin etc.

HARAPPAN WEIGHTS

        Exchanges were regulated by a precise system of weights, usually made of a stone called chert and generally cubical with no markings.

        Thelower denominations of weights were binary (1, 2, 4,8, 16, 32, etc). while the higher denominations followed the decimal system. The smaller weights were probably used for weighing jewellery and beads and bigger weights were used for food grains.

      Metal scale-pans have also been found. These were probably used for measuring cloth and other materials.

Ruling Authority in indus valley civilisation

13. What are indications prove that complex decisions were taken and implemented in Harappan society by the ruler?)

        The extraordinary uniformity of Harappan artefacts as evident in pottery, seals and weights.

        Bricks, though obviously not produced in any single centre, were of a uniform ratio throughout the region, from Jammu to Gujarat.

       We have also seen that settlements were strategically set up in specific locations for various reasons.

      Labour was mobilised for making bricks and for the construction of massive walls and platforms.

      Who organised these activities? Most probably the king.

RULING AUTHORITY OR CENTRE OF POWER

       A large building found at Mohenjodaro was labelled as a palace by archaeologists but no spectacular finds were associated with it.

         A stone statue was labelled and continues to be known as the “priest-king”. This is because archaeologists were familiar with Mesopotamian history and its “priest-kings”

       Some archaeologists are of the opinion that Harappan society had no rulers, and that everybody enjoyed equal status( Democracy)

        Other archaeologists feel that there was no single ruler but several, that Mohenjodaro had a separate ruler, Harappa another, and so forth.

       Yet other archaeologists argue that there was a single state and single ruler because of  the similarity in artefacts, the evidence for planned settlements, the standardized ratio of brick size, and the establishment of settlements near sources of raw material.

The End of the Civilisation

        There is evidence that by c. 1800 BCE most of the Mature Harappan sites had been abandoned. Simultaneously, there wasan expansion of population into new settlements in Gujarat, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh.

        Distinctive artefacts of the civilisation- weights, seals, special beads, Writing, long-distance trade, andcraft specialization disappeared after 1800 BCE. House construction techniques deteriorated and large public structures were no longer produced.

       Overall disappearence of artefacts and settlements indicates a rural way of life in what is called Vedic culture  or vedic  civilisation began.

        Several explanations have been put forward. These range from climatic change, deforestation,excessive floods, the shifting and/or drying up of rivers, to overuse of the landscape.

         Some of these“causes” may hold for certain settlements, but they do not explain the collapse of the entire civilisation.It appears that a strong unifying element, perhaps the Harappan state, came to an end.

Evidence of an “invasion”in Indus valley civilisation

         Deadman Lane is a narrow valley where part of a skull, the bones of the thorax and upper arm of an adult were discovered.All were in very friable condition, at a depth of 4 ft 2 in. The body lay on its back diagonally across the lane. Fifteen inches to the west were a few fragments of a tiny skull. It is to these remains that the lane owes its name.

           Sixteen skeletons of people with the ornaments that they were wearing when theydied were found from the same part of Mohenjodaro in 1925.

         R.E.M. Wheeler, then Director-General of the ASI, tried to correlate this archaeological evidence with that of the Rigveda, the earliest known text in the subcontinent.

d      There is no destruction level covering the latest period of the city Mohenjodaro, no sign of extensive burning, no bodies of warriors clad in armour and surrounded by the weapons of war. The citadel, the only fortified part of the city,yielded no evidence of a final defence.

Discovering the Harappan Civilisation

(How have archaeologistsused evidence from material remains topiece together parts of a fascinating Harappan history?) OR (How did archaeologists “discover” the Harappan civilization?)

     a.    Cunningham’s confusion

Cunningham, the first Director-General of the ASI, began archaeological excavations in the mid nineteenth century. Cunningham’s main interest was in the archaeology of the Early Historic(c. sixth century BCE-fourth century CE) and later periods. He used the accounts left by Chinese Buddhist pilgrims who had visited the subcontinent between the fourth and seventh centuries CE to locate early settlements.

Harappan artefacts were found fairly often during the nineteenth century and some of these reached Cunningham, he did not realise how old these were. A Harappan seal was given to Cunningham by an Englishman. He noted the object, but unsuccessfully tried to place it within the time-frame of c. sixth century BCE- fourth century CE.It is not surprising that he missed the significance of Harappa.

  b.    John Marshall`s Ignorance

John Marshall , the Director-General of the marked a major change in Indian archaeology. He was the first professional archaeologist to work in India, and brought his experience of working in Greece and Crete to the field. He was interested in spectacular finds and patterns of everyday life.

Marshall tended to excavate along regular horizontal units, measured uniformly throughout the mound, ignoring the stratigraphy of the site. This meant that all the artefacts recovered from the same unit were grouped together, even if they were found at different stratigraphic layers. As a result, valuable information about Harappan civilisation was irretrievably lost.

     c.    R.E.M. Wheeler`s problems

R.E.M. Wheeler, took over as Director-General of the ASI in 1944, who rectified many problems. Wheeler recognised that it was necessary to follow the stratigraphy of the mound rather than dig mechanically along uniform horizontal lines. Moreover, as an ex-army brigadier, he brought with him a military precision to the practice of archaeology.

However, with the partition of the subcontinent and the creation of Pakistan, the major sites are now in Pakistani territory. This has spurred Indian archaeologists to try and locate sites in India.

d.    Daya Ram Sahni

Seals were discovered at Harappa by archaeologists such as Daya Ram Sahni in the early decades of the twentieth century, in layers that were definitely much older than Early Historic levels. It was then that their significance began to be realised.

    e.    Rakhal Das Banerji

Another archaeologist, Rakhal Das Banerji found similar seals at Mohenjodaro, leading to the conjecture that these sites were part of a single archaeological culture. Based on these finds, in 1924,John Marshall, Director-General of the ASI, announced the discovery of a new civilisation in the Indus valley to the world.

f   f.     S.N. Roy

As S.N. Roy noted inThe Story of Indian Archaeology, “Marshall left India three thousand years older than he had found her.”This was because similar, till-then-unidentified seals were found at excavations at Mesopotamian sites. It was then that the world knew not only of a new civilisation, but also of one contemporaneous with Mesopotamia.

Since the 1980s, there has also been growing international interest in Harappan archaeology.

Specialists from the subcontinent and abroad have been jointly working at both Harappa and Mohenjodaro. They are using modern scientific techniques including surface exploration to recover traces of clay, stone, metal and plant and animal remains as well as to minutely analyse every scrap of available evidence. These explorations promise to yield interesting results in the future.

 How does material evidence allow the  archaeologists to better reconstruct Harappan life?.

    Recovering artefacts is just the beginning of the archaeological enterprise. Archaeologists then classify their finds. One simple principle of classification is in terms of material, such as stone,clay, metal, bone, ivory, etc.

          The second, and more complicated, is in terms of function: archaeologists have to decide whether, for instance, an artefact is a tool or an ornament, or both, or something meantfor ritual use.

        An understanding of the function of an artifact is often shaped by its resemblance with present-day things – beads, querns, stone blades and pots are obvious examples.

        Archaeologists also try to identify the function of an artefact by investigating the context in which it was found: was it found in a house, in a drain, in a grave, in a kiln?

        Sometimes, archaeologists have to take recourse to indirect evidence. For instance, though there aretraces of cotton at some Harappan sites, to find out about clothing we have to depend on indirect evidence including depictions in sculpture.

What were the problems of archaeological interpretation to reconstruct religious practices of the Harappans?

     Early archaeologists thought that certain objects which seemed unusual or unfamiliar may have had a religious significance. These included terracotta figurines of women, heavily jewelled, some with elaborate head-dresses. These were regarded as mother goddesses.

        Rare stone statuary of men in an almost standardised posture, seated with onehand on the knee – such as the “priest-king” – was also similarly classified.

        In other instances, structures have been assigned ritual significance.These include the Great Bath and fire altars found at Kalibangan and Lothal.

    Attempts have also been made to reconstruct religious beliefs and practices by examining seals,some of which seem to depict ritual scenes. Others,with plant motifs, are thought to indicate nature worship. Some animals – such as the one-horned animal, often called the “unicorn” – depicted on seals seem to be mythical, composite creatures.

    In some seals, a figure shown seated cross-legged in a “yogic”posture, sometimes surrounded by animals, has been regarded as a depiction of “proto-Shiva”, thatis, an early form of one of the major deities of Hinduism. Besides, conical stone objects have been classified as lingas.

f       Many reconstructions of Harappan religion are made on the assumption that later traditions provideparallels with earlier ones.