Wednesday, November 25, 2009

THEORIES OF DECUNE Flood and Earthquake (R.L Raikes)

THEORIES OF DECUNE Flood and Earthquake (R.L Raikes)

Evidence of Flood (a) Occupation levels divided by silt
deposits. . .
(b) Houses and Streets covered by silt deposits up to 30
ft above ground level.
(c) Houses built on silt covered debris.
Evidence of Earthquake (a) Indus area is a disturbed
earthquake zone
(b) Earthquake raised the level of flood plains blocking
passage of river water to sea, forcing water into cities.
(c) Earthquake caused shift of land away from sea coast affecting commercial cities.
. Criticism (a) Decline of settlements outside Indus Valley
will not be explained by this theory. '
(b) A river cannot be dammed by tectonic effects.
Mohenjo-daro destroyed by Shifting of River Indus (Lambrick)
Evidence. Silt is there in Harappa because of wind action
which brought sand and silt. Sand silt not due to floods.
Criticism This explains only the desertion of Mohenjodaro
but not its decline.
Increased aridity led to decline (D.P. Agarwal and Sood)
Evidence (a) Middle of second millennium Be, a period of
increased arid conditions.
(b) In such a situation a semi-arid region (like Harappa)
would be affected most-decline of agriculture would result.
(c) Tectonic movement would affect river system like
Ghopar which would dry up.
Criticism (a) Not fully worked out.
(b) Drying up of River Ghaggar not dated yet.
Barbarian or Aryan invasions destroyed Harappa (Sir Mortimer Wheeler)
Evidence (a) Human skeletons have been found lying on
the streets.
(b) Rig Veda refers to fortresses of 'dasas' which god
Purandara destroys.
(c) The geographical area of Rig Vedic Aryans includes
Punjab Ghaggar region.
(d) Vedas mention a. place called Hariyapiya (name similar
to Harappa) on River Ravi where Aryans fought a battle.
Criticism Decline of Harappa around 1800 Be whereas Aryans not earlier than 1500 Be. So Harappans and Aryans clash seems difficult to accept.

RELIGION

RELIGION

The Mother Goddess was the popular di­vinity, but the upper classes preferred a god, nude with two horns, much similar to Pasupati Siva. Represented on " is a figure with three horned heads in a yogic posturE is surrounded by an elephant, a tiger and a rhinoceros, below his throne is a buffalo. Near his feet are two The bull was held sacred. Certain trees like pipal' ascribed divinity. Phallic worship was an important elel of religion. Many cone-shaped objects have been fo which seem to be formalised representations of the pha Certain large ring-shaped stones have also been fe which represent yonis. However, no temple has been f01 though idolatry was practised.

SEALS and SCRIPT

SEALS
Every merchant or mercantile family probably had a seal bearing an emblem, often of a religious character, and a name or brief inscription. The standard Harappa seal was a square or oblong plaque made of steatite stone. The Mesopotamians employed cylinder seals; one or tWo such seals have been found in Mohenjo-daro. The primary purpose of the seal was probably to mark the ownership of property, but they may have also served as amulets.

SCRIPT
The Indus script had some 270 characters, which were pictographic in origin, but which had an ideographic or
syllabic character. The script has not been deciphered so far,
. but overlaps of letters on some of the potsherds from Kalibangan show that writing was 'boustrophedon' or from right to left and from left to right in alternate lines. We are not certain about the writing media, but a small pot found at Chanhu-daro is regarded as an inkwell.

POINTS TO REMEMBER

POINTS TO REMEMBER
. Terracotta figures and seals are most useful sources for understanding the religious and social life .of the Harappan people.
. After Independence, the state of Gujarat has accounted
for the largest number of Harappan sites.
. The mature Harappan civilisation lasted for about five
centuries.
. Rojadi, Desalpur and Surkotada are the three Harappan sites which have yielded three stages. of Harappan civilisation-pre-Harappan, Harappan and post­Harappan.
. Bronze was the most widely used metal in Harappan
civilisation.
. Needles, razors, sickles, plough, forks, and spoons were
among the important tools and implements used by
Harappan people.
. Stone, copper and bronze were used in making Harappan
weapons.
. Worship of Siva linga, Siva as Pasupati anC: Shakti by
the modern Hindu are the Harappan legacies.
. Harappan seals were used for both religious and com­
mercial purposes.
. Humpless bull or unicorn was the most commonly
engraved animal on Harappan seals.
. Modern Dravidian script is supposed to be the closest
to the Harappan script.
. Metals and precious stones were the most important
item of import for the Harappans.
. The Harappan trade, operated on regional as well as
inter-regional level, was multifaceted. It was based on
guild system coupled with nomadic trade.
. On the basis of radio-carbon dating, the time span of
the Harappan civilisation has be~n fixed between 2300
Be and 1750 Be.
. Kot-Diji, Kalibangan and Harappa have yielded evi­
dence of a pre-Harappan settlement.
. Lothal, Balakot, Suktagendor and Allahdin (Pakistan)
were the major Harappan cities that acted as .ports.
. Harappan agricultural economy was mainly based on
wheat and associated winter crops.
. Majority of the Indus terracotta figurines were hand­
modelled. .
. Harappan seals were manufactured by the process of
cutting.
. 'English Bond' is the Harappan legacy of laying bricks
in alternate headers and stretchers.
. The whole area of the Harappan culture represents a .
triangle.
. Soft limestone and steatite were the most common
materials used for the Harappan stone sculpture.
. Of all the Harappan sites, Mohenjo-c\aro had the most
impressive drainage system.
.. The cemetries of the Harappan cities were generally
located around the perimetre of the settlements.
. The most beautiful brick work of the Harappans is
found in the Great Bath.
. Harappans acquired turquoise, a semi-precious stone,
from Persia.
. The Brahvis tribe of present-day Pakistan has been
identified as the descendants of the Harappan people.
. Indus Civilisation belongs to the ~roto-Historical period.
. Inhumation or complete burial was the most common
method of the disposal of the dead.
. Anthropological studies have established that the Harappan population consisted of four races: Alpine, Mediterranean, Mongoloid and Proto-Austroloid. Of them, Mediterraneans had the largest share.
. The statement "The enemy of the Harappans was nature. Indra and the barbarian hordes are exonerated" was made by G.F. Dales.
. The beginning of the Harappan script can be traced back. to the potter's marks found at Mundigak and Damb Sadat.
. Cotton and wool clothes were used by the Harappan
people.

WHAT SURVIVES FROM HARAPPA

WHAT SURVIVES FROM HARAPPA

Although the Harappan civilisation declined in the second millennium Be, archaeological finds show a stylistic conti­nuity of the Harappan phase. The agricultural communities that emerged in the following periods, especially in Gujarat and Rajasthan, clearly bear links with the Harappan tradition in terms of pottery, disposition of water supply, etc. The shapes of Harappan pottery and terracotta are matched by those of the objects of some later cultures in the north-west and Punjab.

The cult of Pasupati or Siva and of the mother goddess and phallic worship seem to have come down to use from the Harappan tradition. Similarly, the cult of sacred places, rivers or trees and sacred animals show a distinct continuity. Many aspects of domestic life like the house plans, dispo­sition of water supply and attention to bathing have survived till today. The traditional weight and currency system of India, based on a ratio of 16 as the unit, was already present in the Harappan Civilisation. The tech­niques of making a potter's wheel is similar to those used by the Harappans.

POLITICAL ORGANISATION

POLITICAL ORGANISATION

There is no clear idea about the political organisation o~ Indus Valley people. Unlike the Mesopotamians ~dl Egyptians they have not left behind any inscription desq ing their system of administration. Perhaps the Indus va1 people were more concerned with commerce and they w ruled by a class of merchants. But it can be safely sta that there was an organisation like a municipal corporat to look after the civic amenities of the people.

DECLINE
The Harappan culture flourished until about 1800 BC Afterwards, its urban phase marked by systematic to\i planning, extensive brick-work, art of writing, stand, weights and measures, distinction between the citadel a the lower. town, use of bronze tools, and red wan! pottE painted with black designs practically disappeared.

stylistic homogeneity disappeared, and the post-urban Harappan stage was marked by sharp stylistic diverss Some traits of the post-urban Harappan culture are fow in Pakistan, and in central and western India, in Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and w ern U.P. They broadly cover the period from 1800 BC to 1 ­
BC. The post-urban phase of the Harappan culture is known as the sub-Indus culture and is more popularly known as the late Harappan culture.


The late Harappan cultures are primarily Chalcolithic in which tools of stone and copper are used. The Chalcolithic people in the later Harappan phase lived in villages subsisting on agriculture, stock-raising, hunting and fishing. Some places such as Prabhas Patan (Somnath) and Rangpur, both in Gujarat, are the direct descendants of the Harappan culture.

have been found in conjunction with some late Harappan pottery dated around 1200 Be. But we have no archaeologi­cal evidence of any mass-scale confrontation between the mature Harappans and the Aryans.

There is not enough evidence to say with certainty that the destroyers of the Indus cities were members of the group of related tribes whose priests composed the Rigveda, but probably the fall of this great civilisation was partly due to the widespread migratory movement of charioteering peoples which alt~red the face of the whole civilised world in the second millenium Be.

Scholars like Fairservis tried to explain the decay of the Harappan civilisation in terms of the problems of ecology. He computed the population of the Harappan cities and worked out the food requirements of the towns folk. He also computed that the villages in these areas consume about 80 per cent of their produce leaving about 20 per cent for the market. If similar patterns of agriculture existed in the past, a city like Mohenjo-daro, with a population of about 35,000, would require very large numbers of villages producing food. Fairservis calculated that the delicate eco­logical balance of these semi-arid areas was being disturbed because the human and cattle population in these areas was fast depleting the scanty forests, food and fuel resources. The combined needs of the Harappans, peasants and pastoralists exceeded the limited production capacities of these areas. Thus, a growing population of men and animals confronted by scanty resources wore out the landscape.

With the forests and grass cover gradually disappear­ing, there were more floods and droughts. This depletion of the subsistence base caused strain on the entire economy. There seems to have been a gradual movement away to areas which offered better subsistence possibilities. That is why the Harappan communities moved towards Gujaratand the eastern areas, away from the Indus.

The Fairservis theory of environmental disaster appears to be the most plausible in explaining the decline. The gradual deterioration in the town planning and the living standards was a reflection of the depleting subsistence base of the Harappans. This process of decline was completed by the raids and attacks of the surrounding communities.

Scholars have assigned several possible reasons for the decline of the civilisation. The floods in the Indus river might have caused its destruction. It is also supposed that the Indus might have changed its course, thus rendering the valley infertile. The river valley might have lost its charm and the inhabitants might bave left it for good. Or perhaps, due to deficient rainfall and deforestation there might have appeared desert conditions in the valley. It is even suggested that an earthquake might have caused its destruction, as in Quetta.


Some exotic tools and pottery indicate the slow per­colation of new peoples in the Indus Valley during the later phases of the Harappan culture. A few signs of insecurity and violence appear in the last phase of Mohenjo-daro. Hoards of jewellery were buried at places, and skulls huddled together at one place. New types of axes, daggers, knives with mid-ribs and flat tangs appear in the upper levels of Mohenjo-daro. They seem to betray some foreign intrusion. At several sites in Punjab and Haryana, Painted Grey Ware (generally associated with the Vedic people)

Technology and other Facts

TECHNOLOGY
In many respects the Harappans were technologically backward in comparison with the Mesopotamians. The Sumerians very early invented knives and spear-heads with ribs in the middle for extra strength, and axeheads with holes for the shafts; but the blades of Harappa were flat and easily bent while the axehead had to be lashed to their handles. In one respect, however, they were technologically advanced compared to their contemporaries-they had devised a saw with undulating teeth, which allowed the dust to escape freely from the cut and much simplified the carpenter's task.

SOCIETY
The general view is that Indus Valley Civilisation was not the creation of a homogeneous people; it was a composite product of different races who lived and worked together in a particular environment. Mohenjo-daro had easy land and water communications. It was the meeting ground of people from different parts of Asia. However, in recent times, historians are veering round to the view that the Harappan culture is native to the soil, that the populations at these sites belonged each to a single biological group and probably descended from earlier populations in those re­gions.

From the skeletal remains so far examined it appears that some oithe Harappans w~re people of the longheaded, narrow-nosed, slender Mediterranean type. A second ele­ment was the Proto-Australoid, with flat nose and thick lips. A single skull of the Mongolian type, has been found, and one of the short-headed Alpin~ type. Father H. Heras has claimed that the Harappan lcu1guage was a very primitive form of Tamil.
DRESS AND ORNAMENTS The men wore robes which left one shoulder bare, and the garments of the upper classes were often richly patterned. Beards were worn, and men and women alike had long hair. The coiffures of the women were often elaborate, and pigtails were also popular. Women loved jewellery and wore heavy bangles in profu­sion, large necklaces, ear-rings, bracelets, finger-rings, girdles,
nose-studs and anklets. ­

Although no definite proof is available with rega~ the disposal of the dead, a broad view is that probably Ii were three methods of disposing the dead-complete bu
burial after exposure of the body to birds and beasts, cremation followed by burial of the ashes. The disc~ of cinerary urns and jars, goblets or vessels with as bones, and charcoal may, however, suggest that during flourishing period of the Indus Valley culture the t1 method was generally in vogue. The people prob, believed in ghosts and evil spirits, as amulets were WI

ART AND CRAFTS

ART AND CRAFTS

The Harappan culture belongs to the Bronze Age. The people of Harappa used many tools and implements of stone, but they were well-acquainted with the manufacture and use of bronze. However, bronze tools are not prolific in Harappa. For making bronze, copper was obtained from the Khetri copper mines at Rajasthan and from Baluchistan, and tin from Afghanistan. The bronze-smiths produced not only images and utensils but also various tools and weap­ons such as axes, saws, knives and spears.

A piece of woven cotton has been recovered from Mohenjo-daro, and textile impressions have been found on several objects. Spindle whorls and needles have also been discovered. Weavers wove cloth of wool and cotton. Boat­making was practised. seal-making and terracotta manu­facture were also important crafts. The goldsmiths made jewellery of silver, gold, copper, bronze and precious stones. Silver and gold may have been obtained from Afghanistan and precious stones from South India. The Harappans were expert bead-makers. The potter's wheel was in full use.

The Harappans were not on the whole extravagant in their art. The inner walls of their houses were coated with mud plaster without paintings. The outer walls facing the streets were apparently of plain brick. Architecture was austerely utilitarian. Their most notable artistic achievement was perhaps in their seal engravings, especially those of animals, e.g., the great urns bull with its many dewlaps, the rhinoceros with knobbly armoured hide, the tiger roaring fiercely, etc.
The red sandstone torso of a man is particularly impressive for its realism. The bust of another male figure, in steatite, seems to show an attempt at portraiture. How­ever, the most striking of the figurines is perhaps the bronze 'dancing girl, found in Mohenjo-daro. Naked but for a necklace and a series of bangles almost covering one arm, her hair dressed in a complicated coiffure, she stands in a provocative posture, with one arm on her hip and one lanky leg half-bent.

The Harappans made brilliantly naturalistic models of animals, specially charming being the tiny monkeys and squirrels used as pinheads and beads. For their children, they made cattle-toys with movable heads, model monkeys which would slide down a string, little toy-carts, and whistles shaped like birds, all of terracotta. They also made rough terra cotta statuettes of women, usually naked or nearly naked, but with elaborate headdresses; these are probably icons of the Mother Goddess.

IMPORTANT FINDINGS AT THE HARAPPAN SITES

IMPORTANT FINDINGS AT THE HARAPPAN SITES

Harappa The site was discovered by D.R. Sahni in 1921.
Excavations at the site have led to following specific findings:
(i) two rows of six granaries with brick platforms; 12 granaries together had the same area as the Great Granary at Mohenjo-daro;
(ii) evidences of coffin burial and cemetry 'H' culture (two antelopes and the hunter on a potsherd from a cemetry have been
discovered;
(iii) single-room barrack;
(iv) evidence of direct trade interaction with Mesopotamia; (v) a red sandstone male torso;
(vi) stone symbols of female genitals.
Mohenjo-daro It was the most important Harappan city.
Some of the specific findings during the excavations of Mohenjo­
daro include:
(i) a college, a multi-pillared assembly hall;
(ii) ~he Great Bath.(the most important public place of the
city);
(iii) a large granary (the largest building of Mohenjo-daro); (iv) a piece of woven cotton along with spindle whorls and
needles;
(v) superficial evidence of horse;
(vi) a pot-stone fragment of Mesopotamian origin;
(vii) evidence of direct trade contact with Mesopotamia; (viii)a bronze dancing girl;
(ix) evidence of violent death of some of the inhabitants
(discovery of human skeletons put together);
(x) a seal representing Mother Goddess with a plant growing from her w°Ir\Y' and a woman to be sacrificed by a man with a knife in his hand;
(xi) a bearded man; and
(xii) a seal with a picture suggesting Pashupati Mahadev.

Kalibangan Kalibangan was an important Harappan city.
The word 'Kalibangan' means 'black bangles'. A ploughed field was the most important discovery of the early excavations. Later excavations at Kalibangan made the following specific discover­ies:
(i) a wooden furrow;
(ii) seven 'fire-alters' in a row on a platform, suggesting the
practice of the cult of sacrifice;
(iii) remains of massive brick walls around both the citadel and the lower town (the second Harappan site after Lothal to
have the lower town also walled);
(iv) bones of camel;
(v) a tiled floor which bears ir}tersecting design of circles; (vi) a human head with long oval eyes, thick lower lips,
receding forehead and straight pointed nose; and
(vii) evidences of two types of burials: (a) burials in a
circular grave and (b) burials in a rectangular grave.

Lothal Lothal was an important trade centre of the Harappan culture. The town planning in Lothal was different from that of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. The city was divided into six sections. Each section was built on a wide platform of unripe bricks. Each platform was separated by a road with width ranging from 12 feet to 20 feet. Excavations at Lothalled to some specific discoveries which include:
(i) remains of rice husk (the only other Harappan city where
the rice husk has been found is Rangpur, near Ahmedabad);
(ii) an artificial dockyard;
(iii) evidence of horse from a doubtful terrac~tta figurine;
(iv) impressions of cloth on some of the seals;
(v) evidences of direct trade contact with Mesopotamia; (vi) houses with entrances on the main street (the houses
of all other Harappan cities had side entries);
(vii) a ship designed on a seal;
(viii) a terracotta ship;
(ix) a painting on a jar resembling the story of the cunning
fox narrated in the Panchatantra;
(x) evidence of double burial (burying a male and a female
in a single grave);
(xi) evidence of a game similar to modem day chess; and
(xii) an instrument for measuring 180", 90" and 45" angles
(the instrument points to modem day compass).

Chanhu-daro Excavations at Chanhu-daro have revealed three different cultural layers from lowest to the top being Indus culture, the }hukar culture and the }hangar culture. The site is specially important for providing evidences about different Harappan factories. These factories produced seals, toys and bone implements. It was the only Harappan city without a citadel Some remarkable findings at Chanhu-daro include bronze figures of bullock cart and ekkas; a small pot suggesting an inkwell, footprints of an elephant and a dog chasing a cat.

Alamgirpur
Alamgirpur is considered the eastern boundary of the Indus culture. Although the wares found here resemble those at other Harappan sites, other findings suggest that Alamgirpur developed during late-Harappan culture. The site is remarkable for providing the impression of cloth on a trough.

Kot-Diji Kot Diji is known more as a pre-Harappan site. It gives the impression of a pre-Harappan fortified settlement. Houses were made of stone. The remains of Kot-Diji suggest that the city existed in the first half of the third millennium Be Excavations at the site suggest that the city was destructed by force.
Amri Amri also gives evidences of a pre-Harappan settle­ment. However, it lacks the fortification plan of the pre-Harappan phase. A spectacular feature of Amri is that it gives the impression of existence of a transitional culture between pre- and post­Harappan culture. Important findings at Amri include the actual remains of rhinoceros; traces of }hangar culture in late or declining Harappan phase and fire altars.

Ropar Ropar (modern Roop Nagar) is a Harappan site fromwhere remains of pre-Harappan and Harappan cultures have been found. Buildings at Ropar were made mainly of stone and soil. Important findings at the site include pottery, ornaments, copper axes, chert blades, terracotta blades, one inscribed steatite seal with typical Indus pictographs, several burials, interred in oval pits, and a rectangular mud-brick chamber. There is also an evidence of burying a dog below the human burial (Though the practice was prevalent in Burzhom in Kashmir, it was rare in the Harappan context).

Banwali Situated in Hissar district of Haryana, Banwali has provided two phases of culture during its excavations: the pre­Harappan (Phase I) and the Harappan (Phase II). Though phase Il belonged to the Harappan period, chess-board or grid pattern of town planning was not always followed as in other Harappan sites. The roads were neither always straight, nor did they cut at right angles. It also lacked another remarkable feature of the Harappan civilisation-a systematic drainage system. A high quality barley has been found in excavations. Other important material remains include ceramics, steatite seals and a few terracotta ~alings with typical Indus script.

ECONOMY

ECONOMYThe Indus Valley Civilisation clearly had a well-developed economy.

AGRICULTURE The Indus people sowed seeds in the flood plains in November, when the flood water receded, and reaped their harvests of wheat and barley in April, before the advent of the next flood. No hoe or ploughshare has been discovered, but the furrows discovered in the pre­Harappan phase at Kalibangan show that the fields were ploughed in Rajasthan. The chief crops were wheat, barley, rai, peas, sesamum, mustard, etc. Probably the people of Lothal used rice. The Indus people were the earliest people to produce cotton. To the diet were added melons, bananas, fish, fowl, mutton, beef and pork. Besides the cattle, both humped and humpless, cats, dogs and probably elephants were domesticated. The evidence regarding horse and camel is inconclusive.

TRADE AND COMMERCE Flourishing trade is attested to not only by the granaries but also by the presence of numerous seals, uniform script and regulated weights and measures in a wide area. The Harappans carried on con­siderable trade in stone, metal, shell, etc. within the Harappan cultural zone. They might have carried on all exchanges through barter.

The Harappans had commercial links with Rajasthan, Afghanistan and Iran. They had set up a trading colony in Northern Afghanistan which evidently facilitated trade with Central Asia. The Mesopotamian records from about 2350 BC onwards refer to trade relations with Meluha, the ancient name of the Indus region. The Mesopotamian texts speak of two intermediate trading stations called Dilmun (Bahrain?) and Makan between Mesopotamia and Meluha. Imports could have been matched by exports as revealed by bales of cloth from Umma in Mesopotamia bearing the imprint of an Indus seal. The finding of seals of Indus style at Ur,Lagash, Susa, Tel A5mar and other places suggests thatperhaps some Indian traders were living in Mesopotamia. That this trade was at least partly sea-borne is proved by the discovery of an ancient dockyard at Lothal, connected through the Bhogavar river with the Gulf of Cambay. One can visualise Indian ships, depicted on a seal and a potsherd from Mohenjo-daro, cruising up and down the Arabian Sea.

TOWN PLANNING

TOWN PLANNING

The town-planning of the Indus civilisation followed the grid system, Le., the roads oriented north-south and east­west cut across one another almost at right angles, and the city was divided into a number of rectangular or square blocks. The main roads (streets), some as much as 30 feet wide, were quite straight. Lamp posts at intervals indicate the existence of street lighting. Flanking the streets, lanes and bylanes were well-planned houses.

In none of the major cities has any stone building been found; standardised burnt brick of good quality was the usual building material for dwelling houses and public buildings alike. Elsewhere in the contemporary world, mud-bricks and wattle-and-daub were the usual building materials, and burnt-bricks were altogether unknown. The houses, often of two or more storeys, varied in size, but were all based on much the same plan-a square courtyard, around which were a number of rooms. The entrances were usually in wide alleys, and no windows faced the streets.

The houses had tiled bathrooms, the design of which shows that the people preferred to take their bath by pouring pitchers of water over the head and shoulders.
The bathrooms were provided with drains, which flowed into sewers under the main streets, leading to soak­pits. The sewers were covered throughout their length by large brick slabs. No other civilisation until that of the Romans had so efficient a system of drains. In Kalibangan many houses show the presence of wells.

The towns were generally divided into the citadel (acropolis) and the lower town. The citadel was an oblong artificial platform some 30-50 feet high and about 400x200 yards in area. It was enclosed by a thick (13 II)eters at Harappa) crenelated mud-brick wall, externally rivetted with burnt bricks, corner towers and occasional bastions built along the length. Although no separate fortified mound has been found at Lothal, the conception of an acropolis seems to have existed. On the citadel were erected the public buildings, while the lower town was the town proper, in any case at least a square-mile in area.

At Mohenjo-daro (mound of the dead), there lay in the citadel a 'college', a multi-pillared 'assembly hall', a public bath (the Great Bath) and a large granary consisting of a podium of square blocks of burnt-bricks with a wooden superstructure. Such blocks in mud-brick have also been found on the citadel-mound at Kalibangan and on the acropolis at Lothal. But in the citadel of Harappa, we come across a series of brick platforms which formed the basis for two rows of six granaries. At Harappa, to the south of the granary lay working floors, probably for pounding grain, and two rows of workmen's quarters The Great Bath, measuring 12 metres by 7 metres and 2.4 metres deep, had a floor of burnt bricks. Steps led from either end to the surface, while there were rooms alongside for changing cloths. A large well in an adjacent !oom was the source of water, and an outlet in a comer of the Bath drained it. The Bath was probably used for ritual bathing. ECONOMY
The Indus Valley Civilisation clearly had a well-developed economy.

GEOGRAPHICAL SPREAD

GEOGRAPHICAL SPREAD

The Harappa, Ghaggar and Mohenjo-daro axis, historian: believe, represents the heartland of the Harappan civilisation Most of the Harappan settlements are located in this regior which is a flat stretch of land having similar subsistencE pattern. Sites like Nowsharo, Judeierjo-daro and Ali-Murac have been reported from the inhospitable and dry Kachh plains to the west of the Indus system. The settlements oj Sutka-Koh and Sutkagendor on the Makran coast are thE known western boundaries of the Harappans. The HarappaIl settlements at Shortughai in north-eastern AfghanistaIl appear to have been isolated colonies of the Harappans.

The eastern border land of the Harappan civilisation are represented by Bargaon, Manpur and Alamgirpur in the Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh, located in the Ganga­Yamuna Doab. Manda in Jammu and Ropar in Punjab represent the northern extremities of the Harappans in India. The settlements of Daimabad in Maharashtra and Bhagatrau in Gujarat might have formed the southern frontier of the Harappans. The Harappan civilisation cov­ered a very large area, larger than the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilisations. Except in the Ghaggar-Hakra region, the settlements were very thinly spread' out. According to scholars, the largest Harappan city, viz, Mohenjo-daro had a population of 35,000 or so.

Major sites in Pakistan are Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Kot Diji, Ali Murad, Sutkagendor, etc. In India, major sites are at Rupar (Punjab), Banwali (Haryana), Lothal, Rangpur and Surkotada (Gujarat), Kalibangan (Rajasthan), and Alamgirpur (western D.P.).
It is worth mentioning that Dholavira in the Bhachan taluka of Kutch district in Gujarat is the latest and one of the largest Harappan settlements to be discovered in India. Dr. J.P. Joshi and Dr. R.S. Bisht of the Archaeological Survey of India were involved in the excavation.. Dholavira, unlike other sites, has three principal divisions.

PRE-HARAPPAN AND HARAPPAN CULTURES

5500 BC to 3500 BC (Neolithic) In Baluchistan and the Indus plains, settlements like Mehrgarh and Kili Ghul Muhammad came up. Beginning with pastoralism with limited cultivation and seasonal occupation of the villages, permanent villages gradually emerged. Knowledge of wheat, barley, dates, cotton, sheep, goat and cattle existed, and there are evidences of mud houses, pottery and craft-production.

3500 BC to 2600 BC (Early Harappan Period) Many more settlements established in the hills and the plains. Largest numbers of villages occur in this period. Use of copper, wheel and plough. Extraordinary range of pottery forms showing beginning of many regional traditions. Evidence of granary, defensive walls, and long distance trade. Emergence of unifor­mities in the pottery tradition throughout the Indus Valley. Also, the origins of such motifs as pipal, humped bulls, cobras, homed deity etc.

2600 BC to 1800 BC (Mature Harappan Period) Emergence of large cities, uniform types of bricks, weights, seals, beads and pottery. Planned township and long distance trade.

1800 BC onwards (Late Harappan Period)
Many Harappan sites abandoned. Continuation of Harappan crafts and pottery tradition. The village cultures of Punjab, Sutlej-Jamuna divide. Gujarat imbibes the Harappan crafts and pottery tradition.

CHRONOLOGY

CHRONOLOGY

Scholars call the period 3500-2600 BC as the early Harappan period because they believe that this was the formative epoch of the Harappan civilisation when certain trends of cultural unification were in evidence.

Mundigak in Southern Afghanistan, apparently located on a trade route, grew into a large township. A palace, a temple, a variety of pottery, the use of naturalistic deco­ration, terracotta female figurines and semi-precious stones as Lapis Lazuli and Steatite have been found. At Damb Sadaat in Quetta valley, large houses having brick walls belonging to the beginning of the third millennium Be have been discovered. People of the central and southern Baluchistan sites like Anjira, Togou, Nindowari and Balakot were using similar kinds of pottery showing distinct influ~ ences from both the Persian-Gulf towns and the Indus Valley towns.

By the middle of the fourth millennium Be, the Indus alluvial plains became the focal point of change. The banks of the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra saw the emergence of many settlements. People of Amri in the Sind province lived in houses of stone and mud brick, constructed a granary of sorts, and painted animal motifs as the humped Indian bull on their f0ttery which was wheel-made. People of Kot Diji, opposite Mohenjo-daro, had a massive defensive wall built around their settlement. They also used a wheel­thrown pottery having decorations of plain bands of dark brownish paint, a variety found along the entire stretch of River Indus, where Harappan settlements have been re­ported. At Rahman Dheri, an Early Indus township has
. been excavated. Oblong in shape, with houses, streets and lanes laid out in a planned fashion, it is protected by a massive wall. Beads of turquoise and lapis lazuli point totheir contact with Central Asia.

At Kalibangan, in north Rajasthan, a remarkable find was that of a ploughed field surface, suggesting that even at this stage the cultivators knew about the plough. People lived in houses of standard mud bricks, which had' a rampart around a settlement.

Thus over a period of nearly three thousand years, cultivators colonised the alluvial plains of the Indus using tools of copper, bronze and stone, as well as the plouj and wheeled transport. These people reared cattle, we shipped terracotta mother goddesses and the homed dei some even surrounding their settlements with defensi' walls. All these developments were taking place in tI context of a much larger network of relationships with tI civilisations of Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia. It was in tI backdrop of these processes of technological and ideologic unification that the Harappan civilisation emerged.

The increasingly efficient technology and the exploit tion of the fertile plains of the Indus must have dramatical improved grain production. This would have led to a larg\ surplus and an increase in population. At the same tim trading links with distant communities must have beE established by the richer section of society seeking t possess rare goods. The larger surpluses would also perm the elaboration of non-farming specialisation in metallurg pottery and priesthood. The existence of many agricultur. groups and pastoral nomadic communities in close conta. with each other must have led to conflict among them. . appears that among the various competing communities i the Indus region, one set of people established their POWI over the others. This signalled the beginning of the 'Matw Harappan' phase, a phase that was to dominate the nortl west for the next 700 to 800 years.

It is called the Harappan Civilisation after a conventio in archaeology that when an ancient culture is describec it is named after the modem name of the site which fin revealed the existence of this culture. However, since th term gives the erroneous impression that the civilisatiol began in Harappa, not everyone has accepted it. Th discovery of sites away from the river valley promptec archaeologists to use the term 'Indus Civilisation', since th. other areas were also in the parallel systems of the rive]

The Harappan Culture

The Harappan Culture

In 1826, an Englishman, Charles Masson, while visiting a village named Harappa in Western Punjab, now in Pakistan, noted the remarkably high walls and towers of a very old settlement, and felt that the city belonged to the times of Alexander the Great. In 1872, a famous archaeolo­gist, Sir Alexander Cunningham, after collecting some archaeological objects from Harappa concurred with the opinion of the people of the village that the city was about a thousand years old. It was in 1924 that another archae­ologist, John Marshall, reported that the Harappan civilisation was as old as the civilisations of Egypt and Mesopotamia. Marshall noted that seals, sealings, written script and works of art found in Harappa were different from those with which scholars were already familiar and which belonged to a much later period. But it was Dayaram Sahni who was associated with the excavations at Harappa 1921 onwards, while R.D. Banerjee found the remains of Mohenjo-daro.

In Mohenjo-daro, the settlement lay underneath a Buddhist monastery belonging to the Kushan period. And it is known that the deeper an archaeologist digs, the earlier he moves in the time scale. Then there was the evidence that people living in these settlements did not know the use of iron, which meant that the settlement existed before the beginning of the second millennium BC, when iron came in use. Further, there emerged evidence suggesting that the Harappan and Mesopotamian civilisation were contempo­raneous. This meant that the people of Harappa lived in the early third millennium BC, the same as the people of Mesopotamia.

The other contemporary civilisations in the world were: the areas around the Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea, the Hwang-Ho valley in China, and the Nile valley in Egypt.