Indus Valley Civilisation | History, Economy, Map & Facts

March 4, 2021 by Santosh Bhunia

The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization, developing from around 3300 BC. C. until 1300 a. C. along the valley of the Indus River, in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northwestern India. It encompassed about a hundred settlements and two major cities: Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, both in Pakistan.

Altogether, it comprised the largest area of all ancient civilizations, more than a million square kilometers, and spanned several periods, its greatest splendor being among the 2600 and 1900 A. C. Like the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, it depended on its river. Like the Nile, the Indus overflowed every year, flooding vast areas and depositing fertile sediments.

This immense agricultural potential was the basis on which urbanism around the Indus River developed. With the prehistoric cultures of the Indus Valley, the first chapter of the history of India is being prepared. It is a long prehistoric period, proven by lithic testimonies.

On the other hand, prehistoric remains can be found up to the 1st millennium BC. C., that is, until a time when the peninsula had already entered history. Strictly speaking, the Indus cultures belong to prehistory as they have only left archaeological remains without literary documents, but to appreciate Indian history it is necessary to take these pre-Aryan urban cultures into consideration.

Archaeologists say the Indus Valley civilization is the most extensive ancient civilization discovered after the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilization sites. In 1980 the Indus Valley civilization was designated a world heritage site by UNESCO.

Indus Valley Civilization notes — **Indus Valley Civilization**

Indus Valley Civilization Facts

Period: Bronze Age South Asia
Dates: c. 3300 – c. 1300 BCE
Preceded by: Mehrgarh
Followed by:
Painted Grey Ware culture
Cemetery H culture

Discovery and Exploration

The sources for the Harappa culture are, unlike those for the other two advanced cultures in Egypt and Mesopotamia, very sparse. Only about ten percent of their settlements have been excavated. Its writing has not yet been deciphered, nor has it disappeared from around 1900 BC. Clarified.

Even Sanskrit texts from the 1st millennium BC do not directly mention this early culture. It is also not certain which language people spoke at the time or what they called themselves.

Although the ruins at Harappa had been known for some time and were first described by Charles Masson in 1844 in his book Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan and The Panjab as “a brick-built, destroyed fortification”, its significance was not recognized until much later been.

In 1857 the British used in the construction of the railway from Multan to Lahore the route burnt bricks, which they found on the nearby ruins in Harappa for attachment. The location in Harappa is therefore quite poor compared to Mohenjo-daro.

Mohenjo-daro had also been known for a long time, but here they were more interested in the remains of a later Buddhist monastery from the 2nd century AD, which was built on the ruins.

In 1912 J. Fleet found seals with unknown characters in what was then British India, which aroused the interest of the scientific public in Europe. Subsequently, excavations were carried out in 1921/22 in Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro under the direction of John Marshall, the then director of the British Antiquities Service.

The similarity of the two excavated cities quickly made it clear that a previously unknown high culture was here had been discovered. More than 10 hectares had been excavated by the city of Mohenjo-Daro by 1931, but after that only smaller excavations took place, including in 1950 by the British Mortimer Wheeler.

In 1935/36 another Indus culture site was excavated with Chanhu-daro. Since the partition of British India in 1947, the settlement area of the Harappa culture has been divided between Pakistan and India. In Pakistan, the Americans, French, British, and Germans carried out further research work together with Pakistani archaeologists, while the Indian Antiquities Service continued the work in India.

In addition to the archaeologists already mentioned, the British had and still have a great influence on Indus research Aurel Stein, the Indian Nani Gopal Majumdar, and the German Michael Jansen.

Economy

The spreading area of the Indus Valley civilization extends from the lapis mining region in the mountainous northern part of present-day Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea coasts in the south, and from the highland pastures of Balochistan in the west to the mining deserts of Cholistan and Thar to the east.

The heart of the territory was represented by the river valleys of the Indo and the ancient Ghaggar-Hakra, now disappeared. The economy was mainly based on agriculture and livestock, as well as on the exchange of handicrafts even over great distances.

The term Meluhha which appears in some Sumerian documents to indicate an important trading partner has been interpreted as the name of the Indus Civilization.

Agriculture

The alluvial plains, irrigated by melting snow in the mountains and seasonal monsoon rains, allowed the development of prosperous agriculture, supplemented by fishing and hunting and forest resources, which ensured the subsistence of the urban population.

Little information has reached us about the nature of the agricultural system: however, some hypotheses can be formulated. The agricultural system had to be highly productive, to ensure the subsistence of a large urban population not primarily employed in agriculture itself.

Compared to the ancient Harappa culture there must have been some important technological innovations, probably including the use of the plow, but there does not seem to be any traces of an irrigation and water regulation system (which however may not have been preserved due to the frequent disastrous floods of the rivers).

It would therefore seem that the hypothesis of “hydraulic despotism”, according to which the development of an urban civilization could only take place through the production of a considerable agricultural surplus, allowed by ‘introduction of irrigation systems, and these in turn inevitably imply the presence of a centralized and despotic power, which has the ability to employ the labor force of thousands of people.

As already mentioned, however, there is no trace of royal power in the cities. Furthermore, the traditional cultivation system still used in Asia allows the production of a significant agricultural surplus by means of rice cultivation terraced, built with the work of several generations without involving forms of forced labor or slavery: similar modalities could have allowed the urban development of the Indus Valley civilization.

Industry

They adorned their bodies with rich ornaments of silver, gold, ivory, and precious stones. They knew copper, tin, and lead. They used copper for weapons, instruments and utensils and also bronze tools (even axes). For domestic purposes they made clay utensils in a great variety of shapes.

They combined agriculture, livestock, metallurgy and pottery and, taking advantage of the power of animals both in transport and in the plow, they loaded raw materials and goods destined for internal consumption and commercial exchange.

Internal Trade

Contrary to what was assumed in the 1950s and known from the cultures in Mesopotamia, there was probably no central temple economy in the Indus Valley that collected the surpluses via tribute and – after deducting a more or less large share for the elite – distributed it to the various specialist groups as required . Rather, the exchange within the already quite labor-based economy was mainly based on trade .

This was fueled by significant advances in transportation technology. They knew both carts very similar to those used in what is now South Asia, as well as boats and ships. Most of these ships were probably small flat-bottomed boats, as can still be found today on the Indus.

Whether the carts, of which mostly only terracotta, but also bronze models exist, were in profane use, however, remains open in view of the knowledge gained about Mesopotamian cart models .

The most important goods in domestic trade were probably cotton, wood, grain, cattle and other foodstuffs. A highly standardized and very fine system of units of measure was used to organize trade – and probably also to collect taxes.

Foreign Trade

Judging by the distribution of the artifacts of the Indus civilization, the trade network spanned a large geographic area that spanned parts of Afghanistan , the coastal regions of what is now Iran , northern and central India, and Mesopotamia. In many of these countries there were places of the Indus culture that were obviously trading enclaves.

At Shortugai, parts of a settlement of the Indus culture were excavated, which may have been important in the lapis lazuli trade. On the Persian Gulf, near Ras al-Jinz, the remains of a settlement were found that were probably a base in maritime trade.

Important import goods were:

Gemstones: Jade from the Himalayas , lapis lazuli from the area of today’s Afghanistan, turquoise from the Iranian highlands, amethysts from the Deccan highlands in India, hematite and Jasper from Indian Rajasthan
Gold (from south India)
Wood (from south India)

Important export goods were:

Cotton goods, for which the Indus culture had the monopoly at that time and whose bright colors were coveted
Wood (cedar from the Kashmir region, teak from the Punjab forests)
ivory
Gemstones
Jewellery
possibly spices

Especially with Sumer (Jemdet-Nasr period, early dynastic period “Mesopotamia”), finds and documents in Sumer show a lively exchange of goods, both over land through today’s Iran and by sea via Dilmun (today: Bahrain). For example, in the tomb of Queen Puabi, who lived around 2500 B.C. Lived in Ur city (today’s Tell el-Muqejjir) in Mesopotamia, found carnelian jewelry from the Indus region.

In addition, a Sumerian inscription, which probably refers to the Indus culture, uses the name Meluha which is the only indication of what the people of the Indus Valley could have called themselves back then. The center of trade seems to have been Mohenjo-daro, where administrative and commercial structures could be identified.

Waterways formed the backbone of the transport infrastructure at that time. In addition to the inland vessels already mentioned, there were also larger, seaworthy ships.

Archaeologists have discovered the remains of a large man-made canal and port docks near Lothal on the coast of the Arabian Sea, and possibly the oldest man-made port basin in the world; for the time it was very progressive.

Aryan Invasion

In 1953, Sir Mortimer Wheeler proposed that the invasion of an Indo-European tribe in Central Asia, the “Aryans”, caused the decline of the CVI (Cortical visual impairment). As evidence, he cited a group of 37 skeletons found in various parts of Moenjo-daro and passages in the Vedas referring to battles and forts.

However, scholars soon began to reject Wheeler’s theory, since the skeletons belonged to a period after the city was abandoned and none were found near the citadel. Kenneth Kennedy’s subsequent examination of the skeletons in 1994 showed that the marks on the skulls were caused by erosion rather than violence.

In the culture of Cemetery (the late Harappan phase in the Punjabe region), some of the drawings painted in the funerary urns were interpreted through the lenses of Vedic literature : for example, peacocks with hollow bodies and a small human form inside, which was interpreted as the soul of the dead, and a dog that can be seen as the dog of Yama, the god of death.

This may indicate the introduction of new religious beliefs during this period, but the archaeological evidence does not support the hypothesis that the people of Cemetery H are the destroyer of the HarappanF cities.

Fall of Indus Valley Civilization

The fall of this civilization is thought to have been caused by climate change. Climate change at that time caused a minor ice age which resulted in a drier dry season which had a negative impact on agriculture. This is what makes these civilized people move to small villages in the foothills of the Himalayas.

In addition, at the same time the Indo-Aryan civilization came with more sophisticated equipment. The Indo-Aryan people are suspected of attacking the people of the Indus River Valley because in the vicinity of the former city there were found remains of skeletons that seemed to show strong evidence of an invasion.

Another suggestion of the collapse of this civilization is due to flooding because the city seems so densely populated and floods have occurred repeatedly, but unfortunately this evidence is less strong because not all cities were destroyed by floods. Other allegations are due to the socio-cultural development from agriculture to other fields so that the city was later abandoned.

Who Discovered The Indus Valley Civilization

Indus Valley Civilization was discovered by R. D. Banerji, D. R. Bhandarkar and Sir John Hubert Marshall in 1922.