INDUS VALLEY

CIVILIZATION
PRESENTED BY
- MEGHA SHARMA
- NIKHIL SHARMA
- K R I T I K A J U YA L
- MOHIT
INTRODUCTION
• The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age
Civilization (3300–1300 BCE mature period 2600–
1900 BCE) extending from what today is northeast
Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India.
• At its peak, the Indus Civilization may have had a
population of over five million.
• The Indus cities are noted for their urban planning,
baked brick houses, elaborate drainage systems, water
supply systems, and clusters of large non-residential
buildings.
• The Indus Valley Civilization is also known as the
Harappan Civilization.
• Among the settlements were the major urban center's
of Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro (UNESCO World Heritage
site), Dholavira, Ganeriwala in Cholistan and
Rakhigarhi, Lothal,
INTRODUCTION

• The Indus cities were built on an uniform plan.

• A few cities have citadels to the West built on
higher platform and to the east of which is the
hub of residential area.
• Both of them are surrounded by a massive brick
wall.
• The cities without citadel are found on high
mounds.
• The settlements belonging to this civilization can be classified as:
– Small villages (which were up to 10 hectares)
– Larger towns and small cities (10 to 50 hectares)
– Large cities settlements such as −
• Mohenjo Daro (+250 hectares),
• Harappa (+150 hectares),
• Ganawariwala (+80 hectares),
• Rakhigarhi (+80 hectares),
• Kalibangan (+100 hectares), and
• Dholavira (+100 hectares).
HARAPPAN
CIVILIZ ATION
INTRODUCTION
• It is spread over 450,000 sqm of space.

• The 1,400 settlements of this civilization discovered so far are distributed over a very wide
geographical area covering almost 1,600 km (east to west) and 1,400 km (north to south).

• About 1,400 settlements of the Harappan culture are known from different parts of India. About
925 settlements sites are now in India and 475 are in Pakistan.

• Harappa is located near the Ravi River, which is a tributary of the upper Indus region.
• Mostly, the Harappan settlements were located on river banks of which −
– Only 40 settlements were located on the Indus and its tributaries.
– About 250 settlements were found in India beyond the Saraswati River system; a number of them were located in
Gujarat, and a few in Maharashtra.
– The distribution pattern of settlements shows that the focus of Harappan civilization was not the Indus, but
the Saraswati River and its tributaries, which flowed between the Indus and the Ganga. Therefore, few researchers
prefer to call it as Saraswati civilization or Indus-Saraswati civilization
• The patterns of settlements were based on the behavior of rivers which is based around the
flood plain ecology, regional trade over rivers, favorable climate for daily life, access to trade
routes and natural resources etc.

• Cities were built on a uniform plan.

• To the west of each was a ‘citadel’ mound built on a high podium of mud-brick.

• To the east was the town proper the main hub of the residential area.
• The citadel and the town was further surrounded by a massive brick wall.

• Provision of fine drainage system, well arranged water supply system and proper planning- all possible steps
were carefully adopted to make the town ideal and comfortable for the citizenry.

• The areas are divided into lower (public) and upper (acropolis) areas.

• The Acropolis:

– It was namely a parallelogram that was 400-500 yards north-south and 200-300 yards east-west.

– The height is 40 feet from the flood-plain and both the cities are similarly oriented, with the major axis north-
south.

• The grid plan is indicative of an evolved civil engineering principle that had developed at the time.

• Although the plan at Harappa isn’t fully excavated, the general similarities mean that it was probably
the same as at Mohenjo Daro.
 MATERIALS USED IN BUILDINGS
• Most settlements were situated in the alluvial plains where the most
common building materials were mud-bricks and kiln-fired-bricks, wood
and reeds.

• In the foothills and on the Islands of Kutch and in Saurashtra, dressed

stone replaced bricks (due to an abundance of stone).

• The sizes of bricks have been found identical proportions 1:2:4, that
the width is double the thickness and the length four times, the
thickness.

• Doors and windows were made up of wood and mats.

• Floors of houses were generally hard-packed earth that was often

plastered.

• Drains and bathing areas were made with baked bricks or stone.

• Roofs were probably made of wooden beams covered with reeds and
packed clay.
 STREETS
• The most outstanding features of the Harappan civilization were the
streets and side lanes equipped with drains system.
• The streets cut each other on the right angles and the width of these
streets was in a set ratio.

• They were 13 to 34 feet wide and were well lined.

• The streets and roads divided the city into rectangular blocks.

• Archaeologists have discovered the lamp posts at intervals.

• Dustbins were also provided on the streets (proves the presence of

good municipal administration).
DRAINAGE SYSTEM
• One of the most remarkable features of the Indus valley
civilization is that the city was provided with an
excellent closed drainage system.

• Each house had its own drainage and soak pit which was
connected to the public drainage. Brick laid channels
Drainage system
flowed through every street.

• They were covered and had manholes at intervals for

cleaning and clearing purposes.

• Large brick culverts with corbelled roofs were

constructed on the outskirts of the city to carry excess
water.
• Indus people had a perfect underground
drainage system.

• Burnt bricks were used to make drains.

• Small drains connected with bathing platforms

and toilets of private houses were joined with
the medium sized drains in the side streets then
these drains ran into larger sewers in the main
streets which were covered with bricks or
dressed stone blocks.
TYPES OF BUILDINGS
• Excavations have uncovered many types of houses and public
buildings at both large and small settlements.

• The architecture may be grouped into three categories with

some variations as −

– Private houses

– Large houses surrounded by smaller units and

– Large public structures

• Doorways and windows rarely opened out into the main street,
but faced side lanes.

• The view into the house was blocked by a wall or a room

around the front door. This was done to protect the activities in
the central courtyard from the view of passers-by.

• The doors were made with wooden frames and a brick socket
set in the threshold served as door pivot.
• Some of the doors seem to have been painted and possibly carved with simple
ornamentation.
• The windows were small at first and second stories.
• The adjacent houses were separated by a narrow space of "no man's land".
• the majority of the Harappan cities and towns are composed of a series of walled mounds or
sectors oriented in different directions.
MOHANJO DARO
INTRODUCTION
• Mohenjo-Daro, is an ancient planned city laid out on a
grid of streets.
• The city probably had around 35,000 residents.
• An orthogonal street layout was oriented toward the
north-south & east-east directions.
• the widest streets run north-south, straight through
town; secondary streets run east-west, sometimes in a
staggered direction. Secondary streets are about half the
width of the main streets; smaller alleys are a third to a
quarter of the width of the main streets.
• The street layout shows an understanding of the basic
principles of traffic, with rounded corners to allow the
turning of carts easily.
• Other public buildings are temples and public baths.
• The drains are covered.
• The buildings were constructed of
sun dried and burnt bricks.
• The bricks found in Mohenjo-Daro
The great bath
and other Harappan sites are all
the same size 7cm x 14cm x
28cm.
• Sun-dried bricks were used for
infill, and burnt bricks were
used for the drain and sewer linings.

well
Stupa
• The Courtyard house :
• The house was planned as a series of rooms
opening on to a central courtyard providing an
open space inside for community activities. Water
supply and sanitation for water, the big houses had
their own wells, other wells would serve groups of
smaller.
• Almost every house had a bathroom, usually a fine
sawn burnt brick pavement, often with a
surrounding curb.
• Waste water was directed to covered drains,
which lined the major streets.
• The house drains start from the bathrooms of the
houses and join up to the main sewer in the street,
which was covered by brick slabs or corbelled brick
arches.
• On the streets we can find manholes for cleaning;
some drains flow to closed seeps, others flow out
of the city.
DHOL AVIRA
•Rectangular in shape

•Spread over 250 acres.

• The city is divided into two parts, the so-called

Citadel and the Lower City.

• The city had a central marketplace, with a large

central well. Individual households or groups of
households obtained their water from smaller
wells.

•Citadel, lower town and middle town were

three pre existing planned geometrical divisions
(similar to Harappa & Mohenjo daro).
• Middle town had its own defense
mechanism, streets, gateways, wells
and roads.
• Highlights of the town: castle, bailey
(where imp. Officials resided)
• Most of the buildings were built in
stone- one of the striking features of
the building.
• Both Harappa and Mohenjo-daro
share relatively the same
architectural layout, and were
generally not heavily fortified like
other Indus Valley sites.
• Most houses had inner courtyards,
with doors that opened onto side-
lanes. Some buildings had two
stories.

streets
• There is a building which was used as a public bath.
• The overall dimension of the Bath is 180 feet by
108 feet. The bathing pool is 39 feet by 23 feet with
8 feet depth. There is a device to fill and empty the
water of the bathing pool. There are galleries and
Public bath Granary
rooms on all sides of the bathing pool.
• There is the ruin of a great granary at Harappa
measuring 169 fit x 135 fit
• Each house had horizontal and vertical drains. There
were underground drains for the streets. These
drains were covered by stone slabs. The soak pits
were made of bricks. The house drains were Rock cut reservoir
connected with road drains.
Underground drain
• The city is basically oriented in the traditional cardinal directions, but the layout of the
settlement, especially of the walls and sectors are quite different from that of the other
Harappan settlements.
• The citadel of Dholavira, unlike its counterparts at Harappa, Mohen-jo-Daro and Kalibangan
was laid out in the south of the city area.
• Dholavira too has conjoined subdivisions, identified as castle and bailey, located on the east and
west respectively, on the top of a low hill with fortification. Impregnable defences most
zealously guard the former, being the most important unit, while the latter is lower in height
and enclosed by comparatively less thick walls. A broad and long ground between the citadel
and middle town has been interpreted as a ceremonial ground. Further north, was located the
enwalled middle town and to the east of it was founded lower town.
LOTHAL
• Lothal, which is roughly rectangular on
plan, with longer axis running north to
south was surrounded by a massive
brick wall, probably to protect from
flood, as the site is situated on the low-
lying area of Bhogava, a tributary of
Sabarmati.
• A flood destroyed village foundations
and settlements (c. 2350 BCE).
• The town was divided into blocks of 1–
2-metre-high platforms of sun-dried
bricks, each serving 20–30 houses of
thick mud and brick walls.
• The city was divided into a citadel, or
acropolis and a lower town.
• The rulers of the town lived in the acropolis, which featured paved baths,
underground and surface drains and a potable water well.
• The lower town was subdivided into two sectors — the north-south arterial street
was the main commercial area — flanked by shops of rich and ordinary merchants
and craftsmen.
• The residential area was located to either side of the marketplace.
• The lower town was also periodically enlarged during Lothal years of prosperity.
• Lothal engineers accorded high priority to the creation of a dockyard and a warehouse to serve the
purposes of naval trade.
• The dock was built on the eastern flank of the town, and is regarded by archaeologists as an engineering feat
of the highest order.
• It was located away from the main current of the river to avoid silting, but provided access to ships in high
tide as well.
• The warehouse was built close to the acropolis on a 3.5-metre-high podium of mud bricks.
• The rulers could thus supervise the activity on the dock and warehouse simultaneously.
• There was an important public building opposite to the warehouse whose superstructure has completely
disappeared.
• Throughout their time, the city had to brace itself through multiple floods and storms.
• Dock and city peripheral walls were maintained efficiently. The town's zealous rebuilding ensured the growth
and prosperity of the trade.
• However, with rising prosperity, Lothal people failed to upkeep their walls and dock facilities, possibly as a
result of over-confidence in their systems. A flood of moderate intensity in 2050 BCE exposed some serious
weaknesses in the structure, but the problems were not addressed properly.