ANCIENT AND MEDIVIAL PERIOD Settlement of Indus Valley Civilization

HISTORY OF HUMAN SETTELEMENT -111

(also knows as Harappan Civilization) 33001300 BCE

SUBMMITED BY AJAY YADAV ROLL NO- _ _ _ _ _ MURP , SEMESTER

Contents

Introduction of IVC Highlights Chronology City Structure Art and Craft Religion Language Burial Collapse

Introduction

The Indus Valley Civilization, also known as Harappan culture, is among the world's earliest civilizations, contemporary to the Bronze Age civilizations of Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt.

This Indus Valley civilization flourished around 3300-1300 BCE; mature period 26001900 BCE It flourished along the Indus River in what is present day are now Pakistan and western India.

Highlights
Area:1,260,000 km Extensions: Pakistan- from Balochistan to Sindh India- Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, and Punjab Surrounded with rich agricultural lands being surrounded by highlands, desert, and ocean Main cities:Harappa, Mohenjo-daro(city of the dead) Economy based on the cultivation of wheat, barley and peas, and on trading with the Mesopotamians and others to the west. No remains of royal tombs, palace, or large public art work.

Chronology
Two terms are employed for the periodization of the Indus valley civilization: phases & Eras. The Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan phases are also called the Regionalisation, Integration, and Localisation eras
Ancient Indus Chronology Yrs. (B.C.E.) Phase 3300-2800 Harappan 1 (Ravi Phase) Harappan 2 (Kot Diji Phase, Nausharo I, Mehrgarh VII) Harappan 3A (Nausharo II) Regionalization Era ERA

2800-2600
2600-2450

2450-2200
2200-1900 1900-1700

Harappan 3B
Harappan 3C Harappan/Late Harappan Transitional Late Harappan (Cemetery H)

Integration Era

1700-1300

Localisation Era

Early Harappan
(3300 BCE until 2800 BCE.)

The Early Harappan Ravi Phase, named after the nearby Ravi River, lasted from circa 3300 BCE until 2800 BCE. the Kot Diji Phase (2800-2600 BCE, Harappan 2), named after a site in northern Sindh, Pakistan, near Mohenjo Daro. Kot Diji (Harappan 2) represents the phase leading up to Mature Harappan, with the citadel representing centralized authority and an increasingly urban quality of life. Another town of this stage was found at Kalibangan in India on the Hakra River.

Contd

Trade networks linked this culture with related regional cultures and distant sources of raw materials, including lapis lazuli and other materials for bead-making. Villagers had, by this time, domesticated numerous crops, including peas, sesame seeds, dates, and cotton, Domestic animals also used, including the water buffalo. Mud brick for building.

Middle Harappan - Integration Era

2600-1900 BC
By 2500 BCE, communities had been turned into urban centers (integration). Six such urban centers have been discovered, including: Harappa, Mohenjo Daro and Dicki in Pakistan, along with Gonorreala, Dokalingam in India. In total, over 1052 cities and settlements have been found, mainly in the general region of the Ghaggar-Hakar River and its tributaries. Irrigation used to increase crop production and mud brick structures.

Late Harappan-Cemetery H
1700-1300 BC
Cremation of human remains. The bones were stored in painted pottery burial urns. This is completely different to the Indus civilization where bodies were buried in wooden coffins. Reddish pottery, painted in black with antelopes, peacocks etc., sun or star motifs, with different surface treatments to the earlier period. Expansion of settlements into the east. Rice became a main crop. Apparent breakdown of the widespread trade of the Indus civilization, with materials such as marine shells no longer used. Continued use of mud brick for building.

Advance sewerage and drainage system

Aerial View of Mohenjo-Daro

City Structure

The quality of municipal town planning suggests the knowledge of urban planning and efficient municipal governments which placed a high priority on hygiene

Streets and Buildings Streets and Buildings

The city was built on a grid pattern in rectangular block; buildings were made of standard size mud or baked bricks; had sewage and drainage systems large streets Residence house constructed around the courtyard; up to three stories (estimates had 35,000 inhabitants; located on the East side of the city ) Granaries and citadel on the West side Within the city, individual homes or groups of homes obtained water from wells. From a room that appears to have been set aside for bathing, waste water was directed to covered drains, which lined the major streets. Houses opened only to inner courtyards and smaller lanes.

Plan of Harappa

The Great Bath

The great bath was a special place in the Indus Valley. It was used for baptizing babies. The bath is made from tightly the fitted bricks which had tar on inside of the bath. The tank measures approximately 12 meters northsouth and 7 meters wide, with a maximum depth of 2.4 meters. Two staircases lead down into the tank from the north and south and small sockets at the edges of the stairs are thought toof the stairswooden planks At the foot have held is or treads. a small ledge with a brick edging that extends the entire width of the pool.

Streets

At Mohenjo-Daro narrow streets and alleyways are off of the major streets, leading into more private neighborhoods. Many of the brick houses were two stories high, with thick walls and high ceilings to keep the rooms cool in the hot summer months.

Wells

Private wells were rebuilt over many generations for large households and neighborhoods. This well in DK G area at Mohenjo-daro stands like a chimney because all of the surrounding earth has been removed by excavation. A large public well and public bathing platforms were found in the southern part of Mound AB at Harappa. These public bathing areas may also have been used for washing clothes as is common in many traditional

Granary

The "granary" of Harappa is found on Mound F. It is a brick structure that was built on a massive brick foundation over 45 meters north-south and 45 meters east-west. Two rows of six rooms that appear to be foundations are arranged along a central passageway that is about 7 meters wide and partly paved with baked bricks. Each room measures 15.2 by 6.1 meters and has three sleeper walls with air space between them.

Harappa: Mound E and ET

Inside the city is an area that has been identified as a crafts quarter. Large quantities of manufacturing debris have been found in this area indicating the presence of workshops for making stone beads, shell ornaments, glazed faience ornaments, stone tools and possibly even gold working.

Mound E Gateway Artists Conception

by Chris Sloan, courtesy of JM Kenoyer

Science

The people of the Indus valley civilization achieved great accuracy in measuring length, mass, & time. They were among the first to develop a system of units, weights & measures. 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 were weighed in similar ratios with the units of 0.871

Contd

Harappans evolved some new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze, lead, and tin. 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 early Harappan periods, had knowledge of proto-dentistry. Eleven drilled molar crowns from nine adults were discovered in a Neolithic graveyard in Mehrgarh that dates, from 7,500-9,000 years ago. A touchstone bearing gold streaks was found in Banawali, which was probably used for testing the purity of gold (such a technique is

Arts and crafts

Various sculptures, seals, pottery, gold jewelry, and anatomically detailed figurines in terracotta, bronze, and steatite have been found at excavation sites. Many crafts such as shell working, ceramics & glazed bead making ware used in the making of necklaces, bangles & other

Models

Seals

Toys

Pottery

Ornaments

This collection of gold and agate ornaments includes objects found at both Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. At the top are fillets of hammered gold that would have been worn around the forehead. The other ornaments include bangles, chokers, long pendant necklaces, rings, earrings, conical hair These ornaments were never ornaments, and buried with the dead, but were broaches. passed on from one generation to the next. These ornaments were hidden under the floors in the homes of wealthy merchants or

Religion
The so-called Shiva Pashupati seal

Some Indus valley seals show swastikas, which are found in other religions, especially in Indian religions Hindu Shiva lingam have been found in the Harappan remains. In view of figurines found in the Indus valley, it is believed that the Harappan people worshipped a Mother goddess symbolizing fertility There are no Swastika Seals from the Indus religious buildings found in Valley Civilization excavation

Economy-Trade

The first civilization to use wheeled transport. These advances may have included bullock carts , as well as boats. The Harappan civilization was mainly urban and mercantile. Inhabitants of the Indus valley traded with Mesopotamia, southern India, Afghanistan, and Persia for gold, silver, copper, and turquoise. Such long-distance sea trade became feasible with the innovative development of plank-built watercraft, equipped with a single central mast supporting a sail of woven rushes or cloth.

Language

The Indus (or Harappan) people used a pictographic script. Some 3500 specimens of this script survive in stamp seals carved in stone, in molded terracotta and faience amulets, in fragments of pottery, and in a few other categories of inscribed objects. In addition to the pictographic signs, the seals and amulets often contain iconographic motifs, mostly realistic pictures of animals apparently worshipped as sacred, and a few cultic scenes, including anthropomorphic deities and worshippers. This material is important to the investigation of the Harappan language and religion, which continue to be major issues.

Burial

The body was placed inside a wooden coffin (which later decayed) and entombed in a rectangular pit surrounded with burial offerings in pottery vessels. The man was buried wearing a necklace of 340 graduated steatite beads and three separate pendant beads made of natural stone and three gold beads. A single copper bead was found at his waist.

Contd

Burial of woman and infant, Harappa. This burial was disturbed in antiquity, possibly by ancient Harappan grave robbers. Besides the fact that the body is flipped and the pottery disturbed, the left arm of the woman is broken and shell bangles that would normally be found on the left arm are missing. The infant was buried in a small pit beneath the legs of the mother.

Four Theories of Collapse

Archaeologists have offered four explanations for the collapse of the Harappan Civilization. Three are based on ecological factors: intense flooding, decrease in precipitation, and the dessication of the Sarasvati River. The fourth hypothesis is that of the Aryan Invasion, proposed by Sir R. E. Mortimer Wheeler and Stuart Piggott. Fourth largely abandoned in the 1940s in favor of a combination of factors from ecological disasters.

Reference

www.harappa.com/har/har0.html www.harappa.com/indus-saraswati-geography.html www.geocites.com/look4harappancollapse.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization http://www.harappa.com/indus/indus1.html http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/Bernardo42882-Indus-Valley-Civilization-Theories-DeclineDiscovery-Origins-ci-Education-ppt-powerpoint/ http://www.crystalinks.com/induscivilization.html http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=200608 11005058AA6KwGh http://www.ancientwisdom.co.uk/Pakistanmohenjo.htm