Indus Valley Civilization

Because Harappa was the first site discovered — archaeological convention names a culture after its first-excavated site.
Ruins were first noticed by Charles Masson in 1826.

• 1826 — Harappa ruins first noticed (Charles Masson)
• 1856 — Harappa bricks used as ballast for the Lahore–Multan railway
• 1921 — Harappa excavated by Dayaram Sahni
• 1922 — Mohenjo-daro excavated by R. D. Banerjee

Sir John Marshall, in 1924 — announcing to the world that a new Bronze Age civilisation had been found in the Indus valley.

The largest Bronze Age civilisation in the world — roughly 8 lakh sq km.
Its area was larger than Mesopotamia and Egypt combined.

India (Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Punjab) + Pakistan + Afghanistan.

• North: Manda (Jammu, on the Chenab)
• South: Malvan / Daimabad (Maharashtra)
• West: Sutkagen-dor (Makran coast, Baluchistan)
• East: Alamgirpur (Meerut, UP, on the Hindon river)

3200–2600 BC. Also called the Pre-urban / Regionalization phase — essentially village farming with emerging proto-urban features.
Kot Diji, Amri, Kalibangan show fortification and standardising pottery.

2600–1900 BC — full urbanisation.
Standardised bricks, weights, seals, script and drainage.
Peak of Mesopotamian trade. Most exam questions come from this phase.

1900–1300 BC — de-urbanisation: cities abandoned while rural life continued.
Script, seals and standardised weights are lost; settlement shifts eastward and southward.

• Citadel — western, raised, fortified; held public/administrative structures such as the granary, Great Bath and assembly halls
• Lower Town — eastern, larger, residential
Streets were laid out in a grid pattern.

It has a three-part layout: Castle + Bailey (Middle Town) + Lower Town — each separately fortified.
It also has a large open area (stadium/ceremonial ground) for gatherings.

No palace and no temple has been identified at any Harappan site — a sharp contrast with Egypt and Mesopotamia, where monumental royal and religious architecture dominates.

Standardised ratio 1 : 2 : 4 (thickness : width : length).
Kiln-fired bricks for drains and wells (water-resistant); mud bricks for ordinary construction.

Covered brick drains with inspection holes for cleaning — the most advanced drainage system in the ancient world.

Every house had a bathroom and toilet, connected to the street drain through terracotta pipes.
At Mohenjo-daro there was nearly one well per three houses.

At Mohenjo-daro; roughly 12 × 7 × 2.4 m.
Built of kiln-fired bricks sealed with bitumen to make it watertight.
Has changing rooms; fed by a well and drained through a brick channel.

Ritual bathing, probably for an elite group — and it is unparalleled at any other Harappan site, which is why it attracts so much attention.

Means 'Mound of the Dead'.
Located in Larkana district, Sindh, on the Indus.
It has yielded the most seals and inscriptions of any Harappan site.

Great Bath, granary, 'college', assembly hall — largely on the citadel mound.

A bronze figurine from Mohenjo-daro, made by the lost-wax (cire perdue) technique.

Made of steatite; wears a trefoil-patterned robe over one shoulder and has half-closed eyes (suggesting meditation).

A male figure in yogic posture wearing a buffalo-horn headdress, surrounded by 4 wild animals.
Interpreted by John Marshall as Proto-Shiva / Lord of Animals.

Montgomery district (now Sahiwal), Punjab, Pakistan, on the Ravi river.
It was the first Harappan site discovered.

6 granaries in 2 rows plus workers' quarters — evidence of organised surplus storage and labour.
Also copper furnaces and stone male torsos (in red sandstone and grey limestone).

Cemetery R-37 (Mature Harappan) and Cemetery H (Late Harappan).

Kadir Island, Kutch, Gujarat.
Famous for elaborate water reservoirs and rainwater harvesting — a response to the arid Rann of Kutch.

A row of large Indus symbols inlaid in white gypsum on a wooden board, apparently mounted over a gateway — the largest Indus inscription known.
The site also has polished stone pillars and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2021.

Near Ahmedabad, Gujarat, on the Bhogava river.

A tidal dockyard — the earliest known dockyard in the world, connected to the Gulf of Khambhat.

• Warehouse
• Persian Gulf type seal → evidence of direct maritime trade
• Rice evidence, a bead factory, and an ivory scale

Hanumangarh, Rajasthan, on the Ghaggar.
A ploughed field with criss-cross furrows — the earliest evidence of ploughing in India.

Fire altars — evidence of ritual practice — along with animal sacrifice (cattle bones and antlers found in the altars).

Hisar, Haryana.
• Terracotta plough model — confirms plough-based agriculture (UPSC 2002)
• Oval settlement plan and a jeweller's touchstone (for testing gold purity)

Hisar, Haryana, on the Ghaggar.
The largest Harappan site known.
Has a stone/gem-cutting workshop.

Sindh.
The only major Harappan site without a fortification.
A major craft centre — bead factory and seal-making workshop; an ink-pot was found here.

Kutch, Gujarat.
The only site with claimed horse bones (1974) — but the identification remains contested.

No. Sohgaura is a Mauryan-era village in Gorakhpur, UP, on the Rapti river.
It is famous for the earliest known copper-plate inscription, dealing with famine relief.

Wheat and barley — Rabi crops, sown in winter.
Also grown: sesamum (til), mustard, field peas, lentils.

At Lothal and Rangpur (Gujarat).
⚠️ Rice was not a primary Harappan crop — wheat and barley were.

Cotton was first cultivated in India by the Harappans.
Mesopotamian texts call cotton cloth 'Sindon' (from Sindh) — making India the original home of cotton.

• Criss-cross ploughed field — Kalibangan
• Terracotta plough model — Banawali
• Irrigation canals — Shortughai (Afghanistan)

Cattle (most important), plus buffalo, sheep, goat, pig, dog, camel and donkey.

The horse is conspicuously absent from Harappan art and seals — a key difference from the Vedic period, where the horse is central.
Only contested bone fragments from Surkotada (1974) have been claimed.

Cow, camel, horse, lion.
💡 Mnemonic: 'HoLi में CoCa' — Horse, Lion, Cow, Camel.

The unicorn bull (most common motif), zebu, elephant, rhinoceros, tiger, buffalo.

• Copper — Khetri (Rajasthan) + Baluchistan
• Gold — Kolar (Karnataka) + Afghanistan
• Lapis lazuli (deep blue stone) — Badakhshan, Afghanistan
• Tin — Central Asia

• Meluhha = the Indus region (Mesopotamian name for the IVC)
• Dilmun = Bahrain — the intermediary port
• Makan = Makran / Oman coast

Exports: lapis lazuli, carnelian, ivory, timber, cotton textiles, gold, silver, copper.
Sargon of Akkad's records mention Meluhha trade.

Weights were standardised across all sites — showing that trade was regulated and that a shared system of measurement operated across a vast area.

Mostly square, made of steatite (soapstone), with intaglio carving (design cut into the surface).
Different animal motifs probably mark different clan/kin groups.
Purpose: authentication, ownership, trade documentation.

Knew gold, silver, copper and bronze (a copper–tin alloy).
⚠️ They did NOT know iron.
Bronze use increased over time at Mohenjo-daro.

Long carnelian beads — technically demanding to drill, widely exported, and instantly recognisable in Mesopotamian contexts.

Four famous bronze figures from Daimabad, Maharashtra: a rhinoceros, elephant, buffalo, and a chariot with charioteer.

It is undeciphered — which is why the IVC counts as protohistoric rather than historic.
Written right to left; some inscriptions are boustrophedon (alternating direction).
There is no bilingual text (no equivalent of the Rosetta Stone) to crack it.

Black-on-red ware — a red body with black painted designs.
Wheel-turned and fired in up-draft kilns.
Mohenjo-daro also has the earliest glazed pottery in the subcontinent.

Predominantly secular — religion was present but did not dominate public life.
There is no monumental religious architecture, unlike the Egyptian pyramids or Mesopotamian ziggurats.

Terracotta figurines with elaborate headdresses → Mother Goddess / fertility worship.
Found at Mohenjo-daro, Harappa, Banawali — but absent at Kalibangan, Lothal and Surkotada.

Elephant, tiger, rhinoceros, buffalo (with deer beneath the seat in most readings).
Identified as Proto-Shiva / Lord of Animals by John Marshall.

• Pipal tree worship, depicted on seals
• Linga and yoni stones at Kalibangan (phallic worship)
• The bull is central — the unicorn is the commonest seal motif

Fire altars at Kalibangan, Banawali and Lothal — absent at most other sites.
Kalibangan also shows human and animal sacrifice.
The Great Bath is read as a ritual purification facility.

1. Extended burial — the most common (body laid out full length, usually N–S)
2. Fractional burial — only selected bones interred
3. Symbolic burial — grave goods with no body
Also: urn burials, possible cremation, and multiple burials at Lothal.

The idea of a centralised priest-king empire is now rejected.
Scholars accept that some state structure existed, possibly several separate states, but there is no consensus on its form.

It shows biological heterogeneity — the population was diverse, not a single 'race', and shows continuity with modern South Asians.

IVC (2600–1900 BC): urban, trade-based, agriculture + craft specialisation; planned cities with grid layout and drainage.
Rig Vedic (1500–1000 BC): pastoral, cattle-rearing, limited agriculture; no cities, semi-nomadic tribal settlements.

IVC: no horse (no clear evidence); no helmet found.
Rig Vedic: horse is central, yoked to chariots; used varma (armour) and sipra (helmet).

IVC: had a script (undeciphered, 400+ signs); worship of Mother Goddess + Proto-Shiva, pipal tree.
Rig Vedic: no script — a purely oral tradition; worship of nature gods (Indra, Agni, Varuna) through yajna.

IVC: did not know iron.
Rig Vedic: mentions 'Ayas', a general term for metal — not iron in the early phase. True iron (Krishna Ayas) belongs to the Later Vedic period.

• Aryan Invasion → REJECTED
• Floods → inconclusive
• Ecological (deforestation, over-exploitation) → a contributing factor

Ghaggar-Hakra desiccation — the Sutlej and Yamuna were captured away by other river systems, drying up the Ghaggar-Hakra and destroying the agricultural base of a huge cluster of settlements.

There was no single cause — multiple factors combined to produce a gradual de-urbanisation (~2200–1700 BC), not a sudden disappearance. Rural Harappan life continued into the Late Harappan phase.