Big picture
About 4,500 years ago, a remarkable urban civilisation flourished in the north-western part of the subcontinent: the Harappan or Indus Valley civilisation, named after Harappa, the first site discovered. It had planned cities with drains, standardised bricks and weights, skilled crafts, and trade links reaching Mesopotamia.
We can't read the Harappan script, so almost everything we know comes from archaeology: bricks, beads, bones, pottery, seals and the layout of settlements. This chapter is as much about how archaeologists reconstruct the past as about the civilisation itself.
Learning goals
Describe the extent and chronology of the Harappan civilisation.
Explain Harappan subsistence strategies.
Describe town planning at Mohenjodaro, including the drainage system and the Great Bath.
Explain how burials and artefacts show social differences.
Describe craft production, especially at Chanhudaro, and how raw materials were procured.
Explain seals, script and the weights system.
Discuss theories about Harappan rulers and the decline of the civilisation.
Explain how the civilisation was discovered and how archaeologists interpret evidence.
Core ideas
1. Extent and chronology
Mature Harappan phase: about 2600–1900 BCE. There were earlier (Early Harappan) and later (Late Harappan) cultures in the region.
Major sites: Harappa (Punjab, Pakistan, on the Ravi), Mohenjodaro (Sindh, on the Indus), Dholavira (Kutch, Gujarat), Lothal (Gujarat, with a dockyard), Kalibangan (Rajasthan, ploughed field), Banawali (Haryana), Rakhigarhi (Haryana), Chanhudaro (Sindh, craft centre), Nageshwar and Balakot (shell working), Shortughai (Afghanistan, lapis lazuli).
It covered a vast area, larger than contemporary Egypt or Mesopotamia.
2. Subsistence strategies
Food: a wide range of plant and animal products. Grains found include wheat, barley, lentil, chickpea and sesame; millets in Gujarat; rice rarely.
Animals: bones of cattle, sheep, goat, buffalo and pig (domesticated); wild species such as boar, deer and gharial were also eaten. Fish and fowl bones are found too.
Agricultural technology: terracotta models of the plough (Cholistan, Banawali) and a ploughed field at Kalibangan with two sets of furrows at right angles, suggesting two crops grown together.
Irrigation: canals at Shortughai in Afghanistan, water reservoirs at Dholavira, and wells.
3. Mohenjodaro: a planned urban centre
The settlement was divided into two parts:
Part | Features |
|---|---|
Citadel (smaller, higher, to the west) | Built on mud-brick platforms; contained structures that were probably used for special public purposes, such as the warehouse (a massive structure, earlier called a granary) and the Great Bath |
Lower Town (larger, lower, to the east) | Residential area, also built on platforms; walled |
Planning features:
Roads and streets laid out in an approximate grid pattern, intersecting at right angles.
Drainage system: streets with drains were laid out first, and houses built along them. Every house was connected to street drains; drains were covered and had inspection holes. Very long drainage channels had sumps for cleaning.
Bricks of standardised ratio (1:2:4, length four times the height and twice the width), whether sun-dried or baked, at all settlements.
Platforms built first, suggesting planning and large-scale mobilisation of labour.
Domestic architecture: houses were centred on a courtyard, with rooms around it. There were no windows in walls along the ground floor facing the street, and the main entrance didn't give a direct view of the interior or courtyard, suggesting a concern for privacy. Every house had its own bathroom, paved with bricks, connected to street drains; some had wells; stairs show some had second storeys.
The Great Bath: a large rectangular tank in a courtyard surrounded by a corridor, with steps on the north and south leading down into it. It was made watertight by setting bricks on edge with gypsum mortar. A large well nearby supplied water, and a drain carried water away. Small bathrooms were nearby. Its unique structure suggests it was used for some kind of special ritual bath.
4. Tracking social differences
Burials: the dead were generally laid in pits, some lined with bricks. Some graves had pottery and ornaments, perhaps reflecting a belief in an afterlife. Jewellery was found with both men and women. A few graves contained more costly items (such as a mirror or copper ornaments), but on the whole burials show few clear differences in status.
Luxuries: archaeologists classify artefacts as utilitarian (daily-use items of ordinary materials, like querns, pottery and needles, found everywhere) or luxuries (rare objects made of costly, non-local materials or with complicated technology, like faience pots and gold jewellery). Luxury items were found mostly in large settlements like Mohenjodaro and Harappa, showing differences in wealth.
5. Craft production
Chanhudaro, a small settlement, was almost entirely devoted to craft production: bead-making, shell-cutting, metal-working, seal-making and weight-making.
Bead materials: carnelian (red), jasper, crystal, quartz, steatite; copper, bronze and gold; shell, faience and terracotta.
Techniques: the red colour of carnelian came from firing the yellowish raw material; nodules were chipped, flaked and then ground, polished and drilled. Specialised drills have been found at Chanhudaro, Lothal and Dholavira.
Identifying craft centres: archaeologists look for raw material lumps, tools, unfinished objects, rejects and waste (debitage).
Shell working at Nageshwar and Balakot (near the coast): bangles, ladles and inlay.
6. Procuring materials
Material | Source |
|---|---|
Lapis lazuli | Shortughai (Afghanistan) |
Carnelian | Bharuch (Gujarat) |
Steatite | South Rajasthan and north Gujarat |
Copper | Khetri region of Rajasthan; Oman |
Gold | South India |
Shell | Nageshwar and Balakot (coastal sites) |
Strategies: settlements near sources (Nageshwar, Balakot, Shortughai) and expeditions to distant areas, such as the Khetri region (copper) and south India (gold). Contact with the Ganeshwar–Jodhpura culture of Rajasthan, which produced copper, is suggested.
Long-distance trade: Oman copper with traces of nickel matching Harappan artefacts; Harappan jars coated with black clay found in Oman. Mesopotamian texts mention contact with Magan (probably Oman), Dilmun (probably Bahrain) and Meluhha (probably the Harappan region), from which came carnelian, lapis lazuli, copper, gold and varieties of wood. Harappan seals and weights have been found in the Persian Gulf region.
7. Seals, script and weights
Seals and sealings facilitated long-distance communication: a bag of goods was tied, its knot covered with wet clay, and one or more seals pressed on it, so the impression (sealing) showed the sender's identity and that the bag hadn't been tampered with.
Seals usually carry a line of writing (probably the owner's name and title) and an animal motif (such as a unicorn or bull).
The Harappan script remains undeciphered. It was not alphabetic, having about 375–400 signs, and was probably written from right to left. It appears on seals, copper tools, rims of jars, copper and terracotta tablets, jewellery, bone rods and even an ancient signboard, suggesting widespread literacy.
Weights: made of a stone called chert, generally cubical with no markings. Lower denominations followed a binary system (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 … up to 12,800), and higher ones followed the decimal system. Smaller weights were probably used for jewellery and beads.
8. Ancient authority
Evidence of planning, standardised bricks, weights and seals across a huge area, and the organised labour needed for platforms, suggests some form of authority. But who ruled is debated:
A large building at Mohenjodaro was labelled a palace by archaeologists, but no spectacular finds were made there.
A stone statue was labelled the "priest-king", an idea borrowed from Mesopotamian history.
Theories: there were no rulers (everyone enjoyed equal status); there were several rulers (one for each city); or there was a single state, given the uniformity of artefacts. The last seems most plausible to many archaeologists, though it remains uncertain.
9. The end of the civilisation
By about 1800 BCE, most Mature Harappan sites in Cholistan were abandoned. Changes included the disappearance of distinctive artefacts (weights, seals, special beads), the decline of writing, long-distance trade and craft specialisation, and the decline of urban centres. Rural, simpler cultures continued.
Suggested causes: climatic change, deforestation, excessive floods, shifting or drying up of rivers, and over-use of the landscape. These may explain some sites' decline but not the collapse of the whole civilisation; the disappearance of a unifying element, perhaps the Harappan state, is suggested by the end of seals, script and standard weights. Mortimer Wheeler's theory of an Aryan invasion (based on skeletons found at Mohenjodaro) has been rejected: the skeletons came from different periods, and there's no evidence of a massacre.
10. Discovery and interpretation
Alexander Cunningham, the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), collected Harappan artefacts but didn't realise how old they were; he relied on written sources such as Chinese pilgrims' accounts.
Daya Ram Sahni found seals at Harappa and Rakhal Das Banerji at Mohenjodaro in the early 1920s. In 1924, ASI Director-General John Marshall announced the discovery of a new civilisation.
R.E.M. Wheeler (1944) introduced the stratigraphic method, following the layers of deposits instead of digging in uniform horizontal units as Marshall had done.
After Partition, many major sites went to Pakistan, and Indian archaeologists explored sites in India, such as Kalibangan, Lothal, Rakhigarhi and Dholavira.
Problems of interpretation: without a deciphered script, archaeologists reconstruct the past from artefacts, using classification (by material and function), analogies with present-day practices, and context. Religion is especially hard to interpret: terracotta female figurines may represent a mother goddess; stone "lingas"; and a seal showing a figure seated cross-legged surrounded by animals, described as a "proto-Shiva" or "Pashupati". These interpretations are tentative.
A reliable approach to questions
For town planning, describe the citadel and lower town, grid streets, drains, standard bricks, houses and the Great Bath.
For crafts, name Chanhudaro, the materials and techniques, and how craft centres are identified.
For trade, link each raw material to its source and mention Magan, Dilmun and Meluhha.
For authority and decline, present the different views and evidence.
For interpretation questions, show how archaeologists use evidence and its limits.
Connections that matter
Kings, farmers and towns continues the story of early states in the subcontinent.
Geography helps explain why river valleys supported early civilisations.
Archaeological method links to how historians use sources in every chapter.
Common mistakes
Saying the script has been deciphered. It hasn't.
Placing the Great Bath in the Lower Town. It is in the Citadel.
Writing that drains were added after houses. Streets with drains were laid out first.
Treating the "priest-king" and "palace" labels as proven facts.
Repeating the Aryan invasion theory as the cause of decline.
Revision checklist
I can name major sites and their special features.
I can describe subsistence, town planning, drainage and the Great Bath.
I can explain social differences from burials and luxuries.
I can describe crafts, raw material sources and trade.
I can explain seals, script and weights.
I can discuss authority, decline, discovery and interpretation.