Introduction The Indus Valley Civilisation [1]

( INDUS VALLEY
CIVILISATION), also known as the harappan Civilisation, was a Bronze
Age civilisation in the northwestern regions of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to
1300 BCE, and in its mature form from 2600 BCE to 1900 BCE.[2][a] Together
with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of three early civilisations of
the Near East and South Asia. Of the three, it was the most widespread: it spanned
much of Pakistan; northwestern India; northeast Afghanistan.[3][b] The civilisation
flourished both in the alluvial plain of the Indus River, which flows through the length
of Pakistan, and along a system of perennial monsoon-fed rivers that once coursed
in the vicinity of the Ghaggar-Hakra, a seasonal river in northwest India and eastern
Pakistan. The term Harappan is also applied to the Indus Civilisation, after its type
site Harappa, the first to be excavated early in the 20th century in what was then
the Punjab province of British India and is now Punjab, Pakistan.[5][c] The discovery of
Harappa and soon afterwards Mohenjo-daro was the culmination of work that had
begun after the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India in the British Raj in
1861.[6] There were earlier and later cultures called Early Harappan and Late
Harappan in the same area. The early Harappan cultures were populated
from Neolithic cultures, the earliest and best-known of which is named
after Mehrgarh, in Balochistan, Pakistan.[7][8] Harappan civilisation is sometimes
called Mature Harappan to distinguish it from the earlier cultures.

1-What is indus valley civilisation noted for

The cities of the ancient Indus were noted for their urban planning, baked brick
houses, elaborate drainage systems, water supply systems, clusters of large non-
residential buildings, and techniques of handicraft and metallurgy.[d] Mohenjo-
daro and Harappa very likely grew to contain between 30,000 and 60,000
individuals,[10] and the civilisation may have contained between one and five million
individuals during its florescence.[11] A gradual drying of the region during the
3rd millennium BCE may have been the initial stimulus for its urbanisation.
Eventually it also reduced the water supply enough to cause the civilisation's demise
and to disperse its population to the east. Although over a thousand Mature
Harappan sites have been reported and nearly a hundred excavated,[f] there are only
five major urban centres:[12][g] Mohenjo-daro in the lower Indus Valley (declared
a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980 as "Archaeological Ruins at Moenjodaro"),
Harappa in the western Punjab region, Ganeriwala in the Cholistan
Desert, Dholavira in western Gujarat (declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in
2021 as "Dholavira: A Harappan City"), and Rakhigarhi in Haryana.[13]
[h]
The Harappan language is not directly attested, and its affiliations are uncertain, as
the Indus script has remained undeciphered.[14] A relationship with
the Dravidian or Elamo-Dravidian language family is favoured by a section of
scholars
2-Origin of Indus valley civilisation

The Indus civilisation is named after the Indus River system in whose alluvial
plains the early sites of the civilisation were identified and excavated.

Following a tradition in archaeology, the civilisation is sometimes referred to as

the Harappan, after its type site, Harappa, the first site to be excavated in the 1920s;
this is notably true of usage employed by the Archaeological Survey of India after
India's independence in 1947.

The term "Ghaggar-Hakra" figures prominently in modern labels applied to the Indus
civilisation on account of a good number of sites having been found along
the Ghaggar-Hakra River in northwest India and eastern Pakistan.[] The terms
"Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation" and "Sindhu-Saraswati Civilisation" have also been
employed in the literature by supporters of Indigenous Aryanism, after a posited
identification of the Ghaggar-Hakra with the river Sarasvati described in the early
chapters of the Rigveda, a collection of hymns in archaic Sanskrit composed in the
second-millennium BCE, which are unrelated to the mature phase of the Indus
Valley Civilization.

Recent geophysical research suggests that, unlike the Sarasvati described in the
Rigveda as a snow-fed river the Ghaggar-Hakra was a system of perennial
monsoon-fed rivers, which became seasonal around the time the civilisation
diminished, approximately 4,000 years ago.

3-Extent of indus valley civilisation

The Indus Valley Civilisation was roughly contemporary with the other riverine
civilisations of the ancient world: Ancient Egypt along the Nile, Mesopotamia in the
lands watered by the Euphrates and the Tigris, and China in the drainage basin of
the Yellow River and the Yangtze. By the time of its mature phase, the civilisation
had spread over an area larger than the others, which included a core of 1,500
kilometres (900 mi) up the alluvial plain of the Indus and its tributaries. In addition,
there was a region with disparate flora, fauna, and habitats, up to ten times as large,
which had been shaped culturally and economically by the Indus. Around 6500 BCE,
agriculture emerged in Balochistan, on the margins of the Indus alluvium. In the
following millennia, settled life made inroads into the Indus plains, setting the stage
for the growth of rural and urban settlements The more organised sedentary life, in
turn, led to a net increase in the birth rate. The large urban centres of Mohenjo-daro
and Harappa very likely grew to containing between 30,000 and 60,000 individuals,
and during the civilisation's florescence, the population of the subcontinent grew to
between 4–6 million people. During this period the death rate increased, as the close
living conditions of humans and domesticated animals led to an increase in
contagious diseases. According to one estimate, the population of the Indus
civilisation at its peak may have been between one and five million. During its height
the civilisation extended from Balochistan in the west to western Uttar Pradesh in the
east, from northeastern Afghanistan in the north to Gujarat state in the south.[20] The
largest number of sites are in the Punjab region, Gujarat, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar
Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir states,[20] Sindh, and Balochistan.[20] Coastal
settlements extended from Sutkagan Dor[27] in Western Baluchistan to Lothal[28] in
Gujarat. An Indus Valley site has been found on the Oxus
River at Shortugai in Afghanistan which is the northernmost site of the Indus Valley
Civilisation,[29] in the Gomal River valley in northwestern Pakistan,[30] at Manda,
Jammu on the Beas River near Jammu,[31] and at Alamgirpur on the Hindon River,
only 28 km (17 mi) from Delhi.[32] The southernmost site of the Indus Valley
Civilisation is Daimabad in Maharashtra. Indus Valley sites have been found most
often on rivers, but also on the ancient seacoast,[33] for example, Balakot (Kot Bala),
[34]
and on islands, for example, Dholavira

4-Discovery and history of excravation

The first modern accounts of the ruins of the Indus civilisation are those of Charles
Masson, a deserter from the East India Company's army.[37] In 1829, Masson traveled
through the princely state of Punjab, gathering useful intelligence for the Company in
return for a promise of clemency.[37] An aspect of this arrangement was the additional
requirement to hand over to the Company any historical artifacts acquired during his
travels. Masson, who had versed himself in the classics, especially in the military
campaigns of Alexander the Great, chose for his wanderings some of the same
towns that had featured in Alexander's campaigns, and whose archaeological sites
had been noted by the campaign's chroniclers.[37] Masson's major archaeological
discovery in the Punjab was Harappa, a metropolis of the Indus civilisation in the
valley of Indus's tributary, the Ravi river. Masson made copious notes and
illustrations of Harappa's rich historical artifacts, many lying half-buried. In 1842,
Masson included his observations of Harappa in the book Narrative of Various
Journeys in Baluchistan, Afghanistan, and the Punjab. He dated the Harappa ruins
to a period of recorded history, erroneously mistaking it to have been described
earlier during Alexander's campaign.[37] Masson was impressed by the site's
extraordinary size and by several large mounds formed from long-existing erosion.
Two years later, the Company contracted Alexander Burnes to sail up the Indus to
assess the feasibility of water travel for its army. Burnes, who also stopped in
Harappa, noted the baked bricks employed in the site's ancient masonry, but noted
also the haphazard plundering of these bricks by the local population. Despite these
reports, Harappa was raided even more perilously for its bricks after the British
annexation of the Punjab in 1848–49. A considerable number were carted away
as track ballast for the railway lines being laid in the Punjab. Nearly 160 km (100 mi)
of railway track between Multan and Lahore, laid in the mid-1850s, was supported by
Harappan bricks. In 1861, three years after the dissolution of the East India
Company and the establishment of Crown rule in India, archaeology on the
subcontinent became more formally organised with the founding of
the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Alexander Cunningham, the Survey's first
director-general, who had visited Harappa in 1853 and had noted the imposing brick
walls, visited again to carry out a survey, but this time of a site whose entire upper
layer had been stripped in the interim. Although his original goal of demonstrating
Harappa to be a lost Buddhist city mentioned in the seventh century CE travels of
the Chinese visitor, Xuanzang, proved elusive, Cunningham did publish his findings
in 1875. For the first time, he interpreted a Harappan stamp seal, with its unknown
script, which he concluded to be of an origin foreign to India
5- Subsistence Stratergies

Mature Harappan culture developed in some of the areas occupied by the Early Harappan
cultures. These cultures also shared certain common elements including subsistence
strategies. The Harappans ate a wide range of plant and animal products, including fish.
Archaeologists have been able to reconstruct dietary practices from finds of charred grains
and seeds. These are studied by archaeo-botanists, who are specialists in ancient plant
remains. Grainsfound at Harappan sites include wheat, barley, lentil, chickpea and sesame.
Millets are found from sites in Gujarat. Finds of rice are relatively rare. Animal bones found
at Harappan sites include those of cattle, sheep, goat, buffalo and pig. Studies done by
archaeo-zoologists or zoo archaeologists indicate that these animals were domesticated.
Bones of wild species such as boar, deer and gharial are also found. Bones of fish and fowl
are also found.

6-Agricultural Technologies

While the prevalence of agriculture is indicated by finds of grain, it is more difficult to

reconstruct actual agricultural practices. Representations on seals and terracotta sculpture
indicate that the bull was known, and archaeologists extrapolate from this that oxen were
used for ploughing. Moreover, terracotta models of the plough have been found at sites in
Cholistan and at Banawali (Haryana). Archaeologists have also found evidence of a ploughed
field at Kalibangan (Rajasthan), associated with Early Harappan levelsMost Harappan sites
are located in semi-arid lands, where irrigation was probably required for agriculture. Traces
of canals have been found at the Harappan site of Shortughai in Afghanistan, but not in
Punjab or Sind. It is possible that ancient . The field had two sets of furrows at right angles to
each other, suggesting that two different crops were grown together. Archaeologists have also
tried to identify the tools used for harvesting canals silted up long ago. It is also likely that
water drawn from wells was used for irrigation. Besides, water reservoirs found in Dholavira
(Gujarat) may have been used to store water for agriculture.
7 –Mohenjodaro A well Planned Urban Center

Mohenjodaro is the most well-known site, the first site to be discovered was Harappa. The
settlement is divided into two sections, one smaller but higher and the other much larger
butlower. Archaeologists designate these as the Citadel and the Lower Town respectively.
The Citadel owes its height to the fact that buildings were constructed on mud brick
platforms. It was walled, which meant that it was physically separated from the Lower Town.
The Lower Town was also walled. Several buildings were built on platforms, which served as
foundations. It has been calculated that if one labourer moved roughly a cubic metre of earth
daily, just to put the foundations in place it would have required four million person-days, in
other words, mobilising labour on a very large scale. Consider something else. Once the
platforms were in place, all building activity within the city was restricted to a fixed area on
the platforms. So it seems that the settlement was first planned and then implemented
accordingly. Other signs of planning include bricks, which, whether sun-dried or baked, were
of a standardised ratio, where the length and breadth were four times and twice the height
respectively. Such bricks were used at all Harappan settlements.

8- Laying out drains

One of the most distinctive features of Harappan cities was the carefully planned drainage
system. If you look at the plan of the Lower Town you will notice that roads and streets were
laid out along an approximate “grid” pattern, intersecting at right angles. It seems that streets
with drains were laid out first and then houses built along them. If domestic waste water had
to flow into the street drains, every house needed to have at least one wall along a street

9- Domestic architecture

The Lower Town at Mohenjodaro provides examples of residential buildings. Many were
centred on a courtyard, with rooms on all sides. The courtyard was probably the centre of
activities such as cooking and weaving, particularly during hot and dry weather. What is also
interesting is an apparent concern for privacy: there are no windows in the walls along the
ground level. Besides, the main entrance does not give a direct view of the interior or the
courtyard. Every house had its own bathroom paved with bricks, with drains connected
through the wall to the street drains. Some houses have remains of staircases to reach a
second storey or the roof. Many houses had wells, often in a room that could be reached from
the outside and perhaps used by passers-by. Scholars have estimated that the total number of
wells in Mohenjodaro was about 700.

10- Citadel-
It is on the Citadel that we find evidence of structures that were probably used for
special public purposes. These include the warehouse– a massive structure of which the lower brick
portions remain, while the upper portions, probably of wood, decayed long ago – and the Great
Bath. The Great Bath was a large rectangular tank in a courtyard surrounded by a corridor on hall
four sides. There were two flights of steps on the north and south leading into the tank, which was
made watertight by setting bricks on edge and using a mortar of gypsum. There were rooms on
three sides, in one of which was a large well. Water from the tank flowed into a huge drain. Across a
lane to the north lay a smaller building with eight bathrooms, four on each side of a corridor, with
drains from each bathroom connecting to a drain that ran along the corridor. The uniqueness of the
structure, as well as the context in which it was found (the Citadel, with several distinctive buildings),
has led scholars to suggest that it was meant for some kind of a special ritual bath.

11- Burials- Archaeologists generally use certain strategies to find out whether there were social or
economic differences amongst people living within a particular culture. These include studying
burials. massive pyramids of Egypt, some of which were contemporaneous with the Harappan
civilisation. Many of these pyramids were royal burials, where enormous quantities of wealth was
buried. At burials in Harappan sites the dead were generally laid in pits. Sometimes, there were
differences in the way the burial pit was made – in some instances, the hollowed-out spaces were
lined with bricks. Some graves contain pottery and ornaments, perhaps indicating a belief that these
could be used in the afterlife. Jewellery has been found in burials of both men and women. In fact, in
the excavations at the cemetery in Harappa in the mid-1980s, an ornament consisting of three shell
rings, a jasper (a kind of semi-precious stone) bead and hundreds of micro beads was found near the
skull of a male. In some instances the dead were buried with copper mirrors. But on the whole, it
appears that the Harappans did not believe in burying precious things with the dead.

12- luxuries-Another strategy to identify social differences is to study artefacts, which archaeologists
broadly classify as utilitarian and luxuries. The first category includes objects of daily use made fairly
easily out of ordinary materials such as stone or clay. These include querns, pottery, needles, flesh-
rubbers (body scrubbers), etc., and are usually found distributed throughout settlements.
Archaeologists assume objects were luxuries if they are rare or made from costly, non-local
materials or with complicated technologies. Thus, little pots of faience (a material made of ground
sand or silica mixed with colour and a gum and then fired) were probably considered precious
because they were difficult to make. we find that rare objects made of valuable materials are
generally concentrated in large settlements like Mohenjodaro and Harappa and are rarely found in
the smaller settlements. For example, miniature pots of faience, perhaps used as perfume bottles,
are found mostly in Mohenjodaro and Harappa, and there are none from small settlements like
Kalibangan. Gold too was rare, and as at present, probably precious all the gold jewellery found at
Harappan sites was recovered from hoards

13-Finding Out About Craft Production of indus valley civilisation--This is a tiny settlement (less than
7 hectares) as compared to Mohenjodaro (125 hectares), almost exclusively devoted to craft
production, including bead-making, shell-cutting, metal-working, seal-making and weight-making.
The variety of materials used to make beads is remarkable: stones like carnelian (of a beautiful red
colour), jasper, crystal, quartz and steatite; metals like copper, bronze and gold; and shell, faience
and terracotta or burnt clay. Some beads were made of two or more stones, cemented together,
some of stone with gold caps. The shapes were numerous – disc shaped, cylindrical, spherical,
barrel-shaped, segmented. Some were decorated by incising or painting, and some had designs
etched onto them. Techniques for making beads differed according to the material. Steatite, a very
soft stone, was easily worked. Some beads were moulded out of a paste made with steatite powder.
This permitted making a variety of shapes, unlike the geometrical forms made out of harder stones.
How the steatite micro bead was made remains a puzzle for archaeologists studying ancient
technology. Archaeologists’ experiments have revealed that the red colour of carnelian was obtained
by firing the yellowish raw material and beads at various stages of production. Nodules were
chipped into rough shapes, and then finely flaked into the final form. Grinding, polishing and drilling
completed the process. Specialised drills have been found at Chanhudaro, Lothal and more recently
at Dholavira.
These were specialised centres for making shell objects – including bangles, ladles and inlay – which
were taken to other settlements. Similarly, it is likely that finished products (such as beads) from
Chanhudaro and Lothal were taken to the large urban centres such as Mohenjodaro and Harappa

14- Identifying centres of production of indus valley civilisation--In order to identify centres of craft
production, archaeologists usually look for the following: raw material such as stone nodules, whole
shells, copper ore; tools; unfinished objects; rejects and waste material. In fact, waste is one of the
best indicators of craft work. For instance, if shell or stone is cut to make objects, then pieces of
these materials will be discarded as waste at the place of production. Sometimes, larger waste
pieces were used up to make smaller objects, but minuscule bits were usually left in the work area.
These traces suggest that apart from small, specialised centres, craft production was also
undertaken in large cities such as Mohenjodaro and Harappa.

15-Strategies for Procuring Materials in indus valley civilisation : As is obvious, a variety of materials
was used for craft production. While some such as clay were locally available, many such as stone,
timber and metal had to be procured from outside the alluvial plain. Terracotta toy models of
bullock carts suggest that this was one important means of transporting goods and people across
land routes. Riverine routes along the Indus and its tributaries, as well as coastal routes were also
probably used.

16-Materials from the subcontinent and beyond:- The Harappans procured materials for craft
production in various ways. For instance, they established settlements such as Nageshwar and
Balakot in areas where shell was available. Other such sites were Shortughai, in far-off Afghanistan,
near the best source of lapis lazuli, a blue stone that was apparently very highly valued, and Lothal
which was near sources of carnelian (from Bharuch in Gujarat), steatite (from south Rajasthan and
north Gujarat) and metal (from Rajasthan). Another strategy for procuring raw materials may have
been to send expeditions to areas such as the Khetri region of Rajasthan (for copper) and south India
(for gold). These expeditions established communication with local communities. Occasional finds of
Harappan artefacts such as steatite micro beads in these areas are indications of such contact. There
is evidence in the Khetri area for what archaeologists call the Ganeshwar-Jodhpura culture, with its
distinctive non-Harappan pottery and an unusual wealth of copper objects. It is possible that the
inhabitants of this region supplied copper to the Harappans
 17-:harappans Contact with distant lands----Recent archaeological finds suggest that copper
was also probably brought from Oman, on the south eastern tip of the Arabian peninsula.
Chemical analyses have shown that both the Omani copper and Harappan artefacts have
traces of nickel, suggesting a common origin. There are other traces of contact as well. A
distinctive type of vessel, a large Harappan jar coated with a thick layer of black clay has
been found at Omani sites. Such thick coatings prevent the percolation of liquids. We do not
know what was carried in these vessels, but it is possible that the Harappans exchanged the
contents of these vessels for Omani copper. Mesopotamian texts datable to the third
millennium BCE refer to copper coming from a region called Magan, perhaps a name for
Oman, and interestingly enough copper found at Mesopotamian sites also contains traces of
nickel. Other archaeological finds suggestive of long distance contacts include Harappan
seals, weights, dice and beads. In this context, it is worth noting that Mesopotamian texts
mention contact with regions named Dilmun (probably the island of Bahrain), Magan and
Meluhha, possibly the Harappan region. They mention the products from Meluhha: carnelian,
lapis lazuli, copper, gold, and varieties of wood. A Mesopotamian myth says of Meluhha:
“May your bird be the haja-bird, may its call be heard in the royal palace.” Some
archaeologists think the haja-bird was the peacock. Did it get this name from its call? It is
likely that communication with Oman, Bahrain or Mesopotamia was by sea. Mesopotamian
texts refer to Meluhha as a land of seafarers. Besides, we find depictions of ships and boats
on seals.

18 Chronology- The cities of the ancient Indus had "social hierarchies, their writing
system, their large planned cities and their long-distance trade [which] mark them to
archaeologists as a full-fledged 'civilisation.'[60] The mature phase of the Harappan
civilisation lasted from c. 2600–1900 BCE. With the inclusion of the predecessor and
successor cultures – Early Harappan and Late Harappan, respectively – the entire
Indus Valley Civilisation may be taken to have lasted from the 33rd to the
14th centuries BCE. It is part of the Indus Valley Tradition, which also includes the
pre-Harappan occupation of Mehrgarh, the earliest farming site of the Indus
ValleySeveral periodisations are employed for the indus valley civilisation .[8][61] The
most commonly used classifies the Indus Valley Civilisation into Early, Mature and
Late Harappan Phase.[62] An alternative approach by Shaffer divides the broader
Indus Valley Tradition into four eras, the pre-Harappan "Early Food Producing Era",
and the Regionalisation, Integration, and Localisation eras, which correspond
roughly with the Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan phases

Date
s Mehrgar Harappan Post-Harappan
Main phase Era
(BCE h phases phases phases
)

Mehrgarh
7000 I
Early Food
– Pre-Harappan (acerami
Producing Era
5500 c
Neolithic)
 Pre- Mehrgarh
5500
Harappan/ II–VI
–
Early (ceramic
3300
Harappan[64] Neolithic)
Regionalisatio
n Era
Harappan 1 c. 4000–
3300
(Ravi 2500/2300
– Early Phase; Hakr (Shaffer)[65]
2800 Harappan[64] a Ware) c. 5000–3200
c. 3300–2800 (Coningham &
(Mughal)[67][64][68] Young)[66]
c. 5000–2800 Harappan 2
2800
(Kenoyer)[64] Mehrgarh (Kot Diji
–
VII Phase,
2600
Nausharo I)

Harappan
2600
3A
–
(Nausharo
2450
II)
Mature
2450 Harappan
Harappan Integration Era
– (Indus Valley
3B
2200 Civilisation)

2200
Harappan
–
3C
1900

1900
– Harappan 4
1700 Cemetery H[69]
Localisation
Late Harappan Ochre Coloured
Era
1700 Pottery[69]
– Harappan 5
1300

Post- Regionalisatio
Harappan Painted Grey n
1300 Iron Age India Ware (1200–600) c. 1200–300
(Kenoyer)[64]
–600 Vedic period (c.
c. 1500[70]–600
1500–500) (Coningham &
Young)[71]

600– Northern Black Integration

300 Polished Ware (Iron
Age) (700–200)
Second
 urbanisation (c.
500–200)

19- Early Harappan -The Early Harappan Ravi Phase, named after the
nearby Ravi River, lasted from c. 3300 BCE until 2800 BCE. It started when farmers
from the mountains gradually moved between their mountain homes and the lowland
river valleys,[95] and is related to the Hakra Phase, identified in the Ghaggar-Hakra
River Valley to the west, and predates the Kot Diji Phase (2800–2600 BCE,
Harappan 2), named after a site in northern Sindh, Pakistan, near Mohenjo-daro.
The earliest examples of the Indus script date to the 3rd millennium BCE.

The mature phase of earlier village cultures is represented by Rehman

Dheri and Amri in Pakistan. Kot Diji represents the phase leading up to Mature
Harappan, with the citadel representing centralised authority and an increasingly
urban quality of life. Another town of this stage was found at Kalibangan in India on
the Hakra River Trade networks linked this culture with related regional cultures and
distant sources of raw materials, including lapis lazuli and other materials for bead-
making. By this time, villagers had domesticated numerous crops,
including peas, sesame seeds, dates, and cotton, as well as animals, including
the water buffalo. Early Harappan communities turned to large urban centres by
2600 BCE, from where the mature Harappan phase started. The latest research
shows that Indus Valley people migrated from villages to cities. The final stages of
the Early Harappan period are characterised by the building of large walled
settlements, the expansion of trade networks, and the increasing integration of
regional communities into a "relatively uniform" material culture in terms of pottery
styles, ornaments, and stamp seals with Indus script, leading into the transition to the
Mature Harappan phase

20-Mature Harappan-According to Giosan et al. (2012), the slow southward

migration of the monsoons across Asia initially allowed the Indus Valley villages to
develop by taming the floods of the Indus and its tributaries. Flood-supported farming
led to large agricultural surpluses, which in turn supported the development of cities.
The INDUS VALLEY CIVILISATION residents did not develop irrigation capabilities,
relying mainly on the seasonal monsoons leading to summer floods. Brooke further
notes that the development of advanced cities coincides with a reduction in rainfall,
which may have triggered a reorganisation into larger urban centres. By 2600
BCE, the Early Harappan communities turned into large urban centres. Such urban
centres include Harappa, Ganeriwala, Mohenjo-daro in modern-day Pakistan,
and Dholavira, Kalibangan, Rakhigarhi, Rupar, and Lothal in modern-day India.[108] In
total, more than 1,000 settlements have been found, mainly in the general region of
the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra Rivers and their tributaries.
21- Authority And Governance - Archaeological records provide no immediate
answers for the question of who ruled Harappan cities and how. Nonetheless, there
are indications of complex decisions being taken and large-scale mobilisation of
resources. For instance, the majority of the cities were constructed in a highly
uniform and well-planned grid pattern, divided into two levels from ground making
one part slightly higher than the other; such complex urban planning, combined with
the construction of large public works projects, demonstrates the existence of some
sort of planning authority.[114] The remarkable consistency of Harappan weights and
measures, as evident in pottery, seals, weights and bricks, also indicates the
existence of a central authority able to make definitive regulations.

These are some major theories:

 There was a single state or federation ruling all or most of the Indus Valley. Proponents
of this theory believe that the presence of standardised weights and measures
demonstrates the presence of a central authority.
 There was no single ruler, with each city being a self-governing city state.
22-Metrology-The people of the Indus civilisation achieved great accuracy in
measuring length, mass, and time. They were among the first to develop a system of
uniform weights and measures. A comparison of available objects indicates large
scale variation across the Indus territories. Their smallest division, which is marked
on an ivory scale found in Lothal in Gujarat, was approximately 1.704 mm, the
smallest division ever recorded on a scale of the Bronze Age. Harappan engineers
followed the decimal division of measurement for all practical purposes, including the
measurement of mass as revealed by their hexahedron weights.

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. However, as in other cultures,
actual weights were not uniform throughout the area. The weights and measures
later used in Kautilya's Arthashastra (4th century BCE) are the same as those used
in Lothal.

23-Human statuettesA handful of realistic statuettes have been found at INDUS

VALLEY CIVILISATION sites, of which much the most famous[opinion] is the lost-wax
casting bronze statuette of a slender-limbed Dancing Girl adorned with bangles,
found in Mohenjo-daro. Two other realistic incomplete statuettes have been found in
Harappa in proper stratified excavations, which display near-Classical treatment of
the human shape: the statuette of a dancer who seems to be male, and the Harappa
Torso, a red jasper male torso, both now in the Delhi National Museum. Sir John
Marshall reacted with surprise when he saw these two statuettes from Harappa:[127]

When I first saw them I found it difficult to believe that they were prehistoric; they
seemed to completely upset all established ideas about early art, and culture.
Modelling such as this was unknown in the ancient world up to the Hellenistic age of
Greece, and I thought, therefore, that some mistake must surely have been made;
that these figures had found their way into levels some 3000 years older than those
to which they properly belonged ... Now, in these statuettes, it is just this anatomical
truth which is so startling; that makes us wonder whether, in this all-important matter,
Greek artistry could possibly have been anticipated by the sculptors of a far-off age
on the banks of the Indus.[127]
These statuettes remain controversial, due to their advanced style in representing
the human body. Regarding the red jasper torso, the discoverer, Vats, claims a
Harappan date, but Marshall considered this statuette is probably historical, dating to
the Gupta period, comparing it to the much later Lohanipur torso.[128] A second rather
similar grey stone torso of a dancing male was also found about 150 meters away in
a secure Mature Harappan stratum. Overall, anthropologist Gregory Possehl tends
to consider that these statuettes probably form the pinnacle of Indus art during the
Mature Harappan period

24 End of civilisation -There is evidence that by c. 1800 BCE most of the Mature Harappan
sites in regions such as Cholistan had been abandoned. Simultaneously, there was an
expansion of population into new settlements in Gujarat, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh.
In the few Harappan sites that continued to be occupied after 1900 BCE there appears to have
been a transformation of material culture, marked by the disappearance of the distinctive
artefacts of the civilisation – weights, seals, special beads. Writing, long-distance trade, and
craft specialisation also disappeared. In general, far fewer materials were used to make far
fewer things. House construction techniques deteriorated and large public structures were no
longer produced. Overall, artefacts and settlements indicate a rural way of life in what are
called “Late Harappan” or “successor cultures” Several explanations have been put forward.
These range from climatic change, deforestation, excessive floods, the shifting and/or drying
up of rivers, to overuse of the landscape. Some of these “causes” may hold for certain
settlements, but they do not explain the collapse of the entire civilisation. It appears that a
strong unifying element, perhaps the Harappan state, came to an end. This is evidenced by the
disappearance of seals, the script, distinctive beads and pottery, the shift from a standardised
weight system to the use of local weights; and the decline and abandonment of cities. The
subcontinent would have to wait for over a millennium for new cities to develop in a
completely Map 4 Areas of Late Harappan occupation Indus 17 SWAT CEMETERY H
JHUKAR Arabian Sea Sketch map not to scale different region.