Indus Valley Civilization
The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) represents one of the world's earliest urban cultures, flourishing from approximately 3300 to 1300 BCE in what is now Pakistan and northwest India. It is renowned for its advanced city planning, featuring grid layouts, sophisticated drainage systems, and uniform brick construction. Major urban centers like Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa were hubs of trade, connecting diverse regions through an extensive network of waterways and overland routes. The economy was heavily reliant on agriculture and manufacturing, with evidence of trade in goods such as beads, jewelry, and textiles with far-off cultures in the Near East.
Despite extensive archaeological discoveries, much about the civilization's social structure, religious beliefs, and writing system remains elusive. The Indus script, found on seals, has yet to be deciphered, limiting our understanding of their language and communication. Burial practices suggest a complex relationship with spirituality, but clear evidence of organized religion is scarce. The decline of the civilization around 1800-1700 BCE is the subject of various theories, including environmental changes and potential invasions. The origins and identity of the Indus people are still debated, with some scholars linking them to the Dravidian populations of southern India. Overall, the IVC remains a fascinating subject, reflecting the ingenuity and complexity of early human societies.
Indus Valley Civilization
Related civilization: India.
Also known as: Harappān civilization.
Date: c. 3500-1700 b.c.e.
Locale: Northwest India, Pakistan
Indus Valley Civilization
An excavation conducted at Mohenjo-Daro by Sir John Marshall in the 1920’s revealed the first of several ancient cities located along the Indus River that were part of the Indian subcontinent’s first civilization. Later surveys and excavations revealed the scope of the culture that extended from Baluchistan in the west to the Rājasthāni desert in the east and from the foothills of the Himalayas in the north to the Gulf of Kutch in the south. Large cities with populations of several thousand people, townships, and villages were linked by rivers and sea and overland routes. An extensive, complex web of settlements supported an economy that was based on agriculture, various industries, and trade.
The cities of the mature phase (c. 2700-1800 b.c.e.) were constructed on the grid system and oriented to the cardinal directions. The cities had extensive sewer systems made from terra-cotta conduits and buildings that were constructed of bricks all of precise and uniform measures. The enterprising inhabitants of the Indus region traded with other distant cultures, and Indus relics have been found in cities of the ancient Near East and in settlements along the Persian Gulf. In order to keep track of trade goods, systems of precise weights and measures, counting, and writing were devised. The Indus script has been found inscribed on thousands of steatite seals; many of the inscriptions are thought to establish ownership. The writing, however, has yet to be convincingly deciphered. In addition to trading agricultural products and possibly woven fabrics, the Indus inhabitants manufactured and traded beads and jewelry made from terra-cotta and various stones, shells, and metals.
The religion of the Indus inhabitants is still difficult to determine. In the earlier Neolithic settlements, burials with a few grave goods were standard. In the later periods, most often the bodies were cremated and the fragments interred in burial urns. There is a noticeable lack of burial objects, and therefore, that rich source of information on religious beliefs is not available. Thus far, no buildings at any of the sites can be identified as having a specific religious use. In the cities, larger structures were located on an acropolis or area raised high above the general population. It has yet to be determined if these buildings were for secular or sacred use. One structure at Mohenjo-Daro called the Great Bath may have been used for ritual purposes. Numerous terra-cotta figurines of Mother Goddesses found in homes provide evidence of some animistic religious notions.
The Indus cities were abandoned in the second millennium, possibly circa 1800-1700 b.c.e. Various theories concerning the abandonment in the region have included the continual flooding of the Indus River, tectonic shifts caused by earthquakes and resulting in the drying of the water resources, and invasion by outsiders, notably the Aryans. Currently, all the theories are being reevaluated.
Identification of the original Indus inhabitants has yet to be determined. The initial excavators and most scholars believe that they were related to India’s Dravidian populations, early inhabitants of the subcontinent who migrated southward to their present home in south India.
Bibliography
Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark. Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization. Karachi, Pakistan: Oxford University Press and the American Institute of Pakistan Studies, 1998.
Possehl, Gregory L. Harappan Civilization. Warminster, England: ARIS & Phillips and the American Institute of Indian Studies, 1982.