The Salient features of the Indus Valley Civilization are as

follows:
The Harappan culture covered parts of Punjab, Sind, Baluchistan,
Gujarat, Rajasthan and the fringes of western Uttar’ “Pradesh. It
extended from Jammu in the north to the Narmada estuary in the
South, and from the Makran coast of Baluchistan in the west to
Meerut in the north-east.

The area formed a triangle and accounted for about 1,299,600

square kilometers. Recent Carbon-14 dating indicate the period of
the mature Harappan civilization to be from C.2,800/2,900-1,800
B.C. Modern research on the Harappan civiliation, establishing
evidence of their contact with the Mesopotamian Civilization also
corroborates this dating.

Town Planning: The most remarkable feature of the Harappan

civilization was its urbanisation. Each city was divided into a citadel
area where the essential institutions of Civil and religious life were
located and the lower residential area where the urban population
lived.

In Mohenjodaro and Harappa, the citadel was surrounded by a

brick wall. At Kalibangan, both the citadel and the lower city were
surrounded by a wall. Usually, towns or cities were laid out in a
parallel grammas form. The use of baked and unbaked bricks of
standard size shows that the brick making was a large scale industry
for the Harappans.

In the citadel area, the Great Bath at Mohenjodaro is the most

striking structure. It is assumed that it was meant for some
elaborate ritual of vital importance for the people. To the west of the
Great Bath there are the remains of a large granary. At Harappa
remarkable number of granaries has also been found ranged in two
rows of six, with a central passage.

In Mohenjoadro, to another side of the Great Bath, is a long

building which has been identified as the residence of a very high
official. Another significant building here is an assembly hall. The
most significant discoveries at Kalibangan and Lothal are the fire
altars.

The lower town was divided into wards like a chess board, by north-
south and east-west arterial roads and smaller lanes, cutting each
other at right angles, as in a grid system. The rectangular town
planning was a unique feature of the civilization. The arterial roads
were provided with covered drains having additional soak pits made
of pots and placed at convenient intervals.

The houses of varying sizes point towards the economic groups in

the settlement. The parallel rows of two room cottages unearthed at
Mohenjodaro and Harappa were perhaps used by the poorer
sections of society, while the big houses, which had much the same
plan- a square courtyard around which were a number of rooms –
were used by the rich. The houses were equipped with private wells
and toilets.

The bathrooms were connected by drains with sewers under the

main street. The drainage system is one of the most impressive
achievements of the Harappans and presupposes existence of some
kind of municipal organisation. The houses were constructed with
the kiln-made or Kuccha bricks, not stones. The bathrooms and
drains were invariably built with pukka bricks made waterproof by
adding gypsum.

Agriculture: The Harappans cultivated wheat and barley, peas and

dates and also sesame and mustard which were used for oil.
However, the people cultivated rice as early as 1,800 B.C. in Lothal.
The Harappans were the earliest people to grow cotton. Irrigation
depended on the irregular flooding of the rivers of Punjab and Sind.

Canal irrigation was not practised. The evidence of a furrowed field

in Kalibangan indicates that the Harappans were using some sort of
woodern plough. It has also suggested that the Harappan people
used a toothed harrow.

Stock Breeding: No less important than agriculture was stock

breeding. Besides sheet and goats humped cattle, buffalos and
elephants were domesticated. The camal was rare and the horse was
probably not known to the Harappans.

Trade and Its Network: There was extensive inland and foreign
trade. It has also been reasonably established that this trade might
have been overland as well as maritime. It is proved by the
occurrence of small terracotta boats, and above all, by the vast brick
built dock at Lothal.

As there is a no evidence of coins, barter must have been the normal

method of exchange of goods. But the system of weights and
measures was excellent. For weighing goods – small as well as large
– perfectly made cubes of agate were employed. The weights
followed a binary system in the lower denominations: 1, 2, 4, 8 to 64
and then going to 160 and then in decimal multiples of 16, 320, 640,
1,600, 3,200 etc.

What they imported must have been goods locally unavailable such
as copper (from South India, Baluchistan and Arabia), gold (South
India, Afghanistan and Persia), Silver (Afghanistan and Iran), lapis
lazuli (Badak-shan in north east Afghanistan) turquoise (Iran), Jade
(Central Asia), amethyst (Maharashtra), agate, chalcedony and
carnelian from Saurashtra and western India. Harappan seals and
other small objects used by the merchants and traders for stamping
their goods have been found in Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamian literature speaks of the merchants of Ur (in

Mesopotamia) as carrying on trade with foreign countries. Among
these the most frequently mentioned are Tilmun, Magan and
Meluhha. Tilmun is most commonly identified with the island of
Bahrein in the Persian Gulf-Magan may be Oman or some other
port of South Arabia. Meluhha is now generally understood to mean
India, especially the Indus region and Saurashtra.

Crafts: The various occupations in which the people were engaged

spanned a wide range – spinning and weaving of cotton and wool,
pottery- making, bead-making and seal making metal working was
highly skilled. They made fine jewellery in gold, bronze implements,
copper beakers, saws, chisels and knives of different metals. Stone
sculptures were rare and undeveloped. The Bearded Head in stone
from Mohenjodaro is a well known piece of art.

Science:
The Harappans knew mining metal- working and the art of
constructing well-planned buildings, some of which were higher
than two stories. They were also adopting at manufacturing gypsum
cement which was used to join stones and even metals. They knew
how to make long-lasting paints and dyes.

The Indus Script: The Harappan script has not been deciphered so
far, but overlaps of letters on some of the potsherds from
Kalibangan show that the writing was boustrophedon or from right
to lift and from left to right in alternate lines.

Religion: Clay figures of the mother Goddess, worshipped by the

people as the symbol of fertility, have been found. A seated figure of
a male god, carved on a small stone seal, has also been found. The
seal immediately brings to mind the traditional image of Pasupati
mahadeva. Certain trees seem to have been treated as sacred, such
as the pipal. They also held the bull scared.

Harappa: Harappa, located on the bank of river Ravi, was the first
site to be excavated. It ranks as the premier city of the civilization.
In Harappa, a substantial section of the population was engaged in
activities other than food production – like administration, trade,
craft work or religion.

Mohenjodaro: Mohenjodaro, located on the bank of river Indus,

was the largest Harappan city. Excavations show that people lived
here for a very long time and went on building and rebuilding
houses at the same location.

Kalibangan: Kalibangan, located on the dried up bed of the river

Ghaggar, was excavated in 1960 under the guidance of BK Thapan.
This area had the largest concentration of Harrappan settlement
and has also yielded evidence of the early Harappan period.

Lothal: In Gujarat, settlements such as Rangapur, Surkotada and

Lothal have been discovered. This place seems to have been an
outpost fro sea-trade with contemporary west Asian Societies.

Sutkagen-Dor: Sutkagen-Dor is located near the Makran coast

which is close to the Pakistan-Iran border. The towns had a citedel
surrounded by a stone wall built for defence. Its location in an
inhospitable area was probably to fill the need for a seaport for
trading purpose.

Decline:
Around 1,800 B.C. the major cities in the core region decayed and
were finally abandoned. The settlements in the outlying regions
slowly de- urbanised. Some of the plausible theories for the decline
of the Harappan civilization are the given here along with their pros
and cons.

A. Floods and Earthquakes: It has been postulated that floods and

earthquakes destroyed the civilization. The theory has been
criticised on various grounds:

1. Decline of settlements outside the Indus Valley cannot be

explained by this theory.

2. A river cannot be damaged by tectonic effects.

B. Change in Course of the Rivers: Another theory (HT Lamb rick)

is that Mohenjodaro was destroyed by the change in the course of
river Indus away from it. The people of the city and the surrounding
food producing village deserted the area because they were starved
of water. According to this theory, silt observed in the city is actually
the product of wind action.

Criticism:
ADVERTISEMENTS:

This can explain only desertion of Mohenjodaro but not its decline.

C. Aridity: Another hypothesis is that the increased aridity of the

Indus region and the drying up of the river Ghaggar led to the
decline of civilization (DP Aggarwal and Sood). Though the theory is
interesting, it has not yet been fully worked out. Drying up of river
Ghaggar has not yet been dated.

D. Aryan Invasion: Another theory states that barbarian or Aryan

invasion destroyed Harappa (M Wheeler). Aryan arrival is not dated
earlier than 1,500 B.C. Therefore, a Harappan and Aryan clash
seems difficult to accept.

E. Ecological Factors: Scholars like Fairservis tried to explain the

decay in terms of the problems of ecology – that the growing
demands of the centers disturbed the ecology in the semi-arid
region and the area could not support them anymore. Town people
moved away to Gujarat and eastern areas. This process of decline
was completed by raids and attacks of nearby settlements.

Criticism: Soil continues to be fertile till today in the area. More

information about the needs of the Harappan towns is required
before this hypothesis is substantiated. Problems in explaining
Harappan decline had led the scholars to:
 1. Abandon the search for causes of decline.

2. Look for continuities of Harappa in a geographical perspective.

3. Accept that the cities declined and certain traditions like seals,
writing, and pottery were lost. Archaeologically speaking, the
Harappan communities merged into the surrounding agricultural
groups after the urban phase was over but still retained some of
their traditions.