Harappan Civilization  
Last updated      11/16/2007      10/8/2007     10/7/2007      10/22/2005 

The people of the Indus Valley were a highly organized and stupendously successful civilization. They built some of the world's first planned cities, created one of the world's first written languages, and thrived in an area twice the size of Egypt and Mesopotamia for 700 years.  The villages that began to develop along the Indus River over five thousand years ago are among the oldest in the world.

Cities
By 2500 BC, there were two major cities--Mohenjo-Daro (Hill of the Dead) and Harappa.
Each of these cities were urban centers with populations c. 40,000 people. 
Cities were built according to a well-organized plan.
Streets laid out in a grid pattern.
They aligned in a North-South direction.
Intersecting streets would run in an East-West direction.
At the center of each city was a fortress, or citadel.
The city had huge buildings for storing grain.

People
There were three social groups.
The first group or the ruling class lived in the citadel. 
It was comprised of wealthy merchants and the high priests.
The second group consisted of petty merchants, artisans arid craftsmen.
The laborers belonged to the third group and lived in small huts in the Lower Town.

Occupations
At first, almost every villager was a farmer.
As farming methods improved, farmers produced enough to feed thousands of people.
This allowed some of them to do other kinds of work.
They became merchants, traders, and craftsmen.
Villages turned into towns, and some towns turned into cities.
Bead making was an important industry. 
Metalworkers worked in gold and bronze. 
The building of houses would have required brickmakers and builders.
The irrigation and sewer systems would require engineers and construction crews.
Sewer traps also needed cleaning.
Potters and artists to create seals.
Butchers would be necessary for the animals raised by farmers. 
A city of 40,000 needs to eat.  
Merchants would also be traders.
Tax collectors would be needed. 
Cartwrights and wheelwrights.
Weavers of cloth. 
Workers to turn the cloth into clothes.  
Jewelers. Boatmakers. Sailmakers.
Caravan suppliers. Animal tenders.  
Beekeepers to make honey and dairymen who made butter.

Homes
Houses were one, two, or three, stories high.
They were constructed of baked brick, with flat roofs.
The bricks used to build at these Indus cities are all uniform in size. 
It would seem that a standard brick size was developed and used throughout the Indus cities. 
Each was built with a series of rooms with windows overlooking  a courtyard. 
This courtyard served the multiple functions of lighting the rooms.
It also acted as a heat absorber in summer and radiator in winter.
It also provided an open space inside for community activities.
There were no openings toward the main street, thus ensuring privacy for the residents.
In fact, the only openings in the houses are rather small.
This prevented the hot summer sun heating the insides of the houses.
Each home had its own private drinking well and its own private bathroom.
Clay pipes led from the bathrooms, bathing houses, and sewage drains.
The clay pipes led to sewers located under the streets.
These sewers drained into nearly rivers and streams.
The fertile sludge was deposited on surrounding agricultural fields.
They used timber to create the flat roofs of their buildings.
There are brick stairways leading to the roofs of many houses.
This suggests that roofs were used as recreational areas. 
Several craftsman workshops have been found, such as metalworking, carpentry, and shell-working.

 
Clothes
Harappans were the first to grow cotton, spin it into thread, and then wove it into cloth. 
The cotton cloth was then dyed bright colors. 
The women wore a short skirt. 
It. was held at the waist with a girdle.
The women also had huge headdresses and wore mini-skirts. 
Women wore necklaces bangles, bracelets, earrings and waist bands and even wore lipstick. 
The women combed their hair.
The men had a trimmed beard and shaven upper lip.
The men’s hair was rolled into a bun and held at the back with a fillet.
Men wore a light robe and left the right shoulder bare.  
Men had also adorned themselves with ornaments like armlets.
These were made of gold and silver, bone, stone, ivory and shell. 
The rich wore gold and silver jewelry.
The poor used shell, copper and silver ornaments.

Entertainment
The Harappans enjoyed dance. 
A large centrally heated pool, with steps leading down at both ends, has been found. 
Around this large central pool were smaller rooms, that might have dressing rooms. 
Smaller pools that might have been private baths have also been excavated.

Farming
It would appear they were very good farmers.
Early Harappan people planted a wide variety of crops.  
They planted according to the predictable cycles of the Indus River.
Farms raised cotton and kept herds of sheep, chickens, pigs, zebus (a kind of cow), and water buffalo.
The farmers would plant their crops as the floods receded between June and September.
Crops were grown, and the harvest stored centrally, for all in the town to enjoy.
From every crop that a farmer grew, a large portion of it had to be paid into public granaries.
The settlements along the river were susceptible to periods of violent flooding.
In such cases, stone walls were erected as flood barriers.  
Ironically,these flood barriers eventually became the city walls of some settlements.

Food
Dinner was probably wheat bread with barley or rice.
They ate barley, wheat, peas, melons, and dates.  
Each town had a large central storage building for grain.  
Many of the local animals like elephant, tiger, rhinoceros, buffalo, antelope and gharial were pictured on the seals. 
They must have been a part of these peoples' diets. 
Fish were caught in the river.
One of the major finds is a large Harappan copper fish hook.
It is 14 cm long with barbed point and loop on the other end and weighs 45 g.  
These large fish-hooks were used to catch large marine fish weighing more than 50 kg.
This indicates that the Harappans of Padri had perhaps mastered the technique of deep sea fishing. 
It is logical to presume that, for this purpose, they also used a big boat.  

Toys
Toys that have been found are bird shaped whistles.
Toy monkeys which could slide down up-and-down a string!
A chariot with wheels has also been found.

Art  
Art of the Harappan includes bronze figures.
Men, women, animals, birds and toys were cast.
Terracotta figurines are known from some sites.
Shell, bone, semiprecious and clay were used to make jewelry.
Craftsmen were skilled in pottery, weaving, and metal working.
The pottery that has been found is of very high quality, with unusually beautiful designs.
Several small figures of animals, such as monkeys, have been found. 
There are also small statues but scientists have found no large statues.
They have found household items.
Bowls were made of bronze and silver.
The bead industry was centered in this area.
Many beads and ornaments have been found.
The metals used to make these things are not found in the Indus Valley.
The people had to import all of these items from some other place.
Or more probably, had to import the metals they used to make these beautiful things from somewhere else.

Imports
Gold from southern India.
Copper from Afghanistan.
Jade like fuchsite probably from southern India.
Turquoise from Iran. 

Trade
There is even evidence of trade with Mesopotamia.
Harappan seals and jewelry have been found there. 
Cotton was a staple export of Indus.
Economy was based on agriculture produce and livestock.
Supplemented by the production of and trade of commodities and craft items.
Raw materials such as carnelian, steatite, and lapis lazuli were imported for craft use. 
In exchange for these goods, such things as livestock, grains, honey and clarified butter may have been given.

            
Language & Writing: Seals
The Harappan people were literate and used the Dravidian language.
Only part of this language has been deciphered.
The only forms of Harappan writing known are pictograms and animal designs.
They are carved on clay stamp seals.
They could be used to identify merchants' goods. 
Some clay stamp seals from Harappa have been discovered in Sumer.
Animals shown on the seals include sheep, goats, water buffalo, elephants, bison, unicorns, and oxen.

Government
Rulers governed their cities through the control of trade and religion, not by military might.
The city was well administered by a class of wealthy merchants and priests.
There was some kind of municipal organization.
It had to take care of sanitation and regulate trade.
It collected taxes in the form of grains.
Maintained law and order in the city.
There are no monuments erected to glorify any people.
There are no depictions of warfare or conquered enemies.

Transportation
The Harappans had carts with wooden wheels.
They used used camels, elephants, and oxen.
They had boats with one mast, probably used to sail around the Arabian Sea.

Religion
No temple has yet been discovered. 
They worshiped spirits they believed to be in water, trees, animals and humans.
They had a fertility goddess that sat in a niche in the wall of their homes.
Like the Egyptians they also had a bull god. 
They buried objects with their dead.
They had taboos, especially about cleanliness.  
Nature worship is shown in their seals. 

Disappearance
Flood
By 1500 BC it had disappeared.  
Floods wiped out the irrigation system that supplied water to the crops.
Many of the buildings were smothered.
Climate Change
Climate shifts which caused great droughts dried up major rivers around 2200 BC.
This forced the abandonment of the Indus cities and pushed a migration westward.
The Sumerian empire declined sharply at this time due to a climate shift.
This caused major droughts for several centuries. 
The Harappans were close to Sumer.
They would in all probability have been affected by this harsh shift in climate.

Archaeology
1400 cities have been found.
As the Indus flooded, cities were rebuilt on top of each other.
Each city was built a little less skillfully than the city below it.
The most developed was on the bottom.
Only a few sentences of written language, on pottery and amulets, have been found.

Bibliogarpahy
Donn, Lin and Don. "Daily Life in Ancient India." Mr. Donn’s Pages. 23 Oct. 2002. 10 Jul. 2003

Free Clip Art by Phillip Martin  Great clip art for teachers to use.  Thanks!!!!

Kenoyer, Jonathan. (July 2003) Uncovering the keys to lost Indus cities. Scientific American. pg 71

Shinde, V.S. and Thomas, E., Man Environ., 1993, 18, 145-147