Presentation

on

INDUS VALLEY CIVLIZATION

&
ARYANS
 CONTENTS
 Introduction
 Discovery & Excavation
 Geography
 Chronology
 The Great Cities
 Harappan - 1. Early Harappan
2. Mature Harappan
3. Late Harappan
 Mohanjodaro
 Conclusion of IVC on the bases of………………..
 INTRODUCTION
 The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was a Bronze age
civilization (3300–1300 BCE).
 This is situated the bank of the river Indus, that’s why its
known as Indus Valley Civilization.
 That was located in the northwestern region of the Indian
subcontinent & in the western part of South Asia, consisting of
what is now mainly modern-day Pakistan and northwest India.
It is often referred to as Harappan Civilization after its first
discovered city, Harappa.
 MAP OF
INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION
 WHAT IS THE REASON BEHIND ITS
POPULARITY?
 The Indus Valley Civilization cities are outstanding
examples of extremely effective town planning.
 The Harappans used the same size bricks and standardized weights as
were used in other Indus cities such as MohenjoDaro.
These cities were well planned with wide streets, public and private
wells, drains, bathing platforms and reservoirs. One of its most well-known
structures is the Great Bath of Mohenjo Daro .
This urban plan included the world's first known urban sanitation
systems.
 DISCOVERY & EXCAVATION

 The ruins of Harappa were first described in 1842 by Charls Masson in

his Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan, and the
Punjab.
 In 1872–75 Alexander Cunningham published the first Harappan seal
(with an erroneous identification as Brahmi letters). It was half a
century later, in 1912, that more Harappan seals were discovered by
J. Fleet, prompting an excavation campaign under Sir John Hubert
Marshall in 1921–22 and resulting in the discovery of the civilization
at Harappa by Sir John Marshall, Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni and
Madho Sarup Vats.
 The excavations revealed that there was complete absence of any form
of decoration. Houses were strictly designed from point of view of
utility.
 HARAPPA : MOUND E AND ET

 Inside the city is an area that has been identified as a crafts quarter.
 Large quantities of manufacturing debris have been found in this area
indicating the presence of workshops for making stone beads, shell
ornaments, glazed faience ornaments, stone tools and possibly even gold
working.
GEOGRAPHY
It was spread over an area of some
1,260,000 km, comprising the whole of
modern day Pakistan and parts of modern-
day India and Afghanistan. The Indus
Valley Civilization encompassed most of
Pakistan, extending from Balochistan to
Sindh, and extending into modern day
Indian states of Gujarat, Rajasthan,
Haryana, and Punjab, with an upward
reach to Rupar on the upper Sutlej. The
geography of the Indus Valley put the
civilizations that arose there in a highly
similar situation to those in Egypt and Peru,
with rich agricultural lands being
surrounded by highlands, desert, and ocean.
 CHRONOLOGY
 The Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan
phases are also called the Regionalization, Integration, and
Localization eras, respectively, with the Regionalization era
reaching back to the Neolithic Mehrgarh II period.
"Discoveries at Mehrgarh changed the entire concept of the
Indus civilization," according to Ahmad Hasan Dani,
professor emeritus at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad.
"There we have the whole sequence, right from the beginning
of settled village life."
S. NO. DATE RANGE PHASE ERA
1. 3300-2600 BCE Early Harappan
2. 3300-2800 BCE Harappan 1 (Ravi Phase) Regionalisation Era
Harappan 2 (Kot Diji Phase, Nausharo 5500-2600
3. 2800-2600 BCE
I, Mehrgarh VII)
Mature Harappan (Indus Valley
4. 2600-1900 BCE
Civilization)
5. 2600-2450 BCE Harappan 3A (Nausharo II) Integration Era
6. 2450-2200 BCE Harappan 3B
7. 2200-1900 BCE Harappan 3C
Late Harappan (Cemetery H); Ochre
8. 1900-1300 BCE
Coloured Pottery
Localisation Era
9. 1900-1700 BCE Harappan 4
10. 1700-1300 BCE Harappan 5
Painted Gray Ware, Northern Black
Indo-Gangetic
11. 1300-300 BCE Polished Ware (Iron Age)
Tradition
 THE GREAT CITIES
 Though hundreds of miles apart, Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were
remarkably similar in layout and construction. Both were built on a
square grid pattern that was divided by main thoroughfares into 12
smaller and precisely measured grids. Each of the cities was surrounded
by walls, which extended one mile from east to west and one-half mile
from north to south. The buildings of the cities and the surrounding
walls were made of standardized kiln-dried bricks.
 The existence of a strong ruling class is also indicated by the presence of
large and well-fortified citadels in each of the capital cities. These
citadels served as sanctuaries for the cities' populations in times of
attack and as community centers in times of peace.
 HARAPPA
 Harappa is the first discovered city of Indus Valley Civilization.
 The high mound at Harappa is surrounded by a massive mud brick city
wall with large square ramparts.
 One of these eroding ramparts is visible through the underbrush that
now covers the site. The flags mark the tomb of a Muslim saint.
 PHASES OF HARAPPAN
HARAPPAN

1. Early Harappan
(2800-2600 BCE)
2. Mature Harappan
(2600-1900 BCE)

2. Late Harappan
(1900-1300 BCE)
 EARLY HARAPPA
 The Early Harappan Ravi Phase, named after the nearby
Ravi River, lasted from circa 3300 BCE until 2800 BCE.
 Trade networks linked this culture with related regional
cultures and distant sources of raw materials, including lapis
lazuli and other materials for bead-making.
 Early Harappan communities turned to large urban centres
by 2600 BCE, from where the mature Harappan phase
started.
 MATURE HARAPPAN
 Mature Harappan comes under integration era.
 By 2600 BCE, the Early Harappan communities had been
turned into large urban centers.
 Centers include Harappa, Ganeriwala, Mohenjo-daro in
modern day Pakistan, and Dholavira, Kalibangan,
Rakhigarhi, Rupar, and Lothal in modern day India.
 In total, over 1,052 cities and settlements have been found,
mainly in the general region of the Indus Rivers and their
tributaries.
 HARAPPAN PHASES
(INTEGRATION ERA OR MATURE HARAPPAN )
 CITIES
 A sophisticated and
technologically advanced urban
culture is evident in the Indus
Valley Civilization making them
the first urban centers in the
region.
 The cities at Harappa were built
systematically, divided in 12
blocks each 365m X 244m.
 The quality of municipal town
planning suggests the knowledge
of urban planning and efficient
municipal government which
placed a high priority on hygiene.
Their towns were laid out in grids everywhere
(straight streets, well built homes!) These people were
incredible builders.
The advanced architecture of the Harappans is shown
by their impressive
dockyards, granaries, warehouses, brick platforms,
and protective walls.
 STREET
 The streets were 9 m wide,
running in the north- south
end east- west direction.
 The streets & building were
marked by under- ground
drainage lines with
inspection chambers at
regular intervals.
 The street divided the city
into 12 block s
Gateway At Harappa: Indus Valley Civilization
 WELL
 A large public well and public bathing platforms were found in the
southern part of Mound AB at Harappa.
 Within the city, individual homes or groups of homes obtained water
from wells.

Well

 Private wells were rebuilt over many generations for large households
and neighborhoods.
 These public bathing areas may also have been used for washing clothes
as is common in many traditional cities in Pakistan and India today.
HOUSES
 WALLS
• The massive walls of Indus cities most likely protected the
Harappans from floods and may have dissuaded military
conflicts (State of opposition ).
• Walls were laid in “English Bond” in mud mortar.
 DRAINAGE SYSTEM
• The ancient Indus systems of sewerage and drainage that
were developed and used in cities throughout the Indus
region were far more advanced than any found in
contemporary urban sites in the Middle East and even more
efficient than those in many areas of Pakistan and India
today.
 GRANARY

 The "granary" of Harappa is found on Mound F.

 It is a brick structure that was built on a massive brick foundation over 45 meters north-
south and 45 meters east-west.
 Two rows of six rooms that appear to be foundations are arranged along a central
passageway that is about 7 meters wide and partly paved with baked bricks.
 Each room measures 15.2 by 6.1 meters and has three sleeper walls with air space between
them.
 LATE HARAPPAN
 Around 1800 BCE, signs of a gradual decline began to emerge, and by
around 1700 BCE, most of the cities were abandoned. In 1953, Sir
Mortimer Wheeler proposed that the decline of the Indus Civilization
was caused by the invasion of an Indo-European tribe from Central
Asia called the “Aryans”.
 A possible natural reason for the IVC's decline is connected with
climate change that is also signaled for the neighboring areas of the
Middle East: The Indus valley climate grew significantly cooler and
drier from about 1800 BCE, linked to a general weakening of the
monsoon at that time.
 This Indus Valley Harappan culture collapsed due to natural
catastrophe as suggested by some archaeologists. Earthquakes changes
the river course and Indus Valley suddenly went dry as such the
inhabitants abandoned the site .
So-called "Priest King" statue, Mohanjodaro, late
Mature Harappan period, National Museum,
Karachi, Pakistan.
 MOHANJODARO

 This shows the high western mound made up of a massive

mud brick platform and brick houses of the Harappan period
( 2600 to 1900 B. C.).
CONCLUSION OF IVC ON THE BASES OF :

 Food
 Ornaments
 Science
 Arts & Crafts
 Script
 Religion
 Trade & Transportation
 Burial
 ORNAMENTS
 This collection of gold and agate
ornaments includes objects found at
both Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa.
 At the top are fillets of hammered
gold that would have been worn
around the forehead.
 The other ornaments include
bangles, chokers, long pendant
necklaces, rings, earrings, conical
hair ornaments, and broaches.
 These ornaments were never buried
with the dead, but were passed on
from one generation to the next.
 These ornaments were hidden under
the floors in the homes of wealthy
merchants or goldsmiths.
 SCIENCE
 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, was approximately 1.704 mm, the smallest
division ever recorded on a scale of the Bronze Age.
 Harappans evolved some new techniques in metallurgy and produced
copper, bronze, lead, and tin. The engineering skill of the Harappans
was remarkable, especially in building docks after a careful study of
tides, waves, and currents. The function of the so-called "dock" at
Lothal, however, is disputed.
 A touchstone bearing gold streaks was found in Banawali, which was
probably used for testing the purity of gold (such a technique is still
used in some parts of India).
ARTS AND CRAFTS
Terracotta Figurines
Copper plate with vertical sides

Clay Sculpture
Ceramics
 SCRIPT

The origins of Indus writing can now be traced to the Ravi Phase (c. 3300-2800 BC)
at Harappa.
Some inscriptions were made on the bottom of the pottery before firing.
This inscription (c. 3300 BC) appears to be three plant symbols.
The first publication of a Harappan seal dates to 1875, in the form of a drawing by
Alexander Cunningham. Since then, well over 4000 symbol-bearing objects have been
discovered
• Between 400 and as many as 600
distinct Indus symbols have been
found on seals, small tablets, or
ceramic pots and over a dozen other
materials, including a "signboard"
that apparently once hung over the
gate of the inner citadel of the Indus
city of Dholavira. Typical Indus Seal impression showing a
Inscription are no more than four or typical "inscription" of
five characters in length, most of five "characters".
which (aside from the Dholavira
"signboard") are tiny; the longest on a
single surface, which is less than
1 inch (2.54 cm) square, is 17 signs
long; the longest on any object (found
on three different faces of a mass- Inscription of ten
produced object) has a length of 26 characters from Dholavira
symbols.
 RELIGION
 Some Indus valley seals show
swastikas, which are found in
other religions (worldwide) ,
especially in Indian religions
The so-called Shiva Pashupati seal such as Hinduism, Buddhism,
Jainism.
 The earliest evidence for
elements of Hinduism are alleged
to have been present before and
during the early Harappan
period.Phallic symbols
interpreted as the much later
Hindu Shiva lingam have been
found in the Harappan remains
Swastika Seals from the Indus Valley
Civilization preserved at the British Museum.
 TRADE & TRANSPORTATION
• The IVC may have been the first
civilization to use wheeled
transport. These advances may
have included bullock carts that are
identical to those seen throughout
South Asia today, as well as boats.
Most of these boats were probably
small, flat-bottomed craft, perhaps
driven by sail, similar to those one
can see on the Indus River today;
Archaeologists have discovered a
The docks of ancient Lothal as they massive, dredged canal and what
are today they regard as a docking facility at
the coastal city of Lothal in
western India (Gujarat state).
 BURIAL

The body was placed inside a wooden coffin (which later decayed) and
entombed in a rectangular pit surrounded with burial offerings in
pottery vessels.