Guided Reading Strategies Indus River Valley Civilization Chapter 3
The Indus Valley Culture was a cultural and political entity which flourished in the northern region of the Indian subcontinent between c. 7000 - c. 600 BCE. Its modernistic name derives from its location in the valley of the Indus River, only it is likewise commonly referred to every bit the Indus-Sarasvati Civilization and the Harrapan Civilisation.
These latter designations come from the Sarasvati River mentioned in Vedic sources, which flowed next to the Indus River, and the ancient metropolis of Harappa in the region, the first 1 plant in the modern era. None of these names derive from whatever ancient texts because, although scholars generally believe the people of this civilization developed a writing system (known every bit Indus Script or Harappan Script) it has not yet been deciphered.
All three designations are modern constructs, and nothing is definitively known of the origin, development, decline, and fall of the civilization. Nonetheless, modern archaeology has established a probable chronology and periodization:
- Pre-Harappan – c. 7000 - c. 5500 BCE
- Early Harappan – c. 5500 - 2800 BCE
- Mature Harappan – c. 2800 - c. 1900 BCE
- Late Harappan – c. 1900 - c. 1500 BCE
- Mail service Harappan – c. 1500 - c. 600 BCE
The Indus Valley Culture is now often compared with the far more famous cultures of Egypt and Mesopotamia, just this is a adequately recent development. The discovery of Harappa in 1829 CE was the first indication that any such civilization existed in India, and past that time, Egyptian hieroglyphics had been deciphered, Egyptian and Mesopotamian sites excavated, and cuneiform would soon be translated past the scholar George Smith (l. 1840-1876 CE). Archaeological excavations of the Indus Valley Civilization, therefore, had a significantly late get-go comparatively, and it is now thought that many of the accomplishments and "firsts" attributed to Arab republic of egypt and Mesopotamia may actually belong to the people of the Indus Valley Civilization.
The total population of the civilisation is thought to have been upward of 5 million, & its territory stretched over 900 miles (1,500 km) along the Indus River.
The two best-known excavated cities of this civilisation are Harappa and Mohenjo-daro (located in modern-day Pakistan), both of which are thought to have one time had populations of between forty,000-50,000 people, which is stunning when one realizes that most aboriginal cities had on average 10,000 people living in them. The total population of the civilization is thought to have been up of five million, and its territory stretched over 900 miles (1,500 km) forth the banks of the Indus River and then in all directions outward. Indus Valley Civilization sites have been institute near the border of Nepal, in Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, on the coasts of India, and around Delhi, to name only a few locations.
Between c. 1900 - c. 1500 BCE, the culture began to pass up for unknown reasons. In the early 20th century CE, this was thought to have been caused by an invasion of light-skinned peoples from the north known as Aryans who conquered a nighttime-skinned people divers by Western scholars as Dravidians. This claim, known as the Aryan Invasion Theory, has been discredited. The Aryans – whose ethnicity is associated with the Iranian Persians – are at present believed to have migrated to the region peacefully and blended their culture with that of the indigenous people while the term Dravidian is understood now to refer to anyone, of any ethnicity, who speaks ane of the Dravidian languages.
Why the Indus Valley Civilization declined and fell is unknown, merely scholars believe it may have had to do with climate change, the drying up of the Sarasvati River, an alteration in the path of the monsoon which watered crops, overpopulation of the cities, a decline in merchandise with Egypt and Mesopotamia, or a combination of whatever of the above. In the present 24-hour interval, excavations continue at many of the sites found thus far and some future find may provide more information on the history and decline of the civilisation.
Discovery & Early on Digging
The symbols and inscriptions on the artifacts of the people of the Indus Valley Civilization, which have been interpreted by some scholars as a writing organization, remain undeciphered and and then archaeologists mostly avoid defining an origin for the culture as any attempt would exist speculative. All that can exist known of the civilization to date comes from the concrete testify excavated at various sites. The story of the Indus Valley Culture, therefore, is best given with the discovery of its ruins in the 19th century CE.
James Lewis (better known equally Charles Masson, l. 1800-1853 CE) was a British soldier serving in the arms of the East India Company Army when, in 1827 CE, he deserted with some other soldier. In order to avert detection by authorities, he inverse his proper name to Charles Masson and embarked on a serial of travels throughout India. Masson was an avid numismatist (money collector) who was particularly interested in old coins and, in following various leads, wound up excavating aboriginal sites on his own. One of these sites was Harappa, which he plant in 1829 CE. He seems to have left the site adequately quickly, afterwards making a record of information technology in his notes simply, having no knowledge of who could have built the city, wrongly attributed it to Alexander the Great during his campaigns in Bharat c. 326 BCE.
Indus Valley Civilization - Mature Harappan Phase
When Masson returned to U.k. after his adventures (and having been somehow forgiven his desertion), he published his volume Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan and the Punjab in 1842 CE which attracted the attention of the British authorities in Republic of india and, peculiarly, Alexander Cunningham. Sir Alexander Cunningham (l. 1814-1893 CE), a British engineer in the state with a passion for ancient history, founded the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) in 1861 CE, an system dedicated to maintaining a professional standard of excavation and preservation of celebrated sites. Cunningham began excavations of the site and published his interpretation in 1875 CE (in which he identified and named the Indus Script) only this was incomplete and lacked definition because Harappa remained isolated with no connection to any known past civilization which could take congenital it.
In 1904 CE, a new managing director of the ASI was appointed, John Marshall (l. 1876-1958 CE), who later visited Harappa and concluded the site represented an ancient civilisation previously unknown. He ordered the site to be fully excavated and, at well-nigh the aforementioned time, heard of another site some miles away which the local people referred to every bit Mohenjo-daro ("the mound of the expressionless") because of bones, both animal and human, found in that location along with various artifacts. Excavations at Mohenjo-daro began in the 1924-1925 season and the similarities of the ii sites were recognized; the Indus Valley Civilization had been discovered.
Harappa & Mohenjo-daro
The Hindu texts known equally the Vedas, as well as other great works of Indian tradition such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana, were already well known to Western scholars merely they did not know what culture had created them. Systemic racism of the time prevented them from attributing the works to the people of India, and the aforementioned, at outset, led archaeologists to conclude that Harappa was a colony of the Sumerians of Mesopotamia or perhaps an Egyptian outpost.
Harappa
Harappa did non conform to either Egyptian or Mesopotamian compages, however, as in that location was no prove of temples, palaces, or monumental structures, no names of kings or queens or stelae or royal bronze. The metropolis spread over 370 acres (150 hectares) of small, brick houses with flat roofs fabricated of dirt. There was a citadel, walls, the streets were laid out in a grid pattern conspicuously demonstrating a loftier degree of skill in urban planning and, in comparing the 2 sites, information technology was apparent to the excavators that they were dealing with a highly advanced civilisation.
Houses in both cities had flush toilets, a sewer organization, and fixtures on either side of the streets were part of an elaborate drainage arrangement, which was more than avant-garde fifty-fifty than that of the early Romans. Devices known from Persia as "wind catchers" were attached to the roofs of some buildings which provided air conditioning for the abode or administrative part and, at Mohenjo-daro, there was a groovy public bath, surrounded by a courtyard, with steps leading down into it.
Equally other sites were unearthed, the same caste of sophistication and skill came to light every bit well as the understanding that all of these cities had been pre-planned. Unlike those of other cultures which usually developed from smaller, rural communities, the cities of the Indus Valley Civilization had been thought out, a site chosen, and purposefully constructed prior to full domicile. Further, they all exhibited conformity to a single vision which further suggested a stiff primal regime with an efficient bureaucracy that could program, fund, and build such cities. Scholar John Keay comments:
What amazed all these pioneers, and what remains the distinctive characteristic of the several hundred Harappan sites now known, is their apparent similarity: "Our overwhelming impression is of cultural uniformity, both throughout the several centuries during which the Harappan civilization flourished, and over the vast expanse it occupied." The ubiquitous bricks, for instance, are all of standardized dimensions, just every bit the stone cubes used past the Harappans to mensurate weights are also standard and based on the modular system. Road widths arrange to a similar module; thus, streets are typically twice the width of side lanes, while the main arteries are twice or one and a one-half times the width of streets. Nearly of the streets so far excavated are straight and run either n-south or due east-w. City plans therefore conform to a regular grid pattern and appear to have retained this layout through several phases of building. (9)
Excavations at both sites continued between 1944-1948 CE under the direction of the British archaeologist Sir Mortimer Wheeler (l. 1890-1976 CE) whose racialist credo made information technology hard for him to accept that night-skinned people had built the cities. However, he managed to constitute stratigraphy for Harappa and lay the foundation for the later on periodization of the Indus Valley Civilization.
Keen Bath, Mohenjo-daro
Chronology
Wheeler's work provided archaeologists with the means to recognize approximate dates from the civilization'southward foundations through its decline and fall. The chronology is primarily based, as noted, on physical evidence from Harappan sites just also from knowledge of their merchandise contacts with Arab republic of egypt and Mesopotamia. Lapis lazuli, to proper noun simply one product, was immensely popular in both cultures and, although scholars knew it came from Bharat, they did not know from precisely where until the Indus Valley Culture was discovered. Even though this semi-precious stone would go on to exist imported subsequently the autumn of the Indus Valley Civilization, it is articulate that, initially, some of the export came from this region.
- Pre-Harappan – c. 7000 - c. 5500 BCE: The Neolithic flow best exemplified by sites similar Mehrgarh which shows bear witness of agricultural evolution, domestication of plants and animals, and product of tools and ceramics.
- Early Harappan – c. 5500-2800 BCE: Trade firmly established with Egypt, Mesopotamia, and possibly China. Ports, docks, and warehouses built near waterways by communities living in pocket-sized villages.
- Mature Harappan – c. 2800 - c. 1900 BCE: Construction of the not bad cities and widespread urbanization. Harappa and Mohenjo-daro are both flourishing c. 2600 BCE. Other cities, such as Ganeriwala, Lothal, and Dholavira are built according to the same models and this development of the land continues with the construction of hundreds of other cities until there are over 1,000 of them throughout the state in every direction.
- Late Harappan – c. 1900 - c. 1500 BCE: Turn down of the civilization congruent with a wave of migration of the Aryan people from the n, most likely the Iranian Plateau. Concrete show suggests climate change which caused flooding, drought, and famine. A loss of trade relations with Arab republic of egypt and Mesopotamia has also been suggested as a contributing cause.
- Postal service Harappan – c. 1500 - c. 600 BCE: The cities are abased, and the people take moved s. The civilization has already fallen by the fourth dimension Cyrus II (the Not bad, r. c. 550-530 BCE) invades Bharat in 530 BCE.
Aspects of Civilization
The people seem to have been primarily artisans, farmers, and merchants. At that place is no bear witness of a standing army, no palaces, and no temples. The Keen Bath at Mohenjo-daro is believed to take been used for ritual purification rites related to religious belief but this is conjecture; it could as easily have been a public pool for recreation. Each metropolis seems to have had its ain governor but, information technology is speculated, there must have been some class of centralized government in society to reach the uniformity of the cities. John Keay comments:
Harappan tools, utensils, and materials ostend this impression of uniformity. Unfamiliar with fe – which was nowhere known in the third millennium BC – the Harappans sliced, scraped, beveled, and bored with 'effortless competence' using a standardized kit of tools fabricated from chert, a kind of quartz, or from copper and bronze. These terminal, along with gold and silvery, were the merely metals available. They were also used for casting vessels and statuettes and for fashioning a variety of knives, fishhooks, arrowheads, saws, chisels, sickles, pins, and bangles. (ten)
Amidst the thousands of artifacts discovered at the diverse sites are small, soapstone seals a niggling over an inch (3 cm) in diameter which archaeologists translate to have been used for personal identification in trade. Similar the cylinder seals of Mesopotamia, these seals are thought to have been used to sign contracts, authorize land sales, and authenticate betoken-of-origin, shipment, and receipt of goods in merchandise long distance.
Unicorn Seal - Indus Script
The people had developed the bicycle, carts drawn by cattle, flat-bottomed boats wide plenty to transport trade goods, and may accept besides developed the sheet. In agriculture, they understood and made use of irrigation techniques and canals, diverse farming implements, and established different areas for cattle grazing and crops. Fertility rituals may have been observed for a full harvest besides as pregnancies of women equally evidenced by a number of figurines, amulets, and statuettes in female person grade. It is thought that the people may take worshipped a Mother Goddess deity and, possibly, a male person consort depicted equally a horned figure in the company of wild animals. The religious beliefs of the culture, however, are unknown and any suggestions must be speculative.
Their level of artistic skill is evident through numerous finds of statuary, soapstone seals, ceramics, and jewelry. The most famous artwork is the statuary statuette, standing 4 inches (10 cm) tall, known as "Dancing Girl" establish at Mohenjo-daro in 1926 CE. The piece shows a teenage girl, right paw on her hip, left on her knee, with chin raised as though evaluating the claims of a suitor. An as impressive piece is a soapstone figure, half-dozen inches (17 cm) tall, known as the Priest-King, depicting a bearded man wearing a headdress and ornamental armband.
Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-daro
A particularly interesting attribute of the artwork is the advent of what seems to be a unicorn on over threescore percent of the personal seals. In that location are many dissimilar images on these seals only, every bit Keay notes, the unicorn appears on "1156 seals and sealings out of a total of 1755 found at Mature Harappan sites" (17). He too notes that the seals, no affair what image appears on them, also have markings which have been interpreted as Indus Script, suggesting that the "writing" conveys a meaning unlike from the image. The "unicorn" could mayhap have represented an individual's family unit, clan, city, or political affiliation and the "writing" one'due south personal information.
Decline & Aryan Invasion Theory
Just every bit there is no definitive answer to the question of what the seals were, what the "unicorn" represented, or how the people venerated their gods, there is none for why the culture declined and brutal. Between c. 1900 - c. 1500 BCE, the cities were steadily abased, and the people moved due south. As noted, there are a number of theories concerning this, merely none are completely satisfactory. According to one, the Gaggar-Hakra River, which is identified with the Sarasvati River from Vedic texts, and which ran adjacent to the Indus River, dried up c. 1900 BCE, necessitating a major relocation of the people who had depended on it. Significant silting at sites such as Mohenjo-daro suggests major flooding which is given as another cause.
Priest-king from Mohenjo-daro
Another possibility is a drib in necessary merchandise goods. Both Mesopotamia and Egypt were experiencing troubles during this same time which could have resulted in a meaning disruption in trade. The Tardily Harappan Catamenia corresponds roughly with the Middle Bronze Age in Mesopotamia (2119-1700 BCE) during which the Sumerians – the major trading partners with the people of the Indus Valley – were engaged in driving out the Gutian invaders and, between c. 1792-1750 BCE, the Babylonian king Hammurabi was conquering their metropolis-states as he consolidated his empire. In Egypt, the period corresponds to the latter part of the Centre Kingdom (2040-1782 BCE) when the weak 13th Dynasty ruled just prior to the coming of the Hyksos and the primal government'south loss of power and authority.
The reason which early 20th century CE scholars seized on, all the same, was none of these but the merits that the Indus Valley people had been conquered and driven south past an invasion of a superior race of light-skinned Aryans.
Aryan Invasion Theory
Western scholars had been translating and interpreting the Vedic literature of India for over 200 years by the fourth dimension Wheeler was excavating the sites and, in that time, came to develop the theory that the subcontinent was at some bespeak conquered by a lite-skinned race known as Aryans who established high civilisation throughout the land. This theory developed slowly and, at first, innocently through the publication of a work by the Anglo-Welsh philologist Sir William Jones (l. 1746-1794 CE) in 1786 CE. Jones, an gorging reader of Sanskrit, noted that there were remarkable similarities between information technology and European languages and claimed there had to be a common source for all of them; he called this source Proto-Indo-European.
Later Western scholars, trying to identify Jones' "common source", ended that a light-skinned race from the n – somewhere around Europe – had conquered the lands southward, notably Republic of india, establishing culture and spreading their language and customs, fifty-fifty though nix, objectively, supported this view. A French elitist writer named Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (l. 1816-1882 CE) popularized this view in his piece of work An Essay on the Inequality of the Human being Races in 1855 CE and asserted that superior, light-skinned, races had "Aryan blood" and were naturally disposed to dominion over lesser races.
The early on Iranians cocky-identified as Aryan, meaning "noble" or "gratis" or "civilized", until it was corrupted by European racists to serve their ain agenda.
Gobineau's book was admired by the High german composer Richard Wagner (l. 1813-1883 CE) whose British-born son-in-police, Houston Stewart Chamberlain (l. 1855-1927 CE) farther popularized these views in his work which would eventually influence Adolf Hitler and the builder of the Nazi ideology, Alfred Rosenberg (l. 1893-1946 CE). These racialist views were given further validity past a High german philologist and scholar who did non share them, Max Muller (l. 1823-1900 CE), the so-called "writer" of the Aryan Invasion Theory who insisted, in all of his work, that Aryan had to do with a linguistic difference and had nothing at all to do with ethnicity.
Information technology hardly mattered what Muller said, however, considering, by the fourth dimension Wheeler was excavating the sites in the 1940s CE, people had been breathing in these theories with the air of the times for well over 50 years. It would exist decades more earlier the bulk of scholars, writers, and academics would begin to recognize that 'Aryan' originally referred to a class of people – having nothing to do with race – and, in the words of the archaeologist J. P. Mallory, "as an indigenous designation the word [Aryan] is well-nigh properly limited to the Indo-Iranians" (Farrokh, 17). The early Iranians self-identified equally Aryan pregnant "noble" or "gratis" or "civilized" and the term continued in use for over 2000 years until it was corrupted past European racists to serve their own calendar.
Wheeler'due south interpretation of the sites was informed past and and so validated the Aryan Invasion Theory. The Aryans were already recognized equally the authors of the Vedas and other works but their dates in the region were as well late to support the claim that they had built the impressive cities; perhaps, though, they had destroyed them. Wheeler was, of course, as aware of the Aryan Invasion Theory equally whatsoever other archaeologist at the fourth dimension and, through this lens, interpreted what he found equally supporting it; in doing and so, he validated the theory which then gained greater popularity and acceptance.
Conclusion
The Aryan Invasion Theory, though still cited and advanced by those with a racialist calendar, lost credence in the 1960s CE through the piece of work, primarily, of the American archaeologist George F. Dales who reviewed Wheeler's interpretations, visited the sites, and found no evidence to support it. The skeletons Wheeler had interpreted as dying a fierce expiry in boxing showed no such signs nor did the cities exhibit any damage associated with war.
Further, there was no show of whatsoever kind of mobilization of a great army of the northward nor of any conquest c. 1900 BCE in India. The Persians – the but ethnicity self-identifying as Aryan – were themselves a minority on the Iranian Plateau between c. 1900 - c. 1500 BCE and in no position to mount an invasion of any kind. Information technology was therefore suggested that the "Aryan Invasion" was actually most likely a migration of Indo-Iranians who merged peacefully with the indigenous people of India, intermarried, and were assimilated into the culture.
As excavations of the sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation go along, more information will no dubiousness contribute to a ameliorate understanding of its history and development. Recognition of the civilization's vast accomplishments and loftier level of technology and composure has been increasingly coming to light and gaining greater attention. Scholar Jeffrey D. Long expresses the general sentiment, writing, "there is much fascination with this civilization because of its high level of technological advancement" (198). Already, the Indus Valley Civilization is referenced as one of the three greatest of antiquity alongside Egypt and Mesopotamia, and future excavations will almost surely elevate its standing even higher.
This article has been reviewed for accuracy, reliability and adherence to academic standards prior to publication.
Source: https://www.worldhistory.org/Indus_Valley_Civilization/
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