Indus Valley Civilization

Maximum extension of the civilization of the Indo River Valley.

The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age civilization, developing from around 3300 BCE. C. until 1300 a. C. It covered more than a million square kilometers, and went through several periods, its maximum splendor being between 2600 and 1900 B.C. Along with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was one of the three earliest civilizations of the Near East and South Asia, and of the three, the most widespread. It was located along the valley of the Indus River, in an area from northeastern Afghanistan and much of Pakistan to western and northwestern India.

Like the civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, it depended on its river. Like the Nile, the Indus overflowed its banks every year, inundating large areas and depositing fertile sediments. This immense agricultural potential was the basis on which urbanism developed around the Indus River.

Early farmers

The excavations carried out indicate that the first farmers belonged to the 7th millennium BC. C., in a region between the Baluchistan hills and the Indo-Gangetic plain. This area presents highlands (suitable for grazing in summer), and permanent rivers that drain into the Kacchi plain.

Around the beginning of the 6th millennium B.C. C., adobe houses (mud bricks) were built and bone and polished flint (flint) tools, polished axes and grinding stones were manufactured. Specimens of these tools were found in Mehrgarh.

Indus Civilization

Cerámica del Valle del Indo, 2500–1900 a. C. Fase Harappa Madura.

New excavations have shown that the name "Indus cultures" is too narrow, but another name like "Harappa period" is insufficient to understand these cultures in the entire time dimension.

The complex societies of the Kacchi Plain were the prelude to the final colonization of the Indus Valley. At first it was inhabited by groups of farmers. Then fortified cities began to appear. This time is known as the "initial period of the Indus".

This formative phase culminates in the "Developed Indus Period" (2700-2400 BCE), when early regional diversity was replaced by cultural uniformity and a single province encompassing the entire Indus Plain was created.

Around 2400 B.C. C. had developed a complex urban civilization, comparable to those of Egypt and Mesopotamia.

Economic resources

Toy for children found in Mohenjo-Daro

Agriculture

The main food crops were wheat and barley, which were sown in spring when the flood waters receded and grew with minimal effort. They also grew sesame, legumes, dates, and melons.

Rice was also cultivated in some places, but it only became a major crop plant when settlements spread to the Middle and Lower Ganges River, after 1400 BCE. c.

Textiles

They practiced spinning and weaving of wool and cotton. A fragment of woven cotton from Mohenjo-Daro is the oldest evidence of the use of cotton textiles in the ancient world, making it the most important textile in India today.

Livestock

They bred a wide range of domestic animals, including donkeys, oxen, Indian humped cattle, and river buffalo, and trained elephants; animals that have since been considered as typical elements of the Indian rural scene. However, they did not know the horse.

Industry

They adorned their bodies with rich ornaments of silver, gold, ivory and precious stones. They knew about copper, tin and lead. They used copper for weapons, instruments and utensils and also bronze tools (even axes). For domestic purposes they made clay utensils of a great variety of shapes.

They combined agriculture, livestock, metallurgy and pottery and taking advantage of the strength of the animals, both in transport and in the plow, they loaded raw materials and goods destined for internal consumption and commercial exchange.

Trade

View (in 2003) of the archaeological site where the village of Lothal was located.

View (in 2003) of public baths in the village of Lothal.

The cities of the Indus traded not only in agricultural products, but also in metals such as gold, silver, lead, and tin, jewelry and semi-precious stones (lapis lazuli and turquoise), tools, utensils, and ceramics. Their traces have appeared in Sumerian and Akkadian documents that record the trade in gold, ebony, and carnelian in ships that, according to some historians, came from this region.

During the Harappan phase, foreign trade developed that many have described as important for the growth of urbanism and its maintenance. The causes for this trade to exist were to search for materials that were not found in the territory itself and to obtain luxury items for the elite, who were the ones who controlled this trade. The cities of the Harappan culture created exploitation colonies from which the materials they needed were extracted, no matter how far away they were. An example of them is Shortugai, a colony located in the north of what is now Afghanistan, from where they extracted lapis lazuli, copper and tin. As well as other colonies in Balochistan. The area that participated in foreign trade with the Indus Valley area was the Arabian Peninsula (specifically the Oman region, that is, the coastal area), the Mesopotamia area and present-day Iran.

Around the third millennium B.C. C. this maritime trade with the gulf, linked India with Mesopotamia, whose route could cause cultural and human exchange. Carl O. Saver believes this from the spread of domesticated plants from Africa to Arabia and into southern India at the same time. Sample of cultural exchange are the sculptures that are very similar between Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley as the representation of the monkey.

Effigy of the "rey priest" in Mohenjo-Daro, using ajrak sindhiLate mature harappan period, National Museum (Karachi, Pakistan). The disposition of the robe is traditional in the Buddhist culture of India and indicates veneration. The statuette, from Mohenjo-Daro, measures 17, 5 cm.

The clearest evidence of this external contact is the discovery of typically Harappian artifacts in Oman such as pottery or bronze seals. These products entered Mesopotamia from the middle of 2500 to 1300 BCE. C., but it is known that there have been constant fluctuations of products throughout the Harappian phase. In fact, Mesopotamian texts make references to commercial relations with a territory that they call Meluhha and that many researchers believe refers to the Indus Valley area. In addition, there is evidence that Harappian citizens settled in Mesopotamia and that they ended up acculturating. On the other hand, it is suggested that the trade between these territories was not direct but via the gulf or through Balochistan, and not directly between the cities of the two regions. Therefore, the few Harappan city dwellers who lived in Mesopotamia were not representatives of these Indus Valley cities.

Pottery from the Indus also circulated throughout this area of South Asia: goblet-shaped pottery, common tableware, also some sherds inscribed in Indian script (such as the one from Ras al-Junayz). Also ceramics specific to a center; products such as that from Sorath Harappan in Gujarat, which is found in large quantities in the Saar (present-day Bahrain). In addition, jars have been found in several cities in the Indus (as well as in the gulf): Mohenjo-Daro, Harappa, Balakot, Dholavira, Miri Qalet, Nausharo and Sotkah Koh. It may be that they were used to transport wine to the Gulf, because viticulture was part of the booming agriculture at this time. Silver was also imported from Afghanistan and Iran, copper from Khetri in Rajasthan, Balochistan and Arabia, turquoise and jade from Central Asia and Iran.

Culture

Pashupati seal showing a seated and possibly tricephala figure surrounded by animals. It is carved in stethite, measuring 3.56 x 3.53 cm, and its thickness is 0.76 cm. It was recorded between the years 2500-2400 BC. The piece is at the New Delhi National Museum.

Clay tablets characteristic of the Indo valley (in the British Museum, London)

Ten harappan characters (from 2900 to C. approx.), discovered near the north entrance of the city of Dholavira

These civilizations built intelligently thought out and planned cities. In addition to the crops mentioned above, they developed their own writing, designed jewelry, and molded terracotta or clay figures.

Writing

Along with trade, a writing system arose with characters and signs inscribed on clay seals or smooth stones that have not been clarified or deciphered by specialists.

Some of these characters share a strong resemblance to characters found on Easter Island.^{[citation needed]}

Statuettes and stamps

In 1946, Sir Mortimer Wheeler discovered hundreds of terracotta figurines in Harappa. These female figures were more stylized than the bulky ancient fertility goddesses. In some of them necklaces and precious metal inlays were found.

Other handicrafts were also discovered, such as miniature reproductions of carts pulled by animals and figures of animals from the region (rhinos, tigers, monkeys, elephants and buffaloes). These tablets —it is believed that they were used as seals— are made of an earthy material that is easily moldable, and heated in the oven to harden it. It was then covered with a type of varnish or lacquer. A quarter of the animals represented correspond to an animal that has already disappeared with a curved horn.

The number of handicrafts found, as well as the varied designs, show that this industry was as important for trade as agriculture or metallurgy.

Cities

The largest sites were the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. His plan consisted of a raised mound or citadel that dominated a larger residential area. The citadels appear to have contained buildings of a religious, ceremonial, and administrative nature, but no remains of any palace exist. In some places the layout of the city is evident, with traces of a regular network of cross streets. The poorest inhabitants lived in one-room dwellings. They used fired bricks of a standard size in the construction: 24 × 14 × 7 cm. Individual houses had toilets and toilets that emptied into a ceramic receptacle or directly into the street drain.

In the Indus Valley, the first civilizations to organize quickly appear. Two of the most important cities that were discovered in 1922 are the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro.

In the city of Mohenjo-Daro we can find a lower city where most of the city life took place and the citadel, located to the west of the lower, planned city, where buildings related to the government appeared. There was not an element identified as a palace, a unitary power structure that could lead one to suppose that there was a character that dominated or controlled, but a series of buildings that had to do with political control but that did not stand out from each other., which suggests that the power structures in the cities of the Indus Valley were not monarchical.

From the observation we can draw the following conclusions:

• There was general city planning,
• There is a difference of importance between streets (main and secondary levels) that ordered the houses.
• The houses formed a closed system, the houses lived towards an inner courtyard. The relationship with the streets was practically null and protected the private parts from the noise of the streets.
• They had a technical system for the production of constructive materials (e.g. bricks) that were done with what provided their environment.
• They had an infrastructure network: a chloracal network system and channeling for water supply.

It was a civilization that lasted a long time. It began around 2400 B.C. C. and ended around 1600 B.C. c.

End of civilization

At present, many scholars believe that the collapse of the Indus civilization was caused by drought and the decline in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia. It has also been suggested that immigration of new peoples may have contributed to the collapse, deforestation, floods, change in the course of rivers, around 1500 BC. C., or climate change.

Signs of collapse predate the invasions of Indo-European peoples from the steppes, who easily took over the region with bronze weapons and chariots.

People of the Gandhara culture (in this same region) shared biological affinities with the Neolithic villages of Timargarh and Mehrgarh, and with the Harappan population, suggesting a biological continuity.