What is Harappan Civilization?

Earlier it was believed that the civilization of Mesopotamia, the civilization of  Egypt, and the civilization of China are among the oldest civilizations in the world. But after the discovery of the Harappan civilization in the 1920s, it was known that there existed a civilization like the Harappan civilization. This civilization is also called Indus valley civilization or Harappan civilization.

How was the Harappan civilization discovered?

About 160 years ago, railway lines were being laid for the first time in Punjab (present-day Pakistan) and excavation work was going on at some places. During the excavation work, some engineers suddenly found the Harappan archaeological site. This place is in modern-day Pakistan. Those employees mistook it for ruin and uprooted thousands of bricks here and took them away from there the bricks were used to lay the railway line but they could not know that there was any civilization there.

In 1921, Dayaram Sahni excavated a site called Harappa and discovered the seals of Harappa. In 1922, Rakhal Das Banerjee carried out excavation work at a place called Mohenjodaro and he also found the same seals as found in Harappa.
It was then speculated that these two regions were part of the same culture. After this, in 1924, Sir John Marshall, Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, announced the discovery of a new civilization in front of the whole world.

The naming of the Harappan Civilization

This civilization was first discovered in a place called Harappan, which is why it was named Harappan Civilization.

This civilization was a civilization situated on the banks of the Indus Valley, so it has also been named the Indus Valley Civilization.

Methods of subsistence in Harappan civilization

• agriculture
• cattle-breeding
• trade
• prey

The people living in the sites of the Harappan civilization used to do agriculture and grew wheat, barley, pulses, white gram, sesame, millet, rice, etc.

Animal bones have been obtained from Harappan sites, which shows that these people used to rear animals. The people of this civilization used to rear cattle, sheep, goats, buffaloes, and pigs. Fish and bird bones have also been found here, from which it has been estimated that the residents of Hadapai used to eat animal meat.

Agricultural Technology in Harappan Civilization

Information about Taurus (bull) is found in the Harappan seal. Historians have speculated that the Harappan residents used bulls to till the fields.

Historians have found patterns of soil plows from Cholistan (Pakistan) and Banawali (Haryana), which has led to the inferment that the fields were plowed by ploughs. Evidence of plowed field has been found from Kalibangan (Rajasthan) where it is estimated that two different crops were grown simultaneously.

People used stone fruits made with wooden hands to harvest crops.

Irrigation was also required in the fields for which water was taken from the river and canal.
Some evidence of canals has been found from Shotughai in Afghanistan. In some places, water may also be taken from the well. There is evidence of reservoirs in Dholavira, perhaps they may also be used in agriculture.

Mohenjo Daro

Harappan civilization was an urban civilization, and the most unique aspect of this civilization was the development of urban centers. The site first discovered was Harappa. But the most famous archaeological site was Mohenjo Daro. The two important centers of Harappan culture are Harappa and Mohenjodaro.

archaeological site

Archaeological sites are such a place where old tools, utensils (pottery), buildings, and their remains are found, they were built by the people living here for themselves, leaving them somewhere. After thousands of years, these remains are found above or inside the ground. It was a planned urban center. It was fully planned before the construction of buildings here.

Here the settlement was divided into two parts:

1. fort
2. lower town

1 . Fort

It was small but built at a height. The forts were high because the structure built here was built on a platform of raw bricks, the fort was surrounded by a wall from all sides. This wall separated it from the lower city. The structures built on the fort were probably used for specific purposes, specific public purposes.

The lower part of the warehouse was made of brick, there is evidence that its upper part was destroyed, which may have been made of wood.

Huge bathhouse - This is a rectangular reservoir built in the courtyard which is surrounded by a corridor from all sides. It had stairs to reach the reservoir. Water from the reservoir was drained through a large drain. It was a unique structure. It may have been used for ritual bathing 

2. Lower City

It is believed that the lower city had residential buildings. The lower city was situated in a much larger area than the fort. The lower city was also surrounded by a wall. Here too, many buildings were built on high platforms. These platforms served as the foundation. Building construction in such a large area would have required a very large scale of labor.

drainage system

Among the unique features of the Harappan civilization was the drainage system. Drainage arrangements were made with planning in Harappan cities. The streets and alleys were built almost in the grid method. They cut each other at right angles.

Looking at the Hapadappai buildings, it has been found that first the streets were built here with drains, then houses were built next to the streets. The dirty water of every house used to go out through these drains. These drains used to go out and meet the big drains, due to which all the water used to go out of the city.

home architecture

The lower town of Mohenjodaro has residential buildings. The residence here had a courtyard and rooms around it, the courtyard was used for cooking and spinning. Privacy was taken care of here. The walls on the ground level did not have windows.

From the main gate, one could not see the inside of the house or the courtyard. Every house had its own bathroom with a brick floor. The water from the bathroom was drained through the drain on the road drain. In some houses, stairs were made to go to the roof. Wells have also been found in many houses.

The wells were built in a room so that people coming from outside could also drink water. It is estimated that the number of wells in Mohenjodaro was around 700.

Overview of variation in The Harappan Society

There are social and economic differences between people living in every society. Historians use several methods to know these variations. One of these methods is the study of burial. Burial - Funeral Method

In the Harappan civilization, people used to perform the last rites by burying the person. There is evidence that the texture of many graves is different from each other. Many graves were stoned by brick masonry. Pottery and ornaments were also buried in many graves, perhaps these people believed in reincarnation.

Or do you bury it thinking that these items will be used after death? Jewelry was found in the graves of both men and women. Copper mirrors, beaded ornaments, etc. have been found in some tombs.

Egypt's giant pyramids were contemporary of the Harappan civilization

• Many of these pyramids were state burials.
• A large amount of money and property was buried in them.
• Looking at this, it seems that the residents of Harappa

Did not believe in burying valuable things with the dead.

Discovering luxuries

One way to recognize social variation is the study of useful and luxuriant objects.

• Useful items are those that are used for everyday use.
• Such as - chakkia, pottery, needle, etc.
• This object is made from common materials like stone or clay.
• These settlements were normally readily available.
• Items that are not easily available locally
• Archaeologists consider such items as expensive and rare, such as the characters of the fayans.
• The plates of the fayans were precious because they were difficult to make because the rubbers were made by cooking in a mixture of sand + color + sticky material

Items made of such expensive rare materials have been found only in large settlements like Mohenjo Daro and Harappa. It is rarely found in small settlements. Gold may have been as expensive as it is today

Identification of production centers by historians

In the places where craft production work was done, the garbage of raw materials and discarded items has been found. From this, historians used to guess that craft production work was done in these places.

Archaeologists usually look for raw materials such as stone fragments, conch shells, copper ore, craftsman tools, incomplete objects, discarded goods, and garbage dumps. They get information about the construction site and construction work.

If conch shells and stones were cut for the manufacture of goods, their pieces were thrown at the production site as garbage. Sometimes useless pieces were used to make small-sized objects.

But the very fine stone pieces that were not used, were left at the workplace. These pieces are very important for archaeologists.

Receipt of raw materials in craft production

raw material

• Locally available such as – soil
• Objects brought from a distance such as stone, wood, and metal were imported from outside the alluvial field.

Harappans used to adopt many methods of obtaining raw materials for craft production

• Conch shells were found in Nageshwar and Balakot,
• In Afghanistan, Shotughai used to get a blue lazword gem,
• Carnelian, the stone was found in Lothal,
• Selkhadi used to meet southern Rajasthan and north Gujarat,
• copper from Khetri in Rajasthan,
• Gold from South India

Connectivity to remote areas

In recent years, it has been known from some archaeological discoveries that copper was also brought from Oma. Traces of nickel have been found in both copper and Harappan antiquities of Oman. A Harappan martaban with a thick layer of black soil mounted on it has been obtained from Oman.

The Mesopotamian article had the word, Magan. Magan was probably the name used for Oman. Harappan seals, bats, and beads have been found in other archaeological discoveries in long-distance contact.

Seal and sealing

Seal and stamping were used to make long-distance contact easier. Example - When a bag full of goods was sent from one place to another, its safety was taken care of. The mouth of the bag was tied with a rope.

A little wet soil was deposited on his face and pressed on it with a seal, which gives the impression of the seal on that wet soil. If there is no damage to the stamp mark on the bag before reaching its destination, it means that there has been no tampering with the bag. Stamping also reveals the identity of the sender.

Harappan script

The Harappan script was a pictorial script, the number of symbols in this script is between about 375 and 400. This script was written from right to left. The Harappan script is called a mystic script because it could not be read to date.

Weight 

They were made from a stone called a bat chart. Small elders were used to weighing jewelry and beads. Scales made of metal have also been found. These things were very simple to s No mark of any kind was made in them.

Governance in Harappan Culture

Not much information has been obtained about "What kind of rule was there in the Harappan civilization.?" Perhaps whoever may have ruled the Harappan society took complex decisions and implemented them. Because there is uniformity in the whole of Harappan, Examples - seal, bat, bead, and brick has been found in different places but there is uniformity in all. Perhaps bricks were not produced at just one center.

The Harappan civilization was a civilization spread over a vast area. However, in most places in Jammu, Gujarat, and Pakistan, the same size brick has been found.

Archaeologists differ over The Hadapai ruler

palace and ruler

A huge building has been found in Mohenjodaro, which has been called a palace but no grand object was found there. A stone statue is named the priestly king. But there is no reliable evidence of this.

archaeologist

• Some archaeologists say that happens were no rulers in society, everyone had the same status.
• Some archaeologists say that there was no one ruler in the Harappan civilization, but there was more than one ruler here. For example, there were different kings in Mohenjodaro, Harappa, etc.

Some historians argue that it was a single state because, despite the vast area of the Harappan civilization, different sites have the same:

• meeting of antiquities
• Evidence of planned settlement
• same size as bricks etc.

The decline of the Harappan civilization

• to be in spate
• Diversion of the Indus river
• Due to earthquake
• climate change
• Invasion of Aryans
• deforestation

Who was Cunningham?

Cunningham was the first Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India. Alexander Cunningham is also called the father of Indian archaeology.

Cunningham began archaeological mining in the mid-19th century. He preferred to use written sources.

Cunningham's illusion!

• When Alexander Cunningham was shown a usurpai seal by an English officer, Cunningham could not understand how old the seal was.
• Cunningham linked the seal to the period he was aware of
• They could not understand its importance, how ancient that seal was.
• Cunningham thought that this seal belonged to the first cities that flourished in the Ganges valley, while this seal was even before the cities of the Ganges valley.

excavation technique

In general, objects found at the lowest level are considered to be the oldest, and objects found at the top level are considered to be the latest. On the basis of this, the period of antiquities can be determined.

John Marshall

John Marshall was also interested in fascinating discoveries like Cunningham's. He was curious to know about everyday life. John Marshall completely ignored the level configuration of the archaeological site. They believed if the entire mound was excavated along with regular horizontal units with similar results.

R.E.M. Wheeler

Wheeler became director general of the Archaeological Survey of India in 1944. He solved the problem of excavation. They gave more importance to following the level configuration of the mound rather than digging on the basis of uniform horizontal units.