The Harappan Civilization

The harappan civilization
Subject: History
Lesson: The harappan civilization
Course Developers : 1. The Harappan Civilization --I

Nayanjot Lahiri and Deeksha Bhardwaj
Prof. Nayanjot Lahiri Professor, Department of History,

University of Delhi
and
Deeksha Bhardwaj, Assistant Professor, Gargi College,
University of Delhi
And
2. The Harappan Civilization --I
Deeksha bhardwaj
Assistant Professor, Gargi College, University of Delhi
Language Editors: Bharati Jagannathan and Naina Dayal
Production Editor: Ashutosh Kumar

Assistant Professor, Lady Shri Ram College, University of
Delhi
Institute of Lifelong Learning, University of Delhi

NOTE:
The dates in modern historical writings are generally given according to the
Christian calendar. In recent years, the use of AD (Anno Domini) and BC (Before
Christ) has to some extent been replaced by BCE (Before Common Era) and CE
(Common Era). Both usages are acceptable, and both sets of abbreviations have
been used in these e-lessons.

Table of contents
Chapter 4: The Harappan civilization

 4.1: The Harappan civilization - I
 4.2: The Harappan civilization - II
 Summary
 Exercises
 Glossary
 Further readings

4.1: The Harappan civilization - I
Introduction
The name „Harappan' or 'Indus civilization‟ evokes the urban, literate culture of the 3rd and early
2nd millennia BC that was initially thought to flourish mainly in the area around the Indus river
and its tributaries. Its first known cities, Harappa and Mohenjodaro are both located in the
Indus valley, Harappa on the banks of a dried up bed of the Ravi river, an Indus tributary,
and Mohenjodaro, 570 kilometres downstream, in the vicinity of the Indus river itself.
Geographically, however, this civilization included much more than the Indus zone; it was a
combination of riverine lowlands that stretched towards the east and southeast into Uttar
Pradesh and Rajasthan, the highland and coastal areas of Baluchistan, and the coastal belt of
Gujarat.
A hundred years ago, Harappa and Mohenjodaro, the type sites and the most well known sites
of the Harappan civilization existed as sleepy hamlets in undivided northwest India, their tryst
with history still several decades away. Harappa had been visited by the adventurer, Charles
Masson, in 1826 and by Alexander Cunningham, the Director General of the Archaeological
Survey of India in the 1850s and 1872 but neither could anticipate the significance of the site. In
the early 1920s, R. D. Banerji started excavating the stupa mound at Mohenjodaro and it was
the unmistakable similarity of finds unearthed at this site with the antiquities recovered from
Harappa that made John Marshall, the then Director General of ASI (1902-28) announce this
exciting discovery to the world.

Value addition: what the sources say

John Marshall’s announcement of the discovery of the Indus
civilization
“Not often has it been given to archaeologists, as it was given to Schliemann

at Tiryns and Mycenae, or to Stein in the desert of Turkestan, to light upon
the remains of a long forgotten civilization. It looks, however, at this moment,
as if we were on the threshold of such a discovery in the plains of the Indus”
– John Marshall, announcing the discovery of the Indus civilization in 1924.
Source: Lahiri, N. 2005, Finding Forgotten Cities. Delhi: Permanent
Black.
http://asi.nic.in/images/history/Sir_John_Marshall.jpg
It was almost as if in one stroke, the antiquity of the subcontinent was pushed back by over
a millennium and India could lay claim to being one of the centres of the ancient Bronze
Age civilizations. „A transformation occurred in the third millennium B.C. from an earlier,
less complex world to one with sophisticated technological innovations and social institutions
– one defined as civilization‟ (Lamberg-Karlovsky 2000: xi).

Value addition: did you know?

Markers of a civilization
A civilization will involve the presence of several (though not necessarily all)
of the following conditions within a society or group of interdependent
societies:
1. Some form of government by which people administer to their political

needs and responsibilities
2. Development of urban society/city life so that the culture is not nomadic,
dispersed and thus unable to leave significant and surviving physical
remnants of its presence.
3. A form of literacy to have developed enabling communication within groups
and from one generation to next.
4. Use of metals and tools so that humans would be able to transform their
physical and socio-economic environment.
5. Some degree of specialization of function
6. Emergence of social classes, whether antagonistic to or sustaining of one
another.
7. Concept of leisure time, especially for the development of an aesthetic
sensibility.
8. Concept of a higher being, though not necessarily through organized
religion.
9. Concept of time by which links to past and future drawn.
10. A faculty for criticism and reflection to help a society evolve.
Source: Brinton C., J. B. Christopher, R. L. Wolff & R. W. Winks. 1984.
A History of Civilization, Vol. I: Prehistory to 1715, 3.
Character of the Harappan civilization
Before looking at its various features, it is necessary to be clear about the character of the
Indus civilization in order to understand what set it apart from other contemporaneous cultures
in the Indian subcontinent and from the Bronze Age civilizations of West Asia and Egypt. The
Indus phenomenon is called a civilization because it incorporated within itself the social
configurations and organizational devices that characterize such a cultural form. It was the only
literate subcontinental segment of its time. More than 4000 Indus inscriptions have been found,
and even though they remain undeciphered, the script was used for mercantile purposes (as
suggested by the seals and sealings), personal identification (in the form of shallow
inscriptions on bangles, bronze implements etc.) and possibly for civic purposes (underlined

by the remains of a massive inscribed board at Dholavira). The civilization's essence was a
settlement pattern in which cities and towns were particularly prominent. That such urban
centres contained monumental structures whose construction required large outlays of labour
and resources, and were marked by heterogeneous economic activities, are other conspicuous
indicators. Earlier, Mohenjodaro and Harappa had alone stood out as the civilization's large
cities; today we know of many more whose dimensions qualify them for a similar status.
These are fairly spread out - Ganweriwala in Cholisatan, Dholavira in Kutch and Rakhigarhi in
Haryana are such centres - and symbolize the creation of aggregates of population on a scale
previously unknown. The largest variety and quantity of jewellery, statuary and seals, are found
in urban centres and indicate that craft production was, in the main, geared to the demands of
city dwellers. Further, the characters of planning, the necessity of written transactions, and the
existence of a settlement hierarchy in which urban and rural settlements of various sizes and
types were functionally connected in important ways all indicate administrative organization on a
scale that was unprecedented in relation to other protohistoric subcontinental cultures. Many of
these are archaeological indicators of a state society as well. Whether there were several
states or a unified empire in Harappan times remains unclear. Urban settlements may have
functioned as city-states since their layout and character suggests the presence of local
aristocracies, merchants and craftspeople.


Nomenclature: Harappan civilization
It is important to explain at this point why this civilization is called the
„Harappan‟ or „Indus civilization‟. The civilization was first identified in Pandit
Daya Ram Sahni‟s excavations at Harappa in 1920-21, and following the
practice of identifying an archaeological assemblage by the name of the site
where it was first discovered, the civilization is called the Harappan
civilization. As far one is aware, it was Mortimer Wheeler who first used the
term „Harappa culture‟ in the report on his excavations at Harappa in 1946.
However, in 1953 Wheeler himself named his book on the subject Indus
civilization, following the precedent set up by John Marshall under whose
leadership of the Archaeological Survey of India the identity of this civilization
was achieved.
Source: Chakrabarti, D. K. 2006. The Oxford Companion to Indian
Archaeology. 136.
The Indus civilization, while sharing many general features with the contemporary Bronze
Age cultures such as the Sumerian civilization of Mesopotamia and Old Kingdom Egypt, had its
own distinct identity. For one thing, with a geographical spread of more than a million square
kilometers, this was the largest urban culture of its time. Unlike Mesopotamia and Egypt, there
were no grand religious shrines nor were magnificent palaces and funerary complexes
constructed for the rulers. Instead, its hallmark was a system of civic amenities for its
citizens rarely seen in other parts of the then civilized world - roomy houses with
bathrooms, a network of serviceable roads and lanes, an elaborate system of drainage
and a unique water supply system. Dholavira's network of dams, water reservoirs and
underground drains and Mohenjodaro's cylindrical wells, one for every third house,
epitomize the degree of comfort that townspeople enjoyed in relation to contemporary
Mesopotamians and Egyptians who had to make do with fetching water, bucket by bucket,
from the nearby rivers.

Figure 4.1.1: The priest king, Mohenjodaro

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mohenjo-daro_Priesterk%C3%B6nig.jpeg
Figure 4.1.2: Harappan seal

Source: http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/india/literature/pictures/harappa2.jpg

Figure 4.1.3: Remains of the Granary at Harappa

Source: http://www.imagesofasia.com/html/mohenjodaro/images/large/granary-
harappa.jpg
Background and origin
Indus settlements mainly, though not exclusively, flourished in that segment of the Indian
subcontinent which lies west of the Delhi-Aravalli-Cambay geographical axis. Several
segments of that zone had seen the birth and development of agricultural communities,
between c. 7000 BC and the genesis of urban centres in the first part of the third millennium
BC. The subsistence pattern that is widely seen at Harappan sites - a combination of wheat
and barley cultivation and domesticated animal species in which cattle was most preferred -
goes back to Mehrgarh in the Kachhi plain of Baluchistan which has also yielded the earliest
evidence of agricultural life in South Asia (c. 7000 BC). From the 5 th millennium BC
onwards, this pattern is found spread all over the major areas of Baluchistan, from the Zhob-
Loralai region in the northeast to Las Bela towards the south.
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At the same time, a majority of classic Indus sites are in riverine lowlands and the
manner in which settlements and subsistence patterns had evolved in those areas, over a
span of more than a thousand years prior to the efflorescence of the Harappan civilization,
is central to understanding its evolution. In several lowland areas, there was a long period
of antecedence. At the beginning of the fourth millennium BC, the Cholistan tract saw a well-
defined phase of occupation, known as the 'Hakra ware' culture, named after the river
around which its distinctive ceramic assemblage was first discovered. Although the largest
concentration of sites is around the Hakra river, its spread included Jalilpur in Multan and
Kunal in Haryana. Most of the sites seem to be small camps with a few permanently
established settlements of substantial size (such as Lathwala in Cholistan, with an area of
26.3 hectares). The Hakra horizon is the first culture of the lowlands, which utilized both the
desert and the riverine environments, using a variety of stone and copper tools. There are
also occasional manufactured goods in raw materials that were not locally available, as is
indicated by Jalilpur's repertoire of semi-precious stone, coral and gold beads. Towards
the western fringe of the Indus lowlands, the fourth millennium BC witnessed the birth of
another culture, known as the Amri culture (after the type site of Amri) which dominated
the Kirthar piedmont and Kohistan. What is most significant is that some Amri sites are
marked by an 'acro-sanctum/lower town' division, a settlement plan that can be
witnessed subsequently, in a highly developed and sophisticated form, in the layout of
Indus cites. The spatial exclusiveness of the 'acro-sanctum' is emphasized by a highly
elevated, conically shaped hill with encircling, terraced stone walls and remnants of
ramps/stairways. The general habitation area, which was lower down, possibly contained
domestic structures.
11

Figure 4.1.4: Distribution map of the Harappan civilization

Source:
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/bce_500back/indusvalley/maps
/overviewmap.gif
The immediate backdrop to the Indus civilization is formed by the next phase, known as the
Kot Diji culture, when elements of a common culture ethos can be seen across the Indus-
Hakra plains, Gujarat and the Indo-Gangetic divide. There are several planned and fortified
settlements; the construction of habitational areas aligned around a grid of north-south and
east-west streets at Harappa, and the use of mud bricks in the Indus ratio of 1:2:4, along
with a drainage system based on soakage pits in streets at Kunal are especially
noteworthy. There is also an extensive but partly standardized repertoire of ceramic
designs and forms (some of which are carried over into the Harappan civilization),
miscellaneous crafts and a sophisticated metallurgy that includes the manufacture of silver
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tiaras and 'armlets' as also disc-shaped gold beads (typical of the Indus civilization), wide
transport and exchange of raw materials, square stamp seals with designs, the presence of at
least two signs of Indus writing at Padri and Dholavira (both in Gujarat) and ritual beliefs
embodied in a range of terracotta cattle and female figurines. Considered in totality, the term
early Harappan is appropriate for this phase since a number of features related to the
mature Harappan period (a designation used for the classic urban, civilizational form) are
already present. Several of these features also evoke the presence of commercial and other
elite social groups. When one considers the intensification of craft specialization, dependent on
extensive networks through which the required raw materials were procured, or the necessity of
irrigation for agriculture in the Indus flood plain, without the risk of crop failure, for which a
degree of planning and management was essential, the emergence and the character of the
controlling or ruling elites becomes clear.
Value addition: more details

Early Harappan
M. R. Mughal put forward the concept of an Early Harappan stage of cultural
development in the greater Indus valley and northern Baluchistan. „In my opinion the
term „pre-Harappan‟ is misleading because it creates the impression that a
chronological gap exists between the „pre-Harappan‟ period of the first half of the
third millennium B.C. and the mature period of the Harappan culture belonging to
the latter half of the third millennium B.C.‟
Source: Mughal, M. R. 1971. The Early Harappan Period in the Greater Indus
Valley and Northern Baluchistan (c. 3000-2400 BC.). Unpublished
dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 5-6.
On the whole, there is little doubt that the Harappan civilization had indigenous roots and that
its cultural precursors were the chalcolithic cultures of the northwest that flourished in the
fourth and third millennia BC. Contrary to the views of some early scholars, Indus cities were
not created either through the dissemination of the 'idea‟ of civilization or by migration of
population groups from West Asia.
Chronology
It is unlikely that civilizational efflorescence was a simultaneous process in all parts of the
Harappan distribution area. By 2600 BC, this civilization was in existence, as it had clear
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contacts, at that point of time, with Mesopotamia. It appears increasingly probable that it
matured first in lower Sind, Cholistan and presumably, the Kutch region, which was linked by a
river to the Cholistan area. Cities like Harappa, Kalibangan and Banawali came up a little later.
The end was also staggered in time. Urban decline at Mohenjodaro had set by 2200 BC and by c.
2100 BC, it had ceased to exist as a city. However, the civilization continued after c. 2000 BC in
other areas and at some sites survived till c. 1800 BC.
Ancient Indus Chronology
Yrs.
Period Phase
(B.C.E.)
Late Harappan ?1700-

5
(Cemetery H) 1300
Harappan/Late
1900-
4 Harappan
?1700
Transitional
Harappan c. 2200-
3C
Phase 1900
Harappan c. 2450-
3B
Phase 2200
Harappan c.2600-
3A
Phase 2450
Early
c. 2800-
2 Harappan/Kot
2600
Diji Phase
Early
c. 3300-
1A/B Harappan/Ravi
2800
Phase
Figure 4.1.5: Time line: ancient bronze age civilizations

Source: http://www.harappa.com/indus2/timeline.html
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Geographical distribution
Indus settlements (between 500 and 600 in number) are spread over a wide swathe of
northwest India and Pakistan and their distribution illuminates the various ways in which this
varied geographical area was exploited. In the lower Indus basin of Larkana, Mohenjodaro
dominated the flood plain, agriculturally the richest part of Sind. Larkana is also marked by lake
depressions, such as the Manchhar, where fishing settlements existed. Towards the west,
there were clusters of sites in the foothills of the Kirthar mountain range and the Kohistan.
There, agriculture must have depended on spring water and rains. Routes linking up with
Baluchistan also, passed through this area. In upper Sind, the Sukkur-Rorhi hills saw
settlements of workmen in and around flint quarries, the raw material from which Harappan
blades were manufactured. The course of the Indus river in the third millennium BC was more
southeasterly and it flowed into the Arabian sea in the vicinity of the Rann of Kutch. The Indus
river adopted its present course only between the tenth and the thirteenth centuries AD.
As one moves west, Baluchistan is reached where Harappan settlements are found in a variety
of terrain - across the northern, mountain rim, on the flat Kacchi plain, in the district of Las
Bela towards the south and along the coastal country known as the Makran. In the latter area,
the fortified sites of Sutkagendor and Sotka-koh were important in terms of the Indus
civilization's sea trade with the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia. Both were suitable landing
places for maritime traffic and from these points, convenient routes linked up with the interior. In
other parts of Baluchistan, Indus sites are found in areas that are still agriculturally viable and
lie on arterial routes. Pathani Damb, for instance, was near the Mula pass, from where a
route went across the Kirthar range while Naushahro was in the general vicinity of the Bolan,
through which a major route led to Afghanistan. Such routes were important because
through them, Baluchistan's metalliferrous ores (copper and lead) and semi-precious stone
(lapis lazuli and turquoise) could be procured by the resource-poor Indus valley. The
northernmost site of the Indus civilization, Shortughai, is in northeast Afghanistan.
Shortughai provided access to Badakshan's lapis lazuli and possibly to the tin and gold
resources of Central Asia.
To the northeast of Sind is the Pakistan province of Punjab. A large part of the province is
comprised of doabs or tracts lying between two rivers. Of these, the Bari doab (or land
between the Ravi and an old bed of the Beas) sites are noteworthy, especially the sprawling city
of Harappa. There are no settlements in the interfluves of the Jhelum and the Indus or that of
the Jhelum and Chenab. South of the Sutlej river, is Bahawalpur. Part of it is made up of the
desert tract of Cholistan, through which the Hakra river flowed. The largest cluster (174) of
Indus settlements is found here. Geographically, this tract connects the Indus plains with
Rajasthan, which has vast copper deposits. There were several exclusive, industrial sites (79 of
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them) in Cholistan, marked by kilns, devoted to large-scale craft production that included the
melting and smelting of copper.
East of the Sutlej is the alluvial terrain of the Indo-Gangetic divide, a transitional area between
the Indus and the Ganga river systems, made up of the Indian states of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi
and Ghaggar river course in Rajasthan. A large part of the riverine and stream drainage from
the Siwalik ridge between the Sutlej and Yamuna used to converge into the Ghaggar, the Indian
name for the river known as the Hakra in Pakistan. There were several provincial urban centres
in this region such as Kalibangan and Banawali although Rakhigarhi (in the Hissar district of
Haryana) was the largest city and is said to be as large as Harappa. Classic Indus sites are also
found in the Yamuna-Ganga doab, with a preponderance in its most northerly portion around
Saharanpur.
Finally, the spread of the Harappan civilization included the quadrilateral of roughly 119,000
square kilometers between the Raun of Kutch and the Gulf of Cambay. Dholavira was the city
par excellence of the Rann, with its vast expanse of tidal mud flats and dead creeks. Further
east, the great mass of Kathiawad, now known as Saurashtra, is formed of Deccan lava and on
its eastern edge flourished the port town of Lothal. The mainland of Gujarat is alluvial, formed
by the Sabarmati, Mahi and minor parallel streams, actively prograding into the Gulf of
Cambay. Here, Bhagatrav, on the estuary of the Kim river, forms the southernmost extension
of the Harappan civilization.
Settlement pattern and town planning
The settlement pattern was a multi-tiered one with urban and rural sites that were markedly
varied in terms of size and function. There were cities of monumental dimensions like
Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Dholavira and Rakhigarhi that stand out on account of their size (more
than 100 hectares each) and the character of their excavated remains. While the older premise
that such cities were based on a gridiron system of planning has been shown by recent
research to be invalid, there is impressive evidence of centralized planning. City space was
divided into public and residential sectors. At Harappa and Mohenjodaro, the separation of the
largely (though not exclusively) public administrative sector from the residential part of the city
took the form of two separate mounds. Dholavira's city plan was more intricate. At its fully
developed stage, it had three parts made up of the citadel which was divided into a 'castle' and
a 'bailey' area, the middle town and the lower town, all interlinked and within an elaborate
system of fortification.
16

Figure 4.1.6: Aerial view: Mohenjodaro excavations

Source: http://themanyfacesofspaces.com/mohenjo_daro_4.jpg
17

Figure 4.1.7: Dholavira: site map

Source: http://www.asi.nic.in/asi_exca_2007_dholavira.asp
Figure 4.1.8: Harappa, excavated remains

Source: http://interiors.indianetzone.com/images/interiors_028.jpg
The character of some of the structures is also worth considering. Mohenjodaro's citadel, for
instance, was constructed on a gigantic artificial platform (400 x 100m) made of a mud brick
retaining wall (over 6m thick) enclosing a filling of sand and silt. This platform, after being
enlarged twice, attained a final height of 7 metres and provided a foundation on which further
platforms were built in order to elevate important structures such as the Great Bath and the
granary, so that the highest buildings were about 20 metres above the surrounding plains and
18

could be seen on the horizons for miles around. Another architectural marvel is Dholavira's
system of water management, crucial in an area, which is prone to frequent droughts. Rain
water in the catchment areas of the two seasonal streams - Manhar and Mansar - was
dammed and diverted to the large reservoirs within the city walls. Apparently, there were 16
water reservoirs within the city walls, covering as much as 36 percent of the walled area. Brick
masonry walls protected them, although reservoirs were also made by cutting into the
bedrock. Furthermore, drains in the 'castle-bailey' area carried rainwater to a receptacle for
later use.
Figure 4.1.9: The Great Bath and its surroundings, Mohenjodaro

Source: http://www.imagesofasia.com/html/mohenjodaro/mohenjodaro-1960s.html
19

Figure 4.1.10: Dholavira

Source: http://www.globalheritagefund.org/uk/news/releases/images/site_image1_hires.jpg
The intermediate tier of the urban hierarchy was made up of sites that in several features recall
the layout of the monumental cities of the civilization but are smaller in size. Kalibangan, Lothal,
Kot Diji, Banawali and Amri are some of them and they can be considered as provincial centres.
Kalibangan, like Mohenjodaro and Harappa, comprised of two fortified mounds - the smaller
western one contained several mud brick platforms with fire altars on one of them. Most of the
houses on the eastern mound had fire-altars of a similar type. Lothal was also a fortified town
with its entire eastern sector being taken up by a dockyard (219x13m in size) which was
connected with the river through an inlet channel. In its vicinity was the 'acropolis' where the
remains of a storehouse, in which clay sealings, some with impressions of cords and other
materials on them, were discovered. Lothal's urban morphology also suggests that there is no
necessary relationship between the size of a city and its overall planning. Mohenjodaro was at
least 25 times the size of Lothal but the latter shares with it the presence of two separate areas,
burnt brick houses, and regularly aligned streets and drains. In fact, its paved streets and lanes
are unrivalled in the Indus context.
20

Figure 4.1.11: Site plan: Lothal

Source: Joshi, J. P. & R. S. Bisht. 1994. India and the Indus Civilization. New Delhi: National
Museum Institute.
21

Figure 4.1.12: A reconstruction of the town of Lothal

Source: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zTqIoHQeTQ4/TB-
UhzYEioI/AAAAAAAADSU/rmupflPqsjw/s1600/lothal.jpg
Figure 4.1.13: Site plan: Kalibangan

Museum Institute.
The third tier of the Harappan settlement hierarchy is made up of small, urban sites. These
show some evidence of planning but no internal sub-divisions. Notwithstanding their size and
structurally unprepossessing character, they had urban functions. Allahadino in Sind is one
such site, which had a diameter of only 100 metres but was an important metalcrafting
centre. Similarly, Kuntasi in Gujarat is a small Harappan fortified settlement where semi-
precious stones and copper were processed.
Finally, urban centres were supported by and functionally connected with rural hinterlands
of sedentary villages and temporary / semi-nomadic settlements. While the latter are generally
small with thin occupational deposits, in the case of villages, outlines of huts and relatively
thick deposits have been encountered. Kanewal in Gujarat, for instance, is 300 square metres
and its cultural deposit (of 1.5 metre thickness) is suggestive of a secure village
settlement. Similarly, the archaeological deposits of the Harappan phase in the Yamuna-Ganga
doab - 1.8 metres at Alamgirpur and 1.4 metres at Hulas - indicates that the pioneer
colonizers of that area lived there for a long period of time. What is worth remembering is that,
on the basis of size, it is not wise to distinguish rural and urban sites of the Indus civilization.
22

In Cholistan, there are a few large sites, one of which covers 25 hectares (and, thus, is larger
than Kalibangan), which have been described as nomadic settlements, not urban ones. On the
other hand, Kuntasi was only 2 hectares in size but has been rightly classified as an urban
settlement because of its functional role as a provider of craft objects.
Agrarian base
A stable system of agriculture, supplemented by animal husbandry, hunting and plant gathering,
provided economic sustenance to urban networks. In view of the widely differing ecological
conditions of the distribution area of this civilization, the subsistence strategy is not likely to
have been a single or uniform one. The Harappans were familiar with the plough. Terracotta
ploughs have been found at Indus sites in Cholistan and at Banawali and a ploughed field was
revealed through excavation at Kalibangan. Though it belonged to the early Harappan period,
there is no reason to doubt that the pattern continued during the mature Harappan period.
The Kalibangan field contained two sets of furrows crossing each other at right angles, thus
forming a grid pattern, and it is likely that two crops were raised in the same field. In modern
fields in that zone, mustard is grown in one set of furrows and horse gram in the other. Mixed
cropping is suggested by other evidence as well as, for instance, in the mixture of wheat and
barley at Indus sites. Such mixed cropping is practiced even today in many parts of north India
as an insurance against weather hazards so that if wheat fails to ripen, the hardier barley is
sure to yield a crop.
23

Figure 4.1.14: Kalibangan: part of a ploughed field showing a grid of furrows

Museum Institute.
24

Figure 4.1.15: Terracotta plough, Banawali

Museum Institute.
Earlier, a broad division of cultivated crops among those areas in and around the Indus valley
on the one hand and Gujarat on the other hand, used to be recognized. In the Indus area, the
cereal component was considered to be exclusively of wheat and barley while in Gujarat, rice and
millets were more important. However, both rice and finger millet have now been discovered in
Harappa. There is a range of other cultivated crops including peas, lentils, chickpeas, sesame,
flax, legumes and cotton. The range suggests that in a few areas, double cropping was
practiced, aided by irrigation. Take the case of cotton. In Sind, cotton is usually a summer
crop and such crops have generally been cultivated with the help of irrigation. This is because
rainfall is extremely scanty, at about 8 inches. In any part of the Indian subcontinent which has
less than 10 or 12 inches of rainfall, if agriculture on any scale has to be carried out with a
substantial reduction of the risk factor, it can only be done with irrigation.
Figure 4.1.16: Charred wheat grains from Harappa

Source: Original (courtesy: National Museum)
Cattle meat was the favourite animal food of the Indus people and cattle bones have been found
in large quantities at all sites that have yielded bones. In addition to their meat, cattle and
buffaloes must have supported agricultural operations and served as draught animals, Among
other things, this is suggested by their age of slaughter. At Shikarpur in Gujarat, a majority of
the cattle and buffaloes lived up to the age of maturity (approximately three years) and were
then killed at various stages till they reached eight years of age. Mutton was also popular and
bones of sheep/goat have been found at almost all Indus sites. Hunting of animals was not a
negligible activity; the ratio of the bones of wild animals in relation to domesticated varieties is
1:4. The animals include wild buffalo, various species of deer, wild pig, ass, jackal, rodents and
hare. The remains of fish and marine molluscs are frequently found as well as. As for food
25

gathering, wild rice was certainly consumed in the Yamuna-Ganga doab although the most
striking evidence comes from Surkotada in Gujarat where the overwhelming majority of
identified seeds are of wild nuts, grasses and weeds. In general, the Indus food economy was
a broad-based, risk-mitigating system - a pragmatic strategy, considering the large and
concentrated population groups that had to be supported.
Craft production and trade
A spectacular range of artisanal production is encountered at Indus cities. On the one hand,
specialized crafts that had roots in the preceding period became more complex in terms of
technological processes, and on the other hand, the combinations of raw materials being used,
expanded. Along with the production of objects of daily use such as pottery and stone blades,
there was a widespread urban demand for shell artefacts, semi-precious stone and steatite
beads, faience objects, and implements as also jewellery in base and precious metals. It is now
reasonably clear that the Harappan civilization was not, in the main, a bronze using culture.
Pure copper was the dominant tradition. Additionally, there was a variety of alloys ranging from
low and high grade bronzes to copper-lead and copper-nickel alloys.
Some of the crafted objects are quintessentially Harappan, in the sense that they are neither
found prior to the advent of the urban civilization nor after its collapse. Indus seals (inscribed,
square or rectangular in shape, with representations of animals, most notably the 'unicorn') for
example, are rarely found in the late Harappan and post-Harappan contexts since the commercial
transactions for which they were used had dramatically shrunk. This is also true for the series of
Indus stone statues of animals and men, of which the most famous is that of the 'Priest King'.
These appear to have had a politico-religious significance and are in a sculptural idiom that is
very much within the realm of 'High Art'. The disappearance of this stone carving tradition can
be linked to the abandonment of urban centres, along with the migration and transformation of
elite groups. Similarly, long barrel carnelian beads are a typical Indus luxury product, which
were primarily manufactured at Chanhundaro. Their crafting demanded both skill and time; the
perforation in a 6 to 13 cm length bead required between three to eight days. Evidently, the
largely deurbanized scenario that followed the collapse of cities could not sustain such a
specialized production.
26

Figure 4.1.17: Harappan pottery

Source: http://www.theancientweb.com/images/explore/India_Harappa_Pottery.jpg
Figure 4.1.18: Bronze „Dancing Girl‟

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dancing_Girl_of_Mohenjo-daro.jpg
27

Figure 4.1.19: Stone head

28

Figure 4.1.20: Metal tools

One of the most striking features of the Indus craft traditions is that they are not region-
specific. Shell objects were manufactured at Nagwada and Nageshwar in Gujarat and at
Chanhundaro and Mohenjodaro in Sind. Similarly, metal artefacts were produced at Lothal in
Gujarat, at Harappa in the Bari doab of Punjab and at Allahadino and Mohenjodaro in Sind.
While craft objects were manufactured at many places, the manufacturing technology could be
surprisingly standardized. In the case of shell bangles, at practically all sites they had a uniform
width of between 5 mm and 7 mm and they were almost everywhere sawn by a saw that had a
blade thickness of between 0.4 mm and 0.6mm. What is equally striking about the wide
distribution of craft production is that, in a number of cases, manufacture depended on raw
materials that were not locally available. At Mohenjodaro, shell artifacts were manufactured
from the marine mollusc, Turbinella pyrum, found along the Sind and Baluchistan coast which
was brought in a raw state from there. Similarly, there is impressive evidence of manufacture of
copper based craft items at Harappa ranging from furnaces to slag and unfinished objects, even
though the city was located in a minerally poor area.
Such craft production could survive and prosper because of a highly organized trading system.
Indus people had the capacity to mobilize resources from various areas ranging from Rajasthan
to Afghanistan and, considering the scale of manufacture, it is likely that there were full-time
traders that helped in providing the necessary raw materials. Most of these resource-rich
areas also show evidence of contact with the Indus civilization. For example, at Chalcolithic Kulli
culture sites, Harappan unicorn seals and pottery have been found. Similarly, the
exploitation of Rajasthan's raw materials is underlined by Harappan pottery at some sites of the
Ganeshwar-Jodhpura chacolithic complex and by the strong stylistic similarities in the copper
arrowheads, spearheads and fish hooks of the two cultures.
In addition to raw materials, other types of objects were traded. On the one hand, there was
trade in food items as is underlined by the presence of marine cat fish at Harappa, a city that
was hundreds of kilometers away from the sea. Craft items were also traded. Small
manufacturing centres like Nageshwar were providing shell ladles to Mohenjodaro which also
received chert blades from the Rorhi hills of Sind. It is now possible to visualize the exchange
of finished objects between the monumental cities of the Indus civilization as well. For
instance, stoneware bangles - a highly siliceous, partially sintered ceramic body with low
porosity -manufactured at Mohenjodaro have been found 570 kilometres north, at Harappa.
The nature of the social process involved in this exchange is unknown but is unlikely to be a
case of satisfying an economic demand, since Harappa was also producing such
bangles. Possibly, the unidirectional movement of some bangles from Mohenjodaro to
29

Harappa is related to social transactions among related status or kin groups in the two
cities.
The Indus civilization had wide ranging contacts with cultures and civilizations to the
northwest and west of its distribution area. Indus and Indus-related objects have been
found in north Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, north and south Iran, Bahrain, Failaka and the
Oman Peninsula in the Persian Gulf, and north and south Mesopotamia. The objects include
etched carnelian and long barrel-cylinder carnelian beads, square/ rectangular Indus
seals, pottery with the Indus script, 'Indus' motifs on local seals, ivory objects, and various
terracottas such as ithyphallic specimens that have strong Indus analogues. Externally
derived objects and traits have been found at Indus sites such as seals with
Mesopotamian and Persian Gulf affinities, externally derived motifs on seals and steatite/
chlorite vessels.
At the same time, the importance that has been attached in Indus studies to the regions
west of Baluchistan as the main areas from which the Indus civilization procured its raw
materials, whether it is copper from Oman or carnelian of Persian Gulf origin is, somewhat
misplaced. There is an abundance of raw materials on the peripheries and within the area
where Indus cities and settlements flourished. Before the advent of Indus urbanism, these
raw materials were being used by the various cultures that were antecedent to the Indus
civilization and subsequently as well, they continued to be a part of the repertories of
late/post-Harappan horizons, albeit on a reduced scale as compared to the situation during
the civilizational phase. While, there may have been some raw materials involved in long
distance trade, there is no reason to argue that the Indus civilization was in any way either
solely or significantly dependent on the regions to the west for such resources.
4.2: The Harappan civilization - II
Introduction
In the last chapter we read about the discovery of the Harappan civilization, its evolution,
towns and villages and subsistence base as also the evidence of trade. But who were these
remote ancestors of ours who built and inhabited these settlements? How was their society
organized and how did they govern themselves? If history is all about „people-ing the past‟,
then how do we imagine the Harappans in various social, political and cultural roles and
30

situations? Admittedly, on broaching these subjects, one enters the realm of speculation, for
one of the most complex issues in ancient history is the determination of past ways of
behaviour, thought and belief. This is especially true of the Harappan civilization where all
this has to be inferred from its material remains since its writing still awaits consensual
decipherment.
Social organization

Identity of the Harappans
The identity of the Harappans has generated a lot of curiosity and debate.
They‟ve been embroiled in the Aryan-Dravidian hypothesis and earlier studies
focusing on skeletal remains divided them into racial types. New research has
established the heterogeneity of the Harappan population as also their
similarity with people who live today in those areas, i.e., the Harappans of
Punjab resembled the present day Punjabis and Harappans of Sind had the
same kind of skeletal attributes as their modern day Sindhi counterparts.
Source: Singh, U. 2009. A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India.
New Delhi: Pearson Education, 175.
It is generally agreed that the Harappan society was a stratified one with some kind of
hierarchy in place. The material remains from different sites and especially the spatial
division into upper and lower towns is an unequivocal indicator of this. „The people living in
the Citadel were segregated from those in the Lower Town. At Mohenjodaro they were
separated by some 150m and at Kalibangan, by 40m. The segregation of different localities
was carried to an almost ghetto-like perfection at Dholavira where the habitation was
divided into four distinct, well-defined parts of which the Castle was for the rulers, the
Bailey to its west for noblemen, the Middle Town was occupied by merchants and craftsmen
and the land owning class like the Mound E at Harappa, whereas the Lower Town was
occupied by the service class‟ (Dhavalikar 1997: 68). We can thus presume class and rank
differences based on occupation, wealth and status, but to insist on the existence of a caste
system, like some scholars have done, will require more substantial and unproblematic
evidence.
31

What we can say, on the basis of our current knowledge, is that the Harappan people were
rural, provincial and urban folk, and their occupations included farming, animal herding,
hunting-gathering, fishing, sailing, boat making, carpentry, masonry, craft production,
trade, shop-keeping, sweeping and garbage collecting. There were also groups involved in
superstructure maintenance like rulers, administrative officers and priests/rituals specialists.
What the nature of the interaction and transaction of these groups was, whether groups
performed multiple functions or whether they were endogamous kin groups cannot be
said with certainty.
Figure 4.2.1: Terracotta image of a seated male

Source: Sharma, D. P. 2003. Harappan Terracottas. New Delhi: National Museum Institute
32

Figure 4.2.2: Terracotta female figurine

Source: http://myhistoryblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/indus-figurine.jpg
33

Figure 4.2.3: Terracottas thought to be indicating possible ethnicities

Source: Sharma, D. P. 2003. Harappan Terracottas. New Delhi: National Museum Institute
A whole corpus of human terracotta figurines has been recovered from Harappan sites,
which though stylized and perhaps audience-specific, nonetheless help us imagine the
Harappan people. Thus, it seems that the women wore short skirts of cotton or wool,
arranged their hair in a variety of hairdos and liked to wear lots of jewellery. Men too wore
their hair long and either wore turbans, or made a bun/braids, or let it hang loose. Most of
the male figurines sport a beard ranging from a goatee to a regular beard.
Toys for children give us evidence of what amused the kids back then. These fascinating
terracotta toys include balls, tops, rattles, whistles, gamesmen, carts with moveable parts
and animals on wheels. Clay marbles and miniature terracotta vessels and furniture speak
evocatively of the seeming changelessness of childhood amusements.
34


Terracotta toys for children, including clay discs
Many clay discs have been found at Harappan sites and it is presumed that
these are remnants of a pithu-like game that the Harappan kids must have
played. Terracotta figurines of dogs, some with collars, suggest that people
kept dogs as pets.
Figure 4.2.4: Terracotta toys

Source: http://z.com.about/d/asianhistory/1/0/g/B/-/-/Harappanbyluluinnycflickr.jpg
Political organization
R. E. M. Wheeler once described the Harappan civilization as “the vastest political

experiment before the advent of the Roman empire” (Dhavalikar 1997: 69). But the nature
and ingredients of this experiment, like its social structure, remain conjectural and open to
debate. The continuing debate on the political structure of the Harappans, drawing evidence
from structural and artefactual remains from its various sites, revolves around the twin
issues of the existence and nature of the state that accomplished the Harappan
phenomenon. Was it a centralized empire, a merchant oligarchy or a network of city
states?
35

Value addition: more details

Chief criteria of a state society
The chief criteria of a state society include monumental architecture, a
bureaucracy, coercive power to enforce its decisions on its subjects, biological
evidence indicating differences in subsistence system and differences in
mortuary remains, a well-defined territory characterized by a four-tiered
settlement hierarchy and a large population. It will be seen that very
convincing evidence is available from the excavation of Harappan sites
fulfilling all these criteria and there should be no hesitation in identifying the
Indus civilization as a state society.
Source: Guha, S. In M. K. Dhavalikar. 1997. Indian Protohistory. New
Delhi: Books & Books, 70.
It has been pointed out that the lack of remains of a palace-like structure, grandiose
mortuary remains, and coercive elements of warfare and conflict in the form of advanced
weaponry, is a major indicator of the absence of an organized state system, and that the
uniformity and standardization in material milieu attained by this civilization could have
been achieved by effective village and town councils. However, the fact that this civilization
lasted for some 700 years and shows a remarkable continuity in artefacts, traditions and
symbols cannot be overlooked. Moreover, sites like Dholavira have given evidence of
imposing fortifications and hence the existence of a Harappan state cannot be denied.
The basic tenor of the debate was set in the early years itself with Stuart Piggott suggesting
that the Harappan state was a highly centralized empire ruled by a class of priest-kings
from the twin capital cities of Harappa and Mohenjodaro. While R. E. M. Wheeler concurred
with his views, W. A. Fairservis initially rejected even the basic premise of a state for the
Harappan organization. Later, he accepted the appellation of a chiefdom for the Harappan
civilization but maintained that ideology/religion and interdependence were the key agents
regulating it.
In recent years, S. Ratnagar has made a strong case in favour of a Harappan empire. Jim
Shaffer, on the other hand, argues against the idea of a centralized empire and sees the
civilization as a chiefdom which rested on a well-established trade network, giving equal
access to wealth or symbols of wealth to its citizens. Jerome Jacobson views the Harappan
organization as an example of an early state; G. L. Possehl emphasizes its corporate
character. According to J. M. Kenoyer, the Harappan state consisted of many competing
classes of urban elite who controlled access to resources and had their own spheres of
control.
36


The unicorn seals
Figure 4.2.5: Unicorn seal

Source: http://ccrtindia.gov.in/images/75.jpg
J. M. Kenoyer has further suggested that the animals on the square stamp
seals represent totemic symbols for particular clans and ten of these have
been identified – the unicorn, humped bull, humpless bull, elephant, water
buffalo, rhinoceros, goat, antelope, crocodile and hare. In S. Ratnagar‟s
opinion, the unicorn was a symbol of the Harappan ruling elite whereas
Kenoyer ascribes them to a mercantile elite who played an important
executive role in the Harappan government.
Religious beliefs
The archaeological indicators for a reconstruction of Harappan religious beliefs and

practices are mainly portable objects of various kinds, figural representations and a few
areas within settlements which seem to have been set apart for sacred purposes. There are
no structures at Indus sites that can be described as temples nor are there any statues
which can be considered as images that were worshipped. A few structures reflect a
connection between concepts of cleansing through water in relation to ritual functions. The
sunken, rectangular basin known as the 'Great Bath' at Mohenjodaro is one such ins tance.
The cult connection of this water-using structure is evident from its method of construction
which had three concentric zones around it, including streets on all four sides (making it
37

the only free standing structure of the city), for the purpose of a ritual procession leading
into it.
Figure 4.2.6: Great Bath, Mohenjodaro

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bath,_Mohenjo-daro
The bathing pavements and well in the vicinity of the offering pits on Kalibangan's citadel
also underline this connection. As for beliefs connected with fertility, it is possible that
some terracotta figurines represent forms of the Mother Goddess and were household
deities in Mohenjodaro and Harappa. At towns like Kalibangan and Surkotada, female
figurines are practically absent. Even at Mohenjodaro, the fact that only 475 of the total
number of terracotta figurines and fragments represented the female form means that this
was not as common a practice as it has been made out to be. Several of the female figurines
were utilized as lamps or for the burning of incense.
38

Figure 4.2.7: Terracotta „Mother Goddess‟

Source: Sharma, D. P. 2003.Harappan Terracottas. New Delhi: National Museum Institute
Fertility in relation to the male principle has also been evoked not merely in the context of the
'Siva-Pasupati' seal but also with reference to the phallic stones that have been found at
Mohenjodaro, Harappa and Dholavira, and with regard to a miniature terracotta
representation of a phallic emblem set in an ovular shaped flat receptacle from Kalibangan.
Religious sanctity was associated with particular trees and animals as well. The presence of
part human-part animal characters on Indus seals and a human personage on a pipal (ficus
religiosia) tree, in fact, suggest a shamanistic component in Harappan religion. None of these
features however suggest a trans-regional Indus religion with cult centres and state
dominated rituals of the kind that is writ large on the architectural landscape of Bronze Age
West Asia and Egypt.
39

Figure 4.2.8: Pasupati seal

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashupati
Harappan script and writing
Undoubtedly, the most enigmatic element of the Harappan Civilization is its script which has
not been satisfactorily deciphered so far. The Harappans in different zones would have
spoken different languages and dialects but they managed to communicate through a
uniform script that remained more or less unaltered in the life-span of the civilization.
Whether the script represents the writing of the ruling class or embodied commercial
transactions between trading groups or symbolized totems and talismanic prescriptions
cannot be asserted with certainty. Its affiliations too remain varied, with some scholars
mooting a Dravidian association, others relating it to the Indo-Aryan family and still others
making far-flung connections such as Sumerian, proto-Elamite, Scandinavian etc.
40

Figure 4.2.9: Seals depicting the Harappan script

Source: http://design-flute.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/09/harappan-script.gif
„A total of about 3,700 inscribed objects have been found at Harappan sites. Most of the
writing appears on seals and sealings, some on copper tablets, copper/bronze implements,
pottery and other miscellaneous objects. About 50 percent of the inscribed objects have
been found at Mohenjodaro, and the two sites of Mohenjodaro and Harappa together
account for about 87 per cent of all inscribed material. Most of the inscriptions are very
short, with an average of five signs. The longest one has 26 signs. The script seems to have
emerged in a fully evolved state and does not show any significant changes over time‟
(Singh 2009: 169).

Deciphering a script
Scripts, with their many characters, are complex symbolic embodiments of a
language. They can be pictographic (hieroglyphic), ideographic (Chinese),
syllabic (Phoenician) or logo-syllabic (Harappan), and suggest a partly
literate population. In most ancient cultures, only the elite groups could read
and write and thus use a script. A script has to show evolution from an
earlier, pre-existing form, be lengthy enough to figure out a cogent repetition
of characters or give information in a bilingual format (as in the case of the
Rosetta stone for hieroglyphics), for its successful decipherment. All these
41

pre-conditions are so far missing in the case of the Harappan script.

Source: Original
The 400-500 basic signs of the Harappan script point to its logo-syllabic character. That it
was written in the boustrophedon style can be gauged from slightly long inscriptions
where one line is written from right to left and the next from left to right. Besides seals,
examples of the script exist on miniature tablets of steatite, terracotta and faience,
rectangular copper tablets, copper and bronze tools, bangles, beads and bone rods. The
script has been found inscribed as graffiti on potsherds and its large 9-character
manifestation at Dholavira has been labelled as „a signboard‟ by archaeologists.
Figure 4.2.10: Harappan signboard at Dholavira

Source: Courtesy: D. P. Sharma
While the Dholavira signboard may not necessarily indicate a high level of literacy, the
Harappan script was inextricably linked to the urban Harappan phase and its disappearance
coincides with the demise of the civilization c. 1700 BC. It did not, though, disappear
completely as is evident, for instance, from the presence of scattered Harappan script marks
at Late Harappan Daimabad.
Decline and devolution
The process of urban decline appears to have unfolded in various ways. At Mohenjodaro,
there was a steady deterioration, apparent in the fact that the walls of the terminal level
structures are frequently thin, haphazardly laid out and made of unstandardized bricks. This is
also true of Dholavira whose progressive impoverishment was hastened by two spells when the
city was deserted. As urbanism crumbled, rickety, jerry-built structures and reused stones
robbed from older structures came to be commonly encountered. On the other hand,
Kalibangan was abandoned relatively suddenly and the same is true for Banawali. In other
42

words, it is not one event but different kinds of events that must have led to the
disappearance of urban life. There is, however, no unanimity about these events or about
their relative importance. In fact, the collapse of the Harappan civilization continues to be a
focus of great historical speculation and debate.
The earliest formulations for urban collapse revolved around the hypothetical Aryans and the
allusions in the Rig Veda to the destruction wrecked on forts/cities by them. This idea
continued to remain a popular one till the 1940s when archaeological 'proof‟ of Aryan invasions
was claimed to have been discovered at Mohenjodaro, on the one hand, in the assortment of
scattered skeletons (apparently signs of a 'massacre') and at Harappa, on the other hand, in
the form of deliberate blocking of entrances and a culture (Cemetery H) overlying the mature
Harappan phase which was supposed to represent the conquerors. Since the 1950s, however,
serious doubts have been raised about the historicity of an Aryan invasion. Among other things,
it has been demonstrated that the massacre evidence was based on very few skeletons that
cannot be dated to the same stratum.
Increasingly, greater attention has been paid to the question of the environment in the Indus
distribution area and the role of rivers and climate in the decline of an urban culture. At several
Indus cities such as Mohenjodaro, Chanhudaro and Lothal, there are silt debris intervening
between phases of occupation and these underline the possibility of damage being caused by
the inundations of swollen rivers. It has been suggested that the excess river water was a
product of earthquakes, although this has not been universally accepted. In the area east
of Sind, urban collapse may have been a consequence not of excessive but insufficient river
water. The river in question is the Ghaggar-Hakra, often identified with the Vedic Saraswati,
which was drying up towards the end of the third millennium BC. This is reflected in the manner
in which the number of sites dramatically shrank in the phase that postdates the urban one.
The reduction in the flow of the Ghaggar-Hakra was a consequence of river diversion and,
according to one group of scholars, it was the Sutlej that abandoned its channel and began
to flow westwards, while others have contended that the Yamuna was diverted from the
Indus into the Ganges system.
The impact of the Harappans on their environment is also a factor that has been considered
as contributing to the collapse of the Indus civilization. A possible disequilibrium between urban
demand and the carrying capacity of the land, leading to a reduction in the food surplus, and
the drain on forest/grasslands because of enormous fodder requirements and fuel for firing
bricks are among the explanations that have been offered. However, the archaeological
scaffolding for supporting such arguments remains to be systematically worked out. In the
stretch that lies roughly east of Cholistan, the absence of long-term cultural roots has been
highlighted. It has been suggested that since the Indus phenomenon there did not evolve
through a long process but was imposed on a hunting-gathering economic context, its
43

presence over time came to be thinly stretched and, eventually, could not be sustained. The
question of the absence of a long antecedence for the civilization in the Indo-Gangetic divide
and Gujarat may require modification in the context of the discovery of cultures antedating the
mature Harappan phase in Kutch and Saurashtra on the one hand, and in the Hissar area of
Haryana on the other. At the same time, in the period following the demise of the urban
form, chalcolithic village cultures as also microlithic hunter-gatherers are encountered, an
indicator that such cultures were economically sustainable in those regions. However, the highly
complex system of an urban civilization, which delicately balanced different social and economic
sub-systems, was no longer viable.
The late/post-Harappan traditions
What followed the collapse of Indus urbanism was a variety of late/post Harappan cultures
- the Cemetery H culture in Punjab and Cholistan, the Jhukar culture of Sind, the Rangpur
IIB and Lustrous Red Ware phases of Gujarat. In this latter phase, a few elements of the
Harappan tradition, by which one means features whose genealogy can be located in the mature
Harappan period, persisted to a greater or lesser degree, mediated by other cultural elements.
However, the civilization had ended and even though aspects of this tradition continued, it was
in a landscape whose cultural diversity contrasts sharply with that of the preceding, mature
Harappan period.
What does the end of the Indus civilization mean in relation to the character of the cultural
developments that followed? Urban settlements, for example, did not disappear completely
- Kudwala in Cholistan, Beyt Dwaraka off the coast of Gujarat and Daimabad in the upper
Godavari basin are three of them. But they are relatively few, and certainly there is no city that
matches the grandeur and monumentality of Mohenjodaro or Dholavira. As for the
archaeological and civic features that are generally associated with Harappan cities, these are
now few and far between, although baked bricks and drains are present in the Cemetery H
occupation at Harappa while at Sanghol there was a solid mud platform on which mud houses
stood. Writing is occasionally encountered but remains generally confined to a few potsherds.
The same holds true for seals, which became rare, and at Daimabad and Jhukar are circular,
not rectangular like the typical Indus specimens. The Dholavira specimens, on the other hand,
are rectangular but without figures. The other indicator of a reduction in the scale of trade is
the relatively sparse evidence of interregional procurement of raw materials. On the whole,
one would say that elements emblematic of the urban tradition of the Indus civilization
dramatically shrank and finally disappeared.
44

Not everything that is associated with the Indus civilization disappeared, as it were, without a
trace. A few craft traditions survived urban collapse and are found in the makeup of the
late/post-Harappan mosaic. Faience was one such craft and ornaments fashioned out of this
synthetic stone are commonly found in the post-Harappan period. A similar continuity can be
seen in the character of metal technology, although there was a general decrease in the use of
copper. The bronzes from Daimabad in Maharashtra made by the "lost wax" process and the
replication of a marine shell in copper at Rojdi in Gujarat are evidence of this and underline
the continuation of the technical excellence of the Indus copper and copper alloy traditions.
There was also an extension of multi-cropping and plough based agriculture, evident from
the rich crop remains and the exponential expansion in agricultural settlements of
late/post-Harappan lineage in the Indo-Gangetic divide, upper Gangetic plains, Gujarat and
Maharashtra. However, in the aftermath of the Indus phenomenon, there was no cultural
cohesion or artefactual uniformity of the kind that was a hallmark of that civilization.
Instead of a civilization, there were cultures, each with its own distinct regional identity.
Summary
 The Harappan civilization, dated c. 2600-1900 BC, emerged in the northwestern part
of the subcontinent, and is one of the Bronze Age civilizations of antiquity.
 All the ancient civilizations – Mesopotamian, Egyptian, Chinese and Harappan are
believed at have evolved from a pre-existing, indigenous socio-cultural and
technological matrix and not because of the diffusion of the idea of civilization.
 Different parts of the northwest of the subcontinent were precursors of the Harappan
civilization and show some, if not all the features related to the Early Harappan
phase.
 The Early Harappan phase came into existence in the last quarter of the 4 th and early
3rd millennium BC at different sites like Amri, Kot Diji, Kalibangan, Jalilpur, Kunal and
Harappa.
 The vast expanse of this civilization has revealed a multi-tiered settlement pattern
with urban, intermediate urban and rural sites that varied in terms of size and
function.
 The monumentality of the civilization can be seen in structures like the Great Bath at
45

Mohenjodaro, the Granary at Harappa and the water management system at

Dholavira.
 The Harappan civilization was a product of, and based on, intensive and diverse
subsistence strategies of agriculture, animal husbandry, hunting and plant gathering.
 A spectacular range of craft production is encountered in what constitutes the

„Harappan repertoire‟ – the typical black-on-red pottery and variety of artefacts.
 This rich artisanal production tapped and prospered on a highly organized trading
network in which the resource potential of the hinterland as well as neighbouring
areas was exploited.

The external trade of the Harappan civilization included the areas of north
Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, north and south Iran, Bahrain, Failaka, Oman peninsula
and north and south Mesopotamia.
Summary
 In the absence of a satisfactory decipherment of the Harappan script, most

reconstructions of its polity, society, religion and ideology are conjectural and tentative.
 It is generally agreed that the Harappan society was stratified and hierarchical.
 It was heterogeneous in composition and people practiced a variety of occupations.
 The existence of a Harappan state is largely accepted though its nature –

empire/oligarchy/chiefdom/early state – continues to be debated.
 Structures like the Great Bath at Mohenjodaro and sacrificial pits at Kalibangan reveal a
public ritual component.
 Other clues for Harappan religious beliefs come from terracotta female figurines, phallic
emblems and seals and suggest a shamanistic component.
 The Harappan script is logo-syllabic in character and was written in the boustrophedon
46

style, its most prolific use being on seals.
 The process of decline and devolution set in by the end of the third millennium BC and
settlements entered a degenerate phase or were abandoned suddenly.
 The end of the civilization is also surrounded by controversy – Aryan massacre,

desiccation, tectonic plate shifts, and the changing of river courses being cited as some
of the reasons.
 The Harappan civilization was followed by a variety of late/post-Harappan cultures – the

Cemetery H culture, Jhukar culture, Rangpur II B and Lustrous Red Ware phase.
4.1: Exercises
Essay questions
1) The Harappan civilization was a product of, and culmination of, a long process of
technological and socio-cultural developments. Examine this statement in the light of
the early Harappan cultures of the subcontinent.
2) Write an essay on the distribution and settlement pattern of the Harappan

civilization.
3) Write a short note on Sir John Marshall‟s discovery and announcement of the Indus
Valley Civilization.
Objective questions
47

Question Number Type of question LOD
1 Match the following 1
Question
Match the following:
a) Terracotta plough i) Kalibangan
b) Largest Harappan site in Kutch ii) Mohenjodaro
c) Hakra ware iii) Banawali
d) Fire altars iv) Dholavira
e) Great Bath v) Cholistan
Correct Answer / a) and iii), b) and iv), c) and v), d) and i), e) and ii)
Option(s)
Justification/ Feedback for the correct answer
a) A model of a terracotta plough was found at Banawali.
b) Dholavira is the largest Harappan site so far discovered and excavated in Kutch.
c) Hakra ware is the typical pottery, first identified in and found most prolifically, in
the valley of river Hakra, Cholistan.
d) Fire altars were unearthed at the citadel mound of Kalibangan.
e) The Great Bath is the most well-known structure at the site of Mohenjodaro.
48

Resource/Hints/Feedback for the wrong answer
Reviewer‟s Comment:
2 Fill in the blanks 2
Question
a) _________ is the northernmost site of the Harappan civilization and __________

its southernmost extension.
b) The site of ________ is well-known for its dockyard.
c) The evidence of an early Harappan ploughed field comes from _________.
d) ________ is the mythical animal represented on Harappan seals.
e) The city of __________ was divided into three parts – citadel, middle town and
lower town.
Correct Answer / a) Shortughai and Bhagatrav

Option(s) b) Lothal
c) Kalibangan
d) Unicorn
e) Dholavira
49

a) The northernmost site of the Indus civilization, Shortughai, is in northeast

Afghanistan. Bhagatrav, on the estuary of the Kim river, forms the southernmost
extension of the Harappan civilization.
b) The dockyard at Lothal is a defining Harappan structure.
c) A ploughed field was revealed during excavations at Kalibangan.
d) The unicorn is the only mythical animal depicted on Harappan seals, all other animals
being real ones like tiger, bull, elephant etc.
e) Dholavira, in Kutch, has a tripartite division into upper, middle and lower town.
4.2: Exercises
Essay questions
1) „The Harappan state‟ is a misnomer. Do you agree with this statement? Elaborating
further, write an essay on the nature of the Harappan state.
2) Write a note on the end of the Harappan civilization – the problem of urban decline
and the post-Harappan traditions.
3) Try to conjure up a day in the life of a shaman practicing in ancient Mohenjodaro.
Objective questions
50

1 Match the following 1
Question
a) Jhukar culture i) Jerome Jacobson
b) Boustrephedon ii) Kalibangan
c) Offering pits iii) Late Harappan culture
d) Early state iv) Harappa & Mohenjodaro
e) Aryan massacre v) Writing style
Correct Answer /
a) and iii), b) and v), c) and ii), d) and i), e) and iv)
Option(s)
a) The Jhukar culture is a late/post-Harappan culture of Sind.
b) The Harappan script was written in the boustrophedon writing style.
c) Offering pits were discovered at the citadel mound of Kalibangan.
d) Jerome Jacobson views the Harappan organization as an example of an early

state.
e) Proof of Aryan invasions was claimed to have been discovered at Mohenjodaro, on

the one hand, in the assortment of scattered skeletons (apparently sings of a
'massacre') and at Harappa, on the other hand, in the form of deliberate blocking of
51

entrances and a culture (Cemetery H).
2 Fill in the blanks 2
Question
Fill in the blanks:
a) Harappan society was ____________ and _________.
b) ________ described the Harappan state as a centralized empire with twin

capitals.
c) Its 400-500 signs reveal the ____________ character of the Harappan script.
d) Harappan religion can best be described as ___________.
e) The two rivers whose change of course may have affected the Harappan decline
are ________ and __________.
Correct Answer / a) Stratified and hierarchical

Option(s) b) Stuart Piggott
c) Logo-syllabic
d) Shamanistic
52

e) Sutlej and Yamuna
a) It is generally agreed that the Harappan society was stratified and hierarchical.
b) Stuart Piggott suggested that the Harappan state was a highly centralized empire
ruled by a class of priest-kings from the twin capital cities of Harappa and
Mohenjodaro.
c) The 400-500 basic signs of the Harappan script indicate its logo-syllabic character.
d) The presence of part human-part animal characters on Indus seals and a human
personage on a pipal (ficus religiosia) tree, in fact, suggest a shamanistic component in
Harappan religion.
e) According to one group of scholars, it was the Sutlej that abandoned its channel
and began to flow westwards, while others have contended that the Yamuna was
diverted from the Indus into the Ganges system.
Glossary
Acro-sanctum: an elevated/citadel kind of sacred/ritual space

Assemblage: in archaeology, refers collectively to all the industries found at a site
Bronze Age: a period of human culture between the Stone Age and Iron age, characterized
by weapons and implements made of copper-bronze and the earliest monumental remains,
urban life, use of script etc
Carnelian: a reddish or reddish-brown variety of chalcedony, used in jewellery
Doab: land between two rivers
Early Harappan: the early, formative, proto-urban phase of the Harappan culture.
Mature Harappan: the urban phase of the Harappan culture
Seal: a die or signet having a raised or incised emblem/design, used to stamp an
53

impression upon a receptive substance such as wet clay/wax/cloth

Sealing: the impression of a seal
Type site: a site where the characteristic traits of a culture are first identified
Glossary
Boustrophedon: a style of writing in which consecutive lines start in opposite directions

Chiefdom: the domain of a chief such as a clan leader
Endogamous: marriage within a particular group, class or tribe in accordance with set
custom/law
Goatee: a small chin beard trimmed to a point, and resembling that of a goat
Kin group: one‟s relatives collectively – family; kindred; kinsfolk
Logo syllabic: a script in which each symbol stands for a word or syllable
Oligarchy: government by a few, especially by a small faction of persons or families
Pithu: a game in which piled up pieces of clay or stone are to be struck and reassembled
Shamanistic: pertaining to shamanism i.e. religious/ritual practices of people who believe
that good and evil spirits pervade the world and can be summoned or heard through the
medium of inspired priests/shamans
Stratified: arranged or divided according to different levels/strata of class or status
Further readings
Agrawal, D. P. 1985. THE Archaeology of India. London: Curzon Press.
--------------- 2007. The Indus Civilization: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. New Delhi:

Aryan Books International.
Allchin, B. & R. Allchin. 1982. The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan. Cambridge: The
University Press.
------------------------. 1997. Origins of a Civilization: The Prehistory and Early Archaeology

of South Asia. New Delhi: Viking, Penguin Books.
Chakrabarti, D. K. 1999, India: An Archaeological History. New Delhi: Oxford University

Press.
---------------------. 2006. The Oxford Companion to Indian Archaeology. New Delhi: Oxford
University Press.
54

Joshi, J. P. & Bisht, R. S. 1994. India and the Indus Civilization. New Delhi: National
Museum Institute.
Lahiri, N. 2005.Finding forgotten Cities: How the Indus Civilization was Discovered. Delhi:
Permanent Black.
Possehl, G. L. 2002. The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective. New Delhi: Vistaar
Publications.
Singh, U. 2009, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India. New Delhi: Pearson
Education.
Thapar, B. K. 1985. Recent Archaeological Discoveries in India. Paris: UNESCO.
Further readings
Agrawal, D. P. 1985. The Archaeology of India. London: Curzon Press.
--------------- 2007. The Indus Civilization: An Interdisciplinary Perspective. New Delhi:

Aryan Books International.
Allchin, B. & R. Allchin. 1982. The Rise of Civilization in India and Pakistan. Cambridge: The
University Press.
------------------------. 1997. Origins of a Civilization: The Prehistory and Early Archaeology

of South Asia. New Delhi: Viking, Penguin Books.
Bisht, R. S. & J. P. Joshi. 1994. India and the Indus Civilization. New Delhi: National
Museum Institute.
Chakrabarti, D. K. 1999. India: An Archaeological History. New Delhi: Oxford University

Press.
---------------------. 2006. The Oxford Companion to Indian Archaeology. New Delhi:

Oxford University Press.
Dhavalikar, M. K., 1997, Indian Protohistory. New Delhi: Books & Books.
Lahiri, Nayanjot. ed. 2000. The Decline and Fall of the Indus Civilization. Delhi: Permanent
Black.
Possehl, G. L. 2002. The Indus Civilization: A Contemporary Perspective. New Delhi: Vistaar
Publications.
Singh, U. 2009. A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India. New Delhi: Pearson
Education.
55

Thapar, B. K. 1985. Recent Archaeological Discoveries in India. Paris: UNESCO.
56

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The harappan civilization

Lesson: The harappan civilization

Course Developers : 1. The Harappan Civilization --I

Prof. Nayanjot Lahiri Professor, Department of History,

Assistant Professor, Gargi College, University of Delhi

Language Editors: Bharati Jagannathan and Naina Dayal

Production Editor: Ashutosh Kumar

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Chapter 4: The Harappan civilization

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4.1: The Harappan civilization - I

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Value addition: what the sources say

“Not often has it been given to archaeologists, as it was given to Schliemann

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Value addition: did you know?

1. Some form of government by which people administer to their political

Character of the Harappan civilization

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Figure 4.1.1: The priest king, Mohenjodaro

Figure 4.1.2: Harappan seal

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Figure 4.1.3: Remains of the Granary at Harappa

Background and origin

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Figure 4.1.4: Distribution map of the Harappan civilization

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Value addition: more details

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Ancient Indus Chronology

Late Harappan ?1700-

Figure 4.1.5: Time line: ancient bronze age civilizations

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Settlement pattern and town planning

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Figure 4.1.6: Aerial view: Mohenjodaro excavations

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Figure 4.1.7: Dholavira: site map

Figure 4.1.8: Harappa, excavated remains

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Figure 4.1.9: The Great Bath and its surroundings, Mohenjodaro

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Figure 4.1.10: Dholavira

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Figure 4.1.11: Site plan: Lothal

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Figure 4.1.12: A reconstruction of the town of Lothal

Figure 4.1.13: Site plan: Kalibangan

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Figure 4.1.14: Kalibangan: part of a ploughed field showing a grid of furrows

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Figure 4.1.15: Terracotta plough, Banawali