Indus Valley Civilization

 A third civilization larger than Egyptian and sumer larger in area

arose in the Indus River Valley far to the East, in the south Asia.
 It reached its highest at about the time of Akakadians and
Babylonians empires between about 2500 BC and 1500 BC.
 Three modern countries India, Pakistan and Bangladesh trace
their roots in Indus Valley Civilization.
 These countries lie on the sub continent of south Asia, a larger
triangular-shaped landmass that juts into the Indian Ocean.

 Less than a century ago, archeologists working in Indus Valley

civilization identified an Ancient civilization in south Asia.
 They dated this civilization to about 2500 BC.

Centrally planned cities

 The people in the Indus valley formed the earliest urban
civilization in the sub Indian continent and one of the earliest in
the world.
 Archaeologists named the Indus valley civilization settlement
the Harappan civilization after of its major cities Harappa
located in present day Pakistan.
  Mohenjo-Daro another important Harappan city lay near the
Arabian Sea.
 The ruins of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro are outstanding
examples of urban planning.
 A citadel or fortress, built on a brick platform overlooked each
city possibly serving as government and religious centre.
 Below the citadel Harappan engineers skillfully laid out each
city in a grid pattern of straight streets crossing each other at
right angles.
 They used oven-baked bricks to build houses with plat wooden
roofs, and some houses had at least one bathroom, with drains
and waterfall (chutes) connected to a brick sewer system beneath
the streets.
Harappan life
 Most of the people worked in the land.
 In the fields of Indus valley floodplain they grew wheat, barley,
rice, cotton.
 Farmers planted at the beginning or end of the flood season and
relied on the drenched land to provide the necessary water for
their crops.
 Supported by food surplus, inhabitants were engaged in industry
and commerce.
 Some artisans worked bronze and copper into tools, while other
made silver vessels and gold, shell, and ivory and jewelry.
 They also mass-produced clay pots and they spun and wove
cotton cloth.
 Many pots, pans and cooking vessels have been found in the
ancient civilization of the Indus valley.
 Each of them has had their own decorative, unique design, with
some of them just plain.
 Most of the pots were made of terracotta but some of the ones
used for cooking were made of bronze.
 They used fire to harden the terracotta pots.
 Merchants who handled these goods used soapstone seals to
identify bundles of merchandise.
 The discovery by archeologists of harappan seals into
Mesopotamia indicates that Indus valley traded with the people
of Mesopotamia as early as 2300 BC.
 The first excavations that were made in the cities of Harappa and
Mohenjo-Daro which were conducted in 1920s.
 Fish in the Indus River were caught by fish hooks and were
eaten with most probably bread.
 They ate animals as well such as sheep, pigs, zebus (a kind of
cow) and water buffalo.
Harappa and Mohenjo-daro
 Possibly served as twin capitals
 Each city had a fortified citadel and a large granary
 Broad streets, market places, temples, public buildings
 Standardized weights, measures, architecture, bricks
Writing and Religion
 They inscribed pictograms on the seals they placed on the
packages of goods.
 Existed but has not been translated (some historians believe that
they people of Indus Valley made their pictograms after
adopting the idea of writing from the people of Mesopotamia.)
 Many deities were feminine
 Animal and humanlike figures suggest that the people of Indus
Valley worshiped gods associated with natural forces.
Decline
 Harappan society had disappeared by 1500 B.C.
 Historians have many theories for what caused the collapse of
this civilization such as;
 natural dreadful conditions led to a subsistence crisis
 Natural disaster - floods or earthquakes
 Population began to abandon their cities
 Evidence of warfare, invasion (In the Mohenjo-daro ruins are
signs that some of its people may have met a violent end,
possibly at the hands of invaders.