The Lost Civilization of the Indus Valley.docx

The Lost Civilization of the Indus Valley Lecture 6 The Indus Valley Civilization was lost to human history from its collapse around 1500 B.C. until the late 19th century, but it was a culture of remarkable complexity and achievement. Like the Mesopotamians, they built extensive irrigation systems a...

The Lost Civilization of the Indus Valley Lecture 6 The Indus Valley Civilization was lost to human history from its collapse around 1500 B.C. until the late 19th century, but it was a culture of remarkable complexity and achievement. Like the Mesopotamians, they built extensive irrigation systems and constructed large cities of mud brick, but all of their construction shows a remarkable amount of uniformity, planning, and civil engineering. The Indus Valley people kept records on clay tablets, but scholars have yet to decipher the symbols, and thus without textual support, it is diffi cult to interpret some of the physical remains. The Lost World  The three great ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China had been remembered and revered. Lost to human memory for more than 2,500 years, however, was a fourth great early civilization centered on the Indus River Valley and encompassing a region including most of modern Pakistan, parts of northwestern India, and parts of Afghanistan.  It is extremely diffi cult to analyze any civilization for which only physical evidence remains without any readable written texts. Thus many of the most basic issues concerning the Indus Valley Civilization, such as its form of government, religious beliefs, and social structures, remain matters of great debate among scholars.  The story of how this civilization was rediscovered and recognized is an extraordinary tale in and of itself. On July 4, 1827, a disaffected British soldier serving in India deserted his regiment. Adopting the alias Charles Masson, he fl ed west into regions not yet controlled by the British and spent the next four years traveling the frontier. 38 Lecture 6: The Lost Civilization of the Indus Valley  Masson was eventually pardoned, became an amateur archaeologist, and wrote several books about his adventures. One book described the remnants of a vast city that the locals told him stretched for 25 miles. In this rubble, he marveled at “the huge remains of a ruinous brick castle.”  The signifi cance of Masson’s fi nd was not appreciated at the time, and the site would suffer great indignities at the hands of the British a few decades later, when British engineers were building a railway line from Karachi to Lahore and the engineers used bricks from these 4,000-year-old ruins, near the modern village of Harappa, as road bed for 93 miles of track.  In 1921, the fi rst proper, organized excavation by a team of British and Indian archaeologists began at Harappa. A year later, another dig started 400 miles south along the Indus River, at an equally impressive site called Mohenjo-daro. These two ancient cities are now acknowledged as centers of a civilization that arose around 3000 B.C. and lasted approximately 1500 years. The ruins of ancient Harappa, near the modern village of the same name, are one of the few surviving hints of the once-great Indus Valley civilization. © Jupiterimages/Photos.com/© Getty Images/Thinkstock. 39 Indus Valley Geography  The geography of the Indus Valley is much like that of ancient Mesopotamia. Large rivers fl ow from a mountain chain in the north down through broad mudfl ats. These rivers bear a rich load of silt, facilitating agriculture, and can be canalized to provide extensive irrigation.  The Indian subcontinent is extremely geographically diverse, covering an area of more than 1.5 million square miles. It has four distinct regions: a mountainous north dominated by the Himalayas; the alluvial plains of the Indus and Ganges rivers; the hilly and dry Deccan Plateau; and the thin tropical rainforest-like Malabar Coast.  In this land full of arid and desert stretches, it is no surprise that water was sacred and important in ritual. Such bathing and cleansing rituals seem to extend all the way back to the time of the cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro. The Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization  Archaeological excavations would eventually reveal over 1,500 settlements of the Indus Valley Civilization, scattered over 250,000 square miles, most of which were small villages. Harappa was roughly three and a half miles in circumference and was surrounded by massive mud brick walls that were 40 feet thick at the bottom.  Population estimates range from 20,000 to 40,000 for Mohenjodaro and from 25,000 to 30,000 for Harappa. The site of Mohenjodaro suggests a crowded, densely populated city with buildings and streets packed close together. However, density does not necessarily equate to chaos. 40 Lecture 6: The Lost Civilization of the Indus Valley  One of the most striking aspects of Indus Valley cities is careful, systematic urban planning. They are oriented according to the cardinal directions, and the streets form a grid pattern, with major streets running north-south and smaller lanes running east-west. Some scholars argue that these alignments refl ect astronomical observations, and perhaps also religious beliefs.  Another remarkable aspect of these cities is the degree of order and standardization they display. Neighborhood blocks were often of uniform size, and wells were carefully spaced throughout the city.  As in the ancient Near East, all the structures were made from baked bricks, but the bricks show an astonishing degree of standardization: Smaller bricks were used in houses, and larger ones in the city walls, but both had an exact thickness-to-widthto-length ratio of 1:2:4. That same ratio is found underlying the dimensions of individual houses, public structures, and even entire regions of the city.  The culture had standardized weights and measures. Archaeologists have found weight stones which increase in a ratio of 1:2:4:8:16:32:64, with the most common weight being the 16th ratio. The weights do not correspond to any of the systems then in use in Mesopotamia or Egypt, but an identical set of weights was used by the later kingdoms of the Ganges River plains and is still used in traditional Indian marketplaces today. The Importance of Water  The single most impressive aspect of Indus Valley cities was their skillful management of water. Like other early fl ood plain civilizations, they learned to dig canals and irrigate their fi elds. But at Mohenjo-daro, for example, all the streets had graded drainage systems that included underground pipes. Individual houses were often equipped with running water and specialized rectilinear structures that have been labeled bathing platforms. 41  There is also evidence of public water facilities. At Mohenjo-daro, a structure labeled the Great Bath by excavators has been called the earliest public water tank in the ancient world. Scholars think it was a place for ritual bathing. It is located on a mound separated from the rest of the city, its position emphasizing its special status.  The prominence of water in daily life suggested by the cities’ architecture and infrastructure has been interpreted by many scholars as proof of water’s important ideological, ritual, and religious resonances. The Artifacts of Daily Life  The Indus Valley Civilization seems to have had a system of writing. More than 4,000 clay tablets and seals have been found containing a unique set of 400 distinct symbols. These symbols have also been found on pots and other objects. Scholars have thus far been unable to translate or interpret this script.  One common fi nd is large numbers of small clay toy fi gures. Among these are tiny carts and oxen, some of which even have movable parts. There are also models of ordinary household objects such as pots, dishes, beds, and tables; spinning tops; whistles; marbles; and dice.  The cities had distinct neighborhoods, some of which seem to have specialized in various crafts or professions, such as shell and agate workshops and coppersmithing. A few fragments of cloth, including several of dyed cotton, hints at the clothing of these cities’ inhabitants.  The Indus Valley Civilization engaged in thriving and far-fl ung trade. Harappan goods have been found as far as Mesopotamia. Mesopotamian records list Indus Valley goods including hardwoods, metals, carnelian, shell, pearls, ivory, and animals. On the Indian coast, the port city of Lothal testifi es to a high volume of maritime trade. 42 Lecture 6: The Lost Civilization of the Indus Valley  The typical art objects uncovered at Indus Valley sites are intricately carved, glazed steatite seals. These often feature realistically rendered animals like bulls, bison, rhinoceroses, and crocodiles as well as fantastic mythical beasts.  One especially famous seal depicts a seated, cross-legged fi gure in a yogic posture of meditation with two deer below him. This image is tantalizingly similar to later images of the Buddha preaching at a deer park. It also suggests an ancient precedent for the distinctive cross-legged yogic posture so prominent and important in later Indian spirituality. The Mysterious Decline of the Indus Valley Civilization  By 3000 B.C., the Indus Valley was densely populated; its great cities had arisen by 2600 B.C. and fl ourished down to about 1900 B.C. Shortly thereafter, the civilization went into a dramatic decline, so that these once-thriving cities were largely abandoned by 1700–1500 B.C.  For many years, scholars subscribed to the theory that the civilization was destroyed by nomadic invasions, but recent scholarship has challenged this. The decline may have been internally generated.  Long-term irrigation increased levels of salt in the soil, reducing crop yields. Portions of the Ghaggar Hakra river system, along which many cities were located, seem to have dried up during this era, with potentially disastrous consequences.  The settlements that followed the Indus Valley cultures showed many indications of a loss of material prosperity: They abandoned town planning; large cities became depopulated; long-distance trade declined; the Indus script was no longer employed; the standardized weights were no longer used; stoneware and bronze manufacture declined or disappeared; and even mud bricks fell out of use. 43  Many fundamental questions persist about the most basic aspects of this once-fl ourishing culture, including its political structure and religious beliefs. They left behind few images of warfare, leading some to suggest an atypically peaceful society. No fi gures priestly or kingly fi gures have been positively identifi ed—an anomalous situation compared to other cultures.  There is little archaeological evidence for political or religious hierarchy or a centralized state. Without these institutions, how to explain the coordination, specialization, and complexity of the Indus Valley Civilization? How was such extensive infrastructure implemented, and in such a uniform fashion?