- Well-planned city layout: Harappan cities had a Citadel (raised area) and a Lower Town, with grid-pattern streets, showing advanced town planning.
- Strong construction materials: Buildings were made on mud-brick platforms using strong baked bricks, ensuring durability.
- Excellent drainage system: Cities had covered street drains connected to houses, with inspection holes and sumps, maintaining hygiene.
- Smart house design: Houses were built around a central courtyard, with private entrances and few windows, giving privacy and comfort.
- Good water supply and sanitation: Houses had bathrooms inside, brick-paved floors, and nearby wells, with drains linked to main streets.
- Citadel as main centre: The Citadel was built on a high platform and contained important structures like the Great Bath and public buildings, showing religious and administrative importance.
- Great Bath and standardization: The Great Bath was watertight and used for ritual bathing, while standardised bricks and uniform planning indicate strong central control.
Key Points
Key points: Mohenjodaro – A Planned Urban Centre
Key Points: The End of the Civilisation
- By 1800 BCE, most Mature Harappan cities were abandoned.
- People migrated eastwards to Gujarat, Haryana, and western U.P.
- Distinct Harappan features like seals, writing, weights, and trade declined.
- Life became rural with simpler houses and fewer public buildings.
- Causes included climate change, floods, river shifts, and loss of central authority.
Key Points: Agricultural Technologies
- Ploughing was known, indicated by terracotta bull figures.
- Ploughed fields found at Kalibangan show criss-cross furrows.
- Two different crops were grown together in the same field.
- Irrigation was necessary due to semi-arid climate.
- Canals, wells, and reservoirs (e.g. Dholavira) were used for water storage.
Key Points: Beginnings of the Harappan Civilisation
- Several archaeological cultures existed before the Mature Harappan phase.
- These cultures practised agriculture, pastoralism, and simple crafts.
- Early settlements were small and had very few large structures.
- Harappan culture emerged from early farming communities around 7000 BCE.
- The Mature Harappan phase developed gradually from the Early Harappan stage.
Key Points: Subsistence Strategies
- Harappans depended on agriculture, animal domestication, hunting, and fishing.
- Archaeologists studied charred grains to understand diet.
- Crops included wheat, barley, lentil, chickpea, and sesame.
- Millets were mainly found in Gujarat sites.
- Bones of cattle, sheep, goat, fish, and wild animals were discovered.
Key Points: Tracking Social Differences
- Burial practices were studied and bodies were found laid in pits, sometimes lined with bricks (e.g., Harappa cemetery), showing possible social differences.
- Grave goods were found like pottery, ornaments and jewellery (shells, jasper beads), showing a limited belief in life after death.
- Gender aspect was observed as jewellery was found in both male and female burials, suggesting no strong gender inequality.
- Precious goods were rare in burials, with only a few valuables like copper mirrors and micro-beads, showing no extreme display of wealth.
- Utilitarian objects were common such as querns, pottery and needles, found across settlements, showing a common daily lifestyle.
- Luxury items were limited but present like faience, gold and semi-precious stones, indicating that social differences existed.
- Luxury items were concentrated in large cities like Mohenjodaro and Harappa, showing the presence of an urban elite class.
Key Points: Finding Out About Craft Production
- Craft centres like Chanhudaro, Lothal and Dholavira developed as small specialised settlements, showing intensive craft production.
- Major crafts included bead-making, shell-cutting and metal-working, along with seal-making and weight-making, proving skilled artisans existed.
- Raw materials used were carnelian, jasper, quartz and steatite, along with copper, bronze, gold and shell, showing use of both local and imported resources.
- Bead-making was a multi-stage process, where rough nodules were shaped, polished, drilled and finished, showing advanced technology.
- Special tools like stone drills and moulds were used, indicating trained and specialised craftsmen.
- Craft centres were identified by unfinished goods, rejects, waste material and raw material remains, proving production was done there.
- Finished goods were distributed to major cities like Mohenjodaro and Harappa, showing a centralised distribution network.
Key Points: Strategies for Procuring Materials
- Harappans used different transport routes to bring raw materials, including bullock carts (land routes), river routes along the Indus, and coastal sea routes.
- They established settlements near important raw material sources, such as Nageshwar and Balakot for shell, Shortughai for lapis lazuli (Afghanistan), and Lothal for carnelian, steatite and metals.
- They also sent expeditions to distant regions like Khetri (Rajasthan) for copper and South India for gold, showing organised trade and contact with local communities.
- The Ganeshwar–Jodhpura culture in Rajasthan possibly supplied copper to the Harappans, as the region had rich copper objects and non-Harappan pottery.
- Harappans had overseas trade links with Oman and Mesopotamia, importing copper from Oman and exchanging goods through sea trade, as shown by chemical evidence (nickel traces) and Mesopotamian references to Meluhha (Harappan region).
Key Points: Seals, Script and Weights
- Seals and sealings were used for long-distance trade, as clay seal impressions on tied bags ensured goods were not tampered with.
- Sealings also showed the identity of the sender, proving who had sent the goods.
- Harappan seals had an undeciphered script, usually with the name and title of the owner, along with animal motifs for meaning.
- The Harappan script was not alphabetical because it had about 375–400 signs, and it was written from right to left.
- Trade was regulated by a standard system of weights, made of chert stone, with smaller weights in binary system and larger ones in decimal system, showing accurate measurement.
Key Points: Ancient Authority
- Uniformity in artefacts such as pottery, seals, weights and bricks (same size ratio across regions) shows strong central planning and organised administration.
- Large-scale construction activities, like massive walls and platforms, indicate mobilization of labour and coordinated decision-making.
- No clear evidence of kings or palaces has been found; the so-called “priest-king” statue does not prove existence of a ruler.
- Historians have different views — some believe there were no rulers, others think there were multiple rulers, while some argue for a single central authority.
- The Harappan system may have had some form of organized or possibly democratic governance, as settlements were carefully planned and strategically located.
Key Points: Discovering the Harappan Civilisation
- After the decline of Harappan cities, people forgot about them and early artefacts were not properly understood when rediscovered.
- Alexander Cunningham (19th century) failed to recognise Harappa’s importance because he focused mainly on Early Historic sites and written records.
- In the early 20th century, Daya Ram Sahni and Rakhal Das Banerji discovered similar seals at Harappa and Mohenjodaro, showing they belonged to one civilisation.
- In 1924, John Marshall officially announced the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization, proving it was as old as Mesopotamia.
- Marshall excavated horizontally and ignored stratigraphy, which led to loss of important contextual information.
- R.E.M. Wheeler (1944) improved excavation methods by following proper stratigraphy and introducing scientific discipline in archaeology.
- After Partition, Indian archaeologists discovered new sites like Kalibangan, Lothal, Rakhigarhi and Dholavira, and modern scientific techniques are now used to study Harappan culture.
Key Points: Problems of Piecing Together the Past
- Harappan life is mainly reconstructed through material evidence like pottery, tools, ornaments, and household objects, not the script.
- Organic materials (cloth, wood, leather, reeds) usually decay in tropical climate, so mostly stone, metal and terracotta survive.
- Only broken or useless objects were thrown away; valuable items were often recycled, so complete artefacts found today are mostly accidental discoveries.
- Archaeologists classify artefacts by material (stone, clay, metal, bone, ivory) and by function (tool, ornament, ritual object, etc.).
- The context of discovery (house, grave, drain, kiln) helps archaeologists decide the use of an object.
- Interpretation is difficult, especially in religion, as objects like mother goddess figurines, Great Bath, fire altars and “proto-Shiva” seals are still debated.
- Many Harappan conclusions remain speculative, and questions like literacy, gender roles, social equality in burials, and Harappan-Vedic relations need further research.
