Also known as: Harappān civilization, Indus valley civilization

Indus civilization, the earliest known urban culture of the Indian subcontinent. The nuclear dates of the civilization appear to be about 2500–1700 BCE, though the southern sites may have lasted later into the 2nd millennium BCE. Among the world’s three earliest civilizations—the other two are those of Mesopotamia and Egypt—the Indus civilization was the most extensive.

The Recovery and Study of the Indus Civilization

The civilization was first identified in 1921 at Harappa in the Punjab region and then in 1922 at Mohenjo-daro (Mohenjodaro), near the Indus River in the Sindh (Sind) region. Both sites are in present-day Pakistan, in Punjab and Sindh provinces, respectively. The ruins of Mohenjo-daro were designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1980.

Subsequently, vestiges of the civilization were found as far apart as Sutkagen Dor in southwestern Balochistan province, Pakistan, near the shore of the Arabian Sea, about 300 miles (480 km) west of Karachi; and at Ropar (or Rupar), in eastern Punjab state, northwestern India, at the foot of the Shimla Hills some 1,000 miles (1,600 km) northeast of Sutkagen Dor. Later exploration established its existence southward down the west coast of India as far as the Gulf of Khambhat (Cambay), 500 miles (800 km) southeast of Karachi, and as far east as the Yamuna (Jumna) River basin, 30 miles (50 km) north of Delhi. It is thus decidedly the most extensive of the world’s three earliest civilizations, even though Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations both began somewhat before it.

The Indus civilization is known to have consisted of two large cities, Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, and more than 100 towns and villages, often of relatively small size. The two cities were each perhaps originally about 1 mile (1.6 km) square in overall dimensions, and their outstanding magnitude suggests political centralization, either in two large states or in a single great empire with alternative capitals, a practice having analogies in Indian history. It is also possible that Harappa succeeded Mohenjo-daro, which is known to have been devastated more than once by exceptional floods. The population was estimated to be 23,500–35,000 in Harappa and 35,000–41,250 in Mohenjo-daro. The southern region of the civilization, on the Kathiawar Peninsula and beyond, appears to be of later origin than the major Indus sites.

The Indus civilization apparently evolved from the villages of neighbours or predecessors, using the Mesopotamian model of irrigated agriculture with sufficient skill to reap the advantages of the spacious and fertile Indus River valley while controlling the formidable annual flood that simultaneously fertilizes and destroys. Having obtained a secure foothold on the plain and mastered its more immediate problems, the new civilization, doubtless with a well-nourished and increasing population, would find expansion along the flanks of the great waterways an inevitable sequel. The civilization subsisted primarily by farming, supplemented by an appreciable but often elusive commerce. Wheat and six-row barley were grown; field peas, mustard, sesame, and a few date stones have also been found, as well as some of the earliest known traces of cotton. Domesticated animals included dogs and cats, humped and shorthorn cattle, domestic fowl, and possibly pigs, camels, and buffalo. The Asian elephant probably was also domesticated, and its ivory tusks were freely used.

Society and political system

Despite a growing body of archaeological evidence, the social and political structures of the Indus “state” remain objects of conjecture. The apparent craft specialization and localized craft groupings at Mohenjo-daro, along with the great divergence in house types and size, point toward some degree of social stratification. Trade was extensive and apparently well-regulated, providing imported raw materials for use at internal production centres, distributing finished goods throughout the region, and arguably culminating in the establishment of Harappan “colonies” in both Mesopotamia and Badakhshan. The remarkable uniformity of weights and measures throughout the Indus lands, as well as the development of such presumably civic works as the great granaries, implies a strong degree of political and administrative control over a wide area. Further, the widespread occurrence of inscriptions in the Harappan script almost certainly indicates the use of a single lingua franca. Nevertheless, in the absence of inscriptions that can be read and interpreted, it is inevitable that far less is known of these aspects of the Indus civilization than those of contemporaneous Mesopotamia.

Craft, Technology, and Artifacts

Excavations of Indus cities have produced much evidence of artistic activity. Such finds are important because they provide insights into the minds, lives, and religious beliefs of their creators. Stone sculpture is extremely rare, and much of it is quite crude. The total repertoire cannot compare to the work done in Mesopotamia during the same periods.

The figures are apparently all intended as images for worship. Such figures include seated men, recumbent composite animals, or—in unique instances (from Harappa)—a standing nude male and a dancing figure. The finest pieces are of excellent quality. There is also a small but notable repertoire of cast-bronze figures, including several fragments and complete examples of dancing girls, small chariots, carts, and animals. The technical excellence of the bronzes suggests a highly developed art, but the number of examples is still small. They appear to be Indian workmanship rather than imports.

The popular art of the Harappans was in the form of terra-cotta figurines. The majority are of standing females, often heavily laden with jewelry, but standing males—some with beard and horns—are also present. It has been generally agreed that these figures are largely deities (perhaps a Great Mother and a Great God), but some small figures of mothers with children or of domestic activities are probably toys. There are varieties of terra-cotta animals, carts, and toys—such as monkeys pierced to climb a string and cattle that nod their heads. Painted pottery is the only evidence that there was a tradition of painting. Much of the work is executed with boldness and delicacy of feeling, but the restrictions of the art do not leave much scope for creativity.

Perhaps the best-known artifacts of the Indus civilization are a number of small seals. The seals were generally cut from steatite (soapstone) and were carved in intaglio or incised with a copper burin (cutting tool). The great majority of seals show a humpless “unicorn” or bull in profile, while others show the Indian humped bull, elephant, bison, rhinoceros, or tiger. The animal frequently stands before a ritual object, variously identified as a standard, a manger, or even an incense burner.

A considerable number of the seals contain scenes of obvious mythological or religious significance. The interpretation of these seals is, however, often highly problematic. The seals were certainly more widely diffused than other artistic artifacts and show a much higher level of workmanship. Probably they functioned as amulets, as well as more-practical devices to identify merchandise.

Copper and bronze were the principal metals used for making tools and implements. These include flat oblong axes, chisels, knives, spears, arrowheads (of a kind that was evidently exported to neighbouring hunting tribes), small saws, and razors. All these could be made by simple casting, chiseling, and hammering. Bronze is less common than copper, and it is notably rarer in the lower levels. Four main varieties of metal have been found: crude copper lumps in the state in which they left the smelting furnace; refined copper, containing trace elements of arsenic and antimony; an alloy of copper with 2 to 5 percent of arsenic; and bronze with a tin alloy, often of as much as 11 to 13 percent. The copper and bronze vessels of the Harappans are among their finest products, formed by hammering sheets of metal. Casting of copper and bronze was understood, and figurines of men and animals were made by the lost-wax process. These too are technically outstanding, though the overall level of copper-bronze technology is not considered to have reached the level attained in Mesopotamia.

Other metals used were gold, silver, and lead. The latter was employed occasionally for making small vases and such objects as plumb bobs. Silver is relatively more common than gold, and more than a few vessels are known, generally in forms similar to copper and bronze examples. Gold is by no means common and was generally reserved for such small objects as beads, pendants, and brooches.

Other special crafts include the manufacture of faience (earthenware decorated with coloured glazes)—for making beads, amulets, sealings, and small vessels—and the working of stone for bead manufacture and for seals. Beads were made from a variety of substances, but the carnelians are particularly noteworthy. They include several varieties of etched carnelian and long barrel beads made with extraordinary skill and accuracy. Shell and ivory were also worked and were used for beads, inlays, combs, bracelets, and the like.

The pottery of the Indus cities has all the marks of mass production. A substantial proportion is thrown on the wheel (probably the same kind of footwheel that is still found in the Indus region and to the west to this day, as distinguished from the Indian spun wheel common throughout the remaining parts of the subcontinent). The majority of the pottery is competent plain ware, well formed and fired but lacking in aesthetic appeal. A substantial portion of the pottery has a red slip and is painted with black decoration. Larger pots were probably built up on a turntable. Among the painted designs, conventionalized vegetable patterns are common, and the elaborate geometric designs of the painted pottery of Balochistan give way to simpler motifs, such as intersecting circles or a scale pattern. Birds, animals, fish, and more interesting scenes are comparatively rare. Of the vessel forms, a shallow platter on a tall stand (known as the offering stand) is noteworthy, as is a tall cylindrical vessel perforated with small holes over its entire length and often open at top and bottom. The function of this latter vessel remains a mystery.

Although little has survived, very great interest attaches to the fragments of cotton textiles recovered at Mohenjo-daro. These provide the earliest evidence of a crop and industry for which India has long been famous. It is assumed that the raw cotton must have been brought in bales to the cities to be spun, woven, and perhaps dyed, as the presence of dyers’ vats would seem to indicate.

Stone, although largely absent from the great alluvial plain of the Indus, played a major role in Harappan material culture. Scattered sources, mostly on the periphery, were exploited as major factory sites. Thus, the stone blades found in great numbers at Mohenjo-daro originated in the flint quarries at Sukkur, where they were probably struck in quantity from prepared cores.

Language, Scripts, Weights, and Measures

The maintenance of so extensive a set of relations as those implicit in the size and uniformity of the Harappan state and the extent of trade contacts must have called for a well-developed means of communication. The Harappan script has long defied attempts to read it, and therefore the language remains unknown. Relatively recent analyses of the order of the signs on the inscriptions have led several scholars to the view that the language is not of the Indo-European family, nor is it close to Sumerian, Hurrian, or Elamite. If it is related to any modern language family, it appears to be the Dravidian, presently spoken throughout the southern part of the Indian peninsula; an isolated member of this group, the Brahui language, is spoken in western Pakistan, an area closer to those regions of Harappan culture. The script, which was written from right to left, is known from the 2,000-odd short inscriptions so far recovered, ranging from single characters to inscriptions of about 20 characters. There are more than 500 signs, many appearing to be compounds of two or more other signs, but it is not yet clear whether these signs are ideographic, logographic, or other. Numerous studies of the inscriptions have been made during the past decades, including those by a Russian team under Yury Valentinovich Knorozov and a Finnish group led by Asko Parpola. Despite various claims to have read the script, there is still no general agreement.

The Harappans also employed regular systems of weights and measures. An early analysis of a fair number of the well-formed chert cuboid weights suggested that they followed a binary system for the lower denominations—1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64—and a decimal system for the larger weights—160, 200, 320, 640, 1,600, 3,200, 6,400, 8,000, and 12,800—with the unit of weight being calculated as 0.8565 gram (0.0302 ounce). However, a more recent analysis, which included additional weights from the small settlement excavated at Lothal, suggests a rather different system, with weights belonging to two series. In both series the underlying principle was decimal, with each decimal number multiplied and divided by two, giving for the main series ratios of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500(?). This suggests that there is still much work to be done to understand the full complexity of the weight system. Several scales of measurement were found in the excavations. One was a decimal scale of 1.32 inches (3.35 cm) rising probably to 13.2 inches (33.5 cm), apparently corresponding to the “foot” that was widespread in western Asia; another is a bronze rod marked in lengths of 0.367 inch (0.93 cm), apparently half a digit of a “cubit” of 20.7 inches (52.6 cm), also widespread in western Asia and Egypt. Measurements from some of the structures show that these units were accurately applied in practice.

It has also been suggested that certain curious objects may have been accurately made optical squares with which surveyors might offset right angles. In view of the accuracy of so much of the architectural work, this theory appears quite plausible.

Trade and External Contacts

It has been seen above that the area covered by the Indus civilization had a remarkably uniform level of material culture. This suggests a closely knit and integrated administration and implies internal trade within the state. Evidence of the actual exportation of objects is not always easy to find, but the wide diffusion of chert blades made of the characteristic Sukkur stone and the enormous scale of the factory at the Sukkur site strongly suggest trade. Other items also appear to indicate trade, such as the almost identical bronze carts discovered at Chanhu-daro and Harappa, for which a common origin must be postulated.

The wide range of crafts and special materials employed must also have caused the establishment of economic relations with peoples living outside the Harappan state. Such trade may be considered to be of two kinds: first, the obtaining of raw materials and other goods from the village communities or forest tribes in regions adjoining the Indus culture area; and second, trade with the cities and empires of Mesopotamia. There is ample indication of the former type, even if the regions from which specific materials were derived are not easy to pinpoint. Gold was almost certainly imported from the group of settlements that sprang up in the vicinity of the goldfields of northern Karnataka, and copper could have come from several sources—principally from Rajasthan. Lead may have come from Rajasthan or elsewhere in India. Lapis lazuli was probably imported from Iran rather than directly from the mines at Badakhshan, and turquoise probably also came from Iran. Among others were fuchsite (a chromium-rich variety of muscovite) from Karnataka, alabaster from Iran, amethyst from Maharashtra, and jade from Central Asia. There is little evidence of what the Harappans gave in exchange for these materials—possibly nondurable goods such as cotton textiles and probably various types of beads. They may have also bartered tools or weapons of copper.

For the trade with Mesopotamia there is both literary and archaeological evidence. The Harappan seals were evidently used to seal bundles of merchandise, as clay seal impressions with cord or sack marks on the reverse side testify. The presence of a number of Indus seals at Ur and other Mesopotamian cities and the discovery of a “Persian Gulf” type of seal at Lothal—otherwise known from the Persian Gulf ports of Dilmun (present-day Bahrain) and Faylakah, as well as from Mesopotamia—provide convincing indication of sea trade with other civilizations. Timber and precious woods, ivory, lapis lazuli, gold, and luxury goods such as carnelian beads, pearls, and shell and bone inlays, including the distinctly Indian kidney shape, were among the goods sent to Mesopotamia in exchange for silver, tin, woolen textiles, and grains and other foods. Copper ingots appear to have been imported to Lothal from a place known as Magan (possibly in present-day Oman). Other probable trade items include products originating exclusively in each respective region, such as bitumen, occurring naturally in Mesopotamia, and cotton textiles and chickens, major products of the Indus region not native to Mesopotamia.

Mesopotamian trade documents, lists of goods, and official inscriptions mentioning Meluhha (the ancient Akkadian name for the Indus region) supplement Harappan seals and archaeological finds. Literary references to Meluhhan trade date from the Akkadian, Ur III, and Isin-Larsa periods (i.e., c. 2350–1794 BCE), but, as texts and archaeological data indicate, the trade probably started in the Early Dynastic Period (c. 2600 BCE). During the Akkadian Period, Meluhhan vessels sailed directly to Mesopotamian ports. But by the Isin-Larsa Period, Dilmun was the entrepôt for Meluhhan and Mesopotamian traders. By the subsequent Old Babylonian Period, trade between the two cultures evidently had ceased entirely.

Decline of the urban system and the end of the Indus civilization:

How and when the civilization came to an end remains uncertain, and no uniform ending need be postulated for a culture so widely distributed. The decline probably occurred in several stages, perhaps over a century or more: the period between about 2000 and 1750 BCE is a reasonable estimation.

The collapse of the urban system does not necessarily imply a complete breakdown in the lifestyle of the population in all parts of the Indus region, but it seems to have involved the end of whatever system of social and political control had preceded it. After that date the cities, as such, and many of their distinctively urban traits—the use of writing and of seals and a number of the specialized urban crafts—disappear.

The end of Mohenjo-daro is known, however, and was dramatic and sudden. Mohenjo-daro was attacked toward the middle of the 2nd millennium BCE by raiders who swept over the city and then passed on, leaving the dead lying where they fell. Who the attackers were is matter for conjecture. The episode would appear to be consistent in time and place with the earlier invaders from the north (believed to be Indo-European speakers)

into the Indus region as reflected in the older books of the Rigveda, in which the newcomers are represented as attacking the “walled cities” or “citadels” of the aboriginal peoples and the invaders’ war-god Indra as rending forts “as age consumes a garment.” However, one thing is clear: the city was already in an advanced stage of economic and social decline before it received the coup de grâce. Deep floods had more than once submerged large tracts of it. Houses had become increasingly shoddy in construction and showed signs of overcrowding. The final blow seems to have been sudden, but the city was already dying.

As the evidence stands, the civilization was succeeded in the Indus valley by poverty-stricken cultures, deriving a little from a sub-Indus heritage but also drawing elements from the direction of Iran and the Caucasus—from the general direction, in fact, of the northern invasions. For many centuries urban civilization was dead in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent.

In the south, however, in Kathiawar and beyond, the situation appears to have been very different. There it would seem that there was a real cultural continuity between the late Indus phase and the Copper Age cultures that characterized central and western India between 1700 and the 1st millennium BCE. Those cultures form a material bridge between the end of the Indus civilization proper and the developed Iron Age civilization that arose in India about 1000 BCE.