THE FIRST CITIES AND ITS CIVILIZATIONS (THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION)

THE FIRST CITIES AND ITS CIVILIZATIONS

A civilization makes a city and it is large and densely populated area. Cities are also known as urban areas. When and more people start moving from villages to towns and cities, the process is called urbanization. Urbanization is one of the key features of civilization. There are some famous civilizations which lived in this world and they had left very valuable things which are at another level.

THE INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION

The Indus Valley Civilization was an ancient civilization. The Chalcolithic Age was followed by the Bronze Age. In the Bronze Age people started using bronze. About 4700 years ago, the largest Bronze Age civilization in the world emerged in the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent. Since this culture was born in the valley of the Indus River, it came to be known as the Indus Valley civilization. The Harappan culture (as the Indus civilization was also known) was the largest of the ancient civilisations. It was spread over 650000 sq.km, which is more than twice the area of the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilisations.

This civilization stretched eastward from the current border of Iran to areas beyond Delhi, and it stretched southward till the Godavari River. More than 1400 Indus civilization sites have been discovered to date, and more continue to be discovered. Of these the more important ones include Mohenjodaro, Harappa and Mehrgarh (all three in Pakistan), Dholavira and Lothal in Gujarat, Rakhigarhi and Banawali in Haryana, Ropar in Punjab, Kalibangan in Rajasthan, and Alamgirpur in Uttar Pradesh.

Excavations at sites like Mehrgarh, in Pakistan, show that this civilization evolved gradually from village communities around 7000 to 5000 BCE. It reached a highly developed phase from 2600 to 1900 BCE. The cities of Mohenjodaro, Harappa and Dholavira flourished during this phase.

Town planning

The most striking feature of the Indus civilization was the well-planned nature of its cities. Most of our knowledge of the Indus cities is based on excavations at Mohenjodaro and Harappa. They proved that the ancient times technology was very advanced. They customize their work at top level.

Like most of the Indus towns, Mohenjodaro was a grid planned city, i.e. all the streets cut each other at right angles. It was divided into two parts. One part was at a higher level. It was built on a massive platform constructed of baked brick. Archaeologists call this area the citadel or acropolis. It might have been the administrative centre of the city where all the large public buildings were located. The lower part of the city consisted of the houses of the common people.

THE GREAT BATH

Within the citadel at Mohenjodaro, archaeologists found a structure that they called the Great Bath. This was a rectangular tank made of fired bricks closely fitted together. This tank was made waterproof by a 3 cm thick layer of bitumen (tar). Fights of steps from opposite sides led to the bottom of the tank. There were several rooms along the other two sides of the tank. In one of the rooms there was a large well, from which water was supplied to the tank. Used or dirty water was drained out through an outlet to a brick drain. Archaeologists are not sure what this structure was used for. It might have been used by the people of the city to have a bath before attending important functions and ceremonies. 

This shows that they were very sensitive about beauty and they had the curiosity that how can they develop their art of beauty.

THE GRANARY

To the west of the bath, a massive brick platform has been excavated. The shape and size of this structure suggests that it might have been a granary. A large granary has been excavated at Harappa too.

RESIDENTIAL AREA

In the town area, away from the citadel, platforms were built for houses. These platforms enabled houses in the city to be built above the flood level. Most of the houses were plain and uniform in plan; the rooms of each house were arranged around a courtyard. Each house had a single entrance and one of every three houses had a well too. Many houses had a separate bathing area as well. Some of the houses were double storied.

DRAINAGE

As the houses were built, a careful drainage system was laid out. The drains in houses invariably led to a cess-pool or manhole. The drains along the main roads were covered and were inspected and cleaned regularly. The drainage system of the Indus cities stands out as remarkable among the cities of the world at that time.

Were there rulers in these cities?

The Indus cities were well planned, with straight roads, walled citadels and well-maintained drains, which definitely means that there was a high standard of administration. Unfortunately, till the script of the Indus civilization is deciphered, we can hardly say anything about the nature of the government in the Indus cities.

What did the people eat?

The Indus Civilization makes their own food. They know how to cultivate crops. A number of crops were cultivated – cereals like wheat and barley, pulses, oilseeds like mustard and sesame, and millets like bajra, ragi and jowar. Remains of these crops have been found from the excavated sites. We do not find much evidence of the cultivation of rice. Fish, meat, milk, date and fruit were also a part of the diet. This is so amazing that they had developed themselves to feed their family in a proper way.

What did they wear?

They wear clothes, ornaments and some of the culture is also followed by the present civilization. They discovered all those things to make their live style comfortable. Archaeologists have found evidence of cotton and woven cloth. Spindles made of clay have been found in many sites. (Spindles are used to spin cotton thread). Men wore flowing lengths of cloths, while the women wore skirts, as can be seen from various figurines found in the sites. Both the men and the women seem to have draped a shawl over their shoulders.

Both men and women wore ornaments made of gold, silver, faience, and beads of semi-precious stones like jade, lapis lazuli, cornelian and agate. Bangles, earrings and necklaces seem to have been popular.

The women used kajal for their eyes and painted their lips, as they do even today.

Did they know to write?

We know that the ancient times people also maintain their communication by various sign language. But, it is a very good mark that the people of the Indus civilization had developed a form of writing. This was one of the world’s earliest known scripts. Writing was in the form of brief inscriptions found mainly on seals of different materials like clay, baked clay and steatite (i.e. soap stone). Archaeologists reveal that the writing is usually from right to left. Unfortunately, the script has not been deciphered so far. But if we can decipher the writings, it will give us a lot of information about their communication, their secrets etc.

Metallurgy

The Indus people alloyed copper and tin to make bronze, which was more malleable and stronger than copper. Knives, axes and chisels were made of stone. Copper tools like razors, hooks, sickles and axes were also made, and so were smaller copper tools like nails and needles. They had no knowledge of iron, but they developed themselves without discovering ir

Pottery

Besides agriculture, probably the most popular occupation was pot making. A variety of pots, both plain and decorated, have been found. Many pots were painted red, with designs in black suggesting geometric patterns. They developed themselves in various forms of art. The pots they had made in ancient times shows their creativity and their curiosity.

Art and craft

Two finely sculpted works of art were recovered from Mohenjodaro. One is the bust of the bearded man who has his robe thrown over one shoulder, similar to what one finds in Mesopotamia. The other is that of the famed ‘dancing girl’ in bronze. Many terracotta figures of animals, carts, toys and human figures were recovered from the sites. Some of the toys had parts which moved, for example, bulls and rams that could shake their heads and tails. There are toy birds which can move up and down ropes. Such toys are made in the villages of India even today.

Seals

Many seals have been found in the Indus Valley, mainly made of steatite. Most of them show figures of animals, with writing on the top portion. Most of them are square in shape, a few round and some cylindrical. The sealings were used in ancient times for trade. They would be made on ceramics or the clay tags used to seal the rope around bundles of goods.

Weights and measures

At several of the Indus Valley cities, cube-shaped stone measures of weight in graduated sizes have been found. The smallest weight found is 0.856 g and the most common weight is approximately 13.7 g. Remarkably, they seem to be uniform throughout the Indus territory. These weights may be used to make trade easier.

Religion

Seals representing a male figure sitting in the form of a yogi, a figure like a mother goddess and pipal trees tell us little about the faith of the people. They may have worshipped Pasupati, an early form of Shiva, and mother goddesses. Evidence of burial practices has been found at cemeteries at Harappa, Lothal and a few other sites. The dead were buried wearing ornaments and with a few pots.

Trade

The people of the Indus civilization had established a flourishing system of tread – both by land and by sea. The two large structures at Harappa and Mohenjodaro, identified as granaries, suggest the storage of grains. The grains probably came from villages. The villages may have traded the grain for some of the goods produced in the cities. Besides roads, the Indus river system must have been used for trade. Ornaments made in the Indus Valley have been found by archaeologists in Mesopotamia, which suggests that there was trade between the two civilizations. A dockyard found at Lothal also suggests the possibility of overseas trade with western Asia.

The end of the Indus civilization

This advanced civilization appears to have declined suddenly after 2000 BCE. Why it declined remains a puzzle, but a few reasons have been suggested.

The cities might have been destroyed by earthquakes or flood. Another factor could be the falling quality of the soil due to excessive deforestation. Environmental disasters like earthquakes might have caused rivers to change their course. The resulting floods and droughts might have caused crops to fail, and spread epidemics.

Over time, people would have moved away and the cities would have crumbled.

 However, the civilization was vanished though their culture and their daily life is now discovered by the researchers and it gives us a very valuable information about that time. It gives us inspiration to develop our civilization. As many years ago, they had developed at a very high range, therefore today we have the chance to learn the techniques and develop our civilization. We also have to maintain a good relation between the nature and human.