The pre-Harappan period was characterized by a primitive, Stone Age culture, while the late Harappan period featured sophisticated brick cities built on a grid system, with granaries, toilets and an as-yet undeciphered written language.
That suggests the Harappan civilization is nearly as old as sites from West Asia such as Jericho, where evidence of a neolithic city has been found to date from as early as BC. But it also means that Harappa, with new proof of hakra ware dating to BC, may have been more technologically advanced — bolstering India's claim to the title of the cradle of civilization.
Those dates were also supported when Carbon dates started to come from other parts of the world. More from GlobalPost: Mumbai on high alert with right-wing leader Bal Thackeray in critical condition. But with these dates [from Bhirrana] things have entirely changed. Both Dikshit and Mani downplayed competition between India and Pakistan for bragging rights over the Indus civilization — where the best archaeological site for tourists is in Mohenjadaro, in Pakistan's Sindh province.
But the ancient has a way of bleeding into the modern, as various controversies have shown over the years. Rajaram's fraudulent claim that he had deciphered the Harappan script, introduced horses into a concocted history of the Harappan period in order to provide a missing link to the Vedic period in which the oldest scriptures of Hinduism were written.
Harappans are believed to have used Indus Script, a language consisting of symbols. A collection of written texts on clay and stone tablets unearthed at Harappa, which have been carbon dated BCE, contain trident-shaped, plant-like markings. As many as distinct Indus symbols have been found on seals, small tablets, ceramic pots, and more than a dozen other materials.
Typical Indus inscriptions are no more than four or five characters in length, most of which are very small. The longest on a single surface, which is less than 1 inch or 2. The characters are largely pictorial, but include many abstract signs that do not appear to have changed over time. The inscriptions are thought to have been primarily written from right to left, but it is unclear whether this script constitutes a complete language.
At TED , he explained how he was enlisting modern computational techniques to read the Indus language. The Harappan religion remains a topic of speculation. It has been widely suggested that the Harappans worshipped a mother goddess who symbolized fertility. In contrast to Egyptian and Mesopotamian civilizations, the Indus Valley Civilization seems to have lacked any temples or palaces that would give clear evidence of religious rites or specific deities.
Some Indus Valley seals show a swastika symbol, which was included in later Indian religions including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Many Indus Valley seals also include the forms of animals, with some depicting them being carried in processions, while others showing chimeric creations, leading scholars to speculate about the role of animals in Indus Valley religions. One seal from Mohenjo-daro shows a half-human, half-buffalo monster attacking a tiger. This may be a reference to the Sumerian myth of a monster created by Aruru, the Sumerian earth and fertility goddess, to fight Gilgamesh, the hero of an ancient Mesopotamian epic poem.
This is a further suggestion of international trade in Harappan culture. The civilization eventually disappeared along with its two great cities, Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. Archaeological evidence indicates that trade with Mesopotamia, located largely in modern Iraq, seemed to have ended.
The advanced drainage system and baths of the great cities were built over or blocked. Writing began to disappear and the standardized weights and measures used for trade and taxation fell out of use. Scholars have put forth differing theories to explain the disappearance of the Harappans, including an Aryan Invasion and climate change marked by overwhelming monsoons.
The Indus Valley Civilization may have met its demise due to invasion. According to one theory by British archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler, a nomadic, Indo-European tribe, called the Aryans, suddenly overwhelmed and conquered the Indus River Valley.
Wheeler, who was Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India from to , posited that many unburied corpses found in the top levels of the Mohenjo-daro archaeological site were victims of war. The theory suggested that by using horses and more advanced weapons against the peaceful Harappan people, the Aryans may have easily defeated them.
Yet shortly after Wheeler proposed his theory, other scholars dismissed it by explaining that the skeletons were not victims of invasion massacres, but rather the remains of hasty burials. Wheeler himself eventually admitted that the theory could not be proven and the skeletons indicated only a final phase of human occupation, with the decay of the city structures likely a result of it becoming uninhabited. Various elements of the Indus Civilization are found in later cultures, suggesting the civilization did not disappear suddenly due to an invasion.
Many scholars came to believe in an Indo-Aryan Migration theory stating that the Harappan culture was assimilated during a migration of the Aryan people into northwest India.
Aryans in India: An early 20th-century depiction of Aryan people settling in agricultural villages in India. Other scholarship suggests the collapse of Harappan society resulted from climate change. Some experts believe the drying of the Saraswati River, which began around BCE, was the main cause for climate change, while others conclude that a great flood struck the area. Any major environmental change, such as deforestation, flooding or droughts due to a river changing course, could have had disastrous effects on Harappan society, such as crop failures, starvation, and disease.
Skeletal evidence suggests many people died from malaria, which is most often spread by mosquitoes. This also would have caused a breakdown in the economy and civic order within the urban areas. Another disastrous change in the Harappan climate might have been eastward-moving monsoons, or winds that bring heavy rains.
Monsoons can be both helpful and detrimental to a climate, depending on whether they support or destroy vegetation and agriculture. The monsoons that came to the Indus River Valley aided the growth of agricultural surpluses, which supported the development of cities, such as Harappa.
The population came to rely on seasonal monsoons rather than irrigation, and as the monsoons shifted eastward, the water supply would have dried up. Ruins of the city of Lothal: Archaeological evidence shows that the site, which had been a major city before the downfall of the Indus Valley Civilization, continued to be inhabited by a much smaller population after the collapse. The few people who remained in Lothal did not repair the city, but lived in poorly-built houses and reed huts instead.
The Harappans may have migrated toward the Ganges basin in the east, where they established villages and isolated farms. These small communities could not produce the same agricultural surpluses to support large cities. With the reduced production of goods, there was a decline in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia. Privacy Policy. Skip to main content. Early Civilizations in the Indian Subcontinent.
Search for:. The Indus River Valley Civilizations. Inhabitants of the ancient Indus River valley developed new techniques in handicraft, including Carnelian products and seal carving, and metallurgy with copper, bronze, lead, and tin. Sir John Hubert Marshall led an excavation campaign in , during which he discovered the ruins of the city of Harappa.
By , over 1, cities and settlements of the Indus Civilization were located. Key Terms seal : An emblem used as a means of authentication. Seal can refer to an impression in paper, wax, clay, or other medium. It can also refer to the device used. These cities contained well-organized wastewater drainage systems, trash collection systems, and possibly even public granaries and baths.
Although there were large walls and citadels, there is no evidence of monuments, palaces, or temples. The uniformity of Harappan artifacts suggests some form of authority and governance to regulate seals, weights, and bricks. Key Terms granaries : A storehouse or room in a barn for threshed grain or animal feed. Key Takeaways Key Points The Indus River Valley Civilization, also known as Harappan civilization, developed the first accurate system of standardized weights and measures, some as accurate as to 1.
Harappans created sculpture, seals, pottery, and jewelry from materials, such as terracotta, metal, and stone. Evidence shows Harappans participated in a vast maritime trade network extending from Central Asia to modern-day Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, and Syria. The Indus Script remains indecipherable without any comparable symbols, and is thought to have evolved independently of the writing in Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt. Key Terms steatite : Also known as Soapstone, steatite is a talc-schist, which is a type of metamorphic rock.
It is very soft and has been a medium for carving for thousands of years.
0コメント