The picture is a 2500 BCE wet toilet excavated from Mohenjodaro. Toilets and drainage system were one of the most remarkable features of Harappan cities. At Lothal (62km from Ahmedabad), people had water borne toilets in each house. They were linked with drains covered with burnt clay bricks. Rakhigarhi has revealed a series of covered and open drains. There were soak pits at every street corner where the drains turned at right angles.

At Banawali in Haryana soakage jars were found at fixed points along the street. Mohenjodaro provided remarkable evidence of water-management, sanitation and drainage system.

India later lost this knowledge. Open defecation & open drains became rampant. Perpendicular roads, covered drains. standardized weights & dimensions are some of their many achievements.

Source: Dr Bindeswar Pathak, History of Toilets.

Picture: Dr Bindeswar Pathak

Seals are possibly the most distinctive and plentiful artefacts of Harappan civilization. They were made of a stone called steatite. The Harappan seals contain animal motifs and signs from a script that remains undeciphered. Yet they tell us a lot about the Harappan people.

The famous “proto-Shiva Pasupati” seal is one such. There are a few other seals and tablets with a similar ithyphallic figure. The figure is crowned by a bull- or buffalo-horned headdress. The figure is in a yogic pose, often flanked by various combinations of fish, gharial, snake and other creatures. The figure is associated with a worshipper or a scene probably from mythology. All were found at Mohenjo-daro. Many scholars suggest that the figure represents a deity with the attributes of the later god Shiva. Others argue that Rudra in the Rig Veda is not depicted as a pasupati (lord of animals) or as a yogi. But by and large it is believed that the posture depicted in the so called five proto Shiva seals is yogic.

Source: Yan Dhyansky, The Indus Valley Origin of a Yoga Practice. Jane Mcintosh, Harappa.com.

Picture: Wikimedia Commons

Plenty of bead jewelry has been recovered from Harappan burial sites. They were made from a variety of materials: stones like carnelian, jasper, crystal, quartz & steatite; metals like copper, bronze & gold; and shell, faience, terracotta or burnt clay. Some were made of two or more stones cemented together and some were of stones with gold caps. They were in many shapes. Beads were coloured by firing them. They were mostly carved through distinctive flint tools.

Harappans had also developed an elaborate supply chain. Raw materials were procured from far off places – lapis lazuli from Afghanistan, carnelian from Gujarat and steatite from Rajasthan. Dedicated production centres also came up– e.g Chanudaro was devoted exclusively to craft making like beads, shells & seals. Similar eco systems developed for other artefacts like shell bangles, copper & bronze items and terracotta toys. They made fired bricks so good that unknowingly, contractors plundered Harappan sites and re-used them while laying down railway lines in the 19th century. Harappans made a trapezoidal brick that helped them make circular perimeters around wells.

Source: NCERT, Bricks, Beads & Bones, The Harappan Civilisation

Picture: The picture is a collection of Harappan jewelry. Upinder Singh

Dholavira, in Kachchh, Gujarat, is located between two seasonal streams. It harnessed monsoon rains through an intricate network of check dams, reservoirs and channels. There was even a rock cut well. The reservoirs were inter connected through sluices and channels. The reservoirs had features like stormwater drains and paved flooring. There were manholes for aeration and release of excess water. A human could get into the main drains for maintenance.

Dr RS Bisht, who excavated Dholavira, explains all this in a highly recommended you tube lecture for the Tamil Heritage Trust. This tradition of water harvesting techniques continued; amazing step wells and irrigation systems were made in Gujarat and also in Rajasthan. The most famous one is Rani ki Vav at Patan near Mehsana. A signboard found at Dholavira also has the longest record of Indus script.

Source: Dr RS Bisht, Tamil Heritage Trust Lecture

Picture: The picture is a collection of water wells, drains and a tank from Dholavira. Upinder Singh

One of the most popular explanations for the decline of the Harappan civilization is Aryan invasion. But it has the least evidence.

The arguments about Rig Vedic references to destruction of cities, heaps of skeletons indicating a massacre etc have been refuted with new evidence. The skeletons were found at different cultural levels indicating that they did not belong to the same event. There is also a sterile layer between Mature Harappan site and the Cemetery H which was considered as that of Aryan invaders.

Research indicates possible reasons for decline of Harappan civilization as frequent flooding (at Mohenjo-daro), change of river course and decreasing rainfall. Natural disasters, not necessarily sudden or single, did have a role to play in the decline of the urban life of Indus civilization.

Source: Upinder Singh, A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India.

Picture: Picture represents the ancient and dried up course of Saraswati river. Wikimedia Commons.

Women wearing bangles. The dancing girl represents one of highest achievements of Harappan culture. It is made of bronze through the lost wax process. Harappans were among the first to use such a sophisticated casting technique. It depicts an elegant woman with hair plaits, necklaces and bangles – 24 on one arm, 4 on the other. BB Lal identified that women of North West still wear bangles the same way. He also identified many other Harappan practices that still continue. Some are listed below.

Terra-cotta female figurines with vermilion in the parting of her hair. Terra-cotta chess gamesmen from Lothal. Kalibangan ploughed field with crisscross furrows identical to a modern field from the same place. Pottery kamandalu from Mohenjo-daro. Sea-plying boat depicted on a seal identical to modern Indus equivalent. Terra-cotta figurine doing namaste from Harappa. Terra-cotta writing slates, from Mohenjo-daro similar to what kids use now.

Source: BB Lal, The Saraswati Flows On.

Picture: Wikimedia Commons

Rakhigarhi is in the Hisar district of Haryana. It is the largest Harappan city excavated. It is spread over an area of 550 acres. A cohort of approx. 60 skeletons were discovered during excavations. Scientists sought to extract DNA from them. Given our hot & wet climate, it is very hard for DNA remains to survive for such a long period. But researchers from Deccan College, Pune were able to extract the DNA from the skeleton of one Harappan female.

The genetic analysis was led by Prof. Vasant Shinde. He concluded that the DNA of Harappans has continued till today and a majority of the South Asian population appears to be their descendants. The research had inputs from other renowned labs – The Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology, Hyderabad and The Harvard Medical College.

Prof Shinde has been at pains to explain that an archaeogenetic sample of one (from the cohort) is enough to make such conclusions. He makes an interesting analogy – it is enough to press a single grain of rice to see if the entire pot of rice has been cooked! Interestingly other genetic studies did not use any DNA from Indus civilization but extrapolated from neighbouring regions.

Source: Vasant Shinde et al, Cell, 2019

Picture: Nature.com

Harappa is closer to Delhi than it is to even Mohenja-daro. We mentally imagine Harappa and Mohanje-daro to be sister cities; and that the present Indian cities are distant from them. But the footprint of Indus Valley Civilization was the largest among civilizations of its age. What are the interesting implications of this?

If Mohenja-daro and Harappa influenced each other, was it possible for Harappa to have influenced cultures in Haryana and western UP and vice versa? Evidence is growing about the presence of contemporary civilizations as far as Maharashtra and eastern UP. What was the influence of these places on each other?

Harappan artefacts have been excavated in Oman. Recent finds suggest that Harappans imported copper from that region. Mesopotamian texts dated to the 3rd millennium BCE refer to a land called Meluhha. They got carnelian, lapis lazuli, copper, gold & varieties of wood – these are typical Harappan items.

These texts also refer to Meluhha as a land of seafarers who traded with Dilmun (Oman) & Magan (Bahrain). We find seals which depict boats and ships. Archaeologists opine that a dry dock discovered at Lothal in Gujarat was one of the greatest works of maritime architecture in the ancient world. It was excavated besides the river Sabarmati, which has since changed course. The structure’s design considers the effect of tides, hydraulics and sea water on bricks. Ships could have entered into the northern end of the dock through an inlet channel connected to an estuary of the Sabarmati during high tide. The lock gates could then have been closed so the water level would rise sufficiently for them to float. Some historians call it simply an irrigation tank.

Source: Harappa.com

Picture: The map captures the long distance trade routes of the civilization. Upinder Singh.

Harappa was the largest of ancient civilisations from Baluchistan to West UP; and from J&K to the northern edge of Maharashtra. Almost 2/3rds of known Harappan sites are in India, rest are in Pak. The earliest sites to be dug were on the Indus river and therefore the civilization was named Indus Vally Civilisation.

A majority of the Harappan sites identified (including those not excavated) are in the basin of a dried river called the Ghaggar-Hakra channel – Ghaghar in India, Hakra in Pakistan. Some estimates suggest that 2378 out of 3781 sites are in the basin of this river. Scientists agree that the river probably dried around 2000BCE.

After examining the description of the river Saraswati in the Rig Veda, many Indologists have identified the Ghaghar Hakra with the ancient Saraswati river. Hence many now use the term Indus Saraswati civilization. Earlier, many historians were of the view that either Saraswati was mythical or it was in Afghanistan.

Saraswati is the most mentioned river in the Rig Veda  and the text is said to have been composed on the banks of the Saraswati.  The relationship between Harappan & Vedic cultures continues to be a hotly contested topic. BB Lal for example categorically says that both are the same. But most academics either don’t agree or are not so certain.

Interestingly, excavations have revealed parallel cultures existed in other parts of India. They used copper (Shahjahanpur in UP), chariots (Sinauli in UP) and perhaps iron (South India).

Source: Michel Danino, The Riddle of the Sarasvati River

Picture: The picture is a map representing major Harappan sites. You can notice the density along Ghaggar-Hakra and on the Indian side. Upinder Singh

John Marshall announced the discovery of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro on Sept 20, 1924 in the Illustrated London News. Marshall credited R.D Baneji and DR Sahni, the actual excavators. However, Marshall underestimated the antiquity and believed these sites to be only “many hundreds of years prior to the 3rd Century BC,” which was the then accepted start of historical period in India.

Immediately, Professor A.H. Sayce, a famous Assyriologist, wrote a letter to the Editor and it was published in the following week’s magazine. Sayce wrote that the report of Marshall was “even more remarkable and startling than he supposes.” Sayce observed that seals similar to those found by RD Sahni in Haraappa, ‘probably made by same hands were found in Susa, in present day south west Iran.’ They were dated to the third millennium BC. On this basis, he remarked that “as far back as third millennium BC, there was intercourse between Susa and the northwest India” and that these finds are “likely to revolutionaize our ideas of the age and origin of Indian civilization.”

Interestingly, a British army deserter Charles Masson, collected artefacts from Harappa a hundred years prior to Marshall but did not realise their significance. So did Alexander Burnes after him. Alexander Cunnigham, who founded ASI, visited Harapa twice, but he also did not realise its historical significance. He even came across the Harappan seal, but dismissed it as of foreign origin. History was practically beneath their feet.

Source: Illustrated London News

Picture: Illustrated London News, September 20, 1924 issue.

This is a find from Kalibangan, a Harappan site in present day Rajasthan. It is remarkably similar to a Shiva Linga, and the excavators record it as such. This picture was published officially only in 2020 after a fifty year delay.

The site was excavated between 1960 and 1969 by Mr. B.B. Lal and others. The first volume of the Kalibangan excavation report was published only in 2003. Mr Lal wrote a preface explaining how his efforts to write the excavation report were frustrated as ASI did not provide access to the finds. He says, ‘in presenting this report to the readers, so many years after the excavations, we feel really small, nay even ashamed.’ The second volume was prepared and signed by the authors in 2007, but was published only in 2020. This picture is included in Part II of the second volume.

Kalibangan excavations also revealed presence of fire altars. The altars were so arranged that anyone using them had to face east. The excavators concluded that these fire altars had a ritualistic purpose. Some scholars dismiss the similarities. The Shiva Linga is considered as a one-off evidence and without any proof that it was indeed worshipped; and fire altars are interpreted as kitchens.

Source: ASI Excavation Report of Kalibangan, 2003, 2015 and 2020.

Picture: ASI Excavation Report