What Was The Indus Valley/Harappan Civilisation?
Summary
TLDRThis video explores the enigmatic Indus Valley Civilization, which thrived from 3300-1900 BCE alongside Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Known for its advanced urban planning, sanitation systems, and unique writing, the civilization mysteriously vanished. The script delves into its historical context, urban design, and trade, offering insights into a civilization that valued public health and commerce over warfare and hierarchy.
Takeaways
- 🏺 The script discusses the Indus Valley Civilization, which thrived from 3300-1900 BCE and was one of the earliest urban civilizations, larger than Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China.
- 🔍 Archaeologists discovered this civilization through unique stone seals with unknown inscriptions at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, leading to further excavations.
- 🏙️ The civilization was characterized by well-planned cities focused on sanitation and public baths, unlike other Bronze Age civilizations that centered around religious or political structures.
- 🛠️ The Harappans were skilled in bronze and sculpture, and possibly invented the world's first indoor toilets, showcasing advanced urban planning and technology.
- 🌊 The civilization's prosperity was tied to the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra rivers, with the latter potentially being the ancient Saraswati river mentioned in Hindu literature.
- 🏛️ Unlike other ancient states, the Harappan civilization had no evidence of kings, priests, or a state religion, suggesting a different form of social and political organization.
- 🌐 The civilization was extensive, covering an area equivalent to one million square kilometers, and had a standardized system of weights and measures, indicating a unified culture.
- 🚣♂️ The Harappans were advanced traders, with evidence of trade with regions like Mesopotamia, and possibly had a form of maritime superiority.
- 📜 The Harappan script remains undeciphered due to the lack of a Rosetta Stone-like key, limiting our understanding of their language and records.
- 📉 The civilization declined around 1900 BCE, possibly due to a combination of factors including climate change, reduced trade, and the drying up of the Saraswati river, leading to a shift towards the Ganges and smaller village lifestyles.
Q & A
What is the significance of the stone seals found near Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro?
-The stone seals found near Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro are significant because they are inscribed with a previously unseen written language, which led to the discovery of a 4,500-year-old civilization that was absent in historical records.
When did the Indus Civilization flourish and how large was it compared to other ancient civilizations?
-The Indus Civilization flourished between 3300-1900 BCE and was larger than Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China, making it one of the earliest and largest urban civilizations in human history.
What was unique about the urban planning of the Indus Civilization?
-The Indus Civilization was unique in its focus on sanitation and public health. They built massive planned cities with advanced sewage systems, public baths, and possibly the world's first indoor toilets.
How did the absence of war and the focus on trade define the Indus Civilization?
-The Indus Civilization was defined by its lack of warfare and focus on trade, suggesting a society more interested in commerce and cooperation than conquest, which was unusual for Bronze Age civilizations.
What is the geographical range of the Indus Civilization and how does it compare to modern countries?
-The Indus Civilization covered an area of one million square kilometers, which is comparable to the size of one Bolivia, two Spains, or 6250 Liechtensteins.
Why is the term 'Harappan Civilization' often used instead of 'Indus Civilization'?
-The term 'Harappan Civilization' is often used because Harappa was the first city of this civilization to be discovered, and the civilization was not solely based on the Indus River.
What is the evidence for the Harappan Civilization's writing system and its potential use?
-The Harappan Civilization's writing system is evidenced by short inscriptions on stone seals, which are believed to have been used as identity cards or passports, and possibly as stamps.
How did the Harappan Civilization's focus on water management and bathing affect their city planning?
-The Harappan Civilization's city planning was heavily influenced by their focus on water management and bathing, with every home having a bathing room and a sophisticated sewage system to channel waste out of the city.
What role did trade play in the Harappan Civilization and what were some of the goods they traded?
-Trade played a significant role in the Harappan Civilization, with goods such as lapis lazuli, gold, silver, copper, timber, and ivory being traded with regions like the Arabian Gulf, Mesopotamia, Central Asia, and Iran.
What factors contributed to the decline of the Harappan Civilization and what was the ultimate fate of its people?
-The decline of the Harappan Civilization was likely due to a combination of factors including a reduction in trade, climate change, disease, and civil strife. The drying up of the Saraswati River was a major factor. Some people migrated towards the Ganges, while others returned to a simpler village lifestyle.
Outlines
🏺 The Mysterious Indus Valley Civilization
This segment introduces the Indus Valley Civilization, a 4,500-year-old urban culture that thrived between 3300-1900 BCE alongside Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. The civilization was discovered through the excavation of sites near Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, where unique stone seals with undeciphered inscriptions were found. The civilization was larger than its contemporaries and was known for its advanced sanitation systems, absence of war, and mastery in bronze and sculpture. The script also humorously connects the civilization's advanced sewage systems to the modern rubber duck, suggesting a historical precedent for the bathing toy.
🌍 Geography and Unique Characteristics of the Indus Civilization
The Indus Civilization, also known as the Harappan Civilization, spanned a vast area equivalent to six Liechtensteins and was one of the largest Bronze Age civilizations. It was centered around the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra rivers, with the latter potentially being the ancient Saraswati river. Unlike other civilizations, the Harappans did not have a state religion, warfare, or kings. Their society was more egalitarian, with a focus on trade and public sanitation. The cities were well-planned, with an emphasis on water management, drainage, and bathing facilities. The script also highlights the possibility of an early form of the rubber duck being used by Harappan children, based on the discovery of ceramic toys in their drains.
🏛️ City Planning and Standardization in Harappan Society
The Harappan cities were meticulously planned, with a focus on water management, standardization, and city planning. Every home had a bathing room and a sewage system that channeled waste out of the city. The Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro, a unique multistoried building with a deep bathing pool, suggests a cultural significance of water and bathing. The civilization also showcased impressive feats of water control, such as the 16 man-made reservoirs at Dholavira and the dock and canal system at Lothal. Standardization was evident in the uniform brick ratios and weights used across the civilization, despite the vast distances between cities. City planning included north-south and east-west oriented main streets, with narrow lanes for house access, and citadels built on mounds for flood defense.
📜 The Enigmatic Script and the Decline of the Harappan Civilization
The Harappan script remains undeciphered due to the lack of a Rosetta Stone-like key. The script was logo-syllabic, with each symbol representing a word or syllable, and was written from right to left. The civilization was primarily agricultural, with barley and wheat as main crops, and showed an early interest in spices. They domesticated several animals and had trade relations with hunter-gatherer societies. The Harappans were skilled merchants and sailors, trading with regions like the Arabian Gulf, Mesopotamia, and Iran. They had colonies, such as Shortugai, to control resource mines, like lapis lazuli. The civilization's decline around 1900 BCE was sudden, with cities becoming less planned and the maintenance of infrastructure declining. The drying up of the Saraswati river played a significant role in their collapse, leading to a shift towards the Ganges or a return to simpler village life by 1300 BCE.
🌟 Legacy and Promotion of Educational Platforms
The segment concludes with a reflection on the legacy of the Harappan Civilization and its place among other Bronze Age civilizations. It transitions into a promotion of CuriosityStream, a documentary streaming service, and Nebula, a platform for independent creators. The promotion encourages viewers to sign up for CuriosityStream to support educational content creators, including access to Nebula for ad-free and early releases of original content. The script also invites viewers to explore further with provided sources and to subscribe for more content, while also promoting related videos on the channel.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡CuriosityStream
💡Indus Civilisation
💡Mohenjo-Daro
💡Harappa
💡Saraswati River
💡Standardisation
💡City Planning
💡Writing System
💡Trade
💡Collapse
Highlights
Discovery of the Indus Civilization, a 4,500-year-old urban civilization absent from historical records.
The civilization flourished alongside Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, yet was larger than both.
Indus Civilization cities were planned with a focus on sanitation, not war or religious monuments.
They possibly invented the world's first indoor toilets.
The civilization's size was comparable to one million square kilometers, larger than many modern nations.
Harappan civilization developed around the Indus and Ghaggar-Hakra rivers, with a focus on agriculture.
The absence of royal tombs, palaces, or temples suggests a unique social structure.
Harappans were more interested in trade than conquest, with no evidence of an army or warfare.
Public baths and sewage systems were central to Harappan city planning.
The Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro is a unique, multistoried public bath with religious significance.
Harappan cities exhibited remarkable standardization in brick sizes and weights across vast distances.
City planning included well-organized streets and houses with attention to sanitation and public spaces.
The Harappan script remains undeciphered, with over 450 signs found on stone seals.
The Harappans were skilled farmers and herders, with evidence of early spice cultivation.
They had extensive trade networks, including with Mesopotamia, as evidenced by their seals found there.
The civilization's decline around 1900 BCE was likely due to a combination of factors, including climate change and the drying up of the Saraswati River.
The Harappan Civilization left no written records, making their rediscovery and study a significant archaeological challenge.
Transcripts
This video is sponsored by CuriosityStream. Get access to my streaming video service,
Nebula, when you sign up for CuriosityStream using the link in the description.
Intro
It's British India in the 1920's and over the last few decades these odd stone seals
keep popping up at ruins near Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro along the Indus river valley.
They baffle everyone, with their inscriptions in a never before seen written language. Archaeologists,
intrigued by this, started excavating these previously ignored sites.
They soon uncovered a 4,500 year old civilsation. A civilsation completely absent in the historical
record. One of the earliest urban civilizations in human history. It flourished alongside
Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China around 3300-1900BCE but was bigger than all of them.
A civilsation that built wonders not to gods or kings but to sanitation. A civilsation
without war. Made up of massive planned cities built in brick. Masters of bronze and sculpture.
They created their own writing system, traded across the vast sea and possibly invented
the world’s first indoor toilets and then vanished for reasons still not understood.
So what was this civilsation in the Indus Valley, what did they achieve, and what does
it have to do with rubber duckies? Well let’s find out.
Historical Context and Geography
The Indus Civilsation existed from 3300BCE to around 1300BCE give or take. But they really
prospered around 4,500 years ago between 2600-1900BCE. It covered an area of one million square kilometers.
That's about 1 Bolivia, or 2 Spains, or even better 6250 Liechtenstein. It had the largest
population and territory of the Bronze Age civilsations like Mesopotamia, Egypt, and
China.
Like almost all early civilsations the Indus Civilsation developed around dank river valleys.
Their farmers were able to grow a massive food surplus along the banks of the Indus
and Ghaggar-Hakra rivers. Today the Indus is still a powerful river but the Ghaggar-Hakra
has almost completely dried up. Back then the Ghaggar-Hakra river may have been even
more productive than the Indus. We’ve found much more settlements along the Ghaggar-Hakra
than the Indus.
Since the Ghaggar-Hakra River was much more powerful in the past people think it may be
the ancient lost Saraswati river of Hindu literature.
Since this civilsation wasn't just based on the Indus and since Indus-Sarasvati Civilsation
is a bit of a mouthful the term Harappan Civilsation is often used since Harappa was the first
city of theirs we discovered. So I'll use that for the rest of the video
No State Religion, Warfare, Or Kings
The Harappans weren't like other Bronze Age Civilsations. The other ancient states like
Ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China all had the following ingredients.
A strict hierarchy of classes.
State monopolised use of violence
Power focussed on individual leaders, like kings and pharaohs.
Centralised state controlled economies
Monumental religious and political structures.
A powerful religious institution with its own hierarchy
Strong sense of elitism and exclusivity
But we have no evidence of Kings or Priests or Priest-Kings for the Harappans. There are
no royal tombs or palaces. No evidence for a state religion. No temples, pyramids, or
ziggurats. No signs of an army, weapons, slaves, or a powerful political capital.
Now the Harappans weren't some peaceful utopia, a State can't exist without violence. But
it seems they had no natural enemies and they themselves seemed more interested in trade
than conquest. All Harappan citizens seem to have lived relatively equal lives too.
Rather than building palaces and temples the Harappans seemed to focus on building public
baths and sewage systems.
We have no idea how the Harappan government worked. But the Harappan Civilsation may have
been split up into many different Domains each governed by a major city.
Rather than kings there may have been village, town, city, and then regional councils, all
overseen by a supreme “Harappan Council ''. So rather than a Harappan Empire or Kingdom
it was probably a Harappan Federation, which makes it sound very futuristic.
One of the defining features of Harappan culture is how well planned their cities and towns
were. They tended to focus on 3 main aspects like:
1. Water
Water, drainage, and bathing held an almost religious significance in Harappan city planning.
Every Harappan home had a dedicated bathing room, used daily. Built with watertight brick
floors. These floors sloped towards a small drain usually cut into the house wall. This
drain brought dirty water out of the house and into a brick lined sewage system underneath
the main streets and channeled water out of the city.
Some bathing rooms had a small staircase so someone else could pour water over the bather
like a kind of proto-shower.
Excavations at Harappa have uncovered toilets in almost every house. They were usually big
pots sunk into the floor. Although some at Mohenjo-daro, had seats. Waste from the toilets
was directed into the drains and out of the city or into large jars sunk into the ground
outside the home like an early septic tank.
The Harappans had multistoried buildings. When water had to be drained from upstairs,
drains were often built inside or along the walls. This safely brought water and waste
from higher floors down to street level drains without soaking people below. Which would
have been a hazard the citizens of cities like Rome dealt with.
We've found quite a few ceramic toys in Harappan drains. It seems that Harappan children may
have been the first to bring toys into the bath with them. This could be the earliest
prototype of the rubber ducky. Other toys like puppets and carts along with miniature
cooking tools and other toy furniture have also been found.
Amongst all the ruins of the Harappans, The Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro stands out. Nothing
like it has been found in any other Harappan site.
The Great Bath seems to be the only Harappan building with some sort of religious significance.
This public bath is an impressive building, multistoried with a 2.4m deep bathing pool
in the centre. The pool is made from precisely fitted burnt bricks coated with a layer of
tar. Making this one of the earliest examples of waterproofing in history. Here you can
see the well and drain used to fill and empty the pool.
We have no idea who used the Great Bath or why, but ritual bathing seems to be our best
guess. The dedication put towards building such an impressive structure and it’s symbolic
location in the largest Harappan city speaks volumes to the importance of water and bathing
in Harappan society.
Other impressive feats of water control include Dholavira's massive 16 man made water reservoirs
that surrounded the city and make it appear to float. And Lothals dock and canal system.
2. Standardisation
Harappan cities were usually hundreds of km apart compared to Mesopotamian cities which
were on average just 20km apart. The Harappan state maintained almost complete uniformity
over these massive distances.
Uniformity like standardised bricks. At every single Harappan site we’ve found bricks
that follow the exact same ratio, 1:2:4. This guaranteed good building standards across
the Harappan world.
Standardisation extended to units of weights. Cubical stone weights across big Harappan
cities down to small farming villages. The smallest weight was 0.856g and the average
weight was 13.7g.
3. City Planning
The main streets of Harappan cities were usually oriented north–south and east–west. These
generally divided Harappan settlements into blocks. Narrow and often crooked lanes ran
off the main streets, so the cities were not built in an exact grid pattern. Access to
the houses was from these lanes, avoiding the dust and noise of the main streets.
Walls usually surrounded Harappan settlements. There was usually a separately walled area
built on a man made mound known as a “citadel”. Here you would find most of the important
buildings, like warehouses, granaries, and at Mohenjo-Daro, the Great Bath. These citadel's
seem to have been built as a defence against floods rather than armies though.
For example, Mohenjo-daro was built on two massive mounds that raised the city above
the Indus River’s floodplain. The walls supported the mounds and added extra flood
defence.
Mohenjo-Daro's higher western mound was the Citadel; it's about 12m above the plain. While
a lower eastern mound held the Lower Town. This Lower Town housed between 40-80,000 people.
Buildings these mounds was a huge investment. It is estimated to have taken 10,000 workers
about 400 days to complete. All that work just to put the “foundations” of Mohenjo-Daro
down.
When the city was founded about 700 brick-lined wells were built to provide drinking water.
No new wells were built over the many centuries of the city's existence. So the city’s founders
took the growth of the city into account when they built all 700.
In some Harappan cities we’ve found the remains of brick platforms and trees planted
alongside streets to provide public seating and shade. And we’ve even found large jars
half sunk into the ground into which rubbish could be thrown. Which would then be brought
to a nearby dump.
Script
Without the Rosetta Stone or Behistun Inscriptions we never would have deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs
or Mesopotamian Cuneiform. Which has given us a wealth of information on both of those
civilsations. We have nothing that useful to decipher Harappan writing and so it remains
undeciphered to this day.
All we have to work with is the short inscriptions they left behind on these tiny stone seals.
Every seal has an image usually of an animal and an inscription.
The most common image on the seals seem to be this chonky unicorn, those are archeologists
words not mine. Calling this a unicorn is a bit of a stretch!
---Cut---
Come on honey, make a birthday wish. I want a unicorn!! Haha isn't that cute. I'M A UNICORN....SCREAMS
---Cut---
We've found thousands of Harappan seals. They seem to have had about 450 signs and the script
is logo-syllabic, like Chinese or Ancient Maya, which means each symbol stood for a
word or syllable. It seems to have been written from right-to-left as we can see from seeing
this scribe run out of space on the left side.
The seals could have been used like stamps but it seems that they were more often used
like identity cards or passports.
Any Harappan writing on paper or papyrus has been destroyed by the passage of time. This
may be why we’ve only found about 450 mostly repetitive signs. There could be a bias towards
what kinds of words were written on seals, such as names or jobs, and if we found a written
document on paper much more common words and so more signs would appear. Imagine if people
tried to reconstruct the English language using only the words that appeared on passports.
Food and Animals
The Harappan people were mostly farmers and herders. Barley and wheat were the main crops.
And we can see the beginnings of South Asia’s spice obsession with the Harappans. Garlic,
turmeric, ginger, cumin, and cinnamon, were grown. Luckily only 1 trace of coriander has
been found.
Cattle and water buffalo were the most important domesticated animals. Followed by sheep and
goats. Chickens, camels, and even elephants may have been domesticated too.
We've found tons of Harappan dog figurines, some wearing collars which suggests that they
had doggos. And possibly house cats. Paw prints made by a cat can be seen in a brick at Chanhu-daro
that was drying as a cat ran across, followed by a chasing dog.
In most parts of the world when people settled down to start farming they, to use a historian's
term, super murdered the hunter-gatherer societies around them. The Harappans traded with them
instead.
Hunter-Gatherers could collect exotic products like honey, wax, ivory, silk, and wild plants.
In exchange they received Harappan crops and manufactured goods like bronze tools.
The Harappans also used the constantly moving hunter-gatherers and pastoral herders to move
goods between their cities, like a Harappan FedEx.
But most Harappan internal trade was conducted along the huge rivers they controlled and
foreign trade was mostly done over the sea.
Trade
We know that between 2600—1900 BCE the Harappans traded with the Arabian Gulf, Mesopotamia,
Central Asia, and Iran.
Before we invented radiocarbon dating the only way we could date the Harappan Civilsation
was because we found their seals in Mesopotamia. Being able to read Mesopotamian records made
it possible to place the Harappans in time.
Around 2600-2300BCE Mesopotamian records began mentioning trade done with a far off land
known as Meluhha. This was their name for the Harappans.
Mesopotamian texts mention the following items as imports from Meluhha: lapis lazuli, gold,
silver, copper, timber, ebony, ivory, tortoiseshell, chicken, buffalo, peacock, dog, cat, and monkey
apparently.
Harappan merchants seem to have been a common sight in Mesopotamia. But Mesopotamia merchants
never seem to have sailed outside of the Gulf. Which suggests that the Harappans were the
better merchants and sailors. This along with the fact that they were shipping bulky goods
like timber and wild animals also shows us that they had pretty big ships.
Very few Mesopotamian artifacts appear in the Harappan realm, so we have no idea what
the Harappans were trading all their goods for. We have discovered a toiletry set with
a copper ear scoop and tweezers at Harappa. So luxury or manufactured goods could have
been what the Harappans wanted.
Harappan sailors acted a lot like sailors of later times since we’ve discovered ivory
dice for games and gambling at sites they visited.
More than 1,000km from Harappa is an isolated Harappan town, Shortugai located in modern
Afghanistan. We've found Harappan seals there and houses built to Harappan design with bricks
using the Harappan ratio. This was a Harappan colony. The Harappans used Shortugai to control
the nearby Lapis Lazuli mines. This allowed the Harappans to monopolize the ancient world's
supply of lapis lazuli.
Interestingly the Harappans didn’t much care for lapis and used it entirely for export.
This trade made the Harappans incredibly rich.
Collapse
But after 700 years of prosperity the Harappan Civilsation went into a sudden decline around
1900 BCE.
Cities stopped following strict plans, drains were no longer maintained, the Great Bath
filled with rubbish, and the art of writing was forgotten.
But there is no evidence for massacres, battles, or sieges at any Harappan sites. So the Harappans
didn't meet a violent end.
Factors such as a reduction in trade, climate change, disease, and civil strife all probably
played a role in their collapse. But it seems that the Saraswati river played the biggest
role.
As we saw earlier there was a dense cluster of Harappan cities along the Saraswati River.
This area was their "bread basket"
Around 1900BCE the river began to dry up for reasons still being studied. Links discussing
this are in the description.
As the crops died and cities were starved of water the Harappans along the Saraswati
fled their homes in search of greener pastures. Some seem to have moved towards the Ganges,
which would become the new centre of North Indian Civilisation. Others simply went back
to a simpler style of living in small villages. By 1300BCE the entire Harappan system was
gone.
The memory of the Harappan Civilsation. Their great cities. Their beliefs, their language,
and their writing system disappeared under the earth that once sustained them until they
were rediscovered 4,000 years later.
The Harappans were one of the greatest Bronze Age Civilsations. But they weren’t the only
one. The Bronze Age saw the rise of urban societies, vast trading empires and military
powers. From Greece to Egypt and Mesopotamia all the way to Ancient China. How did this
come about, and why did it end? Well that is all explained in The Bronze Age a 3 part
documentary series over on CuriosityStream. CuriosityStream is a documentary streaming
service that will give you access to thousands of documentaries including some featuring
top names like David Attenborough and Stephen Hawking, along with exclusive originals. You
get unlimited access starting at just $2.99 a month and the first 30-days completely free
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This video was up on Nebula days ago. So go to curiositystream.com/cogito and start
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So that was a basic overview of the Harappan or Indus Civilsation. It isn't even close
to covering everything. One video simply can't cover everything. But as always further reading
and all the sources used are in the description. If you liked this content please subscribe.
If you are interested in supporting the channel, there are links for Patreon and my t-shirt
store also in the description. If you liked this video I think you’d really enjoy my
video on Ancient China or the San People. Which you can see on screen or linked in the
description.
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