The Untold Mystery of Indus Valley Civilization | Dhruv Rathee

Summary

This video script narrates the intriguing tale of the Indus Valley Civilization, discovered by James Lewis in 1829. It delves into the civilization's advanced urban planning, mysterious script, and the enigma of its sudden decline. The script, with over 400 symbols, remains undeciphered, and theories about the civilization's end range from environmental factors to disease. The video invites viewers on a journey to explore one of the world's oldest civilizations, its achievements, and the unanswered questions that persist.

Takeaways

• 🏃 James Lewis, a British East India Company soldier, deserted the army in 1827 and discovered the ancient city of Harappa in 1829 while pursuing his passion for travel and history.
• 📜 Lewis documented the ruins he encountered with notes and drawings, unknowingly discovering the Indus Valley Civilization, which was later revealed to be over 5,000 years old.
• 🔍 In the 1920s, John Marshall and Indian archaeologists conducted surveys on the ruins of Harappa, uncovering the extent and age of the Indus Valley Civilization.
• 🌊 The civilization was named for its location along the Indus River and is considered one of the oldest civilizations alongside Egyptian and Mesopotamian.
• 📚 The Indus Valley Civilization is now part of school curriculums, but mysteries remain, particularly regarding the undeciphered Harappan language and the civilization's sudden end.
• 🏙️ The civilization featured advanced urban planning with standardized brick measurements, multi-storied houses, toilets, bathing areas, and efficient drainage systems.
• 🔑 The Indus Script, found on stone slabs and artifacts, is a logosyllabic script with over 400 signs, written from right to left, but its meaning remains unknown.
• 🔍 Archaeologists have identified patterns in the Indus Script, such as certain symbols always following others, but without a Rosetta Stone equivalent, the language remains undeciphered.
• 🌳 The civilization's cities had a similar layout with a Lower Mount and an Upper Mount, suggesting a structured society without evident religious sites or social hierarchy.
• 🛑 The decline of the Indus Valley Civilization is believed to have occurred between 1900 BC and 1300 BC, with theories suggesting environmental factors, disease, or societal collapse as possible causes.
• 🏞️ The civilization's end by 1800 BC left behind an advanced society that had existed for millennia, with its cities abandoned and its unique culture lost to history.

Q & A

Who was James Lewis and why did he change his name?

James Lewis was a soldier of the British East India Company who decided to desert the army in 1827 due to his dissatisfaction with the company's antics. He changed his name to stay undercover and pursue his passion for travel.

What significant discovery did James Lewis make in the Punjab region in 1829?

James Lewis discovered the ruins of an ancient city in the Punjab region in 1829, which he later realized was the ancient city of Harappa.

What was the contribution of John Marshall to the understanding of the Indus Valley Civilisation?

John Marshall, appointed as the director of ASI in the 1920s, conducted surveys of the ruins of Harappa with the help of Indian archaeologists, revealing that the civilization was older than 5,000 years.

What is the significance of the site named Mohenjo-Daro?

Mohenjo-Daro, meaning 'The Mound of the Dead,' is another historical site discovered on the banks of the Indus river. It contained many human skeletal remains and further excavations revealed more ruins, contributing to the understanding of the Indus Valley Civilisation.

Why is the Indus Valley Civilisation considered one of the oldest?

The Indus Valley Civilisation is considered one of the oldest because it existed alongside only a few other civilizations such as Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Chinese, with the Chinese being the most recent among them.

What evidence suggests that the Indus Valley Civilisation might be 8,000 years old?

A study conducted in 2016 by IIT Kharagpur and ASI using archaeological dating techniques suggested that the Indus Valley Civilisation might be 8,000 years old, with farming settlements dating back to 7,000 BC found in the present-day state of Haryana.

What was the significance of the standardized brick measurements used in the Indus Valley Civilisation?

The standardized brick measurements indicate the advanced level of urban planning and construction techniques in the Indus Valley Civilisation, with multistoried brick houses built by 2600 BC.

What challenges do historians face in understanding the Indus Script?

Historians face the challenge of deciphering the Indus Script due to the vast number of symbols, the lack of a Rosetta Stone-like reference, and the absence of a pattern similar to known languages, making it difficult to understand the meaning of the symbols.

What is the significance of the jar-shaped symbol often found at the end of the Indus Script texts?

The jar-shaped symbol, commonly found at the end of texts in the Indus Script, is believed to signify the end of a sentence, similar to a full stop in modern languages.

What theories have been proposed to explain the decline and eventual disappearance of the Indus Valley Civilisation?

Several theories have been proposed, including the drying up of the Saraswati River, deforestation leading to uninhabitable conditions, and the possibility of a fatal disease wiping out the population.

Why is there a debate among historians regarding the social structure of the Indus Valley Civilisation?

The debate arises because no evidence of temples, mosques, royal tombs, or any signs of a monarch, priest, religious leaders, or army has been found, suggesting a possibly peaceful and egalitarian society without a clear social hierarchy.

Outlines

00:00

🏺 Discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization

The script details the story of James Lewis, a deserter from the British East India Company, who discovered the ancient city of Harappa in 1829 while pursuing his passion for travel. Unaware of the significance of his find, he documented the ruins, unknowingly laying the groundwork for future archaeological revelations. A century later, John Marshall, as the director of ASI, and his team conducted surveys that dated the ruins to over 5,000 years old, revealing the existence of the Indus Valley Civilization. This civilization, stretching across present-day Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Northwest India, was contemporaneous with only a few other ancient civilizations, such as Egyptian and Mesopotamian. The script also introduces two enduring mysteries: the undeciphered Harappan language and the cause of the civilization's collapse.

05:02

📜 The Enigmatic Indus Script

This paragraph delves into the complexities of the Indus Script, which has eluded deciphering despite over a hundred attempts since its discovery in the 1920s. The script, found inscribed on various materials across numerous sites, including Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, is hypothesized to be a Logosyllabic Script, combining symbols for words and sounds. The paragraph explores the directionality of the script, its comparison to other ancient scripts like Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the unique challenges posed by the vast number of symbols—over 400—present in the Indus Script. It also discusses the potential implications of the script's presence in Mesopotamia, suggesting trade relations and cultural exchanges between the two civilizations.

10:04

🏙️ Urban Planning and Social Structure of the Indus Valley Civilization

The script provides insights into the urban planning and social structure of the Indus Valley Civilization, highlighting the sophisticated city layouts with distinct Lower and Upper Mount segments, fortified by boundary walls. It discusses the advanced infrastructure, including standardized brick measurements, a sophisticated drainage system, and public amenities like wells and dustbins, which were indicative of a highly organized society. The paragraph also notes the absence of religious sites, palaces, or evidence of a monarchical system, suggesting a potentially egalitarian social structure. The iconic Great Bath of Mohenjo-Daro is described, reflecting the civilization's advanced understanding of architecture and hygiene.

15:05

🗝️ The Decline and End of the Indus Valley Civilization

The final paragraph addresses the decline and eventual end of the Indus Valley Civilization between 1900 BC and 1300 BC, marked by the cessation of city planning, deterioration of infrastructure, and the termination of trade. By 1800 BC, cities were abandoned, and the once-thriving civilization had vanished. The script presents several theories for this collapse, including the drying up of the Saraswati River, deforestation, and the outbreak of a fatal disease. The paragraph concludes with a reflection on the enduring legacy of the civilization, which, despite its long existence, was ultimately lost to time, only to be rediscovered millennia later by James Lewis.

Keywords

💡Indus Valley Civilisation

The Indus Valley Civilisation, also known as the Harappan Civilisation, was one of the world's earliest urban cultures, flourishing around 3300 BCE to 1300 BCE in what is present-day Pakistan, northwest India, and Afghanistan. It is a central theme of the video, highlighting its advanced urban planning, script, and mysterious decline. The script describes the discovery of this civilisation by James Lewis and later archaeological findings that revealed its age and extent.

💡James Lewis

James Lewis, a pseudonym adopted by a British East India Company soldier who deserted the army, is mentioned as the accidental discoverer of the ancient city of Harappa. His story is integral to the video's narrative, illustrating the serendipity of historical discoveries and the passion for exploration and documentation that led to the uncovering of the Indus Valley Civilisation.

💡Mohenjo-Daro

Mohenjo-Daro, meaning 'Mound of the Dead,' is one of the largest and most prominent archaeological sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation. The video discusses its discovery and its significance as a historical site containing human skeletal remains, which provides insights into the life and end of the civilisation. The Great Bath of Mohenjo-Daro is highlighted as an example of the advanced urban planning and engineering of the time.

💡Indus Script

The Indus Script refers to the collection of symbols and signs used by the Indus Valley Civilisation, which remains undeciphered. The script is a significant aspect of the video, as it represents a key mystery and a rich source of speculation about the civilisation's language and culture. The video mentions the script's unique directionality and the presence of animal symbols, which are still subjects of historical debate.

💡Urban Planning

Urban Planning in the context of the Indus Valley Civilisation is showcased as highly advanced for its time, with features such as public wells, drainage systems, and multistoried buildings. The video emphasizes the sophistication of their cities, which were well-organized and included advanced infrastructure that, in some aspects, surpasses modern urban planning in certain regions.

💡Decline of the Civilisation

The decline of the Indus Valley Civilisation is a major focus of the video, presenting various theories for its collapse around 1900 BCE to 1300 BCE. The script discusses archaeological evidence of a rapid decline, including the cessation of city planning and trade, and the eventual abandonment of cities, leaving behind an enigmatic end to a once-thriving civilisation.

💡Bronze Age

The Bronze Age is the time period characterized by the use of bronze, the earliest alloy of copper and tin, and is associated with significant advancements in tool and weapon-making. The Indus Valley Civilisation is identified as a Bronze Age civilisation, which situates it among other ancient civilisations like the Egyptian and Mesopotamian. The video uses this term to contextualize the technological and cultural achievements of the Indus Valley people.

💡Archaeological Dating Techniques

Archaeological dating techniques are methods used to determine the age of archaeological specimens, such as radiocarbon dating. The video references a study conducted by IIT Kharagpur and ASI that used these techniques to suggest the Indus Valley Civilisation might be 8,000 years old, pushing back its origins to 7000 BC and highlighting the importance of scientific methods in historical research.

💡Logosyllabic Script

A Logosyllabic Script is a writing system that combines logograms, which represent whole words or morphemes, with syllabic signs. The video explains that the Indus Script is believed to be Logosyllabic, having over 400 distinct signs, which is far more than the alphabetic systems used in languages today. This concept is key to understanding the complexity and the potential linguistic structure of the Indus Valley Civilisation's writing.

💡Rosetta Stone

The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. It presents the same text in three different scripts: Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Ancient Greek. The video uses the Rosetta Stone as an analogy to explain the significance of bilingual texts in deciphering ancient languages, noting the absence of a similar 'key' for the Indus Script.

💡Trade Relations

Trade relations refer to the economic connections and exchange of goods between different regions or civilisations. The video suggests that the presence of the Indus Script in Mesopotamia indicates trade relations between the Indus Valley and Mesopotamian civilisations, providing insight into the cultural and economic interactions in the ancient world.

Highlights

James Lewis, a British East India Company soldier, deserted the army in 1827 and discovered the ancient city of Harappa in 1829.

Lewis documented his findings in the Harappa ruins, unaware that he had discovered an ancient civilization.

In the 1920s, John Marshall and Indian archaeologists revealed the Indus Valley Civilization was over 5,000 years old.

Mohenjo-Daro, the 'Mound of the Dead,' was found with many human skeletal remains on the banks of the Indus River.

The Indus Valley Civilization is now part of the school curriculum, but mysteries remain about the Harappan language and the civilization's end.

The civilization was located in present-day Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Northwest India, with over 1,400 discovered sites.

The Indus Valley Civilization might be 8,000 years old, according to a study by IIT Kharagpur and ASI.

Urbanization in the Indus Valley Civilization began after 5,500 BC with the establishment of public buildings and trade routes.

By 2,600 BC, the civilization had advanced to the construction of multistoried brick houses with standardized measurements.

The Indus Script, found on stone slabs and tablets, remains undeciphered despite over 100 attempts since the 1920s.

The Indus Script is a Logosyllabic Script with over 400 signs, unlike the 26 alphabets in English.

The Indus script was written from right to left, similar to Arabic, and often followed by an animal symbol.

The discovery of the Indus script in Mesopotamia suggests trade relations and the use of the script for different languages.

Indus Valley cities had a similar pattern with a Lower Mount and an Upper Mount, indicating advanced urban planning.

The Great Bath in Mohenjo-Daro was a significant structure, indicative of high cleanliness standards in the civilization.

The absence of temples, palaces, or evidence of a monarch suggests a possible lack of social hierarchy in the civilization.

The decline of the Indus Valley Civilization between 1900 BC and 1300 BC remains a mystery, with several theories proposed.

Theories for the civilization's end include river drying up, deforestation, or a fatal disease affecting the population.

By 1800 BC, the Indus Valley Civilization had disappeared, with cities abandoned and the writing system no longer in use.

Transcripts

Hello, friends!

In 1827, a soldier of the British East India Company, James Lewis,

was fed up with the antics of the company,

and so decided to desert the army.

To stay undercover, he changed his name

and set out to follow his passion.

Travelling.

After travelling the Indian subcontinent for 2 years,

he reached the Punjab region in 1829.

Here he came across the ruins of an unknown, ancient city.

He had no idea how old the ruins were.

Or the civilisation they belonged to.

Because he was very passionate about history,

he starts documenting whatever he came across.

He wrote notes and added drawings to them.

The drawings on the screen were made by James Lewis.

James Lewis was unaware that he had actually

discovered the ancient city of Harappa.

100 years later, in the 1920s,

some more information about this ancient civilisation was revealed to the world.

John Marshall was appointed the director of ASI,

and with the help of Indian archaeologists,

he surveyed the ruins of Harappa.

It was found that they were older than 5,000 years.

Meanwhile, another historical site was found on the banks of the Indus river.

The place contained many human skeletal remains.

This place was named Mohenjo-Daro.

The Mound of the Dead.

Further excavations revealed more such ruins.

Many such historical sites.

It was found that buried in these ruins were the proof of a civilisation,

that was unknown till then.

Because these ruins were found on the bank of the Indus river,

this civilisation was named the Indus Valley Civilisation.

Today, in 2022,

we know a lot of things about this civilisation.

It is a part of the school curriculum as well.

But two mysteries still remain.

First, the Harappan language

the one in which they wrote.

What do these words mean?

How can this writing be decoded?

And second, the end of this great civilisation.

What happened to these people?

Come, in today's video, let's try to find out.

"A city that remained buried underground for thousands of years,

and now in archaeological excavations,

one by one, these historical elements are being discovered."

"The Indus Civilisation..."

"...you try to understand, the Indus Valley Civilisation

existed four thousand years ago."

Friends, the Indus Valley Civilisation was a Bronze Age Civilisation,

located in present-day Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Northwest India.

In total, we have discovered more than 1,400 sites till now.

Of which 900 lie in India.

There are very few civilisations that existed along with Indus Valley Civilisation.

There were hardly 3 or 4.

Egyptian, Mesopotamian, and Chinese.

Of these, the Chinese Civilisation was the most recent,

so the Indus Valley, Egyptian, and

Mesopotamian civilisations are considered to be the oldest.

It is commonly believed that Mesopotamia is the oldest civilisation of humans,

But in 2016, IIT Kharagpur and ASI conducted a study

by using archaeological dating techniques,

after which they stated that the Indus Valley Civilisation

might be 8,000 years old.

Evidence has been found that the farming settlements there

were from 7,000 BC.

It was discovered in the present-day state of Haryana.

At the time, cities were developed,

but there were agricultural tools, and some pottery.

The time during 7,000 BC to 5,500 BC,

is known as the Pre-Harappan Phase.

Archaeologists believe that the beginning of urbanisation

was only after 5,500 BC.

When public buildings and trade routes were set up.

By 2,600 BC, their civilisation was so advanced,

that multistoried brick houses were built in the city.

The bricks they used to build,

had standardised measurements.

There were of the same size.

Each house had a toilet.

A bathing area,

A drainage system to take water and waste out of the house,

Proper gutters on the roads,

The footpath had trees beside it.

There were public wells for everyone to drink from.

There were dustbins for people to throw waste in.

In terms of Urban Planning,

their cities were perhaps better than our Indian cities today.

Even so, we cannot understand them better,

because were do not understand their language.

Look at these, more than 4,000 such artefacts have been found.

Stone slabs, tablets,

copper plates, all engraved with their language.

Some in Harappa, some in Mohenjo-Daro,

and some from other historical sites.

The inscription on it is called the Indus Script.

Ever since the 1920s,

there have been more than 100 attempts to understand their language.

But we still haven't figured out the meaning of these symbols.

Friends, because there have been so many attempts to decipher it,

and many samples of these inscriptions are available to us,

some things can be said for sure.

First, their language was written

not from left to right like us, instead from right to left.

When we write Hindi or English, we begin on the left margin,

but languages such as Arabic,

are written from right to left.

The Indus script was also written from right to left.

How do we know this?

If you look at this image of the stone slab,

the symbols on the left,

look more cramped,

you'd recall that in school,

when you were writing and saw that there isn't sufficient space,

you started cramming the words.

The words would become smaller, and tightly crammed together.

The same was seen on the inscriptions.

The same thing happened to whoever was engraving this Indus Script,

and this happened on the left side,

So we can conclude that

the language was written from right to left.

Second, it was seen that the places where this writing was found,

there would be some text at the top in Indus Script,

and beneath it, a big symbol of an animal was engraved.

This could be a rhinoceros,

elephant, tiger, bull,

but the most commonly found animal in the stone slabs,

was a creature that looked like a unicorn.

Which perhaps didn't even exist in reality.

But the question is, what can be the reason

that their writings were always followed by a picture of an animal?

The third thing, these images may look like

these engravings must be on big pieces of stones and rocks.

But actually, these stone seals are about 2.5 cm² to 5 cm².

So the engravings weren't on spacious pieces.

Fourthly, the historians took the signs and symbols of the Indus Script,

identified and collected them.

It was found that there were 400 signs in their script.

There are 26 alphabets in the English language.

But their Indus Script had more than 400 signs.

Some symbols look like stick figures,

you can spot some fish, turtles, crabs, insects, birds,

But because the number of symbols in this script is so vast,

historians believe that the Indus Script is actually a Logosyllabic Script.

Logosyllabic means

using symbols to express a word or a sound.

Let me explain this with an example.

The Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Egyptian symbols you must have seen,

are from Egyptian Civilisation.

Interestingly, friends, historians have decoded this language.

Unlike the Indus Script,

historians now know the meaning of each symbol used in Egyptian script.

In this language too, each symbol represents a sound.

For example, this symbol of the vulture,

represents the sound '/aa'.

This symbol of the leg, represents the sound /b.

Similarly, you can see the translation of each sound,

With the help of this chart, you can write your name in hieroglyphs as well.

If I have to write my name Dhruv,

it would look like this in Egyptian hieroglyphs.

A hand for D,

then a wick, and so on.

Isn't it very interesting?

Friends, we could decipher the Egyptian language

because about 200 years ago,

in an archaeological excavation, a large rock was unearthed.

A rock that contained some writing in Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Beneath it, on the rock, the same thing was written in ancient Greek.

Since we already knew Greek,

this rock worked akin to Google Translate then.

An ancient Google Translate.

A language that we knew, and a language that we didn't.

We could learn through this.

This stone was named the Rosetta Stone.

Later on, archaeologists discovered several other scripts and stones,

which contained two languages together.

The problem is that for the Indus Script,

no such tablet or Rosetta Stone has been found.

Think about it.

If I give you Chinese literature,

and you have no access to Chinese translation,

you don't even know a language like Chinese exists,

and I tell you to translate the Chinese symbols,

Will you be able to translate them?

It is next to impossible.

Even so, the historians have discovered some patterns in the Indus language.

If I ask you to list a word in English that begins with a W,

You may choose Weather, Wire, Water, Watermelon,

there are many words beginning with the alphabet W,

But friends, if I ask you to list a word in English

that begins with WZ,

can you think of any?

Or a word that begins with WQ?

You can't think of any,

because no such word exists in the English language.

Because there's a pattern in every language.

There are 26 alphabets in the English language,

they are used in certain combinations that form a pattern.

It means that you will find a lot of words beginning with WI or WA,

But you won't find any beginning with WZ or WQ.

Similarly in the Indus script as well, there are certain symbols that always follow others.

Such as whenever this diamond-shaped symbol is used,

it is followed by the symbol of two parallel lines.

But it is never followed by this symbol of the stick figure.

The most commonly used symbol is this jar-shaped symbol.

And interestingly, this symbol is often seen

and the end of the text in the Indus script.

It is possible this is like a full stop or something signifying the end of the sentence.

The remarkable discovery was when

the Indus script was found in Mesopotamia as well.

The historical sites of Mesopotamia,

like in present-day Iraq and Iran.

We know that they had a different language,

so if we found the Indus script written on stones over there,

it means that first of all,

there were trade relations between these two ancient civilisations.

People moved between the cities.

Secondly, we also know that these places had distinct languages

because different scripts have been discovered.

But the third and most interesting thing is that

the Indus script found in Mesopotamia,

the pattern we had seen in the Indus script,

where this jar-shaped symbol is at the end of the text,

in the script found in Mesopotamia is was found that

the jar-shaped symbol is repeated twice.

In the Indus Valley sites, this symbol hasn't been repeated ever.

What is this mystery?

What can be the reason for this?

Historians claim that the reason for this is that

the people living in Mesopotamia,

were using the Indus script to write their language.

If this seems a bit confusing,

let's understand this with another example.

We write Hindi in the Devnagri script.

The script with क ख ग घ.

And we write English in the Latin script.

With A B C D.

German, French, and such other languages are written in Latin script as well.

German and French languages use A B C D too!

So the speech, the way the language is spoken

is not the same as the script in which the language is written.

There is often a pairing between the two,

but can you imagine writing Hindi in Latin script?

You don't have to imagine this,

because nowadays, everyone does this.

क्या कर रहे हो? [What are you doing?]

If we write this Hindi phrase in English's Latin Script,

We will spell क्या as KYA,

doing this means that we are writing Hindi in Latin script.

But the language is still Hindi.

Historians believe that the Mesopotamians did the same thing.

With the Indus script.

They wrote their language in the Indus script.

That's why there were certain patterns over there, that were not found in the Indus Valley.

If you write the Hindi phrase आराम कर रहा हूँ [I am resting] in Latin,

you will write the word आराम as AARAM,

with two As at the beginning.

You have used double A at the beginning,

but this doesn't happen in English.

No word in English begins with a double A,

So you can see how it is evident that

we have changed the pattern of the script.

Moving on from the language, if you talk about the cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation,

there is an interesting pattern there as well.

In all the cities of the Indus Valley Civilisation unearthed till now,

there is a similar pattern in all of them.

There are two major segments in each city,

First, the Lower Mount is surrounded by a boundary wall from all sides.

And the second is a citadel in the area

that is built on higher ground known as the Upper Mount.

This citadel or fort was usually on the west of each city.

It had its own boundary walls,

And the Lower Mount had its own.

This fort had all the important public spaces in the city,

such as the marketplace, workshops,

people used to meet others at this place,

And the layer of the walls,

the purpose behind building the walls was to keep the wild animals out.

And to protect the cities from floods.

So that even if the water in the river rises, it doesn't flood the city.

Because back then, humans weren't a major threat.

There weren't many humans back then.

It is believed that there were no natural enemies of the civilisations.

So the chances are, there were no invasions from outside.

The film Mohenjo-Daro tried to describe the structure of the city in detail.

The film starred Hrithik Roshan,

I think the city depicted in the film was close to being historically accurate.

The most iconic attraction in the city of Mohenjo-Daro,

is the Great Bath.

It was a huge swimming pool.

It was a multistoried bath,

with the length of 900 ft² and depth of 2.4 meters,

it was built with burnt bricks,

and was waterproofed with natural tar.

There was a drainage hole and a well too.

It shows that there was fresh water in this swimming pool always.

Since the level of cleanliness was quite high even in other cities,

along with the drainage systems,

it is believed that Mohenjo-Daro was perhaps the capital city of the Indus Valley Civilisation.

A major difference from the Mesopotamia and Egyptian civilisations is that

no temples, mosques, or religious sites have been found in Indus Valley Civilisation yet.

No palaces or royal tombs.

This means that we have not found any evidence that

there was a monarch in the civilisation,

or any priest or religious leaders,

no evidence of any army or warfare either.

It was quite shocking for the historians as well.

Because in the other bronze age civilisations,

Religion was very common.

It seems like the people of the Harappan Civilisation were very advanced.

They lived happily, peacefully, and without any social hierarchy.

This is a highly debated topic,

and several historians disagree with each other.

And now let's see another big unsolved mystery.

How did the Indus Valley Civilisation end?

Archaeological records show us

that between 1900 BC and 1300 BC,

there was a rapid decline in this civilisation.

After this time, the planning of the cities stopped.

The sewers and drainage systems on the road weren't maintained.

The Great Bath was filled with waste,

trade links with Mesopotamia had ended.

By 1800 BC, most of the cities were empty.

Neither were people using the same writing system,

nor the standardised weights and building ratios.

No one knows what actually happened here.

There are some theories though.

One theory suggests that the river on which this civilisation depended,

started drying up.

This might have been the Saraswati River.

According to this theory, there can be several reasons as to why this river dried up.

There might have been a shift in the tectonic plates,

or the river might have naturally changed its course with time,

if this theory is correct, it is assumed that the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation,

went Eastwards and settled near the Ganga River.

The second theory suggests deforestation.

That suggests that the people of the civilisation chopped down so much of the forest,

to make their bricks and to feed their cattle,

that it killed all greenery in the area making it uninhabitable.

The third theory suggests that there might have been a fatal disease

which wiped out the entire population.

Such as malaria or cholera.

Such things were actually quite common.

As I had told you in the video on Red Plague,

When the Red Plague was rampant, within thousands of years,

it wiped out many civilisations.

There are many diseases that can wipe out 70%-80% of the population.

I will put the link to the video in the description below,

you can watch it after this.

Whatever the reason was,

one thing that we know for sure now,

after 600 BC, this civilisation was completely over.

A civilisation that existed for thousands of years,

literally, think about it,

this civilisation existed for at least 5,000 years,

our civilisation hasn't existed for even half the time,

despite existing for 5,000 years,

it met an ill-fated end.

And we lost these unique people forever.

With time, these settlements were buried underground.

New cities were established over them.

New civilisations were born on them.

And so thousands of years later,

James Lewis rediscovered this Indus Valley Civilisation.

If you like this video, click here

to watch more such videos on similar topics.

Thank you very much!