COVER STORY

Forgotten Utopia

It thrived for 700 years without war or conflict. What was the Indus civilisation’s secret? asks Andrew Robinson

ICTURE a peace-loving Atlantic island The Indus civilisation flourished from Other aspects of the civilisation are even ruled by reason. Its 54 cities are governed about 2600 to 1900 BC. More than a thousand more perplexing. The chief cities show no Pby educated officials and an elected-for- settlements have been found covering at least clear signs of being fortified. No armour and life prince. Although war hasn’t been 800,000 square kilometres of what is now no indisputably military weapon – as opposed abolished, it is used only as a last resort. People , and (see map, to knives, spears and arrows designed for see no glory in fighting, and capture enemies page 32), yet its remains were only discovered hunting animals – has been found. Nor is there rather than kill them. This is the original in the 1920s. It is now regarded as the evidence of the horse, an animal well suited to Utopia – the pagan, communist and pacifist beginning of Indian civilisation and possibly raiding parties, which later became common world sketched out exactly 500 years ago in the origin of Hinduism. in the region. In nearly a century of Thomas More’s eponymous work of fiction. All signs point to a prosperous and excavations, archaeologists have uncovered More’s book has exerted a powerful pull on advanced society – one of history’s greatest. just one depiction of humans fighting, and it our imaginations – not least through utopian It had a vigorous maritime export trade via is a partly mythical scene showing a female science fiction. But in a world of autocracy, the Arabian Sea, and archaeologists have deity with the horns of a goat and the body of fanaticism and terrorism, it seems as far from found objects made in the Indus valley in a tiger (shown on page 33). reality as ever. Indeed, arguments still rage Mesopotamian cities such as Ur and Akkad. There is a total absence of conspicuous royal about his true intention. His title, derived The two largest Indus cities, and palaces and grand temples, no monumental from the ancient Greek ou-topos – meaning depiction of kings and other rulers, not much “no place” – is a pun on eu-topos, “good place”. “In a century of excavations, difference between the homes of rich and Was More proposing a blueprint of an ideal we have found just one poor, no sign of differing diets in the bones of society or satirising the self-interest, greed buried skeletons and no evidence of slavery. and military exploits of the hereditary depiction of fighting” All this stands in stark contrast with the monarchies of his time? ziggurats of Mesopotamia and pharaohs of On one thing nearly everyone agrees: Mohenjo-daro, boasted street planning and ancient Egypt. no utopia has ever existed. Large human sewage worthy of modern times, including “What’s left of these great Indus cities gives societies tend to be governed by coercion. the world’s earliest known toilets and an us no indication of a society engaged with, The instinct for warfare has been a driving impressive brick water tank known as the or threatened by, war,” says Neil MacGregor, force in nearly every civilisation of the last Great Bath. former director of the British Museum in five millennia, from ancient Mesopotamia Indus craftsmen created complex stone London. The Indus people, he argues, offer a to the British Empire. weights for commerce and long, precision- novel model of an urban civilisation, without Or has it? One mysterious, ancient society drilled carnelian beads for jewellery. celebration of violence or extreme might give the lie to that. The civilisation of Thousands of small sealstones have also been concentration of individual power: “Is it going the Indus valley is the most enigmatic of the found; worn around the neck, merchants too far to see these Indus cities as an early, four great early civilisations. But while would have used them to stamp their identity urban Utopia?” Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt and ancient on clay tags. Each one is carved with an There are some who find a complete China gloried in warfare, it seems absent from exquisite but mysterious script (see example, absence of war and conflict not credible. i nson the Indus valley. Was this a real, functioning page 32), which has provoked more than a “There has never been a society without d wi lk d r utopia? If so, how did it survive, and why did it hundred published attempts to decipher its conflict of greater or lesser scale,” says Richard cha i R eventually disappear? language – with little consensus. Meadow at Harvard University’s Peabody >

17 September 2016 | NewScientist | 31 Left to right: A sealstone with the ; Mohenjo-daro; the Indus civilisation’s only depiction of humans fighting

Museum. He argues that knives, spears and the like could have been used on humans as well as animals, and points out that the a ancient Maya were once thought to be i Ind of exceptionally peace-loving – until their rvey u hieroglyphs were deciphered, revealing stories tive calgi S of exceptionally bloody battles, sacrifice and a olo e torture. Who knows what the Indus script Cre i c p h cha a

might reveal if it is deciphered? Ar gr y o s etty e

Then again, even the Maya had fortifications /G rte y p h

around some of their cities and widespread G onal a ti ä/ cou ä/ gr a depictions of warrior kings, so Meadow’s views o / N t per are currently in the minority. n q Pho q i ahd e Most large societies lean on centralised OLSON Y a L a AND M RafM rj E R governments to enforce the rule of law. Yet the S only Indus sculpture that might conceivably depict a ruler is a small meditative bust of a the level of the annual floods of the Indus Commercial networks spread over a vast and its four main tributaries, unlike the study in the 1980s revealed that these victims abandonment. All this could have been bearded and cloaked man with partly closed river. Additional platforms were sometimes area are another indication of a centralised unreliable annual Nile inundation in Egypt. died from malaria or other diseases, rather triggered by tectonic activity in the eyes. Generally dubbed a “priest-king” – built on top, to further raise individual authority. mined close to the Raw materials were plentiful, including than massacre. Himalayas: the region is prone to because he wears a cloak over his left shoulder, structures. At Mohenjo-daro, the foundational trading post of Shortugai in what is now timber, semi-precious stones, and copper While major migrations from Central Asia earthquakes; one damaged an Indus much like Buddhist monks and Hindu priests, platform is 200 metres wide, 400 metres long Afghanistan is found as far afield as Egypt. and other metals. And two growing seasons, between 1900 and 1500 BC are still thought to settlement at in about 2200 BC. with a trefoil design that resembles one worn and 5 metres tall. Indus excavator and scholar Goods were undoubtedly shipped via the arising from its winter cyclonic system and have played a role in the Indus’ endgame, It’s most likely that the decline of the Indus by Mesopotamian priests – his identity is in Gregory Possehl of the University of and its tributaries, but many must its summer monsoon system, would have changes to the environment may also have civilisation involved environmental and fact totally obscure. Pennsylvania calculated that it would have have travelled overland. Such networks provided abundant food. Egypt and contributed. Climate change – an agent in the human factors operating in tandem. Nonetheless, big engineering projects in the taken 10,000 men just over a year to build. couldn’t have developed and operated for Mesopotamia weren’t so lucky. downfall of so many other civilisations – has According to India’s leading Indus scholar, Indus valley would suggest some guiding This would have required some kind of central seven centuries without basic roads between been fingered: the archaeological record Iravatham Mahadevan, the very thing that authority existed to mobilise, direct and authority to mobilise and direct labourers. Of settlements, presumably maintained by suggests the monsoon weakened around 2100 made the Indus civilisation so special could provision the workforce. Take the vast stone course, More made allowances for slavery in centrally directed taxation, plus some kind of Eventual decline BC. And there are strong indications that the have brought about its ruin. “The civilisation platforms that underlie various cities. They his Utopia, so perhaps this is just one more regulatory framework to enforce the validity As a result, the Indus peoples had no economic course of the Indus river and its tributaries seems to have declined and collapsed due to were built to raise buildings and streets above parallel between the fictional and real worlds. of long-distance commercial agreements. need to invade foreign lands, hence no need shifted. A reconstruction of its course based natural causes and also probably due to the And then there are the stone weights. They for militaristic leaders. As for invaders, who on historical sources, past landforms and failure of the ideology which bound the were standardised for commerce throughout were the likely candidates? To the west, aerial photography shows major changes people together,” he says. Possehl agrees. the Indus valley and clearly worked well: the political and commercial relations were good, between 4000 and 2000 BC. The shift led to a “The Indus ideology ultimately had feet of system survived long after the civilisation judging from the discovery of Indus growing flood threat to Mohenjo-daro, which clay,” he writes in his book The Indus disappeared. Not only did it provide the settlements at and Sutkagen-dor in could have caused the city’s eventual Civilization: A contemporary perspective. “In weight standards for the earliest Indian coins, neighbouring Balochistan. The same probably the end their ideology made the Indus people issued in the 7th century BC, the system is applied to Afghanistan to the north and north- who they were, but it may have proved to be still used today for weighing small quantities west, on the basis of the settlement at their undoing as well.” in some traditional markets of both Pakistan Shortugai. To the east, in Rajasthan, there was In Possehl’s view, the lack of conflict and and India. only the inhospitable and sparsely populated militarism endemic in the civilisation It seems inconceivable that such a wealthy Thar desert and the Aravalli mountain range. encouraged its original growth before 2600 society could have survived for centuries Only in the south, on the Arabian Sea coast, BC and its relatively short flourishing, might the Indus dwellers have faced attack. It’s compared with Mesopotamia, Egypt and perhaps no coincidence that this is where the China. But it also accelerated the civilisation’s “Who knows what the only fortified settlements have been found. decline after 1900 BC. Indus egalitarianism Indus script might reveal As for a possible attack from distant and pacifism, though productive for a while, Mesopotamia, there would have been little eventually led to stagnancy and inflexibility tive if it is deciphered?” motivation, given the value of the Indus trade, a in the face of change.

plus the fact that Mesopotamian rulers were Cre i c There is, admittedly, limited evidence to p h a

without falling victim to aggressive invaders preoccupied with internal battles. gr confirm or deny Possehl’s hypothesis. It’s o or embracing internal strongmen – Indus So what eventually happened to the Indus e likely that we will remain in the dark until

equivalents of Ramesses the Great in Egypt civilisation? In the late 1920s, a group of 14 G onal the tantalising Indus script is cracked. This ti and Hammurabi in Babylon. How was skeletons was unearthed in Mohenjo-daro, a should shed light on whether some degree of this possible? apparently caught in the act of fleeing the city. IR/ N conflict, if not outright war, is vital to the P. B LA P.

Part of the answer seems to have been The discovery led to theories that migrants S survival of a civilisation – and whether Utopia ME A geographical luck. The Indus civilisation had from Central Asia had attacked the Indus J really is “no place”. n extensive lands ranging from river plains and civilisation and initiated its decline: after coastlines to hills and mountains. Copious flourishing for seven centuries, the peace- The “priest-king”, arguably the only Andrew Robinson is the author of The Indus: Lost water flowed year-round down the Indus river loving people met a violent end. But forensic plausible depiction of an Indus leader civilizations (Reaktion Books, 2015)

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