9 EVERYDAY LIFE IN MOHENJO-DARO AND HARAPPA
A highly developed civilization flourished in the Indus Valley about 1,000 years, first appearing around 2S00 B.C. This early civilization developed at the site of the ancient cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. The excerpt below from The World of the Past, edited by Jacquetta Hopkins Hawkes, draws on archaeological findings in the twin cities to build a picture of everyday life in the Indus civilization. As you read the excerpt, compare life in the Indus civilization from life in other civilizations of the same time period.
Statue from the cicy ofM flhenjo-Daro
he loliowing picture of the life that was led by the Indus peoples ... is Tdrawn by Sir John Marshall... "Like the rest of Western Asia, the Indus Country is still m . .. that age in which arms and utensils of stone continue to be used side by side with those of copper or bronze. Their society is organized in cities; their wealth derived mainly from agricul• ture and trade, which appears to have extended far and wide in all directions, They cultivate wheat and barley as well as the date-palm. They have domesticated the humped zebu [ox], buffalo, and short horned bull, besides the sheep, pig, dog, elephant, and camel; but the cat and probably the horse are unknown to them. For transport they have wheeled vehicles, to which oxen doubtless were yoked. They are skilful metal workers, with a plentiful supply of gold, silver, and copper. Lead, too, and. tie are in use, but the latter only as an alloy in the making
16 READINGS !M WORLD HISTORY "of bronze. With spinning and weaving they are thoroughly conversant. Their weapons of war and of the chase are the bow and arrow, spear, a.^e, dagger, and mace. The sword they had not yet evolved; nor is there any evidence of defensive body armoiw. Among their other implements, hatchets, sickles, saws, chisels, and razors are made of both copper and bronze; knives. .. sometimes of these metals, sometimes of chert or other hard stones. For the crushing of grain diey have the [hand mill] but not the circular grindstone. Their domestic vessels are commonly of earthenware turned on the wheel and not infrequently painted with ... designs.... The ornaments of the rich are made of the precious metals or of copper, sometimes overlaid with gold, of faience [opaque colored glazes], ivory, carnelian, and other stones; for the poor, they are usually of shell or terracotta. Figurines and toys, for which there is a wide vogue, are of terracotta, and shell and faience are freely used, as they are in Sumer and the West generally.... With the invention of writing the Indus peoples are also familiar, and employ for this purpose a form of script which, though peculiar to India, is evidently analogous to other contemporary scripts of Western Asia and the Nearer East." Besides the cultivation of wheat, barley, and date-palm,... the inhab• itants of Harappa cultivated peas and sesanum too. Nevertheless, for their food they were not dependent entirely on agriculture, for ... there is hardly a place at Harappa where bones are not upturned by the spade. JVloreover, the shng balls of clay, the copper fish hooks, the arrow-heads, the flaying knives, constitute sufficient proof. .. of the extent to which the inhabitants of Harappa depended for their food on birds and beasts and fish.
READING REVIEW
1. Of what were the tools of the Indus peoples made? 2. What evidence suggests that the Indus peoples did not depend entirely on agriculture for their food? 3. How did daily life in iVlohenjo-Daro and Harappa compare to daily hfe in Sumer?
•