Harappan civilization 2 Architecture 2 Drainage System 3 The planning of the residential houses were also meticulous. 4 Town Planning 4 Urban Culture 4 Occupation 5 Export import product of 5 Clothing 5 Important centres 6 Religious beliefs 6 Script 7 Authority and governance 7 Technology 8 Architecture Of Indus Valley Civilisation 9 The GAP 9 ARTS OF THE INDUS VALLEY 11 Stone Statues 12 MALE TORSO 12 Bust of a bearded priest 13 Male Dancer 14 Bronze Casting 14 DANCING GIRL 15 BULL 16 Terracotta 16 MOTHER GODDESS 17 Seals 18 Pashupati Seal 19 Copper tablets 19 Bull Seal 20 Pottery 21 PAINTED EARTHEN JAR 22 Beads and Ornaments 22 Toy Animal with moveable head 24
Page 1 of 26 Harappan civilization
India has a continuous history covering a very long period. Evidence of neolithic habitation dating as far back as 7000 BC has been found in Mehrgarh in Baluchistan. However, the first notable civilization flourished in India around 2700 BC in the north western part of the Indian subcontinent, covering a large area. The civilization is referred to as the Harappan civilization. Most of the sites of this civilization developed on the banks of Indus, Ghaggar and its tributaries.
Architecture
The excavations at Harappa and Mohenjodaro and several other sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation revealed the existence of a very modern urban civilisation with expert town planning and engineering skills. The very advanced drainage system along with well planned roads and houses show that a sophisticated and highly evolved culture existed in India before the coming of the Aryans. The sites of the Indus Valley Civilization were excavated under the Archaeological Survey of India established by the British.
The Harappan people had constructed mainly three types of buildings-dwelling houses, pillared halls and public baths.
Main features of Harappan remains are:
1. The settlements could be traced as far back as third millennium BC.
2. Some important settlements were excavated on the banks of the river Indus particularly at the bends that provided water, easy means of transportation of produce and other goods and also some protection by way of natural barriers of the river .
3. All the sites consisted of walled cities which provided security to the people.
4. The cities had a rectangular grid pattern of layout with roads that cut each other at right angles. Page 2 of 26 5. The Indus Valley people used standardised burnt mud-bricks as building material.
6. There is evidence of building of big dimensions which perhaps were public buildings, administrative or business centres, pillared halls and courtyards, There is no evidence of temples.
7. Public buildings include granaries which were used to store grains which give an idea of an organised collection and distribution system.
8. Along with large public buildings, there is evidence of small one roomed constructions that appear to be working peoples quarters.
9. The Harappan people were great engineers as is evident from the public bath that was discovered at Mohenjodaro.
(a) The ‘Great Bath’ as it is called, is still functional and there is no leakage or cracks in the construction.
(b) The existence of what appears to be a public bathing place shows the importance of ritualistic bathing and cleanliness in this culture.
(c) It is significant that most of the houses had private wells and bathrooms.
10. At some sites a dominant citadal was excavated in the western part containing the public buildings including the granaries. This can perhaps be treated as evidence of some kind of political authority ruling over the cities.
11. There is evidence also of fortifications with gateways enclosing the walled cities which shows that there may have been a fear of being attacked.
12. Lothal, a site in Gujarat also has the remains of a dockyard proving that trade flourished in those times by sea.
Drainage System
Another remarkable feature was the existence of a well planned drainage system in the residential parts of the city.
1. From a room that appears to have been set aside for bathing, waste water was directed to covered drains, which lined the major streets.
Page 3 of 26 2. Small drains from the houses were connected to larger ones along the sides of the main roads.
3. The drains were covered and loose covers were provided for the purpose of cleaning them.
The planning of the residential houses were also meticulous.
1. Evidence of stairs shows houses were often double storied.
2. Doors were in the side lanes to prevent dust from entering the houses.
3. Individual homes or groups of homes obtained water from wells.
4. Houses opened only to inner courtyards and smaller lanes.
Town Planning
1. The most important features of Harrapan architecture are their superior town planning skills and cities that have been built on a clear geometric pattern or grid layout.
2. Roads cut each other at right angles and were very well laid out.
3. As the Indus Valley settlements were located on the banks of the river, they were often destroyed by major floods. In spite of this calamity, the Indus Valley people built fresh settlements on the same sites. Thus, layers upon layers of settlements and buildings were found during the excavations. The decline and final destruction of the Indus Valley Civilization, sometime around the second millennium BC remains a mystery to this day. ——also indicates indegenous nature of Indus Valley civilisation.
Urban Culture
1. The culture associated with the Harappan civilization is the first known urban culture in India.
Page 4 of 26 2. The Harappans built the earliest cities complete with town planning, sanitation, drainage system and broad well-laid roads.
3. They built double storied houses of burnt- bricks each one of which had a bathroom, a kitchen and a well.
4. The walled cities had other important buildings such as the Great Bath, Grannaries and Assembly Halls.
Occupation
1. Agriculture was the main occupation of the Harappans who were living in rural areas.
• They were perhaps the first people to cultivate cotton.
2. Those living in the cities carried on Internal and external trade and developed contacts with other civilizations such as Mesopotamia.
• A large number of Indus seals found in Mesopotamia which indicated of a possible trade between the Indus valley and Mesopotamian civilization.
3. They were excellent potters. Various types of utensils, toys, seals, figurines have been excavated from different sites.
4. Harappans also had the technical knowledge of metals and the process of alloying.
• The bronze sculpture of a dancing girl found in Mohenjodaro testifies the sculptural skills and aesthetic sense of the Harappans.
• Shell, ivory, bone and faience were used as material for different crafts and objects.
5. The figures of men and women on various seals found in the excavations reveal that the people knew the art of spinning and weaving.
Export import product of
Clothing
Page 5 of 26 It is evident from the discovery of a large number of spindles and spindle whorls in the houses of the Indus Valley that spinning of cotton and wool was very common. The fact that both the rich and the poor practised spinning is indicated by finds of whorls made of the expensive faience as also of the cheap pottery and shell.
1. Men and women wore two separate pieces of attire similar to the dhoti and shawl.
2. The shawl covered the left shoulder passing below the right shoulder.
3. From archaeological finds it appears that the people of the Indus Valley were conscious of fashion.
• Different hairstyles were in vogue and wearing of a beard was popular among all.
• Cinnabar was used as a cosmetic and face-paint, lipstick and collyrium (eyeliner) were also known to them.
Important centres
1. Lothal was a dockyard situated in Dholaka Taluk of Ahmedabad in Gujarat. It was also a well planned wall city. It was an important centre of sea trade with the western world.
2. Dhaulavira in Gujarat
3. Kalibangam in Rajasthan
4. While Harappa and Mohenjodaro are situated in Pakistan,
5. Rakhigarhi in Haryana,
6. Ropar in the Punjab,
7. Kalibangan and Balathal in Rajasthan,
8. LINK: https://www.evernote.com/l/AS6-BteFtiBP164bin2AgwWlZ7hl-se4BdI
Religious beliefs
Page 6 of 26 1. Numerous seals carrying the images of the one-horned rhinocerous known as unicorn, peepal leaves and a male god throw light on the religious beliefs of the Harappans.
2. It appears that they worshipped plants and animals and the forces of nature.
3. They worshipped a male god resembling Lord Shiva of later times and a mother goddess among others.
4. They probably believed in life after death and also in charms and spells.
5. Seals engraved with animal figures like the humped bull, elephant and rhinocerous suggest that these animals were considered sacred.
6. ‘Peepal’ has been found depicted on many seals.
Script
1. Harappans knew how to write and most of their seals contain some form of script. But unfortunately no one has yet been able to decipher that script.
2. As a result, our knowledge of the Harappan civilization is based on the archaeological evidence alone.
3. Script is Boustrophedon : Every other line of writing is flipped or reversed, with reversed letters.
Authority and governance
Archaeological records provide no immediate answers for a centre of power or for depictions of people in power in Harappan society. But, there are indications of complex decisions being taken and implemented. For instance, the extraordinary uniformity of Harappan artefacts as evident in pottery, seals, weights and bricks.
These are the major theories:
Page 7 of 26 1. There was a single state, given the similarity in artefacts, the evidence for planned settlements, the standardised ratio of brick size, and the establishment of settlements near sources of raw material.
2. There was no single ruler but several: Mohenjo-daro had a separate ruler, Harappa another, and so forth.
3. Harappan society had no rulers, and everybody enjoyed equal status.
By 1800 BC the Harappan civilization began declining. However, we do not know the exact reasons why this happened.
Technology
The people of the Indus Civilization achieved great accuracy in measuring length, mass, and time.
1. They were among the first to develop a system of uniform weights and measures. A comparison of available objects indicates large scale variation across the Indus territories.
2. Their smallest division, which is marked on an ivory scale found in Lothal in Gujarat, was approximately 1.704 mm, the smallest division ever recorded on a scale of the Bronze Age.
3. Harappan engineers followed the decimal division of measurement for all practical purposes, including the measurement of mass as revealed by their hexahedron weights.
4. These chert weights were in a ratio of 5:2:1 with weights of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500 units, with each unit weighing approximately 28 grams, similar to the English Imperial ounce or Greek uncia, and smaller objects were weighed in similar ratios with the units of 0.871. The weights and measures later used in Kautilya's Arthashastra (4th century BCE) are the same as those used in Lothal.
Page 8 of 26 5. Harappans evolved some new techniques in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze, lead, and tin. The engineering skill of the Harappans was remarkable, especially in building docks. No iron.
6. In 2001, archaeologists studying the remains of two men from Mehrgarh, Pakistan, discovered that the people of the Indus Valley Civilization, from the early Harappan periods, had knowledge of proto-dentistry. Later, in April 2006, it was announced in the scientific journal Nature that the oldest (and first early Neolithic) evidence for the drilling of human teeth in vivo (i.e., in a living person) was found in Mehrgarh. Eleven drilled molar crowns from nine adults were discovered in a Neolithic graveyard in Mehrgarh that dates from 7,500–9,000 years ago. According to the authors, their discoveries point to a tradition of proto-dentistry in the early farming cultures of that region.
7. A touchstone bearing gold streaks was found in Banawali, which was probably used for testing the purity of gold (such a technique is still used in some parts of India).
Architecture Of Indus Valley Civilisation
Town planning was excellent. Burnt brick was widely used, roads were wide and at right angles to one another, city drains were laid out with great skill and forethought, the corbelled arch and baths were constructed with knowledge and skill.
But with the fragmentary remains of the buildings constructed by these people it is not yet possible to know enough about the architectural skill and tastes of the people. However, one thing is clear, the extant buildings do not give us any clue as to aesthetic considerations and there is a certain dull plainness about the architecture which may be due to their fragmentary and ruined condition.
The GAP
There does not appear to be any connection between the cities built in the 3rd millennium B.C., with an astonishing civic sense, of first rate well-fired brick structures, and the architecture of subsequent thousand years or so, of Indian art history, after the decline and
Page 9 of 26 decay of the Harappan civilization and the beginning of the historic period of Indian history, mainly the time of the great Mauryas of Magadha.
These thousands years or so were a period of tremendous, intellectual and sociological activity and could not be barren of any artistic creations.
However, due to the fact that during this time sculpture and architecture was utilising organic and perishable materials such as mud, mudbrick, bamboo, timber, leaves, straw and thatch, these have not survived the ravages of time.
General view of House, Lothal Gujarat
Two important remains of the oldest times are fortifications of the old Rajagriha town, in Bihar and the fortified capital of Sisupalgarh, perhaps the ancient Kalinganagar, near Bhubaneswar.
1. The Rajagriha fortification wall is made in the roughest possible manner, unhewn stones being piled one on top of the other. This belongs to the 6th-5th century, B.C.
2. However at Sisupalgarh in the 2nd-1st century B.C. stone masons were at work using large blocks of stones to make a very well-made fort entrance that could be closed with huge doors turning on hinges.
We know it for a fact that stone masonry and stone carving were imported in Ashoka's times from Persia.
Page 10 of 26 There is abundant evidence of stone masons marks similar to those at Persepolis. However, wood was still the dominant material and in architectural remains of Ashokan times, the gradual transition from wood to stone is apparent. At Pataliputra, remains have been found of a great timber wall that once surrounded the imperial capital, a fact clearly mentioned by Megasthanes who states that everything in his day was built of timber in India.
However, there is one important exception to this and that is the rock-cut architecture of India.
The early Indian cave temples and monasteries are masterpieces of "organising space" with beauty and utility in view.
A typical example of early cave architecture is the most datable cave of all, the so-called Lomas Rishi cave in the Barabar Hills of Bihar.
ARTS OF THE INDUS VALLEY
1. The arts of the Indus Valley Civilisation emerged during the second half of the third millennium BCE. The forms of art found from various sites of the civilisation include sculptures, seals, pottery, gold jewellery, terracotta figures, etc.
Page 11 of 26 2. The Harappans had the knowledge and skill of sculpting and craft. The world’s first bronze sculpture of a dancing girl has been found in Mohenjodaro. A terracotta figure of a male in a yogic posture has also been excavated. Beautiful personal ornaments, soft stone seals with a pictoral script and images of humped bulls, Pashupati unicorn have also been excavated.
3. The artists of that time surely had fine artistic sensibilities and a vivid imagination.
4. Their delineation of human and animal figures was highly realistic in nature, since the anatomical details included in them was unique, and, in the case of terracotta art, the modelling of animal figures was done in an extremely careful manner.
5. The two major sites of the Indus Valley Civilisation, along the Indus river—the cities of Harappa in the north and Mohenjodaro in the south—showcase one of earliest examples of civic planning.
6. Statues whether in stone, bronze or terracotta found in Harappan sites are not abundant, but refined.
Stone Statues
The stone statuaries found at Harappa and Mohenjodaro are excellent examples of handling three- dimensional volumes.
In stone are two male figures— one is a torso in red sandstone and the other is a bust of a bearded man in steatite—which are extensively discussed.
MALE TORSO
Among the few stone figurines, a male torso of polished red lime stone from Harappa, chiselled in the round, is remarkable for its naturalistic pose and sophisticated modelling, highlighting its physical beauty. This lovely figure makes one wonder how at that remote age, it was possible for the sculptor to carve as beautifully as was done very much later in Greece in the 5th century B.C.
1. The head and arms of this figure were carved separately and socketed into the drilled holes of the torso.
Page 12 of 26 2. The frontal posture of the torso has been consciously adopted.
3. The shoulders are well baked and the abdomen slightly prominent.
Bust of a bearded priest
The figure of the bearded man interpreted as a priest, from Mohenjodro made up of steatite.
1. is draped in a shawl coming under the right arm and covering the left shoulder.
2. This shawl is decorated with trefoil patterns.
3. The eyes are a little elongated, and half-closed as in meditative concentration.
4. The nose is well formed and of medium size;
5. The mouth is of average size with close-cut moustache and a short beard and whiskers;
6. The ears resemble double shells with a hole in the middle.
7. The hair is parted in the middle, and a plain woven fillet is passed round the head.
8. An armlet is worn on the right hand and holes around the neck suggest a necklace.
9. It bears a close resemblance to a similar figure discovered in the Sumerian sites of Ur and Susa.
Page 13 of 26 Male Dancer
1. The figure of a male dancer belonging to the same period and discovered at Harappa is an important carving showing how music and dance had a great place in life almost 5000 years ago.
2. It amply proves the dexterity with which the sculptor 5000 years ago, could catch beautiful movements of dance poses and express them in stone by the graceful twist of the body from the waist upward.
3. Unfortunately, it is in a damaged condition, but it still reflects the great mastery with all its vitality and grace.
Bronze Casting
Bronze casting techniques of the same nature are practised even now in many parts of the country, having a continuous tradition.
The art of bronze-casting was practised on a wide scale by the Harappans.
Lost wax technique
Their bronze statues were made using the ‘lost wax’ technique in which the
1. wax figures were first covered with a coating of clay and allowed to dry.
2. Then the wax was heated and the molten wax was drained out through a tiny hole made in the clay cover.
3. The hollow mould thus created was filled with molten metal which took the original shape of the object.
4. Once the metal cooled, the clay cover was completely removed.
Examples
Page 14 of 26 we find human as well as animal figures
1. Human = ‘Dancing Girl’ In bronze .
2. Animal figures =
A. BRONZE
• Buffalo with its uplifted head, back and sweeping horns
• goat
• bull from Kalibangan
B. COPPER
• copper dog and bird of Lothal
Bronze casting was popular at all the major centres of the Indus Valley Civilisation.
Metal-casting appears to be a continuous tradition. The late Harappan and Chalcolithic sites like Daimabad in Maharashtra yielded excellent examples of metal-cast sculptures. They mainly consist of human and animal figures. It shows how the tradition of figure sculpture continued down the ages.
DANCING GIRL
The bronze dancing girl of the same period discovered at Mohenjodaro is perhaps the greatest surviving achievement of the metal work of the Harappan age.
One of the best known artefacts from the Indus Valley is this approximately four-inch-high bronze figure of a dancing girl.
1. This world-famous figure shows a female dancing figure standing as if relaxing after a dance number, with her right hand on her hip and the left dangling free.
2. Found in Mohenjodaro, this exquisite casting depicts a girl whose long hair is tied in a bun
3. She wears a large number of bangles, probably made of bone or ivory on her left arm together with a couple of pairs on her right arm. Bangles cover her left arm.
Page 15 of 26 4. A bracelet and an amulet or bangle adorn her right arm.
5. A cowry shell necklace is seen around her neck.
6. Her right hand is on her hip and her left hand is clasped in a traditional Indian dance gesture.
7. She has large eyes and flat nose.
8. This figure is full of expression and bodily vigour and conveys a lot of information.
9. The statuette is a great master piece of the art of the metal craftsman of the period who knew the art of bronze casting in the cire perdue or lost-wax process.
BULL
This bronze figure of a bull from Mohenjodaro deserves mention.
1. The massiveness of the bull and the fury of the charge are eloquently expressed.
2. The animal is shown standing with his head turned to the right and with a cord around the neck.
Terracotta
The Indus Valley people made terracotta images also but compared to the stone and bronze statues the terracotta representations of human form are crude in the Indus Valley.
1. They are more realistic in Gujarat sites and Kalibangan.
2. The most important among the Indus figures are those representing the “mother goddess.”
Page 16 of 26 3. In terracotta, we also find a few figurines of bearded males with coiled hair, their posture rigidly upright, legs slightly apart, and the arms parallel to the sides of the body. The repetition of this figure in exactly the same position would suggest that he was a deity.
4. A terracotta mask of a horned deity has also been found.
5. Toy carts with wheels, whistles, rattles, birds and animals, gamesmen and discs were also rendered in terracotta.