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Sample Copy Not For Distribution. Five Great Civilizations of Ancient World i Sample Copy Not For Distribution. Publishing-in-support-of, EDUCREATION PUBLISHING RZ 94, Sector - 6, Dwarka, New Delhi - 110075 Shubham Vihar, Mangla, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh - 495001 Website: www.educreation.in ________________________________________________________________ © Copyright, Authors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, magnetic, optical, chemical, manual, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written consent of its writer. ISBN: 978-1-61813-837-8 Price: ` 264.00 The opinions/ contents expressed in this book are solely of the authors and do not represent the opinions/ standings/ thoughts of Educreation or the Editors .The book is released by using the services of self-publishing house. Printed in India ii Sample Copy Not For Distribution. Five Great Civilizations of Ancient World Sehdev Kumar Sharma Damanjit Kaur Pahuja EDUCREATION PUBLISHING (Since 2011) www.educreation.in iii Sample Copy Not For Distribution. iv Sample Copy Not For Distribution. Preface After leaving my two decades career in Indian Air Force, I thought in Lovely Professional University as a Assistant Profession in School of Arts and Languages. I was always given opportunity to teach the toughest subjects according to my caliber and reach. I was fortunate enough that my class always had international students across the globe. While teaching a very specialized subject “Great Civilizations of the World”, I came across many challenges as my students always strived to acquire consolidated information in a single book. Many a times, I also struggled to develop my content as per syllabus and instruction plans. It instigated to explore the right content and bunch it in a single frame. I also came across a very talent historian who accepted my proposal to write a book on world history. She tirelessly supported me in my every even and odd time while writing this book. Though ample number of books is already available in the market on the subject matter, still we assume that this book will be worth to read and understand the ancient concepts. To embark with its features, we tried to arrange the study material systematically. The books available in the market covers Indus Valley, Chinese, Mesopotamia and Egypt but we have included Mayan Civilization to extend the worth of this book. Further, we have highlighted the social, political, cultural and economic aspects of every civilization. We have gone through various books, journals and online resources to provide best knowledge to our readers. In addition to it, we tried to write this book in a very simple manner The primal reason behind is to ensure that readers read it only once and understand it thoroughly. Next, it would cover syllabus of many academic institutions which would a good academic support to our student readers. Last but not the least, the book can be read as general reading book for the book lovers. We worked a lot to arrange it in chronologically and interestingly to acquire perpetual attention span of our reader. v Sample Copy Not For Distribution. We admit that this book is as an exhaustive content. There might be some aspects which could be left because of some reasons. To err is human, though we tried to put our best in this book by providing you right information, but it may have meager flaws or diversified opinions. We appreciate our readers to kindly inform us in case of any shortcoming. Sehdev Kumar Sharma [email protected] Mob: - 9988014800 ***** vi Sample Copy Not For Distribution. Preface We feel privileged to write this book to cater the needs of students of History subject during their higher level of studies and preparation for competitive examinations. The book comprises history of five great ancient civilizations across the globe. Every unit is well designed and planned to facilitate insight about social, economical, political and religious aspects of numerous dynasties and kings of these civilizations. We have put in our best efforts to provide realistic and accurate information to our students. We had studied various texts and contents from different websites and text books. We had included some pictures and maps to facilitate better understanding for our readers. We are sanguine that our efforts will help our readers to understand the topics and prepare well for their forthcoming examinations. We are very open to receive your feedback on our efforts so that we put in more efforts to enlarge the editions of this book by including more and more civilizations of the world. We are thankful to almighty for bestowing us the right wisdom to jot down this text for our readers. We are also thanking our publishers for putting inour efforts to bring this text before the mass readers. We hope that in future we will be coming up with next concepts and topics. Ms. Damanjit Kaur Pahuja ***** vii Sample Copy Not For Distribution. viii Sample Copy Not For Distribution. Five Great Civilization of Ancient World Chapter 1 The Indus Valley Civilization ______________________________________________________ 1.1 Introduction Indus valley civilization is one of the oldest civilizations of the world. It is also known as “Bronze Age Civilization” because the people used bronze to make their Tools, utensils etc. It was the largest of four ancient urban civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia and China. It covered an area of almost 13 lakh square kilometers. No other Ancient civilization was extended to such a large area. The historic discovery was made by R.B. Dayaram Sahni at Harappa in west Punjab in 1921 A.D. The primal sites of this civilization are in Pakistan at present. These are Harappa, Mohenjo-Daro (Pakistan) and Kalibangan, Sanghol, Mitathal, Alamgirpur and Lothal (India). This Civilization was distinguished for its town planning. The houses had followed a planned system. The streets were well constructed with covered drainage system. Agriculture was prime occupation of this civilization. Women had enjoyed high status. People worshipped the Mother Goddess as a symbol of fertility. They also worshipped birds, animals, sun and “The Lingas” (Shivlinga). The music and dance were the main sources of 1 Sample Copy Not For Distribution. Sehdev Kumar Sharma, Damanjit Kaur Pahuja entertainment. People made great progress in the various types of art. But, historians were not able to decipher the script of this era. The chief source to know and understand the history of this civilization is the archaeological excavations. 1.2 Discovery The “Indus Valley “civilization is the earliest known civilization of India. At first it came to the knowledge of mankind when English Charles Masson discovered it in 1842. But then it could not attract any archaeological interest for many years. In 1857 the British engineers John & William Brunton found some bricks of Harappa ruins while building “"East Indian Railway” line from Karachi to Lahore. In 1872 Sir Alexander Cunningham published the first Harappa seal. Later in 1912 more Harappan seals were discovered by J. Fleat. Dayaram Sahni excavated this site in Harappa in 1921 A.D. Another archaeologist R.D. Banerjee excavated the site of Indus at Mohenjo-Daro in 1922 A.D. After that numerous excavations were done under Sir John Marshall, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, M.S. Vatas and N.G. Majumdar. 1.3. Age of Indus Valley Civilization Indus Valley civilization was claimed to be about5000 years old. There are different opinions about the era of this civilization. According to Sir John Marshall it belonged to the period between 4000-2500 B.C. But according to Mortimer Wheeler it was from 2500 to 1700 B.C. On the other hand Dr.R.K. Mookerjee said that it was from 3250 to 2750 B.C. While according to Dr. A.D. Pusalkar it was from 2800 to 2500 B.C. As the majority of historians feel that its era was 2250 to 1750 B.C. So it was concluded that the Indus valley civilization existed between 3250 and 2750 B.C. During this period Mesopotamia, Egyptian and Babylonia civilization also flourished. The recent Indian archaeologists believe that it could have extended from 2500B.C. to 1500 B.C. 2 Sample Copy Not For Distribution. Five Great Civilization of Ancient World 1.4 Major Cities The historical resources support the following major cities of Indus Valley Civilization. 1.4.1. Harappa Harappa was large city of Indus valley civilization. It was located in western Punjab (Now in Pakistan). It flourished around 2500 B.C. It was discovered by R.B. Dayaram Sahni in 1921 A.D. It was spread over 5 kilometers. It had as many as 40000 residents. This was assumed to be one of the modern towns of this civilization. The houses were made of baked bricks and there was proper facility of lighting at night. The roads and streets were sufficiently wide. Moreover, many granaries, figures, utensils and coins were found in this town. It was surrounded by walls on all the four sides perhaps for trade regulation or safety against enemies. 1.4.2 Mohenjo-Daro Mohenjo-Daro or “Mound of the dead” was the second important town of Indus valley civilization. It was situated in Larkana district in Sind (Pakistan). It was discovered in 1922 A.D. by R.D. Banerjee. It was 483 km away from Harappa. Mohenjo-Daro was known for its well-planned roads. It was a central place of trade and farming. It was very prominent city because the great bath, biggest granary, bronze figure of a dancing girl and large quantity of seals were found from this site. 1.4.3. Kalibangan Kalibangan is located in Rajasthan (India).