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Indus Valley Civilization
Excavated ruins of Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan. The
Indus Valley Civilization
(Mature period 2600–1900 BCE), abbreviated
IVC
, was anancientcivilizationthat flourished in theIndus River basin. Primarily centred in modern day
India
(GujaratandRajasthan
 
) and
Pakistan
(Sindhand Punjabprovinces), it extends westward into the Balochistanprovince of Pakistan. Remains have been excavated fromAfghanistan, Turkmenistan and Iran, as well. Historically part of 
Ancient India
,it is one of the world's threeearliest urban civilizations along with MesopotamiaandAncient Egypt. The mature phase of this civilization is technically known as the
Harappan Civilization
, after the
[1
 
]
first of its cities to beunearthed:Harappa inPakistan.Excavation of IVC sites have been ongoing since 1920, with important breakthroughs occurring as recently as 1999.
[2]
The civilization is sometimes referred to as the
Indus Ghaggar-Hakra civilization
[3]
or the
Indus-Sarasvaticivilization
. The appellation
 Indus-Sarasvati
is based on the possibleidentification of the Ghaggar-Hakra River with theSarasvati River mentioned in theRig Veda,
[4]
 but this usage is disputed on linguistic and geographical grounds.
[5]
Contents
•
1 Historical context
•
2 Discovery and excavation
•
3 Periodisation
•
4 Geography
•
5 Origins
•
6 Early Harappan
•
7 Mature Harappan
○
7.1 Cities
○
7.2 Science
○
7.3 Arts and culture
○
7.4 Trade and transportation
 
○
7.5 Agriculture
○
7.6 Writing or symbol system
○
7.7 Religion
•
8 Late Harappan
○
8.1 Legacy
•
9 See also
•
10 Notes
•
11 Bibliography
•
12 External links
 
Historical context
The IVC has been tentatively identified with the toponymMeluhhaknown from Sumerianrecords. It has been compared in particular with the civilizations of  Elam(also in the context of  theElamo -Dravidianhypothesis) and withMinoan Crete (because of isolated cultural parallels such as the ubiquitousgoddess worshipand depictions of  bull-leaping
 
).
[6]
The mature (Harappan) phase of the IVC is contemporary to theEarly toMiddle Bronze Age in theAncient Near East,in  particular theOld Elamite period, Early Dynastic to Ur III Mesopotamia, PrepalatialMinoan Creteand Old KingdomtoFirst Intermediate Period Egypt. Thelanguage of the IVC is unknown, although there are a number of hypotheses:Proto- Dravidian,
[7][8]
 Proto- Munda(or Para-Munda) and a "lost phylum" (perhaps related or ancestral to the Nihali language
 
)
[9]
have been proposed as candidates.
Discovery and excavation
The ruins of Harrappa were first described in 1842 by Charles Masson in his
 Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan and the Punjab
, where locals talked of an ancientcity extending "thirteencosses" (about 25 miles), but no archaeological interest would attach tothis for nearly a century.
[10]
In 1856, British engineers John and William Brunton were laying the East Indian RailwayCompanyline connecting the cities of Karachi and Lahore. John wrote: "I was much exercised in my mind how we were to get ballast for the line of the railway." They were told of an ancientruined city near the lines, called Brahminabad. Visiting the city, he found it full of hard well- burnt bricks, and "convinced that there was a grand quarry for the ballast I wanted," the city of Brahminabad was reduced to ballast.
[11]
 A few months later, further north, John's brother WilliamBrunton's "section of the line ran near another ruined city, bricks from which had already beenused by villagers in the nearby village of Harappa at the same site. These bricks now provided ballast along 93 miles (150 km) of the railroad track running from Karachi to Lahore."
[11]
In 1872–75 Alexander Cunningham published the first Harappan seal (with an erroneousidentification as Brahmi letters).
[12]
It was half a century later, in 1912, that more Harappan sealswere discovered by J. Fleet, prompting an excavation campaign under Sir John Hubert Marshallin 1921–22 and resulting in the discovery of the hitherto unknown civilization at Harappa by Sir John Marshall, Rai Bahadur Daya Ram Sahni and Madho Sarup Vats, and atMohenjo-darobyRakhal Das Banerjee, E. J. H. MacKay, and Sir John Marshall. By 1931, much of Mohenjo-Daro
 
had been excavated, but excavations continued, such as that led bySir Mortimer Wheeler ,  director of theArchaeological Survey of Indiain 1944. Among other archaeologists who workedon IVC sites before the partition of the subcontinent in 1947 were Ahmad Hasan Dani, Brij Basi Lal, Nani Gopal Majumdar, and Sir MarcAurel Stein. Following the partition of British India, the bulk of the archaeological finds were inherited byPakistanwhere most of the IVC was based, and excavations from this time include those led bySir Mortimer Wheeler in 1949, archaeological adviser to the Government of Pakistan. Outpostsof the Indus Valley civilization were excavated as far west asSutkagan Dor inBaluchistan, as far  north as at Shortugai on the Amudarya or Oxus River in currentAfghanistan.
Periodisation
Main article: Periodization of the Indus Valley Civilization
The mature phase of the Harappan civilization lasted from c. 2600 to 1900 BCE. With theinclusion of the predecessor and successor cultures—Early Harappan and Late Harappan,respectively—the entire Indus Valley Civilization may be taken to have lasted from the 33rd tothe 14th centuries BCE. Two terms are employed for the periodization of the IVC:
 Phases
and
 Eras
.
[13][14]
The Early Harappan, Mature Harappan, and Late Harappan phases are also called theRegionalisation, Integration, and Localisation eras, respectively, with the Regionalization erareaching back to the Neolithic MehrgarhII period. "Discoveries at Mehrgarh changed the entire concept of the Indus civilization," according toAhmad Hasan Dani, professor emeritus at Quaid - e- Azam University,Islamabad. "There we have the whole sequence, right from the beginning of  settled village life."
[15]
Date range(BCE)PhaseEra
5500-3300MehrgarhII-VI (Pottery Neolithic
 
)
3300-2600Early Harappan (Early Bronze Age)
3300-2800Harappan 1 (Ravi Phase)2800-2600Harappan 2 (Kot Diji Phase, Nausharo I, Mehrgarh VII)Regionalisation Era
2600-1900Mature Harappan (Middle Bronze Age)
2600-2450Harappan 3A (Nausharo II)2450-2200Harappan 3B2200-1900Harappan 3CIntegration Era
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