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The

Indus Valley Civilization

(

IVC

) was aBronze Age civilization (mature period 2600–1900 BCE) which centred mostly in the westernpart

[1]

of theIndian Subcontinent

[2]

[3]

and flourished around theIndusriverbasin. Primarily centered along the Indus and thePunjab region, the civilization extended into theGhaggar-Hakra Rivervalley

[4]

and theGanges-Yamuna Doab,

[5][6]

encompassing most of what is nowPakistan,as well as extending into the westernmost states of modern-dayIndia,southeasternAfghanistanand the easternmost part of Balochistan, Iran. The mature phase of this civilization is known as the

HarappanCivilization

as the first of its cities to be unearthed was the one atHarappa, excavated in the 1920s in what was at the time thePunjabprovinceof British India(now inPakistan).

[7]

Excavation of IVC siteshave been ongoing since 1920, with important breakthroughsoccurring as recently as 1999.

[8]

The civilization is sometimes referred to as the

Indus Ghaggar-Hakracivilization

[9]

or the

Indus-Sarasvaticivilization

. The appellation

Indus-Sarasvati

is based on the possible identification of the Ghaggar-Hakra River with theSarasvati Riverof theNadistuti suktain theRig Veda,

[10]

but this usage is disputed on linguistic and geographicalgrounds.

[11]

TheHarappan languageis not directly attested and itsaffiliation is unknown, a plausible relation would be toProto-Dravidian orElamo-Dravidian.

Discovery and excavation

The ruins of Harrappawere first described in 1842 byCharles Masson in his

Narrative of Various Journeys in Balochistan, Afghanistan and thePunjab

, where locals talked of an ancient city extending "thirteencosses" (about 25 miles), but no archaeological interest would attachto this for nearly a century.

[12]

In 1856, British engineers John and William Brunton were laying theEast Indian Railway Companyline connecting the cities of Karachiand Lahore. John wrote: "I was much exercised in my mind how we were toget ballast for the line of the railway." They were told of an ancientruined city near the lines, called Brahminabad. Visiting the city, hefound it full of hard well-burnt bricks, and "convinced that there was agrand quarry for the ballast I wanted," the city of Brahminabad wasreduced to ballast.

[13]

A few months later, further north, John's brotherWilliam Brunton's "section of the line ran near another ruined city,

bricks from which had already been used by villagers in the nearbyvillage of Harappa at the same site. These bricks now provided ballastalong 93 miles (150 km) of the railroad track running from Karachi toLahore."

[13]

Excavated ruins of Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan.

In 1872–75 Alexander Cunningham published the first Harappan seal(with an erroneous identification as Brahmi letters).

[14]

It was half acentury later, in 1912, that more Harappan seals were discovered by J.Fleet, prompting an excavation campaign underSir John HubertMarshallin 1921–22 and resulting in the discovery of the hithertounknown civilization at Harappa by Sir John Marshall, Rai Bahadur DayaRam Sahni and Madho Sarup Vats, and atMohenjo-daroby Rakhal DasBanerjee, E. J. H. MacKay, and Sir John Marshall. By 1931, much of Mohenjo-Daro had been excavated, but excavations continued, such asthat led bySir Mortimer Wheeler, director of theArchaeological Survey of Indiain 1944. Among other archaeologists who worked on IVC sitesbefore the partition of the subcontinent in 1947 wereAhmad HasanDani,Brij Basi Lal, Nani Gopal Majumdar, and Sir MarcAurel Stein. Following thePartition of India, the bulk of the archaeological findswere inherited byPakistanwhere most of the IVC was based, andexcavations from this time include those led by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in1949, archaeological adviser to the Government of Pakistan. Outpostsof the Indus Valley civilization were excavated as far west asSutkaganDorinBaluchistan, as far north as at Shortugai on the Amudarya or Oxus Riverin currentAfghanistan.

Periodisation

Main article:Periodization of the Indus Valley Civilization

The mature phase of the Harappan civilization lasted from c. 2600 to1900 BCE. With the inclusion of the predecessor and successor cultures—Early Harappan and Late Harappan, respectively—the entire IndusValley Civilization may be taken to have lasted from the 33rd to the14th centuries BCE. Two terms are employed for the periodization of the IVC:

Phases

and

Eras

[15][16]

The Early Harappan, Mature Harappan,and Late Harappan phases are also called the Regionalisation,Integration, and Localisation eras, respectively, with theRegionalization era reaching back to the NeolithicMehrgarhII period."Discoveries at Mehrgarh changed the entire concept of the Induscivilization," according toAhmad Hasan Dani, professor emeritus atQuaid-e-Azam University,Islamabad. "There we have the whole sequence, right from the beginning of settled village life."

[17]

Date range(BCE)PhaseEra

5500-3300MehrgarhII-VI (Pottery Neolithic

)