A brief Introduction of the harrapan and

Mesopotamian civilizations
Mesopotamian Civilisation -- Mesopotamia  is
a historical region of Western Asia situated
within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in
the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. This
is the home to the Mesopotamian Civilisation.
It occupies the area of present-day Iraq, and
parts of Iran, Turkey, Syria and Kuwait .
The Mesopotamian Civilisation has been
identified as having "inspired some of the
most important developments in human
history, including the invention of the wheel,
the planting of the first cereal crops, and the
development
of cursive script, mathematics, astronomy,
and agriculture .
Harappan Civilisation--The Indus Valley
Civilisation (IVC) was a Bronze
Age civilization in the northwestern regions
of South Asia, lasting from 3300 BCE to
1300 BCE, and in its mature form from
2600 BCE to 1900 BCE. Together
with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, it was
one of three early civilisations of the Near
East and South Asia, and of the three, the
most widespread, its sites spanning an area
stretching from northeast Afghanistan,
through much of Pakistan, and into western
and northwestern India.[2][b] It flourished in the
basins of the Indus River a system of
perennial rivers fed by rain. Since the
civilization grew along the Indus river
system , it is also known as the Indus Valley
Civilisation.

The political system of the two civiliations

The Harappans and Sumerians are distinctly
different politically. While the Sumerians
developed the world’s first monarchy, the
Harappans may have developed the first
democracy. Very little evidence has been found
of a king in the Indus Valley, only one white
priest-king idol and a silver crown; not enough to
establish that the “royalty” were the rulers.
Instead the empire was divided into regions with
half a dozen cities functioning as capitals and was
governed by a group of people. Archeologist
Jonathan Mark Kenoyed has speculated that the
Harappan rulers were merchants, ritual specialists
and individuals controlling important resources,
instead of just one social group controlling the
rest. From the construction of the cities however
it does appear there were some social classes, as
the citadel is usually 20 feet higher than the
middle and lower town. The Sumerians, on the
other hand, developed into city-states ruled by a
priest-king. The king led the military,
administered trade, judged disputes and
performed certain important religious ceremonies.
The king also had a bureaucracy, which consisted
mostly of priests, who assisted him in governing.
To justify the authority of the priest-kings the
Sumerians declared that the king was divinely
selected, but later this changed and eventually
they asserted that the king himself was divine and
worthy of worship. So while the Sumerians
worshiped their king the Harappans chose not to
glorify any particular person and were instead
ruled by ordinary people.
 The economic system
The economies of the Harappan and Sumerian
civilizations were very similar. Both civilizations
relied heavily on trade; in fact they appear to have
traded extensively with one another. In records
found in Mesopotamia there is mentioned a
civilization they traded with in the area of the
Indus valley and many Indus seals, for which they
are well known, have been found in
Mesopotamia. The Sumerians exported mostly
textiles and crops, while the Harappans traded in
lumber, copper, gold and ivory, which were
bought by the Sumerian royalty. Both
civilizations made great advances in
transportation in order to carry their merchandise
with greater ease. The Sumerians appear to have
developed the wheel and possibly the sailboat and
the Harappans developed ox-carts and small flat-
bottomed boats all of which were used
commercially. Perhaps it is because of the
extensive trade between the two civilizations that
they developed similarly in many areas.

Religious Beliefs
In terms of religion, there is very little
information about the Sumerian religion and even
less about the Harappan religion. We do know
that both civilizations were polytheistic. The
Sumerians believed in many gods that were
humanlike with human emotions. They believed
that the sun, moon and stars were gods and
everything that happened was controlled by one
of the gods. According to the Sumerian religion,
humans were created to serve the gods, and the
gods controlled their destinies. Because they
believed the gods controlled them, they sought
ways to discover what the gods held in store for
them. By doing this they invented astrology that
eventually led to the invention of the lunar
calendar. They also studied the inner organs of
sacrificed animals to predict the future. To
worship their gods the Sumerians built the
ziggurats, large temples, which are architectural
wonders. One such temple is found in the ancient
city of Ur where the moon god, Nanna, was said
to have lived in a little house at the top of the
ziggurat. The lesser gods, who did not have
enormous temples built for them, were idols and
statues, which were worshiped in homes. Since
the Indus script has not been deciphered and apart
from the bathhouse in Mohenjo-doro there are no
religious structures there is very little evidence
for the beliefs and practices of the Harappans.
What we know is from figurines and seals, many
of which depict a horned goddess with the sacred
pipal tree. This probably indicates the worship of
a mother goddess who presided over fertility,
birth and possibly the dead. The great bath at
Mohenjo-doro was probably dedicated to this
goddess and was used for purification rights and
possibly ceremonial bathing before ritual
cohabitation with prostitutes in the small
antechamber. Because of the lack of religious
structures in the Indus Valley it is very hard to
discover as much about their religion as has been
discovered about the Sumerian religion.

The social structure

The Harappan and Sumerian social structures
consisted of similar social ladders, yet differed
greatly in their treatment of women. Like the
Sumerians, the Harappan civilization had a social
hierarchy. In Mesopotamia the highest class
consisted of nobles, priests and important
officers, as did the highest classes in the Indus
Valley, although the priests and scholars were
considered slightly higher than the noblemen. The
middle class was the same in both civilizations
and contained the merchants, farmers, landowners
and craftsmen. The last class however is different.
The Sumerians had slaves that made up the last
class, however slavery in Mesopotamia was not
the same as that in the rest of the world. (Instead
of being differentiated by race, it was considered
a misfortune and a slave could free himself
through three years of service.) In the Indus
Valley however the lowest class contained the
servants, workers and wage earners who
performed the tasks no one else wished to do.
Where the two civilizations differed socially was
their treatment of women. In the Indus Valley the
men were the head of the house and could do
whatever they wished with their wife and
children. Women could do nothing if their
husband did not permit it. In Mesopotamia
however women were free to buy, sell, attend
legal matters for absent men, own property,
borrow, lend and engage in business. High status
women could even learn to read and write and
were given considerable administrative authority.
Women were not considered equal with men in
Mesopotamia, but they were respected and given
considerably more power. Indeed while both
civilizations had similar social hierarchies, the
Sumerians treated their women with much more
respect than the Harappans did.

Architecture
The architectural skills of the harappans are very
acclaimed and noteworthy considering the
technology of that time.The civilization’s cities
were noted for their remarkable sense of town
planning, baked bricks houses, elaborate drainage
systems, water supply systems, clusters of large
non-residential buildings and new techniques in
handicraft and metallurgy. Its large urban centres
of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa very likely grew
to containing 30,000 and 60,000 citizens and the
civilization itself grew to have contained one and
five million individuals.

The architecture of Mesopotamia is not as

magnificent as the harappans yet it has several
beautiful aspects. The town planning of
Mesopotamians include building courtyard
houses and their temples called ziggurats.
The cities were provided with towers and stood
on an artificial platform. The houses also had a
tower- like appearance. The city was also
provided with large a city gate .

Advancements in Science and Maths

The Sumerians and Harappans both advanced
greatly in the areas of science, math and writing,
but in different ways. At first both civilizations
used pictographs to depict their spoken words, but
the Sumerians advanced even further by
developing cuneiform, (wedge-shaped) writing.
They replaced pictures with symbols and added
symbols for spoken sounds, developing phonetic
letters. In the scientific and mathematical realm
while the Sumerians were concerned with
studying the stars and developed the twelve-
month lunar calendar and the zodiac to measure
time, the Harappans advanced in the accurate
measurements of length and mass. The Harappans
developed he first standardized system of weights
and measures. Their measurements were
extremely precise, the smallest division being
equivalent to 1.704 millimeters. They carefully
planned their cities and the building of their
houses to make them symmetrical. They also
developed a sewage and drainage system more
advanced than many of those in the Middle East
today. In the technological realm both civilization
once again made great advances. The Sumerians
developed the water clock, the wheel and the
plow, while the Harappans invented a way to
produce copper, bronze tin and lead. It is almost
impossible to decide which civilization advanced
more intellectually because they both advanced so
much in different areas.
 Development of Arts
Artistically it is easy to determine that the
Harappans were more advanced. While most
Sumerian art was strictly religious in nature, the
Harappans appear to have loved art simply
because it was art. The Sumerians’ preferred
mediums were sculpting and painting.The main
emphasis was on very durable forms of sculpture
and painting was mainly used for geometrical and
plant based decorative schemes.They also inlayed
and enriched wood with scenes made of shells
and semiprecious stones and did relief carvings in
stone, but almost always these pieces of art were
for their gods.

In contrast the Harappans celebrated all art, but

especially the arts of dancing, painting, plastic
arts, pottery, modeling, weaving and metal
working. They were very skilled in all these
areas. Their stone and bronze statues were very
excellent in form. The two major stone statues
were ‘The bearded man’ and ‘The male torso’ and
the two major bronze statues were ‘The dancing
girl’ and ‘the bull’ from Mohenjo-Daro. Their
pottery is of very high quality with surprisingly
beautiful designs. The anatomical details found in
their modeling are far beyond their time. Their
carved seals used in trading are now considered
miniature masterpieces in art. They were
responsible for a new style of painting animals in
their natural environments. It is generally
accepted that the Harappan art is much more
advanced than any other of its time, including the
Sumerians.
The Harrapans and Sumerians both developed
during about the same time period in river
valleys. They traded with one another and had
similar economies. They advanced along parallel
lines in mathematics, science and technology
although in different areas. They were both
polytheistic and were both hierarchical societies.
Yet they were very different politically,
artistically, and in their treatment of women.