HS 201 World Civilizations and Cultures

Lecture 002

Introduction to Harappan
Civilization

V.N. Prabhakar, IIT Gandhinagar

 The Beginnings: pre-identification phase
• Earliest recorded visit to the mound at
Harappa – by Charles Mason, an
antiquarian, in 1829 – identified it with
Sangla, an ancient city visited by
Alexander the Great.

• Lt. Col. James Todd noted the site of

Kalibangan, as “Kali-Bang” in 1829.

• Sir Alexander Burnes, a British

Lieutenant in 1831 visited the site of Amri
and described it as an archaeological site.

• Burnes also visited Harappa, 4 years after

Mason.

• Although many remains were found by

him, he could not fix any chronology to
them.
 The Beginnings: pre-identification phase

• Alexander Cunningham, the first Director General of Archaeological

Survey visited Harappa on 3 occasions, in 1853, 1856 and 1875

The first known Indus seal; drawing by

A. Cunningham (1875); the
impression is modern

• Reports the site as 4 km in circumference, 12 – 18 m in height, noted

with regret that many of the features noted during his earlier visits
removed to form ballast for the railway

• Ballast for nearly 100 km of Lahore-Multan railway was laid with the
bricks from Harappa

• Carried out a small excavation, prepared the first site plan, christened
principal divisions at Harappa as A-B, C, D and E, still used today
• At least five seals of Harappan civilization were The Beginnings: pre-identification phase
published prior to the identification, but their
significance not understood.

• Two more seals, from the private collections,

known; one was purchased in Cairo in 1912, but
probably from Damascus or from nearby region
(Bissing 1927). Dabarkot

• Other important sites reported are: Sutkagen-dor

(1875 & 1876); Dabarkot (1898); Periano Ghundai
(1897); Rana Ghundai (1898).
Mughal Ghundai

• Sir John Marshall, who was appointed as DG of ASI

in 1902 was attracted towards the publication of
three Harappan seals, being studied them at British
Museum. Sutkagendor

Periano Ghundai
 The Beginnings: pre-identification phase
• Two assessments of Harappa were made;
one in 1909 by Pandit Hira Nanda Sastri and
the other in 1914 by Harold Hargreaves.
The latter eventually led to its excavation
in 1920.

• Kalibangan was visited in 1917 by Luigi Pio

Tessitori, an Italian scholar, who carried out
a small excavation in 1918.

• Excavation at Harappa started in 1920-21.

• The huge site of Mohenjo-daro was

discovered by D.R. Bhandarkar in 1911-12.

• R.D. Banerji later excavated Mohenjodaro

from 1923-24 onwards and brought to light
the significance of the site.
 The Beginnings: pre-identification phase
• R.D. Banerji noted the relationship between the finds
from Harappa and Mohenjo-daro.

• In 1924, Marshall compared the finds from both the sites,

published an account in the Illustrated London News.

• Immediately after that news, Prof. Sayce pointed the

close similarity of the finds with some Sumerian
antiquities from Southern Mesopotamia.
• Later, Gadd and Sidney gave
similarity of pictographic and other
antiquities found in the two
countries.

• E. Mackay working at Kish, also

noted similarity of some ceramic
wares at Mohenjo-daro and at
Kish and seal found in the debris
beneath a temple of Hammurabi’s
time
 The Beginnings: pre-identification phase
• Appearance of seals, some with script, from
Mesopotamian sites like Ur, Kish, etc.,
established the contacts between the two great
civilizations.

• A general chronology of the Harappan

civilization emerged based on the dates
available from Mesopotamia.
Chanhudaro
• These discoveries led to several explorations, of
particular interest was in Sindh.

• Several sites were discovered by N.G.

Majumdar during 1929-30 and 1930-31:
Chanhudaro, Amri, Ghazi Shah, Lohumjo-daro,
Ali Murad, Pandi Wahi, etc.

• The excavation at Harappa continued up to

1940-41; at Mohenjodaro ended in 1938. In
1937, the large Harappan period cemetery was
discovered at Harappa, known famously as
Cemetery R-37.
Amri
 New Horizons

v After Independence of India in 1947, there were only a few sites of

Harappan origin.

v Prolonged explorations carried out in various parts of the country – dry bed
of Rivers Ghaggar (generally identified with River Sarasvati), Drisadvati;
Saurashtra and Kutch in Gujarat brought to light a large number of sites.

v This includes two of the five largest Harappan sites in the Indian sub-
continent – Dholavira and Rakhigarhi.

v Other prominent sites that were excavated include Kalibangan, Banawali,

Lothal, Surkotada, Alamgirpur, Hulas, Kunal, Farmana, Bhirrana, to name
only a few….

v These excavations brought to light the early, mature and late Harappan
phases.
Harappan sites in 1947
Present status
Geographical Settings

Diverse geographical settings

Most of the sites located on the River Indus and

Ghaggar-Sarasvati-Hakra river systems

Western Tributaries
Rivers Gomal, Kabul and Bolan

Major Eastern Tributaries linked to sites

Rivers Beas, Ravi and Sutlej

Tributaries of River Sarasvati

Rivers Markanda, Drishadvati

Mountainous ranges of Himalayas on the west,

north and northeast

Aravalli ranges on the east and southeast, having

excellent sources of lead, silver and copper

Kachchh and Saurashtra, separate zones

Climatic Settings

Broad Findings

Carriee Morrill et al (2003) based on 36

studies indicates three major climatic
changes in the past corresponding to c.
9500 BCE, 3000-2500 BCE and 1300 BCE.

Studies from the lake Kotla Dahar indicate

two prominent shifts in the rainfall
distribution in and pattern during the mid-
Holocene corresponding to c. 4400-3760
BCE and c. 2200-2000 BCE respectively.

The second change corresponds to the

terminal phase of the Harappan
civilization and tallies with shift in
monsoonal data of around 300+100 years
from Oman
Palaeolithic Sites

Early Food Producing Sites

Regionalization Era Sites

 Mehrgarh, Pakistan
- 9000 BCE (7000 to 6500 BCE)
seasonal settlement at the base of
the Bolan pass

Early food producing era:

beginnings of the long-term
processes that provide the stable
foundation of a state level
society
 Mehrgarh wild animals

Relied heavily during the

initial periods

Mehrgarh domesticated animals

Most importantly, humped Zebu

(Bos indicus) unique to Indian sub-
continent
Mehrgarh, Pakistan
Mud brick houses, burials with ornaments traded from
great distances,

Domesticated plants and animals, including barley,

wheat, cattle (zebu - Bos indicus), sheep and goats

Newly developed skills of animal husbandry

animal husbandry, led to dependence

on wild plants and animals
• Subsistence economy: hunting
gathering, supplemented by agriculture
and animal husbandry

• Wheat (einkorn and emmer); Barley

(two-row hulled, six-row hulled and
six-rowed naked ‘shot’ barley)
Barley impressions
• Cropping season
in mud brick
• Sowing done in November after
monsoon recedes
Wheat impressions in
• Harvesting (rabi) done in March-
mud brick
April

• Wild fruit (jujube), a small nutritious

plum like fruit, was also harvested

• Jujube is eaten now fresh, or dried and

preserved as a chutney
 Sickle with chert blades set in bitumen - the
wood handle is not preserved

• Evidence of summer crop: Impressions of date seeds and actual date

seeds

• Domestic goat remains

• Wild animal bones of gazelle, deer, pig, sheep, goat, and larger animals
like cattle, nilgai, water buffalo and onager

• Large tusks of elephant also found indicating either scavenging or

trapping them and hunted
Mehrgarh house types

• Zebu and later domesticated water

buffalo along with wheat and barley –
basic stables, which also formed the
basic diet for later Indus cities

• Most significant is now the settlers

have become less and less mobile

• Rectangular houses, subdivided into

four or more internal compartments,
some could have been storage
spaces; later houses increasing
number of internal compartments
Mehrgarh - ground stone adzes, mortar
and pestle with red ochre

Stone blade tools

Mehrgarh - Drilling in teeth that is interpreted as
relating to early dentistry. Total of eleven drilled molars
from nine adult burials that date to around 7000-5500
BCE. This is very painful unless you are taking some
kind of anesthetic or drug like opium?

Photos Courtesy of L. Bondioli (Museum L. Pigorini, Rome) & R.

Macchiarelli (Univ. of Poitiers).
• No evidence of pottery in earliest levels; some foods might have been cooked in skins
or baskets with hot rocks indicated by numerous ash layers with fire cracked rocks

• Familiar with plastic properties of clay: small clay figurines and unfired clay
containers

• Subsistence economy: hunting gathering, supplemented by agriculture and animal

husbandry
• Wheat (einkorn and emmer); Barley (two-row hulled, six-row hulled and six-rowed
naked ‘shot’ barley)
Mehrgarh burial, with young goats, and ornaments of exotic
materials - marine shell, turquoise, lapis lazuli, steatite
Terracotta figurine from
Period I
 Marine shell bangles and other marine shell beads from different
coastal areas indicate two different trade networks

Turbinella pyrum, from Karachi coast

(500 km to the south)

Mother of Pearl from Oman

Engina mendicaria - Makran
 1500 km

1150 km

500 km

1000 km

650 km

1500 km
Jewellery from the burial: shell, steatite, agate, lapis
lazuli, turquoise, carnelian