the civilization i admire the most
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/12/2019 The Civilization i AdmIRE THe Most
1/7
-
8/12/2019 The Civilization i AdmIRE THe Most
2/7
One of the cities located in the Indus Valley is Harappa, and a neighboring city 350 miles away,Mohenjo-Daro. It built orderly walls of massive brick buildings with high sophisticatedsanitation and drainage systems. Harappa is believed to have gotten its start as a farming villagearound 3300 BC. Mohenjo-Daro is the twin city and both formed the hub of the civilization.Since their planning principles were followed without change at all other sites, these two citieslaid the groundwork for the other cities that followed. Both cities were a mile square withdefensive outer walls. The street layout shows an understanding of traffic with rounded cornersto allow turning of carts easily, and dividing the city into 12 blocks. Except for the west-central
blocks, the basic unit of city planning was the individual houses.
The Indus people were farmers, weavers, potters, metal workers, toy makers, jewelers,stone cutters and traders Agriculture was the most important occupation In the fertile soils,farmers cultivated two crops a year They were the first who had grown paddy. They knewdifferent methods of irrigation. They used ploughs and sickles Pottery was a popular industry.They were skilled in the use of potters wheel. T he Indus people had grown a number of animals
such as buffaloes, goats, sheep, pigs, and camels. The Indus people were skilled in the art ofspinning and weavi ng. They manufactured woollen cloth from sheep and goats hair.Manufacture of burnt clay was a major industry of the people. The figures of toys, animals andfigurines were manufactured. A miniature toy-cart with a driver pulled by oxen is praiseworthy.Figures of animals such as sacred bull and dove were discovered. The figures of MotherGoddesses were used for religious purposes A large number of seals numbering more than 2000have been discovered. They carry short inscriptions with carved pictures of animals. The sealswere made of terracotta or satellite. They were used for trade. They have provided lot ofinformation about the daily life of the people, their religion, occupations, customs and trade.
The people of the Indus Civilization achieved great accuracy in measuring length, mass,and time. They were among the first to develop a system of uniform weights and measures. Their
measurements are said to be extremely precise however, a comparison of available objects
indicates large scale variation across the Indus territories. Their smallest division, which is
marked on an ivory scale found in Lothal, was approximately 1.704 mm, the smallest division
ever recorded on a scale of the Bronze Age. Harappan engineers followed the decimal division of
measurement for all practical purposes, including the measurement of mass as revealed by
their hexahedron weights .
These chert weights were in a perfect ratio of 4:2:1 with weights of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1,2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and 500 units, with each unit weighing approximately 28 grams,
similar to the English Imperial ounce or Greek uncia, and smaller objects were weighed in
similar ratios with the units of 0.871. However, as in other cultures, actual weights were not
uniform throughout the area.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Agehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexahedronhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units#Masshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_units#Masshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexahedronhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Agehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lothal -
8/12/2019 The Civilization i AdmIRE THe Most
3/7
Unique Harappan inventions include an instrument which was used to measure whole
sections of the horizon and the tidal lock. In addition, Harappans evolved some new techniques
in metallurgy and produced copper, bronze, lead, and tin. The engineering skill of the Harappans
was remarkable, especially in building docks after a careful study of tides, waves, and currents.
The function of the so-called "dock" at Lothal, however, is disputed.
In 2001, archaeologists studying the remains of two men from Mehrgarh, Pakistan, made
the discovery that the people of the Indus Valley Civilisation, from the early Harappan periods,
had knowledge of proto -dentistry. Later, in April 2006, it was announced in the scientific
journal Nature that the oldest (and first early Neolithic) evidence for the drilling of human teeth
was found in Mehrgarh. Eleven drilled molar crowns from nine adults were discovered in a
Neolithic graveyard in Mehrgarh that dates, from 7,500-9,000 years ago. According to the
authors, their discoveries point to a tradition of proto-dentistry in the early farming cultures of
that region. A touchstone bearing gold streaks was found in Banawali, which was probably usedfor testing the purity of gold.
Well over 400 distinct Indus symbols have been found on seals, small tablets, or ceramic
pots and over a dozen other materials, including a "signboard" that apparently once hung over
the gate of the inner citadel of the Indus city of Dholavira. Typical Indus inscriptions are no more
than four or five characters in length, most of which are very tiny and the longest on a single
surface, which is less than 1 inch
In a 2009 study by P. N. Rao et al. published in Science, computer scientists, comparing the
pattern of symbols to various linguistic scripts and non-linguistic systems, including DNA and acomputer programming language, found that the Indus script's pattern is closer to that of spoken
words, supporting the hypothesis that it codes for an as-yet-unknown language. Farmer, Sproat,
and Witzel have disputed this finding, pointing out that Rao et al. did not actually compare the
Indus signs with "real-world non-linguistic systems" but rather with "two wholly artificial
systems invented by the authors, one consisting of 200,000 randomly ordered signs and another
of 200,000 fully ordered signs, that they spuriously claim represent the structures of all real-
world non-linguistic sign systems".
The technologies used to create ornaments were not very complex during this period andinvolved relatively simple procedures of chipping, grinding and drilling . Since no evidence ofmanufacture of exotic materials has been found from Mehrgarh during this early period, it can beassumed that ornaments from non-local materials were produced by women in distant resourceareas and traded to the settlement in finished form. It is not unlikely that communities in thewestern Baluchistan highlands may have been active in the manufacture or trading items such aslapis and turquoise beads, marine shell beads and native copper beads, all of which have been
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock_(water_transport)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copperhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronzehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehrgarhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dentistryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_(journal)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_(journal)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_(journal)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchstone_(assaying_tool)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banawalihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_(device)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_inscriptionshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_(journal)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_(journal)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_inscriptionshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_(device)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banawalihttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Touchstone_(assaying_tool)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_(journal)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dentistryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mehrgarhhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leadhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronzehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copperhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallurgyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lock_(water_transport) -
8/12/2019 The Civilization i AdmIRE THe Most
4/7
found in early burials at Mehrgarh. In addition to this highland trade of exotic commodities thereis a possibility that some items, such as large shell bangles made from the marine shellTurbinella pyrum were traded up the Indus valley and reached the site from this other direction.
The kitchen and the bathroom had drains leading out. The main drain was running
alongside the main roads. The drains were lined with bricks. Most of them were covered. Therewere flights of steps leading to drains. The drains were cleaned periodically. In building industry,large number of people were employed Manufacture of bricks was an important industry. The
bricks were more or less of an uniform size. The lndus people had engaged themselves ininternal and foreign trade The Mesopotamian seals were found in Indus cities and the Indus sealswere found in Mesopotamia. Remains of dockyard have been discovered at Lethal in Gujarat. Inthis dockyard, the ships might have been loaded and unloaded. Thus, the Hindus people werefamiliar with ships. The merchants were prosperous and lived lavishly. They used sticks withmarks to measure articles. They also used various kinds of weights and measures.
The city was well administered by a class of wealthy merchants and priests. There wassome kind of municipal organization It took care of sanitation and regulated trade. It collectedtaxes in the form of grains and also maintained law and order in the city There were three socialgroups. The first group or the ruling class lived in the citadel It comprised of wealthy merchantsand the high priests. They second group consisted of petty merchants, artisans arid craftsmen.The laborers belonged to the third group and lived in small huts. Generally speaking, the socialorganization was more definite
Wheat and barley were the staple food of the people. Besides these, they consumed milk,meat, fish, fruits and dates. The women wore a short skirt. It. was held at the waist with a girdle.
The men wore a long, loose unstitched garment Women wore necklaces bangles, bracelets,earrings and waist bands. These were made of gold and silver, bone, stone, ivory and she! Menhad also adorned themselves with ornaments like armlets. The rich wore gold and silver jewelry.The poor used shell, copper and silver ornaments. The women combed their hair.
Around 1800 BCE, signs of a gradual decline began to emerge, and by around 1700 BCE,
most of the cities were abandoned. However, the Indus Valley Civilization did not disappear
suddenly, and many elements of the Indus Civilization can be found in later cultures. Current
archaeological data suggest that material culture classified as Late Harappan may have persisted
until at least c. 1000-900 BCE and was partially contemporaneous with the Painted Grey
Ware culture. Archaeologists have emphasised that, just as in most areas of the world, there was
a continuous series of cultural developments. These link "the so-called two major phases of
urbanisation in South Asia".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painted_Grey_Warehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painted_Grey_Warehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painted_Grey_Warehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Painted_Grey_Ware -
8/12/2019 The Civilization i AdmIRE THe Most
5/7
A possible natural reason for the Indus Valley Civilization's decline is connected
with climate change that is also signaled for the neighboring areas of the Middle East. The Indus
valley climate grew significantly cooler and drier from about 1800 BCE, linked to a general
weakening of the monsoon at that time. Alternatively, a important factor may have been the
disappearance of substantial portions of the Ghaggar Hakra river system. A tectonic event mayhave diverted the system's sources toward the Ganges Plain, though there is complete uncertainty
about the date of this event, as most settlements inside Ghaggar-Hakra river beds have not yet
been dated.
Although this particular factor is speculative, and not generally accepted, the decline of
the Indus Valley Civilization, as with any other civilization, will have been due to a combination
of various reasons. New geological research is now being conducted by a group led by Peter
Clift, from the University of Aberdeen, to investigate how the courses of rivers have changed in
this region since 8000 years ago, to test whether climate or river reorganizations are responsiblefor the decline of the Harappan. A 2004 paper indicated that the isotopes of the Ghaggar-Hakra
system do not come from the Himalayan glaciers, and were rain-fed instead, contradicting a
Harappan time mighty "Sarasvati' river.
In the aftermath of the Indus Civilization's collapse, regional cultures emerged, to varying
degrees showing the influence of the Indus Civilization. In the formerly great city of Harappa,
burials have been found that correspond to a regional culture called the Cemetery H culture. At
the same time, the Ochre Coloured Pottery culture expanded from Rajasthan into th eGangetic
Plain. The Cemetery H culture has the earliest evidence for cremation, a practice dominant inHinduism until today
These are the reasons why I admire the Indus Valley civilization the most. It is the
earliest civilization in world. Now we all know how unique is Indus Valley Civilization.We must
appreciate all the civilization because it only help us to start or achive this modern world that we
live now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_changehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsoonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar_Hakra_riverhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tectonicshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganges_Plainhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Clifthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Clifthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Aberdeenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cemetery_H_culturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochre_Coloured_Pottery_culturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajasthanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangetic_Plainhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangetic_Plainhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cremationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cremationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangetic_Plainhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangetic_Plainhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajasthanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ochre_Coloured_Pottery_culturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cemetery_H_culturehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Aberdeenhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Clifthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Clifthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganges_Plainhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tectonicshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghaggar_Hakra_riverhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsoonhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change -
8/12/2019 The Civilization i AdmIRE THe Most
6/7
Some Pictures Related To The Indus Valley Civilization
So-called "Priest King" statue ,Mohenjo-daro, late MatureHarappan period, National Museum, Karachi , Pakistan
Indus Valley seals, British Museum.
Excavated ruins of Mohenjo-daro, withthe Great Bath in the front.
Indus tablets. The first one shows a Swastika.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohenjo-darohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mature_Harappanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mature_Harappanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Museumhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohenjo-darohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bath,_Mohenjo-darohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastikahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastikahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Bath,_Mohenjo-darohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohenjo-darohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Museumhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mature_Harappanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mature_Harappanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohenjo-daro -
8/12/2019 The Civilization i AdmIRE THe Most
7/7
Reference
http://history-world.org/indus_civilization.html http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Ancient/Indus2.html
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/266312/Hinduism/8981/Religion-in-the-Indus-valley-civilization
http://wsu.edu/~dee/ANCINDIA/HARAPPA.HTM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization
http://www.fact-index.com/i/in/indus_valley_civilization.html
http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/india/indus/geography.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilization
http://www.indiaandindians.com/india_history/harappan_civilization.php
http://www.harappa.com/indus3/e6.html
http://history-world.org/indus_civilization.htmhttp://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Ancient/Indus2.htmlhttp://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/266312/Hinduism/8981/Religion-in-the-Indus-valley-civilizationhttp://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/266312/Hinduism/8981/Religion-in-the-Indus-valley-civilizationhttp://wsu.edu/~dee/ANCINDIA/HARAPPA.HTMhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilizationhttp://www.fact-index.com/i/in/indus_valley_civilization.htmlhttp://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/india/indus/geography.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilizationhttp://www.indiaandindians.com/india_history/harappan_civilization.phphttp://www.indiaandindians.com/india_history/harappan_civilization.phphttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indus_Valley_Civilizationhttp://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/india/indus/geography.htmlhttp://www.fact-index.com/i/in/indus_valley_civilization.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilizationhttp://wsu.edu/~dee/ANCINDIA/HARAPPA.HTMhttp://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/266312/Hinduism/8981/Religion-in-the-Indus-valley-civilizationhttp://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/266312/Hinduism/8981/Religion-in-the-Indus-valley-civilizationhttp://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/southasia/History/Ancient/Indus2.htmlhttp://history-world.org/indus_civilization.htm