Whatever the mechanism that brought about the emergence of the Indus civilization, there is no doubt that the society that had crystallized around 2500 BCE was significantly different from that of the Early Harappan period, in scale, organizational and social complexity, cultural uniformity, and ideology or ethos.
The Mature Harappan culture (Indus civilization) was concentrated in the Indus and Saraswati Valleys and stretched from Gujarat in the south and the Makran coast and the Kachi plain in the west to the foothills of the Himalayas and the northern edge of the Ganges-Jamuna doab in the north and east. In the eastern Indus region, Sothi-Siswal material continued in use alongside Mature Harappan artifacts throughout the Indus civilization, suggesting that this region was less strongly integrated into the Indus system or had less wholeheartedly adopted the Indus ideology, and the same was true of local traditions in Saurashtra and northern Gujarat. In inland southern Baluchistan, the Kulli complex, at settlements such as Edith Shahr and Nindowari, was related to but not fully part of the Indus civilization, although to its south, in the Makran coastal region of Baluchistan, settlements such as Sutkagen-dor were Indus towns. The rest of the highland region, however, was no longer politically integrated with the Indus region.
Cities of the Indus
It is possible that Mohenjo-daro was the principal metropolis of the Indus civilization. Centrally located in Sindh between the Indus and Eastern Nara Rivers, with the Punjab to its northeast, the Saraswati to its south and east, Gujarat to its southwest, and the Kachi plain to its west, it was well placed to control communications throughout the Indus realms. It was also the largest settlement by far, its known area exceeding that of Harappa by half as much again. Among the workshops scattered throughout the city or concentrated in the suburbs, there were representatives of all types of industrial activity, and the houses yielded artifacts of every kind manufactured by the Indus people, including many inscribed seals. On its citadel was constructed a unique feature, the Great Bath, a large watertight basin set in the center of a complex of rooms and plausibly interpreted as a religious structure, related to a water-centered cult.
Harappa was also a great city, with a similar range of industries and similar signs of affluence. It lay near the edge of the Indus lands in the Punjab where it could control access to the resources of the Himalayas. The other major cities that have been identified were also situated toward the edges of the Indus domains: Rakhighari in the east, Ganweriwala in the center of the Saraswati Valley, and Dholavira in Gujarat. Of these Ganweriwala is known only from surface traces, and excavations at Rakhighari have been limited, but extensive investigations at Dholavira have provided valuable evidence of the development of the city through time, its size gradually increasing and its citadel becoming more complex. Where Mohenjo-daro relied on a large number of wells for domestic water, Dholavira had massive reservoirs. Many other differences as well as similarities between these cities underline two principal characteristics of Indus civilization: on the one hand a strong and uniform cultural pattern that produced the same range of artifacts, the same types of houses, the same civic arrangement of separate walled mounds, in each city and town; on the other hand, a huge diversity in the way the urban layout was effected and in other fundamental aspects of life.
Probably most striking is the range of religious structures and presumably practices to be found in Indus cities in different areas, perhaps reflecting the diverse origins of the Indus people. Although the Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro was unique, bathrooms were ubiquitous, suggesting that ritual bathing played a part in the lives of Indus people as it has in the lives of later South Asians. A possible temple has also been identified at Mohenjo-daro, perhaps housing a sacred tree. In contrast, in a number of cities there were fire altars and places of animal sacrifice, sometimes only in a public place while in other cases there were also domestic shrines of this type. One might surmise that the Indus civilization was a federal and multicultural state, united by a common ideology that brought together a patchwork of communities with different cultural, and quite probably ethnic, backgrounds.
Town and Country
In addition to the five cities, many towns shared features of the urban layout such as the division into separate walled mounds or areas, the efficient drainage system, and the well-built houses. Often these towns had substantial industrial areas, producing a range of artifacts, and they were well supplied with the high-caliber standardized craft products characteristic of the Indus civilization. These included fine pottery, tools of high-quality flint, a range of generally simple metal artifacts, many charming terra-cotta figurines of humans and animals, inscribed seals, and a great variety of personal ornaments made of shell, gemstones, metals, and several manufactured materials including faience. In addition there must have been many fine products in materials that have perished but of which a few tantalizing traces survive, such as wood and textiles.
A small stone-lined tank in the castle (the upper half of the citadel) at Dholavira. This may have been used for bathing, perhaps in a ritual context. The round stone on the bottom may have been a seat or to help the bather step into and out of the basin. On one side is an inlet chute to supply the water. (Namit Arora)
There were also smaller settlements that specialized in particular craft activities based on locally procured materials, such as Nageshwar in Gujarat, which was devoted to the production of artifacts from local marine shells, fished in the nearby waters of the Gulf of Kutch.
The majority of the Indus people, however, were farmers or pastoralists. Few of their settlements have been excavated, but these few indicate that even the ordinary farmer probably had access to good-quality craft products. Arable farmers dwelt in small permanent villages, and there were also temporary seasonal settlements occupied by pastoralists in the areas where they took their animals for seasonal grazing. It is likely that, as today, pastoralists also acted as carriers for the transport of goods.
While the agriculture of the Indus civilization was based mainly on barley, wheat, and pulses as in earlier times, other crops, notably rice and various millets, were also grown in some regions of the Indus realm, particularly Gujarat and the eastern periphery, and especially after 2000 BCE.
World History
