ENVIRONMENT

The Indus River originates in Lake Mansarovar in south-west Tibet. It makes its way westward through Kashmir, then south through Pakistan, through the Punjab and Sind to the Indian Ocean. Harappan sites have been found in a huge triangle, along 1,200km of coastline from south-west

Pakistan to the Gulf of Khambat (Cambray) in India, and, heading inland, along the final 1,600km of the river and its tributaries. Geographical conditions vary throughout this area. The northern sector lies largely in the Punjab, a well-watered region, thanks to adequate rainfall and to its rivers. The best-known site here is Harappa. Rakhigarhi, a site of similarly large size, lies at the eastern edge of the Punjab, 350km from Harappa, the north-eastern limit of the Indus Valley Civilization.

Directly south of the Punjab is Cholistan, a drier region. Its major Harappan site is Ganweriwala, an unexcavated city that lay alongside the Saraswati River. Further south still is Sind, a hot, rainless area whose geography and climate recall southern Iraq. Mohenjo-Daro, 570km south of Harappa, is the major site of this region, and indeed the most extensively excavated and best known of all Harappan sites. The last of the geographical regions is the coastal zone along the Arabian Sea, a largely inhospitable area, rocky and with limited fresh water supplies. Despite this inhospitable environment, the important Harappan city of Dholavira was established here, on a small island (the region has since filled with silt, however; Figure 4.1 shows the modern coastline).

The five sites mentioned above, the largest known Harappan sites, have been identified as the major regional centers. Excavations at smaller sites and surface surveys have given additional information about Indus Valley urbanism and rural settlements. The five major sites are distributed at fairly regular intervals from north-east to south. Each would have controlled a large hinterland, with its agricultural production and natural resources. In addition, Dholavira must have profited from its maritime location. What we do not know is whether these five cities, surely preeminent in their respective regions, and indeed all cities and towns, were joined together in a single state, or whether, as in Sumer, the city-state was the basic unit of government.

We shall focus here on Mohenjo-Daro, with a brief look at Lothal, a smaller city in the extreme south-east of the Harappan region, to see how the layout and architectural features of a provincial town compare with those of a metropolis.