Water played a vital part in the life of the Harappan people, and they were skilled hydraulic engineers. Michael Jansen has calculated that there were seven hundred or more wells at Mohenjo-daro, present in one in three houses. Those without a well of their own, however, were served by the public water supply, and the great wear around the rims of wells in houses suggests that they too were used by more than the immediate household. Grooves in the well curb show that water was drawn using containers, such as pots or wood buckets, attached to ropes. The huge number of wells at Mohenjo-daro indicates that the city was too far from the river for convenience; Jansen (1987) suggests that pits dug to extract clay for construction filled with rainwater and may been used as an additional water source for the city.
Other cities were less generously provided with wells but could draw water from nearby rivers, as at Harappa, which probably had fewer than thirty wells. Unlike those at Mohenjo-daro, all of which seem to have been created when the city was laid out, at least one of the wells at Harappa (on mound AB) was dug from an upper level. There may also have been a pool in the center of the city at Harappa. The area immediately inside the walls of the great settlement at Dholavira was taken up by at least sixteen enormous reservoirs that covered about a third of the enclosed area of the settlement. These were found to have been excavated down to bedrock and in some cases cut into the rock itself, and they were surrounded by embankments of earth faced with stone. Partly supplied by rainwater, they were mainly filled with water diverted, by means of a series of dams, from two seasonal streams that flowed past the settlement. A complex system of catchment areas and drains also collected rainwater from the citadel and channeled it into stone chambers. Two other reservoirs were constructed adjacent to the citadel, one of them more than 5 meters deep, with a flight of thirty-one steps allowing the inhabitants to descend to its foot. The reservoirs were carefully maintained by removing accumulated silt and reinforcing their walls. Satellite images indicate that there was an additional reservoir southwest of the city in the area of the cemetery.
One of the most impressive rooms of the Harappan house was the bathroom. Bathing would have followed the custom that is still used today, of pouring water over oneself with a small pot. In a few households, there may have been the refinement of a kind of shower: a small stair along one side of the bathroom allowing another person to ascend and pour water over the bather. The watertight bathroom floor was constructed sometimes of stone or of pottery sherds but usually of baked bricks, sawn and ground to achieve a perfect fit; the floor sloped slightly to allow the water to flow into one corner, where it ran away into the efficient drainage system that served the city, via terra-cotta drainpipes or drainage chutes. Drains from upper-story rooms were often built into the walls, so that they discharged near street level.
Private latrines were present in almost every house in Harappa and were probably common elsewhere. A large jar let into the floor provided the latrine itself: often just a squatting hole though some at Mohenjo-daro were furnished with seats. Some of these jars were connected by a drain to the city sewage system, and others had a small hole at the base to allow liquids to drain away. The
A view of a small part of the water supply and drainage system at Harappa. To the right is a well from which fresh water was drawn. A network of brick-lined drains criss-crosses the area, running along the lanes between buildings. (stock. xchng)
Latrine in one house in Banawali, which seems to have belonged to a prosperous family, was provided with a washbasin.
Wastewater was collected into small open drains in the lanes and flowed into the main drainage system. Drains, usually of closely fitted baked bricks, ran along the main streets, covered by large baked bricks or stone slabs. At intervals there were inspection covers so that the free flow of the drains could be checked and maintained. As the street level rose, the sides of the drains were also raised with additional courses of bricks, so that, over the life of the settlement, the drains might come to be several meters deep. Brick culverts on the outskirts of the city allowed the drains to discharge outside the walls; sometimes these had a sluice or grille, to catch solids or to prevent the use of these drains as illicit entrances into the city.
Such drains are a feature of many Harappan settlements but not of all. Kalibangan, for example, had no drains; instead sunken soakage jars along the streets were used. At Lothal there were both drains and soakage jars. Drains carrying rainwater were kept separate from those used for wastewater and sewage. The largest drains and culverts had corbelled roofs; a particularly impressive example is the drain running from the Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro.
At Harappa many of the streets had large jars half sunk into the ground along them, into which rubbish could be thrown; more than two hundred have been found. Immediately to the north of the Lower Town in Mohenjo-daro was a dump for domestic rubbish. Sump pits along the course of the drains allowed solids to collect so that the flow of water was unimpeded; these were regularly cleaned out. In the main north-south street in Mohenjo-daro, there were two brick cesspits, one of which had steps down into it to allow access for the cleaners. Civic standards were not always maintained; for example, there is evidence of a period of around fifty to a hundred years at Harappa when the drains overflowed and sewage ran into the streets before new drains were built and drain cleaning was resumed.
World History
