INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION

• Lasted from c. 3300–1300 BC, flowered 2600–1900 BC.

• A bronze age civilization:- Also known as Mature Harrapan civilization,
Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization.
• Located in modern day Pakistan and north-western India along the Indus
river.
• thrived along the Indus River and the Ghaggar-Hakra River.
Neighbouring
• Harappan Civilization:-in reference to its first excavated city of Harappa. settlements
• Saraswati-Sindhu Civilization:- based on the popular identification of the
Ghaggar-Hakra River with the Sarasvati River.
• The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was discovered in the 1920s and is
known only from archaeological excavations.
• The cities of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were the important centers
of Indus valley civilization.
• The cities were the part of larger socioeconomic networks and
interacted with other people and cultures.
Across civilization-trading network and routes
 Discovery and Excavation

• The ruins of Harappa were first described by

Charles Masson in his Narrative of Various Journeys
in Balochistan, Afghanistan and Punjab, 1826-1838.
• In1857, the British authorities used Harappan
bricks in the construction of the East Indian Railway
line connecting Karachi and Lahore.
• In 1912, Harappan seals with then unknown
symbols were discovered by J. Fleet, which
triggered an excavation campaign under Sir John
Marshall in 1921/22, resulting in the discovery of a Brick-lined basins in the
hitherto unknown civilization by Dayaram Sahni. remains of a room used for
• By 1931, much of Mohenjo-Daro was excavated, making pottery at the ancient
but minor campaigns continued, such as that led by Indus valley civilization of
Mortimer Wheeler in 1950. Mohenjo-Daro.
• Following the partition of British India in 1947, the
area of the IVC was divided between Pakistan and
the Republic of India.
 TOWN PLANNING

the main features of town planning in Indus Valley Civilization are as follows :-
•A sophisticated and technologically advanced urban culture.
•Streets in perfect grid patterns in both Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa.
•World's first sanitation system.
•Individual wells and separate covered drains along the streets for waste
water.
•Houses opened to inner courtyards and smaller lanes.
•Impressive dockyards ,granaries, warehouses, brick platforms and protective
walls.
•Massive citadels protected the city from floods and attackers.
•City dwellers were mainly traders and artisans.
•All the houses had access to water and drainage facilities.
 CITIES IN INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION

DEVELOPMENT OF CITIES
• Cities grew out of earlier villages that existed in the same locality for less than 100 years.
• Grew in size and density and were surrounded by various towns and villages.
• Cities interlinked with trade and economic activities, religious beliefs and social relations etc.
• Vast agricultural lands, rivers and forests by pastoral communities, fisher folks and hunters surrounded each
city.

CLASSIFICATION OF TOWNS
• Small villages / hamlets-0 – 10 hectares
• Large towns– 10- 50 hectares
• Cities– 50 hectares.

Important cities of Indus valley civilization

ARCHITECTURE
• the cities are build on numerous mounds (elevated grounds)
• Advanced architecture
Impressive dockyards
Graineries
Warehouses
• • Walled city (protection from flood water)
• • Well planned streets
• • Proper sanitation and drainage system
• • Baked brick houses
• • Well built bathrooms
• • Wells throughout the city
• • Remarkable similarity of architecture all over the civilization
• • No large monumental structures.
APPAN CIVILIZTION
TO START WITH…

 Harappa had a population of around 23,500 and an area of over 150 hectares.
 Earliest city may have been formed during the Kot Diji phase, i.e., 2800-2500
BC
 Earliest city covered an area of 25 ha.
 It became a centre for trade networks extending from Baluchistan and
Afghanistan to the west to the seacoast in the south.
 HOUSES
 Most private houses had rooms arranged around a central courtyard.
 Doors and windows opened out into side lanes.
 Stairs led up to the roof or the second storey.
 Windows had shutters and latticework.
 The houses were protected from noise, odours, and thieves.
 Most houses had private bathing areas and latrines as well as private wells.
 Basic house plans
single room tenements
Houses with courtyards
 Houses-rooms on 3 sides opening into central courtyard
 Nearly all large houses had a private wells.
 Hearths(brick or stone lined fireplace)common in rooms.
 Bathrooms in every house with chutes leading to drainage channels.
 First floor bathrooms also build.
 Brick stairways provided access to the upper floors.
 Houses built with a perimeter wall and adjacent houses were separated by a narrow space of
land
 Granary with areas for threshing grains.
 Burnt bricks mainly for fillings.
LARGE PUBLIC STRUCTURES

 Large buildings in the acropolis area may represent

administrative or ritual structures.
 These buildings had access routes or provided thoroughfare
from one area to another.
 Markets and public meetings were probably held in large
open courtyards.
 Groups of houses and public buildings were built close
together with shared walls and formed larger blocks that
were bordered by wide streets.
DRAINAGE SYSTEM-
 Wells and reservoirs were provided in cities to ensure drinking
and bathing water.
 The wells were lined with specially-made wedge-shaped bricks
to form a structurally sound cylinder.
 Ropes were used to lift the water out, probably with leather or
wooden buckets.
 Some neighbourhoods had communal wells.
 Bathing platforms with drains were often situated in rooms
adjacent to the wells.
 The floors of the baths were made of tightly-fitted bricks, often
set on edge to make a watertight floor.
 A small drain cut through the house wall out into the street
directed the dirty water into a larger sewage drain.
 Drains and water chutes in the upper storeys were often built
inside the wall with an exit opening just above the street drains.
 Tapered terracotta drain pipes were used to direct water out to
the street.
 Many houses had distinct toilets, separate from the bath areas.
 Commodes were large jars or sump pots sunk
into the floors and many of them contained a
small jar.
 Sometimes the sump pots were connected to
drains to let the sewage flow out and most had a
tiny hole on the bottom to allow the water to seep
into the ground.
 Drains were made of burnt bricks and connected
the bathing platforms and latrines of private
houses to medium-sized open drains in the side
streets.
 These open drains flowed into the larger sewers
in the main streets which were covered with
baked bricks or dressed stone blocks.
 Separate garbage bins were provided along the
major streets.
 TOWN PLANNING
 Citadel mound and lower town
surrounded by a massive brick wall.
 Citadel had square towers and bastions.
 Large open areas inside the gateway
may have been used as a market or
checkpoint for
 Taxing goods coming into the city.
 Outside the city walls a cluster of houses
may represent temporary rest stops for
the travellers and caravans.
 No division of the society is reflected in
the layout of the city, since large public
buildings, market areas, large and small
houses as well as craft workshops have
been found in the same neighbourhood.
 Barrack like group of single roomed
tenements were for the poorer classes.
ARCHITECTURE
 The most common building materials were mud bricks
and baked bricks, wood and reeds.
 The average size of the bricks was 7 x 12 x 34 cm (for
houses) and 10 x 20 x 40 cm for the city walls.
 The larger bricks have a standard ratio of 1:2:4.
 Mud brick and baked brick and wood or stone were
used for the foundation and walls of the houses.
 The doors and the windows were made from wood and
mat.
 House floors were generally hard-packed earth that was
often replastered or covered with clean sand.
 Bathing areas and drains were made with baked brick
and stone.
 Some rooms were paved with bricks or fired terracotta
cakes.
 Roofs were probably made of wooden beams covered
with reeds and packed clay.
 Some of the largest buildings appear to have been
made entirely of wood.
SCHEMATIC DAIGRAM
 MOHENJODARO
CIVILIZATION
THE MOST DEVELOPED CITY OF INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION
INTRODUCTION:

• MOHENJODARO was one of the major

settlement of Indus Valley Civilization.
• The site of Mohenjo-Daro in Larkana
district, Sindh, Pakistan.
• The site covers an area of over 250
acres.
• The Indus river is currently situated to
the east of the site.
• This mysterious culture emerged
nearly 4500 years ago and thrived for
a thousand years.
• The Mohenjo-Daro is divided into two
sections:
1. CITADEL: Smaller in area but highly
developed
2. LOWER TOWN: Large in area but less
developed than citadel.

• The citadel owes its height to the fact that

buildings were constructed on mud brick
platform.
CITADEL:
• In Mohenjo-Daro, the western end of the city is an area known as the Citadel.
• This area of the city was built on top of a mound of bricks almost 12 m high.
• Several large buildings and structures on the Citadel mound suggest that this area
may have been used for :
a.) public gatherings
b.) religious activities
c.) important administrative activities

• Archaeologists had also find some small buildings but they were not common
LOWER TOWN
•  The "Lower Town" is made up of numerous lower mounds that lie to the east
and may represent multiple walled neighbourhoods.

• Termed 'lower town' by the archaeologists that excavated it, this envelops the
broad scope of where most of Mohenjo-Daro's citizens resided.

• The Lower Town is organized on a grid system with four avenues running from
north to south and four running from east to west.

• The avenues are several meters wide and have drains running down the
middle or side of the road.
• The avenues divide the Lower Town into
many blocks. Alleyways and lanes further
divided these blocks.
• Features of Houses in Lower Town Most of the
homes are made of baked bricks in a
standard size of 28 x 14 x 7 centimetres.
• Archaeological evidence, such as the remains
of stairways, seems to suggest that many of
the buildings had two storeys.
• People had access to clean water either from
wells within their homes or from public wells
in the streets.
• Every house had its own bathroom paved
with bricks, with drains connected through
the wall to the street drains.
• Some houses have remains of staircases to
reach a second storey or the roof.
• Over 700 public and private wells have been
found at Mohenjo-Daro