Indus Valley Civilization- The Cities

Most important sites of the Indus Valley Civilization are its Cities. These are the sites of Urban Development. This is where we can see their skills of: 

1. Town-planning 
2. Road construction
3. Drainage management
4. Agriculture and irrigation 
5. Building ships and  docks
6. Trade and commerce
7. Public and private baths
8. Arts and crafts and 
9. Their cultural practices. 

Here is the info of few important cities of the Indus Valley Civilization.

Harappa

Excavations: The first sites of this city were found and briefly excavated by Sir Alexander Cunningham(First Director General of Archaeological Survey of India). Later, the city was excavated by Rai Bahadur Dayaram Sahani in 1920-21.

Features: 

• It is located in Montgomery district of west Punjab on the banks of the river Ravi.

• This city followed the Cemetery H culture.

• It was mainly an urban culture sustained by surplus agricultural production and commerce, the latter including trade with Southern Mesopotamia. 

• It is called the 'City of Granaries' after finding 12 granaries in a row in this City.

• In Rig Veda, Harappa is referred as the Land of Thousand Sacrifices(Hariyupia).

• Maximum population went up to 23,500 covering over 100 hectares(250 acres) of land.

The Granaries at Harappa

Mohenjo-daro

Excavations: The city with the name Mohenjo-daro meaning 'Mount of the Dead' was excavated by R.D. Banerjee(also called Rakhaldas Bandyopadhyay) in 1922. It is found to have its ancient name Kukkutarma(The city of Cocks).

Features:

• It is located in Larkana District on the right bank of the Indus River in Sindh, Pakistan.

• It was one of the largest settlements of IVC and now is the UNESCOs World Heritage Site since 1980.

• It has a planned layout based on a street grid of rectilinear buildings. 

• Most were built of fired and mortared brick; some incorporated sun-dried mud-brick and wooden superstructures. 

• The city is divided into two parts, the so-called Citadel(meaning a fortress, typically on high ground, protecting or dominating a city)  and the Lower City. 

• The Citadel – a mud-brick mound around 12 meters (39 ft) high – is known to have supported public baths, a large residential structure designed to house about 5,000 citizens, and two large assembly halls. 

• They had well planned underground drainage facilities.

• It was also called the 'Great Granary' by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1950.

• Civil Constructions include:
• The Great Bath - Public Swimming Pool
• The Great Granary
• An assembly hall

The Great Bath

• Notable artifacts include: 
• A piece of cloth
• A scale for measuring distance
• Seal of Pashupathi
• Bronze image of a dancing girl
• An image of a priest made of Steatite.

The Pasupathi Seal

Chanhudaro

Excavations: Chanhu-Daro was investigated in 1931 by the Indian archaeologist N. G. Majumdar. It is found to be very much similar to Harappa and Mohenjo-daro sites.

Features:

• The site is located 130 kilometers (81 mi) south of Mohenjo-daro, in Sindh, Pakistan. 

• It is believed that the Sarasvati River used to flow near this site. Sarasvati river is believed to have dried up during 2nd millennium BC, causing the life at Chanhudaro and several hundreds of dwellings situated on the banks of Sarasvati to become very difficult, which in turn contributed to the decline of Indus Civilization itself.

• Evidence of shell working was found and bangles and ladles were made at this site. Harappan seals were made generally in bigger towns like Harappa, Mohenjadaro and Chanhudaro which were involved with administrative network.

• It is considered to have been a centre for manufacturing carnelian beads.

• Artifacts include:
• Copper knives, spears, razors, tools, axes, vessels and dishes 
• Terracotta cart models, a small terracotta bird which when blown acts as a whistle, plates and dishes 
• Male spear thrower or dancer - a broken statue (4.1 cm) 
• An ink pot meant for storing writing ink
• Indus Seals

Beads at Chanhudaro

• The scale of craft production at Chanhudaro seems much greater than that at Mohenjodaro, perhaps taking up half of town for this activity.

Kalibangan

Excavations: The identity of Kalibangan as a pre-historic site was discovered by Luigi Pio Tessitori, an Italian Indologist (1887–1919).  He sought help Archaeological Survey of India. At that time ASI had some excavations done on Harappa, but they never had any idea about the character of the ruins. In fact, Tessitori is the first person to recognize that the ruins are 'Prehistoric' and pre-Mauryan. Luigi Pio Tessitori also pointed out the nature of the culture, but at that time it was not possible to guess that Indus Valley Civilisation lay in the ruins of Kalibangan, and he died five years before Harappan culture was duly recognized.

Features:

• Located on the left or southern banks of the Ghaggar (Ghaggar-Hakra River), in Hanumangarh district, Rajasthan, India, 205 km away from Bikaner.

• It has given the evidence of the earliest (2800 BC) ploughed agricultural field ever revealed through an excavation.

Ploughed fields at Kalibangan

• The distinguishing mark of this early phase is pottery, characterized by six fabrics labelled A, B, C, D, E and F to differentiate from one another. The following are additional details about the pottery, however remembering them is up to your memory power.
• Fabrics A, B, and D can be clubbed together. They are red painted. 
• Fabric-A: Carelessly potted, contains designs in light-black, often decorated with white lines. 
• Fabric-B: Marked improvement in finishing, but the lower half was deliberately roughened. Flowers, animals were painted in black on red background.
• Fabric-C was distinguished by violet tinge and fine polish, with designs in black; it is the best proto-Harappan pottery in finishing. 
• Fabric-D contained designs of slanted lines or semicircles in some, while most pots were plain. But Fabric-C pottery was thicker and stronger. 
• Fabric-E was light colored.
• Fabric-F was grey.

• Three systems of burial have been attested in the burial ground ~300 yards south-west of the citadel, where ~34 graves have been found.

• Remains of Toilets and Bathrooms were unique aspects.

• Radiocarbon dates indicate that the Mature Harappan settlement at Kalibangan had to be abandoned around 2000–1900 BCE on account of the drying up of the Sarasvati (Ghaggar). 

Banawali

Excavations: This site was excavated by R.S. Bisht (ASI). 

Features:

• Located in Fatehabad district, Haryana, India and is located about 120 km northeast of Kalibangan.

• Artefacts include:
• shaped jars, cooking vessels, ovens, tandoors, painted earthen pots etc. 
• Painted motifs include, peacocks, pipal leaves, tree, deer, star, fish flowers, intersecting circles, checker board patterns,honey comb patterns. 
• Harappan seals carrying pictures of Rhinoceros, wild goat, ibex,unicorn,composite animal with tiger body. 
• Gold, copper, bronze pieces, gold beads, copper, lapis lazuli, bangles of shells etc.
• The pottery found, is comparable with Harappan pottery in fineness and pottery assemblage is very similar to assemblage of Kalibangan.

• It is notable for the extensive cultivation of Barley.

Lothal

Excavations: Between 1954 and 1958, more than 50 sites were excavated in the Kutch. As a part of this Lothal was also discovered. Lo-thal means 'Mound of the Dead' in Gujarati which is similar to Mohenjo-daro meaning in Sindh.

Features: 

• Located in Bhāl region of the modern state of Gujarat.

• The people of Lothal made significant and often unique contributions to human civilisation in the Indus era, in the fields of city planning, art, architecture, science, engineering and religion.

• Their work in metallurgy, seals, beads and jewellery was the basis of their prosperity.

• An artificial and oldest known dockyard, houses with side entrances and Eastern entrance for the city are its main features.

• The people of Lothal are first to cultivate rice around 1800 B.C.

Dholavira

Excavations: Excavation was initiated in 1989 by the Archaeological Survey of India under the direction of R. S. Bisht, and there were 13 field excavations between 1990 and 2005. Dholavira was discovered in 1992.

Features:

• It is the biggest IVC site present within the boundaries of present day India.

• Located in Bhachau Taluka of Kutch District, in the state of Gujarat in western India.

• First and the earliest stadiums of pre-historic times was found here.

• The largest inscription with ten pictographs in a single sentence was found here.

For further info on IVC, please refer: Wiki

To continue, read Indo-Aryan Civilization