SmartSurat  #  Hinduism

The Indus valley excavations

Until the early part of the twentieth century scholars believed that the Aryan invaders were the first people to bring any kind of civilization to the Indian continent. Although they brought with them no evidence of writing, when their major sacred text, the Rug Veda, eventually came to be written down, it gave graphic descriptions of a very barbaric invaded people - dark-skinned, flat-nosed, ugly and irreligious. Then, in the 1920s major archeological excavations in the Indus valley area revealed the remains of a quite incredible ancient urban civilization - something to rival those of both Babylon and Egypt. Indeed, it covered an area larger than Egypt or Mesopotamia, its cities scattered over almost half a million square miles. A number of cities have been excavated, but the major two are Mohenjo-daro on the west bank of the Indus, and Harappa, about 250 miles further north in the Punjab. Other major cities such as Kot Diji, Kalibangan, Rupar, Mehrgarh, Chanhu-daro and Lothal have been excavated, but Mohenjo-daro and Harappa are sufficiently pre-eminent for some to suggest that they were the two capitals of the civilization. Indeed the whole area is frequently referred to as the Harappan civilization.        Excavations showed the Indus valley civilization to be a Bronze Age culture which is dated fairly consistently to about 2500-1800 or 1500 BCE. But there is a possibility of an earlier date, perhaps as early as 3300 or 3000 BCE. Today, the lowest levels of Mohenjo-daro are well below the level of the Indus, making excavation impossible: the earliest levels of urban settlement there, cannot be ascertained. We know that extensive trade took place with Sumer, Egypt and Crete. In particular cotton was exported, and the Harappan civilization must have been the earliest producers of cotton in history. Excavations at Lothal in present-day Gujarat near the Gulf of Cambay have revealed a well-built dockyard. Far from being barbarous people as portrayed by the Aryans, the inhabitants of the Indus valley lived in a highly advanced urban culture, in a sophisticated society with a wealthy middle-class and a centralized government.