The Indus Valley Civilization, so named because many of its settlements were situated along the Indus River, turned out to be one of the great cultures of the ancient world.1 What has come to light since the first excavations suggests that the Indus Valley Civilization was as impressive as ancient Egypt and Sumeria. Art and Architecture of Indus Valley Civilization Mohenjo-daro It remains unknown whether Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were two large cities of a single empire or capitals of two states, while some scholars suggest that Harappa succeeded Mohenjo-daro which has been devastated by floods several times.
Download Book The Indus Civilization in PDF format. You can Read Online The Indus Civilization here in PDF, EPUB, Mobi or Docx formats.Your preparation for any competitive exam is incomplete without having a good knowledge of the ancient civilisations, be it SSC CPO, SSC CGL, IBPS Clerk, SBI PO, SBI Clerk, LIC AAO etc. The Indus Valley Civilization is one of the most important civilization among them. You will find many questions from related to Harappan Civilization in most important exams. Hence it is important that you study this topic thoroughly. To help you with that, we are providing you Key Point & GK facts about Indus Valley Civilization In this article.
If you go through the list of SSC CPO Questions asked in Tier I 2017, you will find that SSC frequently asks closely related questions based on The Indus Valley Civilization or the Harappa Civilization. If you want to be prepared to face such questions in your SSC CGL 2017 exam, then do go through this article on Indus Valley Civilization (Harappan) carefully. You can also download it as PDF once you are done reading it.
Several thousand years ago there once thrived a civilization in the Indus Valley located in the Indian Sub- continent. Harappas are the name given to the people of this civilization and this article will enhance your knowledge about the culture, art, history, discoveries, etc. during the Indus Valley Civilization.
Site Name | Location | Importance |
Rupar | Punjab On left bank | Things: Indus script used for authentication of trading goods impression of a seal on terracotta lump of burnt clay, chart blades, copper implements, terracotta beads & bangles & typical, standardized pottery of Harappan civilization. Architecture: Earliest houses at Rupar were built with river pebbles which were available in abundance but soon they started using cut slabs of lime with the same ratio of 4:2:1. -Sun-baked bricks were used in foundations. -Houses were built to suit climatic conditions. -Walls were plastered with water repelling sticky clay. Animals: Among the animal bones are (a)Domestic Dog (b)Common Indian Rat (c)Indian Elephant (d)Zebu or Domesticated Humped Cattle of India (e)Indian Domesticated Buffalo (f)Domestic Goat (g)Domestic Sheep and (h)Domestic Pig |
Lothal | Gujarat | Technical Advancement: -The lower town provided accommodation for craftsmen, coppersmiths, goldsmiths, shell-workers, & bead-maker. -Their shops and working places marked by the remains of their craft. Thus, two coppersmith had a brick-lined furnace, a cubical stone anvil, terracotta crucibles and copper implements; a bead factory had hundreds of carnelian beads in different stages of manufacture including finished ones & circular kiln for the heating of raw material. -The technical skill of the people is attested by bronze drills of the auger type with twisted grooves, besides flanged ones, needles etc. Lothal’s dock: -The world’s earliest known dock -Connected the city to an ancient course of the Sabarmati river on trade route between Harappan cities in Sindh & peninsula of Saurashtra when the surrounding Kutch desert of today was a part of the Arabian Sea. |
Malwa | Gujarat | Animals: Cattle, sheep and goat, dog, horse, hog, pig, barasingha (swamp deer), & fish. Things: Dimunitive (extremely small) blades made on tiny cores of jasper, agate, chalcedony,& bloodstone. Small objects of copper or bronze. |
Surkotada | Gujarat | Architecture: A fortified citadel & residential annex, made of mud brick, mud lumps & rubble, containing houses with bath-rooms & drains. Things: A heavy copper celt and a chisel |
Dholavira | Gujarat | Architecture: Full-grown cityscape consisted of bipartite ‘citadel’, a ‘middle town’ & a ‘lower town’, two ‘stadia’, an ‘annexe’, a series of reservoirs all set within an enormous fortification running on all four sides. Things: Three square steatite seals much smaller and lighter and furnished with figures but without inscriptions |
Kalibangan | Rajasthan On the left | Architecture: Use of baked mud bricks in construction, ovens, cylindrical pits. Things: Small-sized blades of chalcedony & agate, sometimes serrated or backed; beads, variously of steatite, shell, carnelian, terracotta and copper; bangles of copper, shell and terracotta; terracotta objects like a toy-cart wheel & a bull; queen with mullers, a bone point, & copper celts, including an unusual axe. |
Indus Tradition | |
---|---|
Early Food Producing Era | ca. 6500 – 5000 B.C. |
Regionalization Era | ca. 5000 – 2600 B.C. |
Indus Civilization & Harappan Culture Integration Era | 2600 – 1900 B.C. |
Late Harappan Period | 1900 – 1300 or 1000 B.C. |
Post-Indus Tradition | |
Painted Grey Ware | +1200 – 800 B.C. |
Northern Black Polished Ware | + 700 – 300 B.C. |
Early Historic Period | ca. 600 B.C |
Some important facts:
1. South Asia’s first cities were established around 2600 B.C. in what is now Pakistan and western India.
2. The peoples who built and ruled these cities belong to the Harappan Culture or Indus Civilization, a civilization that developed at approximately the same time as the early city states of Egypt and Mesopotamia.
3. This urban civilisation spread over a vast geographical region, from the high mountains of Baluchistan and Afghanistan to the coastal regions of Makran, Sindh and Gujarat.
4. Large cities like Harappa and Mohenjodaro and smaller towns grew up along the major trade routes as administrative and ritual centers.
5. During the full urban phase of this civilization, evidences of trade contacts have been found with the surrounding cultures in the Arabian Gulf, West and Central Asia and peninsular India.
6. The discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization was first recorded in the 1800’s by the British. The first recorded note was by a British army deserter, James Lewis, who was posing as an American engineer in 1826.
We hope you have gained sufficient information about Indus Valley Civilization. If you find any relevant information about Indus Valley Civilisation which is not included in this, please notify us in the comments section.
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