Harappan Group 1

Nikki-Colette Manzie
Michael Jewell
Amber Saloka
Justin Gray
Professor Holly Yastro
Anthropology-1010
13 February 2011
Harappan Civilization

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. Being the largest of the four ancient civilizations, the Harappans lived from
around 3000 B.C.-1500 B.C. around the Indus River which is now present day India and
Pakistan. Seeing how they didn’t have “Rosetta Stone” of sorts, very little is known about this
civilization as their language hasn’t been fully deciphered. But what has been deciphered has
told us a great deal about them and their culture. To be an ancient civilization, they had a very
elaborate society, government, and overall a way of living. They were a thriving civilization and
highly organized and as little we know of how we lived, we know even less of how they died.

The Harappan society was the first major Paleolithic communities to be formally

established and is known throughout history to be one of the first communities to have

economically advanced systems in place. Their social organization was elaborate and can seen as

a direct influence on the Indian culture we see today. They had a caste system in place which

was first established in early 1500 B.C. The system, which was set

in place by the ancient order in the Harrapan culture, delegated life in

the civilization solely based on your color, sex, and political standing

on the community. At the top of the caste system were the Brahmin

– the priests, teachers, and judges. Next was the Kshatriya (KUH

SHAT REE YUHZ), the warrior caste. The Vaisya castes (VEEZ YUHZ) were the farmers and
merchants, and the Sutras, were craft workers and laborers.1 On top of a structured society, the

composition of the Harappa government was sound as well and has been compared to the

government of the ancient Romans. It consisted of Theocracy, ruled by regulation and assistance

of a divine clergy. The system worked on a hierarchy basis, primarily favoring towards the

advancement of women, and allowed for them to achieve social rank, as well as high amounts of

wealth. Must like most of the practices in the Harrapan society, the government was based

principally around the different religions that governed Harappa way of life.2

Religion has been a great debate among scholars and historians. As said earlier, the

language of the Harappan civilization hasn’t been fully unlocked so many, many secrets are still

hidden. But based one what they have found, they do have some suspicions. Unlike the other

ancient civilizations, they haven’t discovered buildings that may suggest it was used for worship,

but they do believe that the Harappans were polytheistic (possibly Hindu) and exercised some

sort of Goddess worship. There were a variety of other statues found to hint to natural and

animistic worship. But these of course are just guesses.3

Along with having a highly organized society, it was the first civilized cultures to have adapted a
writing system. Several thousand inscriptions have been discovered on seals, tools, and even
jewelry that were made in this time. However, archaeologists have yet to decipher the seals. The
inscriptions are short; the longest is only 26 characters long, which makes it even more difficult
to decode. It seems, however, that numerals were
represented by vertical lines, but these lines only go up
to seven. This indicates a Base 8 language, meaning
they combined symbols together to make any number
bigger than 8. There were also little pictograms on the
seals. Pictograms such as fish, leaves, and other natural
items show up

1 Dowling, Mike. "The Caste System of Ancient India." N.p., 10 July 2005. Web. 11 Feb. 2011.
2 Swanson, Emily. Harappan Civilization. Ed. Christine Beukhof. N.p., 14 Sept. 1998. Web. 12 Feb. 2011.
<http://www.thenagain.info/webchron/india/harappa.html>.
3 " Religion, Science, & Astronomy of Harappa Civilization." N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2011.
<http://reference.indianetzone.com/1/religion,_science_astronomy.htm>.
 Harappan Group 3

on seals and jewelry often. However, many scholars argue that we have no way of knowing if
this was truly meant to indicate ‘fish’ or not, so it is hard to say absolutely. The Harappan culture
was also one of the first to express an artistic side. Most of the artworks created were the seals
mentioned above, earthenware jars painted with birds, and stylized flowers, leaves, and terracotta
toys, animals and figurines and the occasional copper and stone sculpture. The Harappans
celebrated all art, but especially the arts of dancing, painting, plastic arts, pottery, modeling,
weaving and metal working. One of the most famous findings is the ‘dancing girl’, a statue in
bronze. The woman is naked but her headdress is elaborate and one arm is completely engulfed
in bangles. It has been suggested she was sculpted to represent ‘temple dancers’, or prostitutes,
but there is no absolute proof of this.

The Harappan civilization was, compared to other civilizations of

the same time period, highly advanced in architecture and city
planning. Evidence of this is found in the quality of
workmanship in the buildings themselves as the sun-dried mud
bricks used have withstood thousands of years of wear and are
mostly intact even today. Impressive dockyards, granaries,
warehouses and city walls were also common in the major cities.
The cities themselves were extremely well planned out and used a grid system for laying out
streets. The city was surrounded by massive walls used for protection from flooding as to control
commerce. The city was further divided into walled sections containing a variety of different
buildings. The streets were laid out on an east to west grid pattern and each street had a
sophisticated drainage system that was far superior to any contemporary civilization. Unlike
many of the other civilizations around at the time, the
Harappans did not build large monuments or ceremonial
buildings in the center of their cities. There is also no
evidence of temples or palaces, which leads many to
theorize that there was no definite or organized religious
practices.

It’s speculated that food production was indigenous

to the Indus Valley. Originally, it was thought that it was
imported by the Aryans. They produced so much food that they created surpluses all while
supporting 10,000+ people. Something that is definitely known about the Indus civilization
people practiced rainfall harvesting. Being in South Asia, they of course had to protect
themselves during monsoon season. By collecting water that fell from the rain, they were able to
meet the needs of the city during the dry season. Because there isn’t much known about the
civilization as a whole, there isn’t much known as to who was the driving force behind their
agricultural growth, whether it be forced labor or the city coming together collectively to support
themselves.4

4 "Indus Valley Civilization." N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2011.

 The demise of the Harappan civilization is a subject of much debate. Many theories have

been put forth and a few have shown promise to at least being factors in the demise of the

civilization if not an outright cause. Some of the theories that have been proposed range from

invading hordes of Aryan (Indo-European) tribes, rivers changing courses, tectonic activity and

even decrease in trade. It seems that the most likely scenario is that of major evacuation of urban

centers after many, many uncontrollable events. Population decline due to water-borne illnesses

and food shortages due to annual flooding would have played a large role in the decline of this

civilization. It is commonly thought that the civilization did not totally disappear though. Traces

of intangible evidence show that the Harappan culture most likely simply melded into the rest of

the emerging Indian population.5

<http://www.crystalinks.com/induscivilization.html>.
5 The Demise of Utopia, Chris J. D. Kostman M.A. Web. 11 Feb, 2011.
<http://adventurecorps.com/archeo/collapse.html>.
 Harappan Group 5

Works Cited
Carr, Tarini J. The Harappan Civilization. Archaeology Online, n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2011.
Dowling, Mike. "The Caste System of Ancient India." N.p., 10 July 2005. Web. 11 Feb. 2011.
Ancient India: Indus Valley Civilization." Indus Civilization. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2011.
<http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/prehistory/india/indus/elements.html

"Religion, Science, & Astronomy of Harappa Civilization." N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Feb. 2011.
<http://reference.indianetzone.com/1/religion,_science_astronomy.htm>.
Lo, Lawrence. "Ancient Scripts: Indus Script." Ancient Scripts: Home. 2010. Web. 11 Feb. 2011.
<http://www.ancientscripts.com/indus.html>.

Gupta, Arun. "Who Were The Harappans?" South Asian Women's Forum (SAWF) Home Page.
Web. 11 Feb. 2011. <http://www.sawf.org/newedit/edit01082001/musings.asp>.

"Arts & Crafts of Harappa Civilization." Reference on India. Web. 11 Feb. 2011.
<http://reference.indianetzone.com/1/arts_crafts.htm>.

"Harappa, Indus Valley Civilization." Free Encyclopedia & Web Portal on Indian Culture &
Lifestyle. 17 Mar. 2010. Web. 11 Feb.
2011.<http://www.indianetzone.com/6/harappa.htm>.
"Indus Valley Civilization." N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Feb. 2011.
<http://www.crystalinks.com/induscivilization.html>.
The Demise of Utopia, Chris J. D. Kostman M.A. Web. 11 Feb, 2011.
<http://adventurecorps.com/archeo/collapse.html>.