The Unknown Facts of Indus Valley Civilization

THE MYSTERIOUS INDUS VALLEY

1856 British colonial officers in India were busy monitoring the construction of the railway connecting the cities of Lahore and Karachi in modern-day Pakistan along the Indus river valley.
To their surprise, labours discovered many fire-baked bricks lodged in the dry terrain There were 1000s of fairly such uniform bricks, which seemed to be quite old. Until the 1920s no major excavation took place further in Harappan civilization as we know it today. It is known as Harappan civilization because Harappan was the first site to be excavated. Initially, many archaeologists wherein the favour that they have found ruins of the ancient Mauryan Empire. Many scholars thought that it was a part of Ganges valley of Aryan immigrants from Persia and central Asia who populated here 1250 BCE. But the discovery of ancient Harappan cities unsettled this conception and moved the timeline back to another 1500 years.

After these mysteries arising, Indus Valley civilization became a major site of research for the archaeologist. After carbon dating, many Harappan equips, it is regarded that the civilization existed between 3300 BCE-1700 BCE. This era is also known as the Bronze age due to extensive excavation of equips made up of Bronze. It is important to know that no iron object is yet found in the excavation. The civilization is known to be located along the Indus and its tributaries and the Ghaggar river banks.
The most surprising fact of this civilization is excellent town planning even during that era. The city had two planned areas. At the western end of the site is an area known as the citadel that is built over a mound. Several large buildings and structures on citadel subset that this area may have been used for public gatherings, religious activities or vital administrative activities. In lower elevated area house of common people are found within proper grid manner not haphazardly. Uniqueness is found in every aspect of this civilization. During that also people are so concerned about hygiene that every house had a toilet connected to the centralized system of drainage. Also from Rakhigarhi to Mohenjodaro to Harappa every site of the Indus Valley Civilization is found to be constructed with uniform size baked bricks. Just like the present-day warehouse several numbers of grainers are also been found here.

Farming and agriculture became the main economic activity of people. Society had been found trading with Summerian Civilization progressed along the shore of the Arabian Sea and Gulf Of Minar. Most artefacts that have excavated are toys. This builds a new prediction in minds of archaeologists for a while that civilization was populated by children only but this was not the case. Archaeologists than came to a decision that the population liked entertainment and loved to play board games. A dancing girl statue has also been excavated. Due to its perfect moulding scholars themselves got into a dilemma that this statue is of recent year. But when research went upon this statue it was clear that how creative artists lived at that time in this civilization. The religion followed by the major population seems to bed animism that includes worship of nature and its belongings. Similar to the rise of this civilization, the reason for its dissolution is too mysterious. Historians are having different beliefs upon the same and are totally bemused.

Many think that famine, hunger, drought were the reasons for disappear of this stellar civilization. While a group of historians say that the periodic flooding of river Indus and its tributaries lead to its desertification of the cities. Indo-Aryan invasion theory is also a speculated idea according to which Aryan came from central Asia and destroyed civilization. Much of the history of this civilization is in front of us but not the most. Till today the Indus Valley script is un-deciphered. The day it will be deciphered, volumes of history books would definitely increase to a vast extent.

BY: SUCHIT NEGI

Class 10

GBN Sr Sec School