Pakistan's Civilization

1. Historical Perspective
The Indus Valley
Civilization

2. Importance of History
 History is the study of the past which helps us
understand how the world works, how human
beings behave and how the society we live in
came to be.
 Knowledge of the past is required to
understand present realities and predict the
future.
 It contributes to person’s moral understanding
and provides identity. In addition, study of
history fosters range of skills and abilities like
critical, analytical, chronological thinking
skills, and ability to assess evidences.

3. Definition of Civilization
 A Civilization is the way of life of a
community during a particular period
of time in a particular part of the world.

4. Dictionary Definition
 The state of having a high level of
social organisation, culture, and a
comfortable way of life.

5. How did the earliest civilization
begin?
 Historian believe that from about 6,500
BC, the first small settlements had begun
in the Indus Valley.
 The people were farmers, growing crops
for their families. By 3,000 BC there were
hundreds of settled communities along
the Indus Valley.
 Villages grew in to towns. By about
2,600 BC the people were so well
organised that they were able to build
large walled cities. This was the
beginning of the great Indus Valley
Civilization.

6. Why did early civilisations begin
in river valleys?
 What do our bodies need most?
 We don’t just need water to drink, we
must have it to produce food because
crops and animals also cannot live
without it.

7. The great Indus Valley
Civilisation
The lost world:
 If you fly over the Indus Valley you can
see the remains of towns and cities
from 4,500 years ago.
 Similar settlements:
 Some other big Indus Valley
Civilisation Included Kalibangan and
Lothal in India, Chanhu-daro in
Nawabshah district, Pakistan and
Harappa.

8. Twin Cities
 Harappa is about 400 miles north of
Mohenjo-Daro. The two are
sometimes called “twin cities” because
they were the same size and were
built on a similar plan.

9. Amazing organisation
 Not only were the plans of the towns and
cities similar, but the bricks that were
used to build them were the same too.
Exactly the same!
 Used kiln-fired bricks of the same size
and weight.
 The towns and cities did not develop
over time, but were pre planned
settlements of the world.
 Had a very well organised government
which ruled over a wide area

10.  Pakistan has a very rich history. Some of
the world’s oldest civilizations, Mohenjo-
daro, Harappa, and the banks of the Indus
have been a world centers of culture,
warfare and religion ever since.
 The Indus Valley civilization (known also
as Harappan culture) appeared around
2500 B.C. along the Indus River valley in
Punjab and Sindh.
 This civilization, which had a writing
system, urban canters, and a diversified
social and economic system, was
discovered in the 1920s at its two most
important sites: Mohenjo-daro, in Sindh
near Larkana, and Harappa, in Punjab
south of Lahore

11. Early Civilizations in Pakistan
( Soan Valley)
 The Soan Valley Civilization dates
back to the Stone Age. It is situated in
the Soan River Valley in the north-
west of Khushab District in the Punjab,
 Archaeologists have found evidence
of stone tools such as axes.

12. Mehrgarh
 Earliest civilization in Pakistan.
 Excavated by a team of French
archaeologists in 1976, at Mehrgarh.
 Situated at the foot of the Bolan Pass in
Balochistan.
 Wheat and barely were cultivated there.
 Ornaments made of seashells, painted
pottery, ivory work and clay figurines
have also been found.
 Trade links with Afghanistan, Iran and
other parts of Asia.

13. Indus Valley Civilization
 The Indus Valley civilization flourished in the
plains of the Indus River from around 3,500
B.C. to 1500 BC.
 The people from this civilization were
probably the first growers of cotton in the
world.
 They interacted with other civilizations of the
world through trade and travelling.
 Moenjo Daro and Harappa were two
important cities of this civilization.
 It is often referred to as Harappan Civilization
after its first discovered city, Harappa.

14. Mohenjo Daro excavation
 Archaeologists found two main areas-
the Citadel, where the important public
buildings were, and the “Lower town”,
which was the housing and business
area. The wide main street ran
through the Lower town.

15. The Lower Town
 This was the housing and business area.
 Rich lived in big houses with up to thirty
rooms!
 The poor had one or two room
apartments.
 The Indus Valley people were the first in
the world to have a drainage system.
Every house was connected to it.
 Clay pipes carried waste from the
houses in to brick drains which ban
under the streets.

16. The Great Bath
 In Mohenjo Daro this was the greatest
building.
 It was like a modern swimming pool. 12 m
long, 7m wide and 2.4m deep.
 No one knows exactly what the bath was
used for but many historian thinks that it was
for religious purposes.
 Perhaps the people went through it to purify
themselves and ask for their good harvest.
 Perhaps they were used by priests.
 Have had a well which provided water for
them.

17. The Granary
 This huge building was 45m long and
23m wide.
 It had a high brick base.
 Huge pieces of wood were put on this
in a criss cross pattern.
 Criss cross wood allowed air to flow
so that the grain would not rot.
 Some archaeologists believe that the
building was ot a grain store at all, but
with a place with a fresh air system.

18. How the lost Indus Valley
Civilisation was found
 British engineers were building the
Lahore-Multan railway link in the
1850’s .
 They found large quantities of old
bricks at a village called Harappa.
 They told their workmen to crush them
for the rail foundations.
 No one knew, at that time that these
bricks were the ruins of a four
thousand year old city.

19. How the lost Indus Valley
Civilisation was found
 A few years later a British archaeologist was
searching for Buddhist shrines in the areas.
 Interested in the Harappan bricks, he made small
excavations.
 He found some pieces of pottery, stone tools and
a ‘ seal ‘ or soapstone with strange writing on it.
 But it was not until the 1920s that people begun
to realise that there had once been an important
ancient civilisation in the Indus Valley.
 In 1922, an Indian architect, RD Banerji,
excavated at Mohenjo Daro, about 400 miles
south of Harappa.
 Archaeologists and historians round the world
were vert excited that a completely new ancient
civilisation had been discovered.

20. How the lost Indus Valley
Civilisation was found
 The archaeologists had found the
remains of ancient civilization which
had been powerful for about 700
years, from around 2,600 to 1900 BC.
They called it the Harappan or Indus
Valley Civilisation.
 It had been highly developed and
“Urban”.
 This means people lived in towns and
cities.

21. How the lost Indus Valley
Civilisation was found
 Today more than 1400 Indus Valley
Civilisations sites have been found,
ranginf from small villages to large cities.
 More than 900 of these are in India and
nearly 500 in Pakistan. One is in
Afghanistan,
 But the cities which were discovered
first, Harappa near the old course of the
River Ravi, and Mohenjo Daro (on the
lower Indus Plain in Sindh), were the
largest and the most important urban
centres of the civilisation in ancient

22. Social features:
 First urbanization in India.
 Town planning
 Grid pattern
 Drainage system
 Equality in society

23. Economic features:
 Based on agriculture
 Trade/commerce.
 Export/import
 Production of cotton
 16 was the unit of measurement (16,
64,160, 320).
 Weights and measures of accuracy
existed in Harappan culture (found at
Lothal).
 The weights were made of limestone,
steatite, etc and were generally cubical
in shape
 A dockyard has been discovered at
Lothal.

24. Religious Features:
 Mother goddess – Matridevi or Shakti
 Pashupati Mahadeva – lord of Animals
 Yogic position structure.
 Nature worship.
 Animal worship
 Tree worship – Pipal.
 Fire worship- Havan Kund.

25. Roots of Indus Valley
Civilization
Mohenjo-Dara or “Hill of the Dead” –
Both cities shared urban design and
architectural features. – 3 miles in
circumference with populations of
40,000

26. Discovery of Indus Valley
Civilization
 1. Charles Masson Expedition:
 Narrative of Various Journeys in
Balochistan, Afghanistan and The Panjab
(London, Richard Bentley,1842).
 2. The Expedition of Alexander Burnes, and
the archaeologist Sir Alexander Cunningham
in the 1870's.
 3. The excavation of Rai Bahadur Daya Ram
Sahni, and by R.D. Banerji in 1920s.
 4 The joint Pakistani American Harappa
Archaeological Research Project

27. Indus River
 The River Indus is the main river of Pakistan.
 3200 kilometers long.
 Third largest river in Asia.
 Belonged to Bronze Age
 It rises in the Himalaya mountains in Tibet
and runs the entire length of Pakistan from
the north to the south.
 After passing through the mountains of the
Himalayan and Karakorum ranges, the River
Indus enters the flat plains of Punjab and
Sindh, where its flow gradually slows down.
The river then makes its way to the Arabian
Sea.

28. Indus River
 The Indus and its tributaries provide
water for domestic use and for most of
the agriculture in Pakistan.
 It also support many industries. The
river is used to transport people and
goods.
 Fishermen catch fish, tourists visit the
river and enjoy beautiful places along
its course.

29. Quiz Time
 Knowledge of the past is required to
understand present realities and ____
 A ________is the way of life of a community
during a particular period of time in a
particular part of the world.
 The Indus Valley civilization also known as
________
 Mohenjo-daro, in ____ near ______, and
Harappa, in ______ south of Lahore
 Name the early civilizations in Pakistan.

30. Quiz Time
 Moenjo Daro means ________
 Indus river is ____ km long.
 Indus river rises in the _____
mountains in ______
 The Indus and its tributaries provide
______ for domestic use and for most
of the agriculture in Pakistan.

36. Moenjo Daro
 Discovered near Larkana in Sindh.
 Planned city
 Buildings were made of bricks, and
the streets were usually straight and
led to a central place in the city.
 Important places in the city were the
great bath, storage houses for grains
 Grand palace the house of king or a
powerful lord, where people might
have gathered for making important
decisions.

37. Moenjo Daro
 Expert sculptors and some the pieces
found there are very good specimens
of ancient art.
 These includes the famous priest king
and the dancing girl.
 Mohenjo-Daro means 'The Mound of
the Dead' in the local Sindhi language.
It was one of the largest settlements of
the ancient Indus Valley Civilization.

38. Moenjo Daro
 The people came to live near the River Indus
settled there and built a city.
 The settlers were farmers who drew wheat,
maize and cotton.
 They used to trade with people of
Mesopotamia (present day Iran and Iraq).
 The city had wells and a good drainage
system. Stone seals with pictures on them
have been found but no one can read or
understand them as yet.

42. Harappa
 Harappa Civilization was discovered in
1920 by the Department of British
Indian Government. Harappa is
located in the Sahiwal district of
Punjab, near the River Ravi.
 Copper and bronze pots, jewellery,
carved seals and statues have been
found there . During this period,
artistic skills were highly developed.

44. Harappa
 Quite similar to Moenjo Daro
 Some of the houses were made up of
mud instead of bricks.
 Residential houses were built on both
sides of the roads and had two or
more storey.

47. The lives of the people in
Mohenjo- Daro and Harappa:
 AGRICULTURE was their main economic
activity.
 They had irrigation systems.
 They had pottery and jewelry making.
 Houses were made of clay bricks.
 Their leaders were priest-kings.
 Their religion was animism and polytheism.
They worshipped many gods some of which
were animals like the very revered BULL.
 Their social classes were the ruling class who
lived inside the citadels; the farmers and
traders lived outside citadels.

48. Possible Causes of
Disappearance
 The Indus Valley was as its height for
about seven hundred years. Then in
about 1900 BC, it began to decline.
 In the end, the people left the town
 Famine, hunger, drought and cities
suddenly.
 Archaeologists found some bodies
buried in houses and jewellery hidden
under floors. Ecological factors/Natural
disasters (flood, typhoon, earthquake,
volcanic eruption, etc.) Plagues
 Invasions by another civilization like the
Aryans

49. Possible Causes of
Disappearance
 The river Indus changed course and
the population had to move away.
 Bad flooding
 The climate changed
 The population grew so large that the
land was over used. The quality of the
soil become poor. Not much food
could be grown, so people had to
leave the area.

50. Difference between Harappa and Mohenjo-daro
Mohenjo-daro
 Mohenjo-daro is an
Indus Valley
civilization.
 Mohenjo-daro denotes
‘Mound of the Dead’.
 Mohenjo-daro
belonged to the
Bronze Age.
 Mohenjo-daro was
rediscovered by R. D
Banerji
 Mohenjo-daro is
located in the Sindh
region.
Harappa
 Harappa is an Indus
Valley civilization.
 Harappa is a name of
a nearby village.
 Harappa belonged to
the Bronze Age.
 Harappa was
rediscovered by
Charles Mason
 Harappa is located in
the Punjab region

51. Mohenjo daro
 Mohenjodaro is well
known for its bronze
dancing girl figurines
and the statue of the
priest-king.
 The Great Bath of
Mohenjodaro is the
largest known public
water tank in the
ancient world; it may
have been used for
ritual bathing
purposes during its
day.
Harappa
 Harappa is known for
its red and gray
sandstone torso
figurines.
 Here are public
bathing platforms in
Harappa similar in
kind to the ones used
for washing clothes in
some traditional cities
in Pakistan and India
today.