Lecture ii indus valley civilization

Indus Valley Civilization
INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION

INTENT:
To make student aware about the architecture style, history and social
development which took in Indus Valley Civilization

CONTENT:
INTRODUCTION
ARCHITECTURE FEATURE OF IVC
CITIES of IVC
IMPORTANT BUILDINGS of IVC
NOTABLE ARTIFACTS
DECLINE
CONCLUSION

What is a civilization & which are the
oldest civilizations in the world???
•A type of culture, society developed by a particular group of
people.
•Oldest civilizations:
Indus Valley Civilization
Mesopotamian Civilization.
Egyptian Civilization.

WHERE IS INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION
The Indus Valley is on the border between India,
Pakistan and Afghanistan.
It flourished along the banks of River Indus.

The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) was a Bronze Age civilization
Time period: 33001300 BCE; mature period 26001600 BCE
The life in the Indus cities gives the impression of a democratic bourgeois
economy like that of ancient Crete.
Inhabitants developed new techniques in handicraft (carnelian products,
seal carving) and metallurgy (copper, bronze, lead, and tin).
INTRODUCTION

The cities are noted for:
•urban planning,
•baked brick houses,
•elaborate drainage systems,
•water supply systems,
•clusters of large non-residential buildings.

The Indus Valley Civilization is also known as the Harappan Civilization,
after Harappa, the first of its sites to be excavated in the 1920s, in
what was then the Punjab province of British India, and now is Pakistan.
Among the settlements were the major urban centers
of Harappa, Mohenjo-daro (UNESCO World Heritage
Site), Dholavira, Ganeriwala in Cholistan and Rakhigarhi.

FEATURES OF INDUS VALLEY CIVILIZATION
Cities were well developed.
Lord Shiva and Mother goddess were prayed by the people.
People played dice games like ludo , snake -ladder etc.
They were pretty good in measuring length, mass and time etc.
It was the first civilization with urban systems . This shows that people of
that time were advanced enough and were very cautious about hygiene
Their jewellery were highly intricate and beautiful.

Trade and transportation were major goals and source of income for
these people.
They were first people who grew cotton for the very first time in the
world.
Agricultural process in this civilization was very advanced and highly
productive like raising , storing and transporting domesticated wheat and
barley etc.
People were skillful in pottery , paintings etc.

 Mohenjo-Daro people had finest bath facilities, drainage system, and
knowledge of personal hygiene.
 They were equally conscious of plant medicine since there was occasional
warfare.
 The portrayal of a three-faced figure surrounded by various animals has
been considered as Shiva in the form of Pasupati or Brahma, the
originator of Brahmi School of learning.
 Application of decimal scale in linear measure is another very important
achievement of the Harappans.

 They had perhaps a fairly good idea of lunar astronomy, as envisaged
from some of the seals since they were very much attached to navigation
and fire worship as found in Kalibangan.
 The rectangular bath at each of the Harappan sites was considered a
holy place.
 The Harappan people could prepare painted potteries of burnt clay,
glazed potteries faience, terracotta, etc. The glazing of potteries is
believed to be of Indian origin.

 The cities were supported by both trade and agriculture. The foundations
of well-planned shipyards at Kalibangan and Lothal and granaries at all
these main Harappan sites indicate how important they were in the
economy of that time.
 Certain medicated and contemplative postures of the people, available
among terracotta figurines suggest that they also developed the science
of physical and mental discipline to a high degree.

ARCHITECTURAL FEATURES
OF

TOWN PLANNING SYSTEM
The Town Planning System was city based.
The drainage and sanitation systems were remarkable.
The main streets and roads were set in a line, sometimes running straight for a
mile, and were varying in width from 4 meters to 10 meters.
Most of these roads and streets were paved with fire brunt bricks.
On the either side of the street stood houses of various sizes which did not
protrude into the streets.
The main streets intersected at right angles, dividing the city into squares or
rectangular blocks each of which was divided length wise and cross wise by lanes.
Some buildings had a lamp post and a well.
There was an elaborate drainage system which emptied into the river.

Urban Cities:
The Indus civilization flourished around cities.
The city was the heart of the civilization.
Large cities divided into two parts.
The higher and upper portion of the city was protected by a
construction which looks like a fort.
The ruling class of the towns lived in the protected area.
The other part of the towns was lower in height than the former and
common men lived in this area.
The lower area of the towns generally spread over one square mile.

Streets
The main streets of Indus Valley ran from north to south and east to west
intersecting one another at right angles.
The streets were broad varying from 9 feet to 34 feet.
They ran straight to a mile.
They were suitable for wheeled traffic.
Lanes were joined with the streets.
Each lane had a public welt.
Street lamps were provided for welfare of public.

Grid Pattern
Harappa and Mohen-Jo Dero were laid out on a grid pattern and had provisions
for an advanced drainage system.
City Walls
 Each city in the Indus Valley was surrounded by massive walls and gateways.
 The walls were built to control trade and also to stop the city from being flooded.
 Each part of the city was made up of walled sections.
Each section included different buildings such as: Public buildings, houses,
markets, craft workshops, etc.

The acropolis and the lower cities
A typical city would be divided into two sections, each fortified
separately.
One section was located on an artificially raised mound (sometimes
called acropolis) while the other level was on level ground.
The acropolis contained the important buildings of the city, like the
assembly halls, religious structures, granaries and in the great bath in
case of Mohenjo-Daro.

The lower section of the city was where the housing for the inhabitants
was located.
It was here where some truly amazing features have been discovered.
The city was well connected with broad roads about 30 meters long
which met at right angles.
The houses were located in the rectangular squares thus formed.

Public Buildings and Houses
The town dwellers were divided into various social classes.
The rich and the ruling class lived in the multi-roomed spacious houses and
the poorer section lived in small tenements.
The public building and big houses were situated on the streets.
The modest houses were situated on the lanes.
Encroachment on public roads or lanes by building houses was not permitted.
The houses can be divided into three main groups viz.
dwelling houses,
larger buildings,
Public baths.

Smaller houses had two rooms, while larger houses had many rooms.
There were courtyards attached to big buildings.
There was little artistic touch in the architectural design of the
buildings belonging either to the rich or the poor.
They were plain, utilitarian and comfortable to live. Some of the
buildings were multi-storied.
Most of the houses had baths, wells and covered drains connected
with street drains.

Ordinary buildings had little ventilation arrangements, as doors and
windows were rarely fixed in the outer walls.
Doors of entrance were fixed not on the front wall but on the side
walls.
One could enter a house by the door facing the side lanes of the
house.
The doors were made of wood.
Large buildings had spacious doors.

Houses:
The houses were of different sizes varying from a palatial building to
one with two small rooms.
In harappan houses , Bathrooms were attached to the rooms
The houses had a well, a bathroom, and a covered drain connected to
the drain in the street.
Houses in this civilization were built of Burnt bricks and Gypsum (which
have been preserved even to this day).

Sun-dried bricks were used for the foundation of the buildings and the
roofs were flat and made of wood.
The special feature of the houses was that rooms were built around an
open courtyard.
Some houses were double storied.
Some buildings had pillared halls; some of them measured 24 square
meters.
Palaces, temples or municipal halls were part of public buildings.

Building Materials
Most of the houses were built of burnt bricks in molds of 1:2:4 ratios
Un-burnt sun-dried bricks were also used but stones were not used in
construction.
That portion of the buildings where contamination with water was possible,
burnt bricks were used and for the other parts sun-dried bricks were used.
The staircases of big buildings were solid; the roofs were flat and were
made of wood.
Mud mortar, gypsum cement, mud plaster and gypsum plaster were used.

Drainage System
The elaborate drainage system was a remarkable feature of the civilization.
Housewives were expected to use pits in which heavier part of the rubbish will
settle down while only sewerage water was allowed to drain off.
Each house had a well-constructed sink, and water flowed from the sink into the
underground sewers in the streets.
Each house had horizontal and vertical drains.
There were underground drains for the streets which were covered by stone
slabs.
The soak pits were made of bricks which were occasionally cleaned by workmen.
The house drains were connected with street drains which had manholes at
regular intervals.

D
R
A
I
N
S

Science and engineering
A thick ring-like shell object found with four slits each in two margins served
as a compass to measure angles on plane surfaces or in the horizon in
multiples of 40 degrees, up to 360 degrees. Such shell instruments were
probably invented to measure 812 whole sections of the horizon and sky,
explaining the slits on the lower and upper margins.

For their renowned draining system, engineers provided corbelled roofs, and
an apron of kiln-fired bricks over the brick face of the platform where the
sewerage entered the cesspool.
 Wooden screens inserted in grooves in the side drain walls held back solid
waste. The well is built of radial bricks, 2.4 metres (7.9 feet) in diameter
and 6.7 metres (22 feet) deep.
 It had an immaculate network of underground drains, silting chambers and
cesspools, and inspection chambers for solid waste.

On average, the main sewer is 2046 cm (7.918.1 in) in depth, with
outer dimensions of 86 × 68 × 33 cm (34 × 27 × 13 in).
Brick-makers used a logical approach in manufacture of bricks, designed
with care in regards to thickness of structures.
 They were used as headers and stretchers in same and alternate layers.
 Archaeologists estimate that in most cases, the bricks were in ratio
1:0.5:0.25 on three sides, in dimensions which were integral multiples of
large graduations of IVCscale of 25 mm (0.98 in).

CITIES
OF

Mohenjo-daro
Harappa
Lothal
Dholavira
Kotdiji

Mohenjo-daro
Mound of the Dead Men.
Site in the province of Sindh, Pakistan & was Built around 2500 BCE.
 It was one of the largest settlements of the ancient Indus Valley
Civilization, and one of the world's earliest major urban settlements.
Mohenjo-daro was abandoned in the 19th century BCE as the Indus
Valley Civilization declined.

3300 BC
2600 BC
2600-
1800 BC
1800 BC
1922 AD
1948 AD
1973 AD
1980 AD
Small villages are
established in the
area around
Mohenjo-Daro.
Building of a
planned city is
begun at Mohenjo-
Daro.
Mohenjo-
Daro is a
thriving
trade city.
Mohenjo-Daro falls
into decline and is
later abandoned.
Mohenjo-
Daros
ruins are
found.
First attempts to
conserve
Mohenjo-Daro are
made.
Plans are
approved to
preserve
Mohenjo-
Daro.
Mohenjo-Daro
becomes a
World
Heritage Site.
Mohenjo-Daro timeline

Citadel
of
Mohenjo-Daro

Mohenjo-daro has a planned layout based on a street grid
of rectilinear buildings.
The covered area of Mohenjo-daro is estimated at 300 hectares.
The city is divided into two parts: Citadel and the Lower City.
The Citadel  a mud-brick mound around 12 metres (39 ft) high  is
known to have supported public baths, a large residential structure
designed to house about 5,000 citizens, and two large assembly halls.
Architecture and urban infrastructure

The city had a central marketplace, with a large central well.
Individual households or groups of households obtained their water from
smaller wells.
 Waste water was channeled to covered drains that lined the major
streets.
Most houses had inner courtyards, with doors that opened onto side-
lanes. Some buildings had two stories.

One large building :"Great Granary "has certain wall-divisions in its
massive wooden superstructure appeared to be grain storage-bays, complete
with air-ducts to dry the grain.
Close to the "Great Granary" is a large and elaborate public bath,
sometimes called the Great Bath. From a colonnaded courtyard, steps lead
down to the brick-built pool, which was waterproofed by a lining of bitumen.
The pool measures 12 meters (39 ft) long, 7 meters (23 ft) wide and
2.4 meters (7.9 ft) deep. It may have been used for religious purification.

Other large buildings include a "Pillared Hall", thought to be an
assembly hall of some kind, and the so-called "College Hall", a complex
of buildings comprising 78 rooms, thought to have been a priestly
residence.
Mohenjo-daro had no series of city walls, but was fortified with guard
towers to the west of the main settlement, and defensive fortifications
to the south. Considering these fortifications and the structure of other
major Indus valley cities like Harappa, it is postulated that Mohenjo-daro
was an administrative center.

Both Harappa and Mohenjo-daro share relatively the same architectural
layout, and were generally not heavily fortified like other Indus Valley sites.
Mohenjo-daro was successively destroyed and rebuilt at least seven
times. Each time, the new cities were built directly on top of the old ones.
Flooding by the Indus is thought to have been the cause of destruction.

Aerial View of Mohenjo-Daro

Wide View, Mohenjo-Daro

Bath Area Well

Harappa
Harappa is an archaeological site in Punjab, Pakistan, about 24 km
(15 mi) west of Sahiwal.
 The city is believed to have had as many as 23,500 residents and
occupied about 150 hectares (370 acres) with clay sculptured
houses.

Public Well, Harappa

Drain

Male Skeleton
Female Skeleton with Child

Lothal
Lothal is one of the most prominent cities of the ancient Indus valley civilisation,
located in the Bhl region of the modern state of Gujart and dating from
3700 BCE.
It was a vital and thriving trade centre in ancient times, with its trade
of beads, gems and valuable ornaments reaching the far corners of West Asia and
Africa.
The techniques and tools they pioneered for bead-making and in metallurgy have stood
the test of time for over 4000 years.
The findings consist of a mound, a township, a marketplace, and the dock.

Layout plan
Lothal

BUILDINGS
OF

Great Bath
Granary
The Assembly Hall

The Great Bath, Mohenjo-Daro

There is an impressive building which was used as a public bath.
The overall dimension of the Bath is 180 feet by 108 feet.
The bathing pool is 39 feet by 23 feet with 8 feet depth. There is a
device to fill and empty the water of the bathing pool.
There are galleries and rooms on all sides of the bathing pool.
This public bath was attached to the Mohenjo-Daro fort where upper
class people lived.
Great Public Bath

It is in the center of the quadrangle, surrounded with verandahs, rooms
and galleries.
flight of steps led to the pool.
The pool could be filled and emptied by means of a vaulted culvert, 6
feet and 6 inches high.
The walls of the pool were made of burnt bricks laid on edge, which
made the pool watertight.

The pool was filled with water from a large well, situated in the same
complex.
 Periodic cleaning of the pool was done by draining off the used water
into a big drain.
The Great Bath building had six entrances.
The Great Bath reflected the engineering genius of those ancient
days.

Granary, Mohenjo-Daro

The largest building found at Mohenjo-Daro is a granary, running 150
feet long, 75 feet wide and 15 feet high.
It was meant to store food grains. It had lines of circular brick
platforms for pounding grain.
The granary was divided into 27 compartments in three rows.
It was well ventilated and it was possible to fill grain in from outside.
The large size of the granary probably indicates a highly developed
agricultural civilization.
The granary also had smaller halls and corridors.
Granary

Attached to the granary were two roomed tenements with a common
courtyard.
These tenements housed the workers or the slaves who thrashed the
corn to be preserved in the granary.

The Assembly Hall
An important feature of Mohen-jo-daro was its 24 square meters
pillared hall.
It had five rows of pillars, with four pillars in each row. Kiln baked bricks
were used to construct these pillars.
Probably, it was the Assembly Hall or the ruler's court. It is said that it
also housed the municipal office which had the charge of town planning and
sanitation.

NOTABLE ARTIFACTS

A Male Head, Mohenjo-Daro

Bison Seal Unicorn Seal

A Horned-God Seal Pottery

Female Figures

Bull FigurineElephant Figurine

Burial Pottery

This civilization is said to have come to an abrupt end. The following
reasons are put forward for its abrupt end:
The neighboring desert encroached on the fertile area and made it
infertile.
Regular floods destroyed the area.
Aryan invaders killed people and destroyed the Indus Valley Civilization.
Decline

The end was partly caused by changing river patterns. These changes
included the drying up of the Hakra River and changes in the course of the
Indus River. The river changes disrupted agricultural and economic systems,
and many people left the cities of the Indus Valley region.
Earthquakes and Epidemics caused destruction.
By 1700 B.C., the Indus civilization had gradually broken up into smaller
cultures, called late Harappan cultures and post-Harappan cultures.

Conclusion:
The Indus Valley people gave to the world its earliest cities, its town planning,
its architecture in stone and clay, and showed their concern for health and sanitation.
They built a scientific drainage system in their cities.
There is enough evidence to show that some of the early conceptions of Hinduism are
derived from this culture.
On the whole, the present civilization is a composite product resulting from a fusion of
several cultures where the contribution of the Indus Valley is of utmost importance.

Lecture ii indus valley civilization

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Lecture ii indus valley civilization