The Great Bath : –
🔹 It was a large rectangular tank in a courtyard surrounded by a corridor on all four sides.
🔹 There were two flights of steps on the north and south leading into the tank, which was made watertight by setting bricks on edge and using a mortar of gypsum.
🔹 There were rooms on three sides, in one of which was a large well. Water from the tank flowed into a huge drain.
🔹 Across a lane to the north lay a smaller building with eight bathrooms, four on each side of a corridor, with drains from each bathroom connecting to a drain that ran along the corridor.
Town Planning of the Harappan civilization : –
- An urban civilisation.
- The settlement divided into two sections :- Citadel and the lower town.
- Roads laid on grid pattern.
- Covered drains pared with bricks.
- Planned drainage system.
- Construction of special types of buildings such as bathrooms, granaries, etc.
- Drains of the houses connected through the wall of the Street drains.
- Houses made of bricks and mud.
- Construction of two storey buildings.
- Use of stairs to go on the top floor.
Domestic architecture of Harappan Civilisation : –
🔸 The courtyard : – The Lower Town at Mohenjodaro provides examples of residential buildings. Many were centred on a courtyard, with rooms on all sides. The courtyard was probably the centre of activities such as cooking and weaving, particularly during hot and dry weather.
🔹 What is also interesting is an apparent concern for privacy:
- there are no windows in the walls along the ground level.
- the main entrance does not give a direct view of the interior or the courtyard.
- Every house had its own bathroom paved with bricks, with drains connected through the wall to the street drains.
- Some houses have remains of staircases to reach a second storey or the roof.
🔸 Wells : – Many houses had wells, often in a room that could be reached from the outside and perhaps used by passers-by. Scholars have estimated that the total number of wells in Mohenjodaro was about 700.
Tracking Social Differences : –
🔹 Archaeologists generally use certain strategies to find out whether there were social or economic differences amongst people living within a particular culture.
🔸 study burials : – These include studying burials.
🔸 study artefacts ( looking for luxuries in harappan civilization ) : – Another strategy to identify social differences is to study artefacts, which archaeologists broadly classify as utilitarian and luxuries.
Studying Burials : –
🔹 Strategies to analyze social and economic differences amongst people living within a particular culture include study of burials.
🔹 At burials in Harappan sites the dead were generally laid in pits. Sometimes, there were differences in the way the burial pit was made in some instances, the hollowed-out spaces were lined with bricks.
🔹 Jewellery has been found in burials of both men and women. In some instances the dead were buried with copper mirrors. But on the whole, it appears that the Harappans did not believe in burying precious things with the dead.
Studying Burials ( in short ) : –
- Strategies to analyze social and economic differences amongst people living within a particular culture include study of burials.
- At burials in Harappan sites the dead were generally laid in pits.
- Some of the pits were lined by bricks.
- Some of the burials contained ornaments, pottery etc, may be a belief that these things can be used after life.
- Jwelleries were found in both men and women burials.
- In some instances the dead were buried with copper mirrors.
- But in general, Harappans never believed in burying precious things with the dead.
Study Artefacts ( looking for luxuries in harappan civilization ) : –
🔹 Another strategy to identify social differences is to study artefacts, which archaeologists broadly classify as utilitarian and luxuries.
🔸 Utilitarian artefacts : – The first category includes objects of daily use made fairly easily out of ordinary materials such as stone or clay. These include querns, pottery, needles, flesh-rubbers (body scrubbers), etc., and are usually found distributed throughout settlements.
🔸 Luxury artefacts : – Archaeologists assume objects were luxuries if they are rare or made from costly, non-local materials or with complicated technologies. Thus, little pots of faience (a material made of ground sand or silica mixed with colour and a gum and then fired) were probably considered precious because they were difficult to make.
Study Artefacts ( Looking for “luxuries” ) ( in short ) : –
- Studying artefacts is another strategy to find out social differences.
- Artefacts are divided into utilitarian and luxuries.
- Utilitarian artefacts include objects made of stone or clay. These include querns, pottery, needles, flesh-rubbers etc. and are usually found distributed throughout settlements.
- Luxury artefacts are rare objects made of valuable materials are generally concentrated in large settlements like Mohenjodaro and Harappa. For Example, little pots of faience were used as perfume bottles.
Hoards : –
🔹 Hoards are objects kept carefully by people, often inside containers such as pots. Such hoards can be of jewellery or metal objects saved for reuse by metalworkers. If for some reason the original owners do not retrieve them, they remain where they are left till some archaeologist finds them.
Information about Craft Production : –
🔹 Chanhudaro is a tiny settlement, almost exclusively devoted to craft production. bead-making, shell-cutting, metal-working, seal-making and weight-making etc. are included in the craft Production.
beads : –
🔹 One of the important craft of the people of Harappan civilization was to prepare beads. It was mainly prevalent in Chanhudaro.
🔸 Material Used for making beads : – A large variety of material was used to make the beads. It included beautiful colour stones like carnelian (of a beautiful red colour), jasper, crystal, quartz and steatite; metals like copper, bronze and gold; and shell, faience and terracotta or burnt clay. Some beads were made of two or more stones, cemented together, some of stone with gold caps.
🔸 Shapes of beads : – The shapes were numerous : – disc- shaped, cylindrical, spherical, barrel-shaped, segmented. Some were decorated by incising or painting, and some had designs etched onto them.
Process of Making Beads : –
🔹 The process of making beads was remarkable. It deffered according to the material. It had the following statges:
- The beads did not have geometrical forms like the ones made out of harder stones. They had a variety of shapes.
- The red colour of carnelian was obtained by firing the yellowish raw material.
- Nodules were chipped into rough shapes. Thus they were finely flaked into to final form.
- The last phase of the process included grinding polishing and drilling. The specialised drills have been found at many sites like Chanhudaro, Lothal and Dholavira.
Identifying centres of production : –
🔹 In order to identify centres of craft production, archaeologists usually look for the following: raw material such as stone nodules, whole shells, copper ore; tools; unfinished objects; rejects and waste material.
Strategy for Procuring Materials : –
🔹 Terracotta toy models of bullock carts suggest that this was one important means of transporting goods and people across land routes.
🔹 Riverine routes. along the Indus and its tributaries, as well as coastal routes were also probably used.
Strategies for procuring materials for craft production ( Materials from the subcontinent and beyond ) : –
- The Harappans procured materials for craft production in various ways.
- Two methods of procuring materials for craft production
- They established settlements in Nageshwar, Balakot and Shortughai.
- They might have send expeditions to areas such as the Khetri region of Rajasthan (for copper) and south India (for gold).
- Nageshwar and Balakot were areas for shell.
- Shortughai, in far-off Afghanistan, near the best source of lapis lazuli, a blue stone that was apparently very highly valued, and Lothal which was near sources of carnelian (from Bharuch in Gujarat), steatite (from south Rajasthan and north Gujarat) and metal (from Rajasthan).
- Expeditions to the khetri region and south India established communication with local communities.
Harappans maintain contact with distant lands : –
🔸Archaeologists found Harappan trade relations with Western Asia through the following archaeological evidences : –
🔹 Copper was probably brought from Oman. Chemical analysis have shown that both the Omani copper and Harappan artefacts have traces of nickel.
🔹 A distinctive type of Harappan vessel with a thick layer of black clay has been found at one of the sites of Oman.
🔹 There is a mention of Meluhha in Mesopotamian texts, which was probably Harappan region. They mentioned the products from Meluhha like copper, gold, carnelian, lapis lazuli and varieties of wood.
🔹 Harappan weights, seals, etc., have been found from the sites of Mesopotamia.
🔹 Depictions of ships and boats on Harappan seals clearly show trade relations between Harappa and Western Asia.
Seals and sealings : –
🔹 Seals and sealings were used to facilitate long- distance communication. The sealing also conveyed the identity of the sender.
An enigmatic script : –
🔹 Harappan seals usually have a line of writing, probably containing the name and title of the owner. Most inscriptions are short, the longest containing about 26 signs.
🔹 Although the script remains undeciphered to date, it was evidently not alphabetical as it has just too many signs somewhere between 375 and 400.
🔹 It is apparent that the script was written from right to left.
🔸 Objects on which writing has been found : – The variety of objects on which writing has been found: Seals, Copper tools, Rims of jars, Copper and terracotta tablets, Jewellery, Bone rods, Even an ancient signboard.