The Harappan Civilization, c. 2600–1900 BCE - 1 | History for UPSC CSE PDF Download

Civilization and Urbanization: Definitions and Implications

The word ‘urbanization’ means the emergence of cities. ‘Civilization’ has more abstract and grander connotations, but refers to a specific cultural stage generally associated with cities and writing. In a few instances, archaeologists have described neolithic settlements as urban on the basis of size and architecture, even in the absence of writing. 

• This is the case with 8th millennium BCE Jericho in the Jordan valley and the 7th millennium BCE settlement at Çatal Hüyük in Turkey. It has also been pointed out that the Mayan civilization of Mesoamerica and the Mycenaean civilization of Greece did not have true cities, while the Inca civilization of Peru did not have a system of true writing. 
• However, apart from a few such exceptions, cities and writing tend to go together, and ‘urbanization’ and ‘civilization’ are more or less synonymous.
• One of the earliest attempts to define a city was made by V. Gordon Childe (1950). Childe described the city as the result and symbol of a revolution that marked a new economic stage in the evolution of society. 
• Like the earlier ‘neolithic revolution’, the ‘urban revolution’ was neither sudden nor violent; it was the culmination of centuries of gradual social and economic changes. Childe identified 10 abstract criteria, all supposedly deducible from archaeological data, which distinguished the first cities from the older and contemporary villages.

Rakhaldas Banerji, Who Excavated Mohenjodaro in 1921

• Childe’s observations proved to be the starting point of an important debate on the diagnostic features of urban societies. Some scholars did not agree with his use of the word ‘revolution’ to describe urbanization, as it suggests sudden, deliberate change. Further, his 10 criteria seem to be a loose assemblage of overlapping features, and are not arranged in any sequence of relative importance. 
• For instance, were sophisticated artistic styles as important as an agricultural surplus or a state structure? Further, all 10 features (e.g., exact and predictive sciences) are not directly deducible from the archaeological data. Another objection is that some features, such as monumental architecture, specialized crafts, and long-distance trade are occasionally found in non-urban contexts as well. However, if we consider the 10 characteristics collectively instead of individually, it has to be conceded that Childe did succeed in identifying the most significant features and implications of city life.
• Over the years, there have been three different sorts of trends in defining the city. One is to narrow down the diagnostic features, focusing, for instance, on writing, monumental structures, and a large population. A second trend is to identify more specific criteria such as settlement size, architectural features (e.g., fortifications and the use of stone and brick), and a uniform system of weights and measures. A third trend is towards a more abstract definition, highlighting features such as cultural complexity, homogeneity, and far-reaching political control.
• The various hypotheses that have been put forward to explain the rise of the world’s first cities are reflective of how different scholars view and understand the unfolding of historical processes. Childe emphasized the importance of technological and subsistence factors such as increasing food surpluses, copper-bronze technology, and the use of wheeled transport, sailboats, and ploughs. Scholars such as Robert McC. Adams emphasized social factors, while Gideon Sjoberg asserted that political factors played the pivotal role in the emergence of cities.
• An important aspect of McC. Adams’ contribution to our understanding of city life is his highlighting the relationship between cities and their hinterlands (see McC. Adams, 1966 and McC. Adams, 1968). City and village are not two opposite poles, but interdependent and interacting parts of a larger cultural and ecological system. 
• While cities were no doubt ultimately sustained by agricultural surpluses produced in villages, the generation, appropriation, and deployment of agricultural surpluses were neither automatic nor purely economic phenomena and were governed by social and political factors. McC. Adams also highlighted the multiple roles played by cities: They were nodes for the appropriation and redistribution of agricultural surpluses. 
• They provided a permanent base for new social and political institutions that regulated the relationships between specialized producers occupying different econiches. They were centres for the safe storage of surpluses, concentration of wealth, and for expenditure on public building programmes by elite groups. They were centres of learning, artistic creativity, philosophical debate, and the development of religious ideas.

Daya Ram Sahni, Who Excavated Harappa In The 1920s

• Over the years, various factors such as population growth, long-distance trade, irrigation, and class conflict have been suggested as having played an important role in the emergence of cities. 
• Actually, as is the case with all complex cultural phenomena, a variety of factors—social, political, economic, technological, and ideological—must have been involved, in conjunction with each other, and the details of their interplay could have varied from culture to culture. Since archaeology forms the primary source for reconstructing the emergence of the world’s first cities, there is more direct information on the technological aspect rather than other factors, which can be understood only in very general terms.
• The emergence of cities has to be viewed as part of a longer history of human settlements, both rural and urban. The story of urbanization is one of increasing cultural complexity, a widening food resource base, greater technological sophistication, expanding craft production, social stratification, and the emergence of a level of political organization that can be described as a state.

Recent Discoveries and Changing Perspectives

Over the eight decades or so since the momentous discoveries at Mohenjodaro and Harappa, information about the Harappan civilization has increased enormously. 

• New sites have been discovered, old sites re-excavated, and there are several new interpretations based on the old and new discoveries. The amount of data and information has been steadily growing and continues to grow. Yet, many aspects of the civilization remain mysterious and subjects of vigorous debate.
• In the initial years after its discovery, the Mesopotamian links were crucial for dating the Harappan civilization, and some archaeologists tended to compare the two (Shaffer, 1982a). 
• This led to many questionable theories about Harappan origins and the nature of the Harappan economy and polity. In recent decades, scholars have become very conscious of the earlier bias and acknowledge the need to view the Harappan civilization independently rather than through a Mesopotamian lens.

Madho Sarup Vats, Who Excavated Harappa In The 1920s And 1930s

• Another feature of the early decades of Harappan studies was an emphasis on urban settlements, especially Mohenjodaro and Harappa. Apart from being the first sites of the culture to be excavated, these two cities seemed to stand out by virtue of their size and architectural features. 
• However, several other sites are now known to be as large or even larger than them, e.g., Lurewala and Ganweriwala in Cholistan, Rakhigarhi in Haryana, and Dholavira in Gujarat. Scholars have increasingly directed attention to the smaller, less imposing sites, including towns and villages. 
• These include the site of Allahdino (near Karachi), a village settlement that measures only about 5 ha, but which reveals all the main features of the Harappan civilization. 
• Another recently excavated site is Balu in Haryana, a small fortified rural settlement that has yielded a rich variety of plant remains. Profiles of different kinds of Harappan settlements are now available, and the understanding of the networks that connected cities, towns, and villages is slowly growing.
• Although Harappan sites share certain common features, there are also significant regional and inter-site differences. These are visible, for instance, in the layout of settlements and in the crops that people grew and consumed. There are also differences in the types, range, and frequency of artefacts. 
• For instance, at Allahdino, the typical black-on-red Harappan pottery formed only 1 percent of the total pottery finds. The mud-brick platforms in the southern part of the citadel complex at Kalibangan, which have been interpreted as ‘fire altars’, do not occur at most other sites. There are also differences in the frequency of various funerary practices across sites. For instance, post-cremation burials were much more numerous at Harappa than at Mohenjodaro. All this suggests a variety of subsistence strategies, food habits, craft traditions, religious beliefs, cultic practices, and social customs.
• The nature and function of certain structures have also been re-considered in recent years. For instance, there is good reason to question whether the ‘great granaries’ at Mohenjodaro and Harappa were granaries at all (Fentress, 1984). Less acceptable is Leshnik’s suggestion (1968) that the dockyard at Lothal was not a dockyard but an irrigation reservoir. The re-interpretation of structures has important implications for the understanding of the Harappan social and political systems. For instance, the so-called ‘granaries’ used to be cited to support the theory of a strong, centralized state.
• Recent excavations at Harappan sites reflect the changes in approaches, goals, and techniques within the discipline of archaeology. A good example are the recent excavations at Harappa, conducted by a joint American and Pakistani team. Compared to earlier excavations at the site, these have been marked by much more careful analysis of the cultural sequence and details of various parts of the residential areas. There has also been greater use of scientific techniques, including the analysis of bone and teeth remains, which provide very specific information about the diet and health of the Harappans.
• The debates about various aspects of the Harappan civilization reflect both the potential of archaeology as a window into the ancient past and the important role of interpretation in this discipline. There are many different theories about almost every aspect of the Harappan civilization. Not all are equally acceptable; each has to be carefully examined. Conclusions can be reached on certain issues, while in other cases, it is necessary to acknowledge the current limits of our knowledge.

Harappan, Indus, or Sindhu–Sarasvati Civilization?

The first sites of this civilization were discovered in the valley of the Indus and its tributaries. Hence it was given the name ‘Indus valley civilization’ or ‘Indus civilization’. Today, the count of Harappan sites has risen to about 1,022, of which 406 are in Pakistan and 616 in India. Of these, only 97 have so far been excavated. 

• The area covered by the Harappan culture zone is huge, ranging between 680,000 to 800,000 sq km. Sites have been found in Afghanistan; in the Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan, and North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan; in Jammu, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, and western Uttar Pradesh in India. The northernmost site is Manda in Jammu district of Jammu and Kashmir, the southernmost is Malvan in Surat district in southern Gujarat. The western-most site is Sutkagen-dor on the Makran coast of Pakistan, and the easternmost is Alamgirpur in the Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh. There is an isolated site at Shortughai in Afghanistan.
• The vast geographical extent of the civilization should make the objection to the terms ‘Indus’ or ‘Indus valley’ civilization obvious. The terms ‘Indus–Sarasvati’ or ‘Sindhu–Sarasvati’ civilization are also used by some scholars. This is because a large number of sites are located on the banks of the Ghaggar-Hakra river, which is identified by some scholars with the ancient Sarasvati mentioned in the Rig Veda. 
• However, the sort of objection to the terms ‘Indus’ or ‘Indus valley’ civilization can also be applied to the terms ‘Indus–Saraswati’ or ‘Sindhu–Saraswati’ civilization. Since the civilization was not confined to the valleys of the Indus or Ghaggar-Hakra, the best option is to use the term ‘Harappan ’ civilization. This is based on the archaeological convention of naming a culture after the site where it is first identified. The use of the term Harappan civilization does not imply that all other sites are identical to Harappa or that the culture developed first in this place. In fact, Possehl asserts that it is necessary to break the Harappan monolith into sub-regions, which he calls ‘Domains’ (Possehl, 2003: 6–7).
• Newspapers and magazines sometimes announce the discovery of new sites of the Harappan civilization. This is done on the basis of a checklist of archaeological features. Pottery is an important marker. The typical Harappan pottery is red, with designs painted on in black, and has a certain range of forms and motifs. Other material traits associated with the civilization include terracotta cakes (pieces of terracotta, usually triangular, sometime round, whose precise function is unclear), a standardized brick size in the 1:2:4 ratio, and certain types of stone and copper artefacts. When the basic set of Harappan material traits are found associated with each other at a site, it is described as a Harappan site.
• The Harappan culture was actually a long and complex cultural process consisting of at least three phases—the early Harappan, mature Harappan, and late Harappan. The early Harappan phase was the formative, proto-urban phase of the culture. The mature Harappan phase was the urban phase, the full-fledged stage of civilization. The late Harappan phase was the post-urban phase, when the cities declined. Other terminology is also used. 
• For instance, Jim Shaffer (1992) uses the term ‘Indus valley tradition’ for the long series of human adaptations starting from the neolithic–chalcolithic stage to the decline of the Harappan civilization. Within this larger sequence, he uses the term ‘regionalization era’ for the early Harappan phase, ‘integration era’ for the mature Harappan phase, and ‘localization era’ for the late Harappan phase. The early Harappan–mature Harappan transition and the mature Harappan–late Harappan transition are also treated as separate, distinct phases. In this book, the simple and straightforward terminology of early Harappan, mature Harappan, and late Harappan will be used. When the unqualified term Harappan culture/civilization is mentioned, the reference is to the urban phase.
• Before the advent of radiocarbon dating, this civilization was dated by cross-referencing with the Mesopotamian civilization, with which the Harappans were in contact and whose dates were known. Accordingly, John Marshall suggested that the Harappan civilization flourished between c. 3250 and 2750 BCE. When the Mesopotamian chronology was revised, the dates of the Harappan civilization were revised to c. 2350– 2000/1900 BCE.
• The advent of radiocarbon dating in the 1950s offered the prospect of a more scientific way of dating the civilization, and the number of sites for which radiocarbon dates are available have gradually increased. The 1986–1996 Harappa excavations have given over 70 new radiocarbon dates, but none from the earliest levels, which are submerged in water. D. P. Agrawal (1982) suggested c. 2300–2000 BCE for the nuclear regions and c. 2000–1700 BCE for the peripheral zones, but this is based on uncalibrated radiocarbon dates. Recent calibrated C-14 dates give a time frame of about 2600–1900 BCE for the urban phase in the core regions of the Indus valley, the Ghaggar-Hakra valley, and Gujarat. This is quite close to the dates arrived at through cross-dating with Mesopotamia. The dates of individual sites vary.
• Collating the calibrated radiocarbon dates from various sites gives the following broad chronology for the three phases of the Harappan culture: early Harappan, c. 3200–2600 BCE; mature Harappan, c. 2600–1900 BCE; and late Harappan, c. 1900–1300 BCE.

Origin: The Significance of the Early Harappan Phase

Issues of origins are always complex and often contentious. In his report on Mohenjo-daro, John Marshall asserted that the Indus civilization must have had a long antecedent history on the soil of India (see Chakrabarti, 1984 for a summary of the various theories). 

• However, there were others who put forward diffusionist explanations. According to E. J. H. Mackay, a migration of people from Sumer (southern Mesopotamia) may have led to the Harappan civilization; other proponents of the migration theory included D.H. Gordon and S. N. Kramer. Mortimer Wheeler argued for a migration of ideas, not people—the idea of civilization was in the air of West Asia in the 3rd millennium BCE and the founders of the Harappan civilization had a model of civilization before them.
• The fact that city life emerged in Mesopotamia a few centuries before it appeared in the Egyptian and Harappan contexts does not mean that the latter were derived from the former in a direct or indirect way. There are in fact several striking differences between the Harappan and Mesopotamian civilizations. The Mesopotamians had a completely different script, a much greater use of bronze, different settlement layouts, and a large-scale canal system of the kind that seems absent in the Harappan civilization.
• If the Harappan civilization cannot be explained as an offshoot or offspring of the Mesopotamian civilization, what is the alternative? The story of its origins can, in fact, be traced to the emergence of settled farming communities in Baluchistan in the 7th millennium BCE. Its more immediate prelude was the cultural phase that used to be known as pre-Harappan, and is now usually referred to as the early Harappan phase.
• Amalananda Ghosh (1965) was the first archaeologist to identify similarities between a pre-Harappan culture and the mature Harappan culture. Ghosh focused on the pre-Harappan Sothi culture of Rajasthan. He asserted that there were similarities between Sothi pottery and the pottery of (a) Zhob, Quetta, and other Baluchi sites; (b) pre-Harappan Kalibangan, Kot Diji, and the lowest levels of Harappa and Mohenjodaro; and (c) mature Harappan levels at Kalibangan, and perhaps also at Kot Diji. 
• In view of these similarities, he argued that the Sothi culture should be described as proto-Harappan. A limitation of this hypothesis was that it was based exclusively on a comparison of pottery, and did not consider other material traits. And in emphasizing ceramic similarities, Ghosh had ignored the many differences between the Sothi and Harappan cultures. The result was an overemphasis on the Sothi element in the account of the emergence of the Harappan civilization.
• The first comprehensive analysis of the evidence from pre-Harappan sites in the greater Indus valley and north Baluchistan was made by M. R. Mughal (1977). Mughal compared the whole range of evidence (pottery, stone tools, metal artefacts, architecture, etc.) from pre-Harappan and mature Harappan levels, and explored the relationship between the two stages. 
• The pre-Harappan phase showed large fortified settlements, a fairly high level of expertise in specialized crafts such as stone working, metal crafting, and bead making, the use of wheeled transport, and the existence of trade networks. The range of raw materials used by the pre-Harappans was more or less the same as that used in the mature Harappan phase (except for jade, which is absent in the early Harappan context). 
• The two things lacking were large cities and increased levels of craft specialization. Mughal argued that the ‘pre-Harappan’ phase actually represented the early, formative phase of the Harappan culture and that the term ‘pre-Harappan’ should therefore be replaced by ‘early Harappan’.
• Early Harappan levels have been identified at a large number of sites, a few of which are discussed below. At some sites, the early Harappan phase represents the first cultural stage, at others it is part of a longer cultural sequence. The dates vary from site to site, but the general range is c. 3200–2600 BCE. The early Harappan phase is extremely important, not merely as a stepping-stone to urbanization, but in its own right as well.
• At Balakot (on the coastal plain of Sonmiani Bay on the Makran coast), Period II is early Harappan. The pottery was wheel-made and painted, some of it similar to the polychrome ware of Nal. There were microliths, humped bull figurines, a few copper objects, miscellaneous artefacts made of terracotta, shell, and bone, and beads of lapis lazuli, stone, shell, and paste. Remains of barley, vetch, legumes, and ber were found and bones of cattle, sheep, goat, buffalo, hare, deer, and pig were identified.

The Relationship Between the Early and Mature Harappan Phases

In spite of the undeniable evidence of cultural continuity from the early Harappan to the mature Harappan phase, the ‘outside influence’ factor still sometimes resurfaces in different forms. While acknowledging the indigenous roots of the Harappan civilization, some archaeologists still invoke Sumerian influence. 

• Attempts have been made to connect the pottery traditions of the Harappan tradition with those of Mesopotamia and eastern Iran. Lamberg-Karlovsky (1972) suggests that the emergence of an early urban interaction sphere in c. 3000 BCE in Turkmenia, Seistan, and south Afghanistan had an important role to play in Harappan urbanism. Shereen Ratnagar (1981) suggests that Indus–Mesopotamian trade played an important role in the rise and decline of the Harappan civilization. Such theories are difficult to accept in the absence of substantive evidence.
• Apart from the fact that some features of the mature Harappan culture were already in place in the early Harappan phase, what is also visible is a gradual transition from a variety of regional traditions towards a level of cultural uniformity cutting across regions, a process that the Allchins call ‘cultural convergence’ (Allchin and Allchin, 1997: 163). Some inferences can also be made about the social and political processes that were underway. 
• Specialized crafts imply specialized craftspersons, trade implies traders, and planned settlements imply planners, executors, and labourers. Seals have been found at Kunal and Nausharo and may have been connected with traders or elite groups. The discovery of hoards of jewellery at Kunal, including a silver piece that has been interpreted as a tiara, suggests a fairly high level of concentration of wealth and may also have political implications. The discovery of symbols similar to Harappan writing at early Harappan levels at Padri in Gujarat, Kalibangan in Rajasthan, Dholavira in Kutch, and Harappa in west Punjab shows that the roots of the Harappan script go back to this phase.
• Another notable feature is the appearance of the ‘horned deity’ at a number of places. He is painted on a jar found at Kot Diji and on several jars found at early Harappan Rehman Dheri, in contexts dated c. 2800-2600 BCE. At Kalibangan Period I, his figure was incised on one side of a terracotta cake, on the other side of which was a figure with a tied animal. All this suggests that the process of ‘cultural convergence’ was also operating in the religious and symbolic spheres.
• But how did this convergence come about? What led to the transition from the proto-urban early Harappan phase to full-fledged city life? Was it the result of increased inter-regional contact, or long-distance trade? Trade with Mesopotamia has been suggested as a factor, but the importance of this trade has been exaggerated even in the context of the mature Harappan phase. According to Chakrabarti (1995b: 49–52), the catalyst for the transition may have been an increasing level of craft
• specialization, instigated especially by the development of copper metallurgy in Rajasthan. He suggests that another crucial factor for the spread of settlements in the active floodplain of the Indus may have been agricultural growth based on an organized irrigation system, but direct evidence of this is lacking. The answer may lie in the emergence of a new, decisive political leadership, significant changes in social organization, or perhaps a new ideology. Unfortunately, such changes are difficult to deduce from the archaeological data.

The General Features of Mature Harappan Settlements

The fact that the Harappan civilization was urban does not mean that all or even most of its settlements had an urban character. A majority were in fact villages. The cities depended on villages for food and perhaps also labour, and various kinds of goods produced in cities found their way into the villages. As a result of the brisk urban–rural interaction, the typical range of Harappan artefacts reached even small village sites.

• It is not easy to estimate the exact size of ancient settlements, as they are often spread over many mounds and buried under layers of alluvium. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Harappan sites varied a great deal in size and function, from large cities to small pastoral camps. The largest settlements include Mohenjodaro (over 200 ha), Harappa (over 150 ha), Ganweriwala (over 81.5 ha), Rakhigarhi (over 80 ha), and Dholavira (about 100 ha). Lurewala in Cholistan, with an estimated population of about 35,000, seems to have been as large as Mohenjodaro. 
• Other large sites (about 50 ha) are Nagoor, Tharo Waro Daro, and Lakhueenjo-Daro in Sindh, and Nondowri in Baluchistan. Recently, some very large Harappan sites have been reported in Punjab—Dhalewan (about 150 ha) in Mansa district and Gurni Kalan I (144 ha), Hasanpur II (about 100 ha), Lakhmirwala (225 ha), and Baglian Da Theh (about 100 ha) in Bhatinda district, but details are so far lacking. 
• The second rung of Harappan settlements are moderate-sized sites ranging between 10 and 50 ha, such as Judeirjodaro and Kalibangan. Then, there are the even smaller sites of 5–10 ha, such as Amri, Lothal, Chanhudaro, and Rojdi. The many settlements in the 1–5 ha range include Allahdino, Kot Diji, Rupar, Balakot, Surkotada, Nageshwar, Nausharo, and Ghazi Shah. There are also settlements even smaller than these.
• The streets and houses of Harappan cities were once thought to be laid on a grid-pattern oriented north–south and east–west. Actually, even Mohenjodaro does not show a perfect grid system. Roads in the Harappan cities were not always absolutely straight and did not always cross one another at right angles. But the settlements were clearly planned. There is no strict correlation between the level of planning and the size of a settlement. For example, the relatively small site of Lothal shows a much higher level of planning than Kalibangan, which is twice its size. The details of the plans differ. Mohenjodaro, Harappa, and Kalibangan have a similar layout, consisting of a raised citadel complex and a lower city. At Lothal and Surkotada, the citadel complex is not separate; it is located within the main settlement. In its most fully developed phase, Dholavira consisted of not two but three parts—the citadel, middle town, and lower town.
• A major difference between the buildings in large cities and those in smaller towns and villages was in the type and combination of raw materials used. In villages, houses were made mostly of mud-brick, with the additional use of mud and reeds; stone was occasionally used for foundations or drains. Buildings in towns and cities were made of sun-dried and burnt bricks. In the rocky areas of Kutch and Saurashtra, however, there was extensive use of stone. The massive fortification walls with a veneer of dressed stone at Dholavira and the remains of stone pillars in the citadel are very distinctive and are not found at any other Harappan site.
• The fact that some house walls at Mohenjodaro survive upto a height of 5 m is a tribute to the strength of the bricks and the brick-laying skill of the Harappans. There were various styles of laying bricks, including what is known as the ‘English bond style’. In this, bricks were laid together in a sequence of long side (stretcher) and short side (header), with an alternate arrangement in consecutive rows. This gave the wall maximum load-bearing strength. 
• A striking feature of Harappan structures is the uniformity in the average size of the bricks—7 × 14 × 28 cm for houses and 10 × 20 × 40 cm for city walls. Both these brick sizes have an identical ratio of thickness, width, and length (1:2:4). This ratio first makes its appearance at a few sites in the early Harappan phase, but in the mature Harappan phase, it is found in all the settlements.
• People lived in houses of different sizes, mostly consisting of rooms arranged around a central courtyard. Doorways and windows generally faced the side lanes and rarely opened onto the main streets. The view from the lane into the courtyard was blocked off by a wall. There are remains of staircases that may have led to the roof or a second storey. The fact that some of the houses at Mohenjodaro were two stories high or more is also suggested by the thickness of their walls. Floors were usually made of hard-packed earth, often re-plastered or covered with sand. The ceilings were probably over 3 m high. Roofs may have been made of wooden beams covered with reeds and packed clay.

Mohenjodaro: Well Flanked By House Walls

• The doors and windows of houses were made of wood and mats. Clay models of houses show that doors were sometimes carved or painted with simple designs. Windows had shutters (perhaps made of wood or reeds and matting), with latticework grills above and below to allow in light and air. 
• A few pieces of carved alabaster and marble latticework have been found at Harappa and Mohenjodaro; such slabs may have been set into the brickwork. Small houses attached to large ones may have been the quarters of service groups working for wealthy city dwellers. In the larger houses, passages led into inner rooms, and there is evidence of frequent renovation activity.
• Bathrooms and toilets are facilities people use every day but which most books on ancient history rarely discuss. In the case of the Harappan civilization, there is quite a bit of information on this aspect (Kenoyer, 1998: 59–60). Many houses or groups of houses had separate bathing areas and toilets. Bathing platforms with drains were often located in rooms next to a well. The floor of the bathing area was usually made of tightly fitted bricks, frequently set on edge, to make a carefully sloped watertight surface. A small drain led from here, cut through the house wall, and went out into the street, connecting ultimately with a larger sewage drain.
• Although some people may have used the area outside the city walls to relieve themselves, toilets have been identified at many sites. They ranged from the simple hole in the ground above a cesspit to more elaborate arrangements. Recent excavations at Harappa have uncovered toilets in almost every house. The commodes were made of big pots sunk into the floor, many of them associated with a small lota-type jar, no doubt for washing up. 
• Most of the pots had a small hole in the base, through which water could seep into the ground. The waste from the toilets was in some cases discharged though a sloping channel into a jar or drain in the street outside. Some people must have had the job of cleaning the toilets and drains on a regular basis.

Main Street

• Well laid-out streets and side lanes associated with an efficient and well-planned drainage system are other notable features of Harappan settlements. Even the smaller towns and villages had impressive drainage systems. The sewage chutes and pipes were separate from drains for collecting rain water. Drains and water chutes from the second storey were often built inside the wall, with an exit opening just above the street drain. 
• At Harappa and Mohenjodaro, terracotta drain pipes directed waste water into open street drains made of baked bricks. These connected into large drains along the main streets, which emptied their contents into the fields outside the city wall. The main drains were covered by corbelled arches made of brick or stone slabs. There were rectangular soak-pits for collecting solid waste at regular intervals. These must have been cleaned out regularly, otherwise the drainage system would have become choked and a health hazard.
• The Harappans made elaborate arrangements for water for drinking and bathing. The emphasis on providing water for bathing, evident at several sites, suggests that they were very particular about personal hygiene. It is possible that frequent bathing also had a religious or ritualistic aspect. 
• The sources of water were rivers, wells, and reservoirs or cisterns. Mohenjodaro is noted for its large number of wells. Harappa had much fewer wells but a depression in the centre of the city may represent a tank or reservoir that served the city’s inhabitants. There are a few wells at Dholavira, which is noted more for its impressive water reservoirs lined with stone.

Profiles of Some Harappan Cities, Towns, and Villages

A very small proportion of identified Harappan sites have been excavated. And where excavations have taken place, only sections of the settlements have been exposed (for site details, see, for instance, Kenoyer, 1998; Possehl, 2003; and Lal, 1997).

• Mohenjodaro in Sindh lies about 5 km away from the Indus; in protohistoric times, the river may have flowed much closer. The site consists of two mounds, a higher but smaller western mound and a lower but larger eastern mound. There is an extensive area to the east that has not yet been explored. The size of the site has been estimated as about 200 ha. On the basis of the density of houses in the excavated area, Fairservis (1967) suggested that the lower city may have housed about 41,250 people.
• The western mound at Mohenjodaro (known as the citadel) rises up to 12 m above the plain. The structures here were built on an artificial mud and mud-brick platform, about 400 × 200 m. The mound was circled by a 6 m thick mud-brick retaining wall or platform with projections on the south-west and west, and a tower has been identified on the south-east. 
• It has been suggested that the elevated area at Mohenjodaro does not represent a defensive fortification but part of a civic design to create an elevated symbolic landscape. However, the defensive nature of the walls here and at other cities cannot be ruled out.
• The buildings on the citadel mound of Mohen jodaro are among the things we associate most closely with the Harappan civilization. In the north are the Great Bath, the so-called ‘granary’, and ‘college of priests’. The Great Bath, an example of the Harappans’ engineering skill, measures about 14.5 × 7 m, with a maximum depth of 2.4m. 
• A wide staircase leads down into the tank from the north and south. The floor and walls of the tank were made water-tight by finely fitted bricks laid edge to edge with gypsum mortar. A thick layer of bitumen was laid along the sides of the tank and probably also below the floor, making this one of the earliest examples of waterproofing in the world. The floor slopes towards the southwest corner, where a small outlet leads to a large corbelled brick drain, which would have taken the water out to the edge of the mound. 
• Remains of brick colonnades were discovered on the eastern, northern, and southern sides of the bath and a similar colonnade must have existed on the western side as well. 
• Two large doors lead into the complex from the south and there were also entrances from the north and east. There are a series of rooms along the eastern edge of the building. One of them has a well that may have supplied water to the tank. Immediately to the north of the Great Bath is a large building consisting of eight small rooms with common bathing platforms.

Great Bath

Across the street from the Great Bath are the remains of a large, imposing building (69 × 23.4 m) consisting of several rooms, a 10 m square courtyard, and three verandahs. Two staircases led either to the roof or an upper storey. Because of its size and proximity to the Great Bath, it was tentatively identified as the house of the chief priest or several priests, and was labelled the ‘college of priests’.