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• Stone -like carnelian, jasper, crystal quartz, and steatite. 
• Metal - like- copper, bronze, gold. 
• Shell , faience and terracotta Method of procuring material for craft production- 
• A. They established settlement near the source of material -eg Nageshwar, Balakot 
• B. They might have sent expeditions to areas such as the Khetri region of Rajasthan (for copper) and south India (for gold)

• He used the accounts left by ChineseBuddhist pilgrims who had visited India between the fourth and seventh century.
• He thought that Indian history began with the first cities in the Ganga Valley.

R.E.M.Wheeler. Rig-Veda mentions pur, meaning rampart, fort or strong-hold. Indra, the Aryans' war-god is called purandara, the fort destroyer.

This except indicates that the Harappa civilization was destroyed by foreign invasion. 

• They had no large buildings. 
• There was a prevalence of agriculture and cattle rearing 
• Some people were also engaged in sculpture. 
• There was no well-planned network of roads and drainage system.

• Some archaeologists say that Harappan society had no rulers and that everybody enjoyed equal status.
• Others feel there were no single ruler but several.
• Under the guidance and supervision of the rulers, plans and layout of the city were prepared.
• Big buildings, Palaces, Forts, Tanks, Wells, Canals, granaries etc were constructed under the supervision of rulers. 
• Roads, drains were also constructed and cleanliness was maintained under the overall supervision of ruler. 
• The ruler might have taken interest in promoting the farmer to increase production and the craftsmen to promote different handicrafts 
• He maintained and controlled extra ordinary uniformity of Harappa's artefacts like - Seals, Weight and bricks. 
• During foreign attack and natural disaster he used to play an active role by providing security and food, 
• He used to issue common acceptable coins or seals, weight and measurements.

• There is evidence of large scale burning at some places or sites. 
• The abandonment of certain settlements

• The drainage was made of mortar lime and gypsum. 
• They were covered with big bricks and stones which could be lifted easily to clean the drain .
• Smaller drains from houses on both the sides were laid on the main channel. 
• Pits were provided for sewage for the houses.

• Because it is yet to be deciphered. Its mystery has still not been solved yet. 
• It was not alphabetical. It had too many signs; all the signs symbolized certain things. 
• The sign of this script were of the period 375 to 400. 
• The script has been found on a variety of objects.

• The cities was well planned into upper and lower town. 
• The roads were straight and wide. 
• The houses were made of burnt bricks and contained more than one storey. Every house had a well and bathroom.
• The Drainage system was excellent with house drains emptying into street drains.
•  Existence of public buildings. 
• Lothal had a dockyard and was an important trading Centre.

The most important structure in the fortress (citadel) of Mohenjo Daro is the Great Bath. It is in a rectangular shape. The pond is in the yard which is surrounded by corridors on all four sides. To get into the pond there are steps on the northern and southern sides. The bottom of the pond is made watertight using bricks and lime paste. This prevents the water from seeping down and making the water level go down.

There are rooms on 3 sides of the pond. There was a big well in one of the rooms. The water for the pond ‘ was brought from this well. There were provisions for filling the pond with water and to make the dirty water ow out into drains. Historians think that the Great Bath had a religious importance. They think that this Great Bath was used for ritual baths. The Great Bath shows the importance the Harappans gave to cleanliness. It also shows their engineering and technical skills.

• The prevalence of agriculture is indicated by finds of grains in various sites of civilization Archaeologist have found evidence of a ploughed field at seals and terracotta sculpture indicates that the bull was known and oxen were used for ploughing. 
• Two different crops were grown together. 
• Canals and wells were constructed for irrigation. Traces of canals have been found in all the Harappan site of Shortughai in Afghanistan, Water reservoirs have been found in Dhaulavira.

S.N. Roy is the author of the book entitled “The Story of Indian Archaeology”.

To ensure proper exchanges of goods, the Harappans had developed correct weights and measures. These played an important role in the commercial activities. They made measuring weights with a kind of restone. They also used limestone and alabaster or marble for making weights. Generally, they all appeared like cubes. There were no markings on their weights.

The lower units of the weights were considered as doubles – 1,2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc. until 12,800). But the higher units were taken in normal numeric system (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). Very small weights were used to measure ornaments and beads. Some metallic balances were also discovered.

Mohenjo Daro

Harappa site in the Harappan civilization was the first to be discovered.

1924 in John Marshall declared the discovery of the Harappan Civilization

The City was divided into two sections:

1. The Citadel.

2. The Lower Town.

The Citadel (Fortress):

This is built On a man made platform. It is on the western side of the city. This is the highest part of the city. There are two reasons for its height. Firstly, it is built on higher ground. Secondly, the buildings are put up on a platform made of clay bricks. The fortress is protected with walls around it. Therefore it looks different from the Lower Town. In the fortress, there are tall buildings. They are public buildings. They were used for special public activities. The Warehouse and the Great Bath were the main structures in the fortress.

The Warehouse:

The biggest building in Mohenjo Daro is the Warehouse there. The bottom part of the Warehouse is made of bricks. They still remain there. The upper part was built with wood. It got destroyed long ago. The Warehouse was used to store the left over grain.

Cunnigham was the first Director of the Indian Archaeology Department (Archaeological Survey of India) (ASI).

• Pet animals :- Cattle , Sheep , Goat , Buffalo , Pig 
• Wild animal: - Boar, Deer, Ghariyal.

The Harappan Civilization existed between 2600 and 1900 BC. In the same region there were pre and post Harappan Civilizations.

The pre Harappan Civilization was called Early Harappan. The post Harappan Civilization was called Late Harappan. To show the Harappan Civilization as separate from these, it is often called the Mature Harappan Culture.

Answer is Oman 

The main occupation of the Harappan people was agriculture. The remains of different grains found in the Harappan sites make that clear. But it is not easy to reconstruct their agricultural technologies. For example, we are not sure if the Harappan people sowed the seeds in ploughed farms. The images found on the seals and clay sculptures show that they were familiar with bulls. From this, the archaeologists think that probably they used bulls to plough the fields.

At the sites in Kolistan (Pakitan) and Banwali (Haryana), clay models of ploughs were found. At Kalibengan in Rajasthan, the researchers v have found evidences of a ploughed field. In this field, there are two different rows of furrows. It shows they cultivated different crops.

Researchers also tried to find out the type of implements the Harappans used for harvesting. We are not sure if they used sickles with wooden handles or some metallic implements for cutting the crops.

Mohenjo Daro is the most important site of the Harappan Culture. This was discovered after Harappa. It was from Mohenjo Daro that details regarding town planning, houses and seals of the Harappan Culture were got. This big city is situated in the Larkana District of Sind, on the shores of Sindhu River. The word Mohenjo Daro means the Mound of the Dead. The excavations made here brought to light the remains of a great city.

The city was divided into two: 

The citadel and the Lower Town.

The Citadel (Fortress) is on a man made platform. This is built on the western side of the city. This is the highest part of the city. There are two reasons for its height. Firstly, it is built on higher ground. Secondly, the buildings are put up on a platform made of earthen bricks.

The fortress is protected with walls around it. Therefore it looks different from the Lower Town. In the fortress, there are tall buildings. They are public buildings. They were used for special public activities. The Warehouse and the Great Bath were the main structures in the fortress.

The Warehouse was the biggest building in Mohenjo Daro. The bottom part of the Warehouse is made of bricks. They still remain there. The upper part was built with wood. It got destroyed long ago. The Warehouse was used to store the left-over grain.

The most important structure in the fortress (citadel) of Mohenjo Daro is the Great Bath. It is in a rectangular shape. The pond is in the yard which is surrounded by corridors on all four sides. To get into the pond there are steps on the northern and southern sides.

The bottom of the pond is made watertight using bricks and lime paste. This prevents the water from seeping down and making the pond dry.

There are rooms on 3 sides of the pond. There was a big well in one of the rooms. The water for the pond was brought from this well. There were provisions for filling the pond with water and to make the dirty water ow out into drains. Historians think that the Great Bath had a religious importance. They think that this Great Bath was used for ritual baths.

The Great Bath shows the importance the Harappans gave to cleanliness. It also shows their engineering and technical skills. The plight of Harappa was really bad. Although Harappa was the first site to be discovered, thieves took away all the bricks. This sad plight was noticed by Alexander Cunningham. He pointed out that a huge amount of bricks was taken away. Thus most of the ancient buildings were lost. But Mohenjo Daro was better protected.

Most Harappan settlements had two parts – a higher western part and a lower eastern part. The western part is called the citadel or fortress. It was protected by walls. But there are some differences in some places. In Lothal, the citadel had no walls around. But it was built very high.

The Lower Town was just below the citadel. This was also protected by walls. People lived here. Here we can see good examples of domestic architecture. The houses were made of bricks. The houses were ordered in the Grid System. The houses were built along both sides of the road, with adequate space between houses. The doors and windows were opened to face the central yard. It is believed that the yard was used for cooking and also weaving.

The houses did not have doors and windows that faced the street. All the houses had bathrooms. They were paved with bricks. The drainage system was excellent. Houses were different in size. There were single room and double room houses. There were also houses with more than two storeys. To get to the top stories there were staircases. Big houses had wells. It was dug in a room in such a way that even outsiders could draw water from it. Experts estimate that Mohenjo Daro had some 700 wells.

Houses were built on raised platforms. The settlements were well planned. The bricks were made to certain specifications. The same kind of bricks were used in most constructions. The drainage system in the Harappan cities was excellent. The drain of each house was linked to the drainage canal outside. The drainage canals were covered with bricks or sheets of rock. In some places, they covered the drainage canals with limestone slabs.

It was possible to clean the canals by removing the top coverings. There were manholes in the public drainage. It is believed that the drainage was made first and then came the houses. The drainage system shows the engineering skill of the Harappan people. It shows they had a town administration. It also shows how much importance they gave to hygiene and health. The drainage system was not limited to big cities. Even the settlements in places like Lothal had drain ages.

The Harappans knew writing. They were the first literate community of India. What we know about the Harrapan Scripts is from their seals. On the seals generally, there is a single-line writing. That is usually the name of the owner of his title or designation. Such scripts are seen on copper utensils, edges of jars, copper and day tablets, ornaments, ancient signboards and so on.

They also must have been j found, on things that get destroyed fast. Harappan Script is often called Mysterious Script. It acquired this j name because nobody has been able to read it. j Harappan Script had many symbols and signs. Most l writings are very small. Long writings were rare. The longest writing has only 26 letters of signs.

Harappan Script does not have any orderly alphabet. It has a number of signs. It is believed that there are J between 375 and 400 signs in it. Therefore people think that the Harappan Script is a kind of Picture Script. Scholars say that the picture script helped even those who were illiterate to get some message from the writing. Harappan writing was read from right to left, like Arabic or Urdu.

Mortimer Wheeler believes that the Aryan Attack destroyed Harappan Culture. From the narrow street called Deadman-line, which was only 3 feet to 6 feet wide, in Mohenjo Daro, many scattered skeletons of men, women and children were discovered. Along with some skeletons, there were also weapons like axes and spears. It is based on these that Mortimer Wheeler came out with his theory of the Aryan Invasion. Wheeler maintained that these skeletons were of those killed in the Aryan attack.

Wheeler also tried to connect this evidence to the Rigveda in Rigveda there is a reference to ‘puranr’. Puram means fortress or citadel. The warlord of the Aryans is Lord  Indran.

Indran is also called purandaran, which means one who destroys fortresses. It is based on this that some people, led by Mortimer Wheeler, argued that the Harappan culture was destroyed by the Aryans.

They collected their raw materials from the subcontinent.

They used the following strategies:

1. Establishment of Settlements:

They established settlements in the areas where raw materials were easily available.

For example, they made settlements in places like Nageswar and Balakot from where they could get shells. They made settlement in Shortughai (Afghanistan) where sapphires were easily available. They made settlements in Lothal where carnelian and limestone were easily got.

2. Sending Expeditions:

Sending expeditions was another technique that the Harappans used to get raw materials. They sent expeditions to Khetri in Rajasthan, for copper, and South India for gold. These expeditions helped them to have good relations with the local communities. In these places, beads from limestone made by the Harappans have been found. This shows the relations between the two peoples.

Researchers have found evidences for the culture called Ganeshwar-Jodhpur Culture from the Khetri region. This culture has many types of clay pots and plenty of copper things different from those found in the Harappan culture. There was a possibility that these people gave copper to Harappans.

The most important artefact in the Harappan civilization is their seals. From the various Sindhu towns, more than 2000 seals have been found. The seals are made from soft limestone. They are found in different sizes and shapes – around, square rectangular. On most seals, we find the pictures of animals. Some picture scripts (like the hieroglyphics, in Egypt) are also found.

The seals were used to make long-distance commerce easy. They were also used to indicate ownership of property and also to decorate houses. In the opinion of A.L. Basham, they were also used as talisman for protection and good luck.

Seals were great artistic creations of the Harappan people. It is from these seals that we learn about their agriculture, animals, birds, trees, dress, ornaments, religious faiths, arts and foreign trade.

To make commerce with distant places easy, the containers were sealed. Goods were packed in bags for sending to different places. The mouth of the bag was tied with a string and it was sealed with wet clay. On the clay, they used to put their seals. If the goods reach their destinations without any damage to the seals, it would mean nobody has done anything wrong with the goods. These seals also helped to know who sent the goods.

Animal husbandry was one of the important means of livelihood to the Harappans. Bones of cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, etc. were found at different Harappan sites. Studies made by archaeo-zoologists and zoo-archaeologists show that the Harappans had domesticated these animals. Wild animals like wild pig (boar), deer and gharial (fish-eating crocodiles) were also tamed by them. The Harappans had a special liking for humped bulls. Bulls were used for ploughing, to pull carts and also carry goods. Donkeys and camels were used for carrying heavy burdens.

Making beads was one of the things that the Harappans liked most. To make beads they used different kinds of materials. They used different kinds of stones like carnelian, jasper, sapphire, crystal, alabaster or limestone. They also used metals like copper, bronze and gold. They also made use of shells, faience and clay to make beads.

Some bead garlands were made from two different types of beads. The beads were attached together. Some beads were even covered with gold. These ornaments were of different shapes Some were round, some looked like pillars, some were oval in shape, some looked like barrels and some had a crescent shape. Some garlands were decorated with Inscriptions and pictures. Their designs were very beautiful.

The skill needed to make beads differed with the material used in them. Beads with limestone, which were not very strong or hard, were easy to make. Limestone was ground and was made into a paste and from this beads were moulded.

This was helpful in giving beads different shapes. Even now the researchers are struggling to find out how the ancient people could make such fine beads from limestone. Beads made from stronger stones had different geometrical shapes.

Beads were made from carnelian. At different stages of manufacturing, the yellow raw material and the beads were heated to give them red colour. The projections on the surface are removed and the beads are led smooth and holes are drilled in them. They used special kinds of drills to make holes in the beads.

Nageshwar and Balakot were settlements near the sea. They were centres for making things with shells. With shells, they made bangles, spoons and different decorative pieces. From these places, the things they made were distributed to other places. In the same ways, bead products made in Chanhudaro and Lothal were sent to bigger city centres like Mohenjo Daro and Harappa.

In the Harappan society, there were economic and social differences among people. The ways they buried their dead, the luxury items they used and the different types of houses they lived in, show these differences.

1. Burials: To find out the social differences among the people, a technique (strategy) that researchers use is studying about their burial rituals. By studying about the pyramids in Egypt the researchers found the social differences among the ancient people there.Most of the pyramids were the tombs of kings. The dead bodies of the kings (pharaohs) were buried with a lot of wealth.

The tombs found at the Harappan sites give some ideas about the burial rituals of the people. Generally, the Harappans buried their dead. But there are differences in digging the’ grave. On the upper edges of some graves, bricks were laid out. The differences in these graves indicate the differences in the social status. The graves with bricks might have been the graves of the rich.

In some graves, there were ornaments and earthenwares. This shows the belief of the Harappan people in life after death. In some places along with the dead bodies rings with shells and beads were also buried. In the digging done at a grave site in the mid-1380s, at Harappa, near a mans skull, there were 3 shell rings, a jasper (sun-stone), and an ornament made from hundreds of small beads.

Along with some dead bodies, mirrors made of copper were also found. Generally speaking, the Harappans did not believe in burying things with the dead bodies. But in some cases, some expensive things were found in the graves. This shows the social differences that existed among people.

2. Things of Luxury:

Another method the researchers use to find out the differences among people is studying the artefacts (things made by people).

They divide these things into two types,

(a) Useful things,

(b) Things of luxury, in the first category there are things of everyday use. Pounding stone (for grinding grains), clay pots, needles, body cleaning things etc. come in this category. These were commonly found, in the graves of the lower town where common people lived.

Things of luxury include uncommon things, things made of expensive materials not locally available, things made with the help of complicated technologies and so on. Pots of faience (glazed pots) are examples of this. They are made with local or metallic sand mixed with colour and gum and are made firm in the fire. Since they were difficult to make they were considered expensive.

Only the rich people had luxury things with them. Luxury and expensive things were found in the vast living areas of Mohenjo Daro and Harappa. In the small areas, they were not commonly seen.

For example in Mohenjo Daro and Harappa.

They unearthed a lot of high-quality small containers for keeping aromatic spices and perfumes In small places like Kalibangan, such things were not found. Gold was very rare and expensive. All the golden ornaments got from the Harappan sites were found in hoards.

3. Different kinds of Houses:

From a study of the different houses, we can know about the social differences among the Harappan people. The houses ranged from single-room to multi-storied houses. They clearly indicate the social differences among people. The palatial houses belonged to the rich. The poor lived in single-room houses.

• Recovering artefacts through excavation.
• Classification of finds that finds are whether tools or weapons or ornaments or both or something meant for ritual use.
• An understanding of the function of an artifact is often shaped by it resemblance with present day things. Beads, pots are obvious examples.
• Archaeologists reconstruct religious beliefs and practices by examining seals, some of which seen to depict ritual scenes.
• Archaeologists often move from known to unknown that is from present to past regarding the reconstruction of religious practices.
• Remains of crops or pits are studied to identify food.
• By observing the different layers of sites they try to find out different things for the information of Socio-economic conditions, religious and cultural life of past people.
• Archaeologists also try to identify the function of an artefact by investigating the context in which it was found.
• Use of indirect evidence eg. for clothing they depend on indirect evidence like description in sculpture. 

• He was the director general of Archaeological Survey of India
• By his effort it was proved that there existed a great civilization in India which was contemporary of Mesopotamia.
• For this great 
• work we attach the value of thank fullness, indebtedness