INDIA’S EARLY CIVILIZATIONSHarappa and Mohenjo-Daro

1. BENEFITS OF THE INDUS RIVER

Summer monsoons made the rivers rise and flood which left rich, fertile soil

Farmers used the soil to grow crops to feed their families

2. RESULTS OF HAVING A LOT OF FOOD

Spend more time doing things like: Making tools Building houses Trade extra food and goods

with other people (which gained them wealth)

Build larger cities

Why would become more wealthy lead to building bigger cities?

3. HOW LONG DID CIVILIZATION LAST?

Began about 3000 B.C.E. and lasted until 1500 B.C.E. How many years is this? What

does B.C.E. stand for?

More than a thousand villages

and towns were part of this civilization.

Stretched from the Himalayas to the Arabian Sea.

4. MAJOR CITIES OF INDUS RIVER VALLEY

Study the ruins of Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro

Called the Harappan or Indus civilization

Well-planned cities that had as many as 35,000 people.

5. CHARACTERISTICS OF THE CITIES

Fortress on a brick platform to keep guard over residents

Wide main streets and smaller side streets

A wall surrounded each neighborhood

Narrow lanes separated the houses

Houses had flat roofs Built with mud bricks

that were baked in ovens

Some houses were larger than others but they had a similar layout

Courtyard in the middle and smaller rooms around it

The houses had flat roofs and many had staircases that allowed people to climb to the

roof from the street

Mohenjo-Daro means “Mound of the Dead”. The cities ruins were discovered in

the 1920s.House Walls Water drains

Immense Citadels would help people to scout for invading armies and general public well being.

6. CONVENIENCES OF THE CITIES

Wells supplied water Residents had indoor bathrooms Wastewater flowed to drains under the streets, running

through pipes to pits outside city walls Houses had garbage chutes connected to a bin in the

street Residents built large granaries to store food for the

entire city’s population

Bathrooms and indoor plumbing

Water well

7. HARAPPAN SOCIETY

Special script to write on seals and stamps (not sure how to decipher the markings because there are no historical records and we can’t read their language).

Royal palace and temple may have been enclosed into a fortress revealing that religion and politics were closely connected

Many were farmers who grew rice, wheat, barley, peas, and cotton

City people made copper and bronze tools, clay pottery, and cotton cloth, jewelry from gold, shells, and ivory

Toys were found like small monkeys and dice.

People were literate and used Indus Script. The language was a short string of symbols that were associated with the Indus Valley culture.

The language is still coded because we can’t understand it.