Harappa (Punjabi pronunciation:[ɦəɽəˈpaː]) is anarchaeological site inPunjab, Pakistan, about 24 kilometres (15 miles) west ofSahiwal, that takes its name from a modern village near the former course of theRavi River. The Ravi now runs eight kilometres (five miles) to the north.
The city of Harappa is believed to have had as many as 23,500 residents and occupied about 150 hectares (370 acres) withclay brick houses at its greatest extent during theMature Harappan phase (2600 BC – 1900 BC), which is consideredlarge for its time.[1][2]
The ancient city of Harappa was heavily damaged under British rule when bricks from the ruins were used astrack ballast to construct theLahore–Multan Railway.[3] The current village of Harappa is less than one kilometre (5⁄8 mi) from the ancient site. Although modern Harappa has a legacyrailway station from the Raj period, it is a small crossroads town of 15,000 people today. In 2004, the site was added tothe tentative list forUNESCOWorld Heritage Sites.[2] In 2005, a controversialamusement park scheme at the site was abandoned when builders unearthed many archaeological artefacts during the early stages of building work.[4]
Map showing the sites and extent of theIndus Valley civilization. Harappa was the centre of one of the core regions of the Indus Valley Civilization, located in centralPunjab. TheHarappan architecture and Harappan Civilization was one of the most developed in the oldBronze Age.
Due to fallingsea-levels, certain regions were abandoned during the late Harappan period.[8] In its later stages, the Harappan civilization lost features such aswriting andhydraulic engineering.[9] As a result, the Ganges Valley settlement gained prominence and Ganges' cities developed.[8]
The earliest recognisably Harappan sites date to 3500 BC. This early phase lasts till around 2600 BC. The civilization's mature phase lasted from 2600 BC to 2000 BC. This is when the great cities were at their height. Then, from around 2000 BC, there was a steady disintegration that lasted till 1400 BC – what is usually called Late Harappan.[10] There is no sign that the Harappan cities were laid waste by invaders. The evidence strongly points to natural causes. A number of studies show that the area which is today theThar Desert was once far wetter and that the climate gradually became drier.[11]
The Indus Valley civilization was basically an urban culture sustained by surplus agricultural production and commerce, the latter including trade withElam andSumer in southernMesopotamia. BothMohenjo-daro and Harappa are generally characterised as having "differentiated living quarters, flat-roofed brick houses, and fortified administrative or religious centers."[12] Although such similarities have given rise to arguments for the existence of a standardised system of urban layout and planning, the similarities are largely due to the presence of a semi-orthogonal type of civic layout, and a comparison of the layouts ofMohenjo-Daro and Harappa shows that they are in fact, arranged in a quite dissimilar fashion.
The weights and measures of the Indus Valley Civilisation, on the other hand, were highly standardised, and conformed to a set scale of gradations. Distinctive seals were used, among other applications, perhaps for the identification of property and shipment of goods. Although copper andbronze were in use,iron was not yet employed. "Cotton was woven and dyed for clothing; wheat, rice, and a variety of vegetables and fruits werecultivated; and a number of animals, including thehumped bull, wasdomesticated,"[12] as well as "fowl for fighting".[13] Wheel-made pottery—some of it adorned with animal and geometric motifs—has been found in profusion at all the major Indus sites. A centralised administration for each city, though not the whole civilisation, has been inferred from the revealed cultural uniformity; however, it remains uncertain whether authority lay with a commercialoligarchy. Harappans had many trade routes along the Indus River that went as far as the Persian Gulf, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. Some of the most valuable things traded werecarnelian andlapis lazuli.[14]
What is clear is that Harappan society was not entirely peaceful, with the human skeletal remains demonstrating some of the highest rates of injury (15.5%) found in South Asian prehistory.[15] Examinations of Harappan skeletons have often found wounds that are likely to have been inflicted in battle.[16] Paleopathological analysis demonstrated thatleprosy andtuberculosis were present at Harappa, with the highest prevalence of both disease and trauma present in the skeletons from Area G (anossuary located south-east of the city walls).[17] Furthermore, rates of craniofacial trauma and infection increased through time demonstrating that the civilisation collapsed amid illness and injury. The bioarchaeologists who examined the remains have suggested that the combined evidence for differences in mortuary treatment and epidemiology indicate that some individuals and communities at Harappa were excluded from access to basic resources like health and safety.
The Harappans had traded with ancientMesopotamia, especiallyElam, among other areas. Cotton textiles and agricultural products were the primary trading objects. The Harappan merchants also had procurement colonies in Mesopotamia as well, which served as trading centres.[18] They also traded extensively with people living insouthern India, near modern-dayKarnataka, to procure gold and copper from them.[19][20]
Harappa is thetype site of theBronze AgeIndus Valley Civilisation ("IVC"), as it was the first IVC site to be excavated by theArchaeological Survey of India during theBritish Raj, although its significance did not become manifest until the discovery ofMohenjo-daro in Sindh, Pakistan, some years later.[21][a] For this reason, IVC is sometimes called the "Harappan civilisation," a term more commonly used by the Archaeological Survey of India afterdecolonization in 1947.[21][b] The discovery of Harappa and, soon afterwards, Mohenjo-Daro, two major urban IVC settlements, was the culmination of work that had begun after the founding of the Archaeological Survey of India in 1861.[22]
Kot Dijian (Early Harappan) phase, c. 2800 – 2600 BC
Harappan Phase, c. 2600 – 1900 BC
Transitional Phase, c. 1900 – 1800 BC
Late Harappan Phase, c. 1800 – 1300 BC
Period 1 occupation was thought to be around 7 to 10 hectares, but following excavations and findings of pottery in Mound E, along with previously found Mound AB pottery, suggest Ravi/Hakra phase would have been extended, together in both mounds, to 25 hectares.[23]
Period 2, Kot Diji phase, was extended in the same two mounds, AB and E, covering over 27 hectares.[24]
In Period 3, Harappa phase, the settlement reached 150 hectares.[25]
By far the most exquisite and obscure artefacts unearthed to date are the small, squaresteatite (soapstone) seals engraved with human or animal motifs. A large number of seals have been found at such sites as Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa. Many bear pictographic inscriptions generally thought to be a form of writing or script.[citation needed] Despite the efforts of philologists from all parts of the world and the use of moderncryptographic analysis, thesigns remain undeciphered. It is also unknown if they reflect proto-Dravidian or other non-Vedic language(s). The ascribing of Indus Valley Civilisationiconography andepigraphy to historically known cultures is extremely problematic, in part due to the rather tenuous archaeological evidence for such claims, as well as the projection of modern South Asian political concerns onto the archaeological record of the area.
The area of the late Harappan period consisted of the areas of theDaimabad,Maharashtra, andBadakshan regions ofAfghanistan. The area covered by this civilisation would have been very large with a distance of around 2,400 kilometres (1,500 mi).[26]
Clay and stone tablets unearthed at Harappa, which were carbon-dated 3300–3200 BC, contain trident-shaped and plant-like markings. "It is a big question as to if we can call what we have found true writing, but we have found symbols that have similarities to what became Indus script", said Dr. Richard Meadow of Harvard University, Director of the Harappa Archeological Research Project.[27] These primitive symbols are placed slightly earlier than the primitive writing of the Sumerians ofMesopotamia, dated c.3100 BC.[27] These markings have similarities to what later becameIndus Script which has not been completely deciphered yet.[27]
In February 2006, a school teacher in the village of Sembian-Kandiyur inTamil Nadu, discovered a stonecelt (tool) with an inscription estimated to be up to 3,500 years old.[28][29] Indian epigraphistIravatham Mahadevan postulated that the four signs were in the Indus script and called the find "the greatest archaeological discovery of a century in Tamil Nadu".[28] Based on this evidence, he went on to suggest that the language used in the Indus Valley was ofDravidian origin. However, the absence of a Bronze Age in South India, contrasted with the knowledge of bronze making techniques in the Indus Valley cultures, calls into question the validity of this hypothesis.
Harappa. Fragment of Large Deep Vessel, circa 2500 B.C. Red pottery with red and black slip-painted decoration, 4 15/16 × 6 1/8 in. (12.5 × 15.5 cm).Brooklyn Museum.
The controversial Harappa male torso (left). The discoverer,Madho Sarup Vats, claimed a Harappan date, butMarshall dated the statuette to theGupta period.[30] Another famous statuette from the site is the Harappa grey stone male dancer (right).
The earliestradiocarbon dating mentioned on the web is 2725±185 BC (uncalibrated) or 3338, 3213, 3203 BC calibrated, giving a midpoint of 3251 BC. Kenoyer, Jonathan Mark (1991) Urban process in the Indus Tradition: A preliminary report. In Harappa Excavations, 1986–1990: A multidisciplinary approach to Second Millennium urbanism, edited by Richard H. Meadow: 29–59. Monographs in World Archaeology No.3. Prehistory Press, Madison Wisconsin.
Periods 4 and 5 are not dated at Harappa. The termination of the Harappan tradition at Harappa falls between 1900 and 1500 BC.
Mohenjo-daro is another major city of the same period, located inSindh province ofPakistan. One of its most well-known structures is theGreat Bath of Mohenjo-Daro.
^Habib: "Harappa, in Sahiwal district of west Punjab, Pakistan, had long been known to archaeologists as an extensive site on the Ravi river, but its true significance as a major city of an early great civilization remained unrecognized until the discovery of Mohenjo-daro near the banks of the Indus, in the Larkana district of Sindh, by Rakhaldas Banerji in 1922. Sir John Marshall, then Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, used the term 'Indus civilization' for the culture discovered at Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, a term doubly apt because of the geographical context implied in the name 'Indus' and the presence of cities implied in the word 'civilization'.[21]
^Habib: "Others, notably the Archaeological Survey of India after Independence, have preferred to call it 'Harappan', or 'Mature Harappan', taking Harappa to be its type-site."[21]
^Kenoyer, J.M., 1997, Trade and Technology of the Indus Valley: New insights from sand, clay, stones and were baked at very high temperature. As early as 1826 Harappa, located in west Punjab, attracted the attention ofDaya Ram Sahni, who gets credit for preliminary excavations of Harappa.
^"Culture change during the Late Harappan period at Harappa: new insights on Vedic Aryan issues",The Indo-Aryan Controversy, Routledge, pp. 33–61, 2 August 2004,doi:10.4324/9780203641880-7,ISBN978-0-203-64188-0
^Q., Madella, Marco Fuller, Dorian ndjabcxsabchbbcvdsscbuhdchnaeuc (18 January 2006).Palaeoecology and the Harappan Civilization of South Asia: a reconsideration. Elsevier.OCLC1103344632.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
^Kenoyer, J. M., (June 6, 2023)."Indus Socio-Economic, Political and Ideological Organization", in ARWA Association,min. 5:48 to 6:41, "Period 1 Ravi/Hakra Phase, area greater than 10 to 25+ hectares, possibly divided into two mounds, one to the north, Mound AB and the other to the southeast, Mound E."
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