Indus Valley Civilization

Indus Valley Civilization is considered to be one of the three civilizations of the world with Egypt and Mesopotamia. This civilization lasted for a long time and it extended from today’s Afghanistan to Pakistan and North – West part of India. It was also known as Bronze age civilization.

There are some interesting and fascinating facts about this civilization which may be we are not aware about. They are as follows:

1.    Indus Valley civilization was technically very advanced. They had built their homes with baked bricks and also had flushing toilets ( their own version) in their homes.

2.    The public bath in Mohenjodaro which was the largest in structure famous as “Great Bath”. It was believed that this Great bath was used for rituals and taking a dip in the water of the Great bath would renew and purify their souls.

3.    The Indus valley people had great craftsmanship skill. They made different sculptures, potteries, gold jewelries etc.

4.    Seals and sealings were used to carry on  long distance communication. Harappan seals usually had a line of writing, probably containing the name and title of the owner.  It is also seen  that the motif (generally an animal) conveyed a meaning which sometimes could not be deciphered.

5.    They were the first to make buttons and step-well. The oldest button that was discovered in Mohenjodaro was 5000 years ago.

6.    They were the pioneers in building artificial dockyard.

7.    They were also the pioneers in developing precise measurement techniques. They were also one of the first to use measurement schemes to measure objects and time.

8.    First dentist was born in Indus Valley civilization. Archaeological remains gave us an idea that people at that time had knowledge of proto-dentistry.

9.    The period of Indus Valley civilization carried out animal washing like unicorns and ox, Maitridevi and Shakti was the mother goddess.

10.  Art and craft during the Indus Valley period were highly sophisticated. Their artifacts display a high level of achievement in terms of artistic value and the technique used. They use terracotta bronze copper and other metals.

11.  The society here was very peaceful and progressive. The archaeologists never found signs of warfare or use of weapons or any crime committed here.

12.  But , nobody knows how Indus valley civilization collapsed. But probable reasons  could be Climatic Change or Deforestation or Excessive floods or Over use of the landscape or The shifting and or drying up of rivers or Invasion most probably by the Aryans .

Khushi Anand

Grade – XIIC