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Mature Harrapan Cities

The Indus Valley Civilization was a Bronze Age Civilization, which flourished around the Indus river basin. A sophisticated and technologically advanced culture was evident. The quality of municipal town planning in Harrapa and Mohenjo-Daro suggests the knowledge of urban planning and efficient municipal governments, which placed a high priority on hygiene, drainage, and sanitation. In Harrapa and Mohenjo-Daro, an urban plan included the world's first known urban sanitation systems. The ancient systems of sewage and drainage that were developed and used in cities throughout the Indus region were far more advanced than any found in contemporary urban sites in many areas of India. Within the city, individual homes or groups of homes obtained water from wells. From a room that appears to have been set aside for bathing, waste water was directed to covered drains, which lined the major streets. Moreover, huge granaries were built, which took care of food security of the urban dwellers. The city of Mohendejaro was rebuilt seven times.

The remains of a number of different settlements have been discovered by archaeologists. These are scattered over an area of thousand miles. The two biggest cities were Mohenjodaro and Harappa (2500-2000 BC). These cities were inhabited from 2300 to 1700 BC. Mohenjo-daro extends over some 200 ha and shows a high degree of planning, with streets laid out in a grid pattern, residential sectors, workshop areas, and architectural complexes such as the Mound of the Great Bath, containing a diverse assortment of public buildings. Harappa covered at least 100 ha and also shows considerable architectural complexity.

About a century back, no one knew the existence of the prehistoric man in India and great civilization that had existed over the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. The first two sites of this great civilition, Harappa and Mohenjodaro, were discovered during 1921-22. Harappa was the first and Mohenjodaro the second to be discovered as the sites of this great civilization in India, now in Pakistan. Another major site of this civilization was discovered at ChaunoDaro in Sindh in 1935. Indian Archaeologists found many more sites of this civilization in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Kachchhi Saurashtra region of Gujarat State. Lothal, Rojhadi, Dholavira of Gujarat and Banavali of Rajasthan are the more important sites discovered on Indan soil.

Significantly, all of these settlements, whatever their scale, reveal the same settlement plan. This is a bipartite plan with “Citadel” and “Lower Town” with the Citadel often set apart by a boundary wall or its placement of Citadel on a platform. The Citadel featured a Great Bath, Granaries and Corporate Buildings (Sir John Marshall's “Palace, Assembly etc”.)

Excavations at Mohen-jo-daro and Harappa and later at other sites revealed a highly developed urban civilization organized in cities and towns whose wealth was derived mainly fiom agriculture and trade. The cities were well planned and had straight wide streets. Burnt bricks and stones were used for every type of construction. The residents seem to have enjoyed a degree of comfort, luxury and hygienic environments not observed in any other parts of the world. There seems to have been an effective civil administration and governance, which controlled the activities at the major cities.

Granary buildings have been discovered at Harappa. The surplus production of raw material & finished goods, led to Barter System. The huge granaries found in the cities of Harappa & Mohenjo-Daro were replenished by the system of State tribute & served the purpose of modern State Bank. A large number of stone weights following a weight system, unit of which was 13 grains have been discovered which are multiples of 2, 4, 8, 10 etc. of this unit. The bronze/copper seals bearing different motifs and animal figurines are under debate since long. These seals carry a pictographic script which is still enigmatic and undecipherable. Some archeologists argue about their motive and are of the view that they were used as currency. These intricately carved seals are usually square to rectangular, 2-3 centimeters on sides, differ in sizes. These seals depict animals, mostly Indus script. These seals could potentially be one way of marking the property and monitoring the movement of assets between owner and entities.

Fired clay bricks date back thousands of years. Some claim that the earliest known bricks, found in excavations in the cities of Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa in the Indus Valley in present-day Pakistan, date between 2500 and 1500 BC. Brick culverts were being used in the ancient cities of Harappa and Mohenjodaro in India at least 3,000 years before Christ. Other authorities claim that the world'3 oldest brick, exhibited in the Museum of Ancient Bricks in Johnson City, Tenn., comes from Kalibangan, an area in what is present-day India, and is 5,000 year's old.

The development of technology, particularly the discovery of agriculture, before the beginning of recorded history facilitated larger populations than the very small communities of the Paleolithic, and may have compelled the development of stronger, more coercive governments at the same time. The pre-Classical and Classical ages saw a number of cities laid out according to fixed plans, though many tended to develop organically. Designed cities were characteristic of the totalitarian Mesopotamian, Harrapan, and Egyptian civilizations of the third millennium BCE. Distinct characteristics of urban planning from remains of the cities of Harappa, Lothal and Mohenjo-daro in the Indus Valley Civilization (in modern-day northwestern India and Pakistan) lead archeologists to conclude that they are the earliest examples of deliberately planned and managed cities. The streets of these early cities were often paved and laid out at right angles in a grid pattern, with a hierarchy of streets from major boulevards to residential alleys. Archaeological evidence suggests that many Harrapan houses were laid out to protect from noise and enhance residential privacy; also, they often had their own water wells for probably both sanitary and ritual purposes. These ancient cities were unique in that they often had drainage systems, seemingly tied to a well-developed ideal of urban sanitation.

The management of wet-weather flow (WWF) is an age-old problem. The management of wet-weather flow (WWF) is necessary to maintain the quality of urban water resources. Throughout history strategies were implemented to control WWF for many reasons, e.g., flood and water quality control, aesthetic improvement, waste removal, and others. Ancient civilizations grappled with flood prevention and waste disposal in their cities of stone and brick long before engineering was a recognized profession. Several ancient civilizations constructed successful surface-water-drainage systems. In addition, some civilizations incorporated the removal of sanitary wastes into the surface-runoff system to form a combined system of sewerage. Some devised successful strategies to mitigate flooding and remove sanitary wastes, and constructed drainage appurtenances, e.g., open channels and pipes that remain relatively intact today. Other civilizations inadequately addressed drainage concerns and in several instances experienced flooding and nuisance conditions that eventually contributed to their demise.

The Indus civilization of circa 3000 BC presents one example of a sewerage system ahead of its time. The dwellers of the city of Mohenjo-Daro (now part of West Pakistan) used a simple sanitary-sewer system and had drains to remove stormwater from the streets. The ruins of this ancient system illustrate the care taken to construct the sewers, which would make the engineer of today envious. One feature of note was the use of a cunette in the storm drain to accommodate sanitary-wastewater flows, while the remaining capacity of the channel was available for WWF (Webster 1962). The masonry work and clever design of the storm-drain system show that in some instances, much more care was taken with sewerage than with some of the buildings.

For the ancients, bathing was an important, enjoyable daily activity. After strenuous exercise, a Greek athlete could expect to wash up and cool down in a shower with piped-in water emerging from an artistic animal's mouth. While there were ample natural bodies of waters, baths were popular. Besides the well-known Roman baths, a 4500 year old one has been uncovered in Mohenjo-Daro, 39' x 23' and ten feet deep. It was lined with bricks and bitumen.

Attempts have been made to compare the sites described in the available literature and sites excavated by different archaeologists using Indian Remote Sensing (IRS) lCllD LISS 111 data. In addition, unexplored probable archaeological sites were located and identified using certain parameters and were confirmed on ground later on. Extension of excavated known sites like Dholavira was also suggested using remote sensing data and was confirmed on the ground.

According to prescriptions of certain theoretical texts, Hindu cities were to be laid out in cosmic patterns or diagrams (mandalas), ie rectangle, square, triangle, swastika, semi lunar and circular in shape. Known excavated sites like Lumbini, Harappa, Kosambi, Ahichham, Sisupalgarh, Nalanda, and Dholavira clearly shows certain shapes, ie triangle, square, rectangle, semi lunar and certain patterns on IRS 1CIlD data which confirms the description given in the literature.