TURNING AROUND

• There is no clear idea of the political organization of the Indus valley people. Perhaps they were more concerned with commerce and they were possibly ruled by a class of merchants. • Also there was an organization like a municipal corporation to look after the civic amenities of the people in Indus Civilization.

The Indus Valley people were primarily urban people. Indus valley Civilization urban based Civilization. Elaborative town-planning following the Grid System. Roads were well cut dividing the town into large rectangular or square blocks. Lamp posts at intervals indicate the existence of street lightening. • Burnt bricks of good quality were used for building material except in Rangpur and Kalibangan. Elsewhere in the contemporary world mud bricks were used. • Houses were often of two or more storey, of varying sizes but were quite monotonous – a square courtyard around which were a number of rooms. It is especially noteworthy that almost every house had its own wells, bathrooms, courtyards, drains and kitchens. • There was a good drainage system and drains were made of mortar, lime and gypsum and covered with large brick slabs for easy access  which shows a developed sense of health and sanitation. Every house had its own soak-pit which collected all the sed

The Indus Valley civilization was an ancient civilization thriving along the Indus river and the Ghaggar-Hakra river in what is now Pakistan and north-western India. • An alternative term for the culture is Saraswati- Sindhu civilization based on the fact that most of the Indus Valley sites have been found along the Ghaggar-Hakra river. • R.B. Dayaram Sahni first discovered Harappa beside river Ravi in 1921. R.D. Banerjee discovered Mohenjodaro .Mohenjo-Daro means ‘Mound of the Dead’.The Mohenjo-Daro located  beside Indus river in 1922. Sir John Marshal played a crucial role in excavation of Harrapan civilization. • Harappan civilization forms part of the proto history of India i.e. the script is there, but it cannot be deciphered and belongs to the Bronze Age.The Harappan culture also belongs to Proto Culture. • The Indus valley civilization gradually developed to a full-fledged civilization which has been established through a continuous sequence of strata named as

The centre of the civilization was in Sind and Punjab in undivided India, from this centre from its diversified to all directions. In West the last extent is seaboard of South Baluchistan at the Suktagendor which can be called its western border. In east Alamagirpur in Uttar Pradesh (District Meerut) can be called its Eastern Border. In North it extended up to Manda in Jammu & Kashmir and in south it extended up to Diamabad (District Ahamed Nagar Maharashtra) was the site where four figurines of Bronze on the bank of Pravara River found. This pushed the civilization's extension in further south. Indus civilization remnants have been discovered from as far south as Mumbai in Maharashtra State. Observations • Most settlements in Indus Valley Civilization are on banks of rivers. • As far as extension is concerned, the Indus civilization was largest of the four ancient urban civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, South Asia and China • This area is triangular in shape and no o