Harappan Civilisation - Sites and Planning

The Harappan or Indus-Sarasvati Civilisation is the earliest urban culture of the Indian subcontinent and one of the three primary Bronze Age civilisations of the Old World. CDS/OTA examiners stress excavators, distinctive site features and craft technology — often through assertion-reason pairs.

Discovery and Extent

• 1826: Charles Masson first noted ruins at Harappa while serving as a deserter from the East India Company.
• 1856: Brunton brothers used Harappan bricks as railway ballast on the Lahore-Multan line.
• 1921: Daya Ram Sahni excavated Harappa for the ASI under John Marshall.
• 1922: R.D. Banerji excavated Mohenjo-daro.
• 1924: John Marshall announced the discovery to the world in The Illustrated London News.
• Geographic spread: ~1.3 million sq km across modern Pakistan, NW India and parts of Afghanistan. Western tip: Sutkagen-dor (Makran coast). Eastern: Alamgirpur (UP). Northern: Manda (J&K, Chenab). Southern: Daimabad (Maharashtra, Pravara).
• Phases: Early Harappan (3300-2600 BCE), Mature (2600-1900 BCE), Late (1900-1300 BCE).
• Amalananda Ghosh (a 2016 PYQ name) was the first to identify continuity between pre-Harappan Sothi-Siswal culture and the mature phase.

Major Sites and Distinctive Features

Site	Location	Excavator and year	Distinctive feature
Harappa	Sahiwal, Punjab (Pakistan), Ravi	D.R. Sahni, 1921	Six rows of granaries; coffin burial; cemeteries R-37 and H
Mohenjo-daro	Larkana, Sindh (Pakistan), Indus	R.D. Banerji, 1922	Great Bath, Great Granary, Pillared Hall, "Priest-King" steatite bust, "Dancing Girl" bronze, Pashupati seal
Chanhudaro	Sindh (Pakistan)	N.G. Majumdar, 1931	Only Harappan city without a citadel; bead-making and seal-cutter workshops
Lothal	Saurashtra, Gujarat, Sabarmati-Bhogavo	S.R. Rao, 1955	Brick-lined dockyard with sluice; rice husk; Persian Gulf seal; fire altars
Dholavira	Kadir island, Rann of Kachchh, Gujarat	R.S. Bisht, 1990	Three-part division (citadel, middle town, lower town), 16 reservoirs, 10-sign signboard, UNESCO World Heritage (2021)
Kalibangan	Hanumangarh, Rajasthan, Ghaggar	A. Ghosh, 1953; B.B. Lal, B.K. Thapar	Pre-Harappan ploughed field; fire altars; mud-brick fortified citadel
Banawali	Hisar, Haryana, Saraswati palaeo-channel	R.S. Bisht, 1973	Both pre-Harappan and mature phases; oval town plan; terracotta plough model
Rakhigarhi	Hisar, Haryana, Drishadvati palaeo-channel	Suraj Bhan, 1963; Vasant Shinde 1997-	Largest known Harappan site (~350 ha); aDNA study (2019) by Shinde and Reich
Bhirrana	Fatehabad, Haryana	L.S. Rao, 2003	One of the earliest Harappan settlements (~7570-6200 BCE pre-Harappan layer)
Surkotada	Kachchh, Gujarat	J.P. Joshi, 1972	Only site with reasonably attested horse bones (contested)
Alamgirpur	Meerut, UP, Hindon	Y.D. Sharma, 1958	Eastern-most Harappan site
Daimabad	Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, Pravara	1958, 1974-79	Southernmost site; bronze chariot, rhinoceros and elephant figurines

Town Planning and Civil Engineering

• Grid layout: Streets ran north-south and east-west, intersecting at right angles. Main streets ~9 m wide; side lanes ~3 m. (A 2016 CDS PYQ tests the qualifier that roads were "not always absolutely straight".)
• Citadel-Lower-Town division: Almost every major city had a raised western citadel (mudbrick or brick podium) housing public buildings, and a lower town to the east with residential blocks.
• Burnt-brick standard: Ratio 1:2:4 (thickness:width:length) used across all sites — striking uniformity from Lothal to Banawali.
• Drainage: Each house had a private bathing platform draining into covered street drains with corbelled brick covers and manholes for cleaning. Unique among Bronze Age cities.
• Water management: Dholavira had 16 reservoirs covering ~10% of city area. Mohenjo-daro had over 700 wells.
• Public buildings: Great Bath (12 x 7 x 2.4 m, watertight with bitumen lining), Great Granary at Mohenjo-daro, six granaries at Harappa, Pillared Hall.
• No identifiable temples or palaces: Unlike Mesopotamia or Egypt. Possible "ritual" spaces include the Great Bath and fire altars at Kalibangan and Lothal.
• Iron not used: A 2017 CDS PYQ tests this: Harappan culture is Bronze Age — iron sculpting is incorrect.

Economy, Crafts and Trade

• Agriculture: Wheat, barley, peas, sesame, mustard, cotton (world's earliest cultivation), rice (Lothal, Rangpur). Kalibangan provides the earliest evidence of ploughed fields.
• Domesticated animals: Humped bull, buffalo, sheep, goat, pig, dog. Horse remains are scarce and disputed (Surkotada).
• Crafts: Steatite seal-cutting, etched carnelian beads (a Harappan signature exported to Mesopotamia), faience, shell-bangles (Mohenjo-daro and Chanhudaro), bronze lost-wax casting (Dancing Girl).
• Weights and measures: Cubical chert weights in binary multiples 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and decimal 160, 320, 640. Standard length unit ~33.5 mm.
• Seals: ~3,500 seals, mostly square steatite. Recurrent unicorn motif. Pictographic script of ~400 signs, undeciphered, written right to left (boustrophedon in long inscriptions).
• External trade: Mesopotamian cuneiform texts refer to "Meluhha" (the Indus region), "Dilmun" (Bahrain) and "Magan" (Oman) as intermediaries. Harappan seals found at Ur, Lagash and Susa; Persian Gulf seals at Lothal.

Society and Religion

• No royal monuments: No tombs of kings or palaces have been identified. Power may have been mercantile-priestly rather than monarchical.
• Burial customs: Three types at Harappa - extended burial (R-37), fractional burial, post-cremation urn burial (Cemetery H).
• Religion: Inferred from terracotta Mother-Goddess figurines, Pashupati seal (proto-Shiva with horned headdress flanked by tiger, elephant, rhino and buffalo), pipal tree veneration, lingam-yoni stones, swastika and cross motifs.
• Fire altars at Kalibangan, Lothal and Banawali suggest ritual fire worship.
• Script: ~400 pictographic signs. Asko Parpola, Iravatham Mahadevan and Steve Farmer have proposed competing decipherments; none accepted. The Dholavira signboard (10 large signs over a gateway) is the world's earliest known signboard.

Decline and Late Harappan

By ~1900 BCE the urban character disappears. No single cause fits all sites.

• Climate change: Weakening summer monsoon (4.2 ka BP event) and gradual drying of the Ghaggar-Hakra (Saraswati) channel.
• Tectonic shifts: River course changes left settlements like Mohenjo-daro stranded; recurrent floods raised brick platforms to nine levels.
• Trade decline: Collapse of Mesopotamian demand after the Ur III dynasty fell (~2000 BCE).
• Aryan invasion: Mortimer Wheeler's old "skeletons in the streets" interpretation is largely abandoned. Pastoral migrations and gradual cultural transformation are now preferred.
• Late Harappan cultures: Cemetery H (Punjab), Jhukar (Sindh), Rangpur (Saurashtra), OCP (Ochre Coloured Pottery, Ganga doab).

CDS/OTA PYQ Examples

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is the Harappan script still undeciphered?

No bilingual inscription has been found, the texts are very short (average five signs), and the underlying language is unknown. Without a Rosetta-stone equivalent, modern attempts (Parpola, Mahadevan) remain proposals.

What is the difference between Harappan and Vedic culture?

Harappan: urban, ~2600-1900 BCE, Indus-Saraswati zone, Bronze Age, undeciphered script. Vedic: rural-pastoral to semi-urban, ~1500-600 BCE, Saptasindhu then Indo-Gangetic plain, used iron (later), oral Sanskrit tradition with yajnas.

What did Megasthenes call the Harappans?

He didn't — Megasthenes lived in the 4th century BCE, more than a millennium after the Harappans. Mesopotamian texts call the Indus region Meluhha.

Was the Aryan invasion the cause of Harappan decline?

No longer the leading view. Climate-driven drying of the Saraswati, river course shifts, and collapse of overseas trade are now considered primary, with population dispersal rather than invasion explaining the urban end.

Which Harappan site is on the UNESCO World Heritage list?

Dholavira was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2021 — India's 40th UNESCO site.

Related Topics

CDS/OTA HistoryVedic Society CDS/OTA HistoryMauryan Administration CDS/OTA HistoryGupta Period CDS/OTA HistorySouth Indian Dynasties CDS/OTAHistory — Full Syllabus