Indus valley civillisation

Indus Valley Civillisation

Prof. Abhijeet B. Shinde

Pravara Rural College of Architecture

Loni

Introduction - • The earliest civilization of South Asia is known as Indus Valley civilization

because a large number of sites were discovered in the Indus Valley.

• Some archaeologists have called it the Harappan civilization named after Harappa, the first discovered site.

Prof. Abhijeet B. Shinde, Pravara Rural College of Architecture, Loni

Indus Valley Civilization

• Harappan Civilization flourished during the third – second millennium BCE.

• It ranks amongst the four widely known civilizations of the world and covers an appreciably larger area than the early dynastic Egypt or Sumer.

• Excavation in the 1920s had revealed ancient cities which have the vast proportions, with unique artifacts and a level of architectural planning that was unparalleled in the ancient world.

• The Harappan sites provided evidence of a systematic town planning, fortifications, elaborate drainage system, granaries, etc. which throw light on the surplus economy, standardization of brick size, weight and measures, geometric instruments, linear scales and plumb- bobs.

• Major cities – 1.Harappa

2. Mohenjo – Daro

3. Lothal

4. Dholavira



Introduction -



Harappa

Visualization of ancient Harappa as it may have appeared in late Period 3B/early Period 3C, drawn by J. Mark Kenoyer. The granary and working platforms of Mound F are in the northwestern corner of the city (upper left).

• Harappa is one of the main metropolitan cities of The Harappan civilization.

• The citadel - where the governmental authority lived, at Harappa was fortified with 14m thick mud-brick peripheral wall .

• In the western arm of fortification wall baked bricks were used as a further precaution against flood.

• The work men’s quarters - are to the north of citadel along the both sides of east-west lane.

• Each unit was separated from the other by a narrow gap and each unit consisted of two parts, a courtyard in the front and a room at the back.



Harappa: Citadel and fortification wall

Harappa



• The entrance of the unit was not straight but oblique so as to ensure privacy.

• These quarters were enclosed by a compound wall for safety and to provide a separate entity to the complex.

• The Lower Town - is situated to the south east of the citadel.

• The Lower Town probably had its own walls and separate gates that faced on the exterior with baked bricks; it was gently tapering to the top.

Harappa

• The houses were constructed on the raised platforms.

• The Harappan set up their settlements in different periods.

• There was uniformity in the construction of house, bricks, pottery, etc. Building remnants on Mound AB, Harappa in

the morning.



Mohenjo-daro



• Mohenjo-daro is also known as city of the dead

• It is an archeological site in the province of Sindh, Pakistan. Built around 2600 BCE,

• Mohenjo-daro has a planned layout based on a street grid of rectilinear buildings.

• Main Streets running North-South direction

• The city is divided into two parts, the Citadel and the Lower City.

• Most of the houses or group houses had at least 1 private well and along the streets there were public wells for travelers and general public.

Mohenjo-Daro Town Planning




Granary

Great Bath

Assembly Hall

Stupa(from later age)

College

Fortification

Site Plan Of Citadel / Upper Town


Mohenjo-Daro Town Planning

Site Plan Of Citadel & Lower town

• The city had a central marketplace, with a large central well.

• Individual households or groups of households obtained their water from smaller wells.

• Waste water was channeled to covered drains that lined the major streets.

• Some houses, presumably those of wealthier inhabitants, include rooms that appear to have been set aside for bathing,

• Most houses had inner courtyards, with doors that opened onto side- lanes.

• Some buildings had two stories.



Mohenjo-daro – Town Planning

Architectural Style

• Private House

• Housing Complex

• Public Buildings



• Doorways & Windows opened into Side lanes

• View of house blocked by walls to maintain privacy of inhabitants

• Door with Wooden frames and Brick Socket set in threshold served as door pivot.



Private House • Rooms are arranged around

Central Courtyard which offers privacy from public outside

• Many houses are at least 2 storey high

• Walls 70cm thick, Ceiling over 3m High

Private House

• Some Door Frames Carved & Painted with ornamentation

• Hole at base of Wooden frame for Locking

• Windows on both First & Second Floor had Shutters with Lattice Work, Grills above & below Shutters for penetration of Light without sacrificing Privacy



perforated lattices were known and employed in the Indus valley in the prehistoric period

Private House - Bath

• This bathing platform is located next to the street, and is made with bricks laid flat.

• A small drain running along one side of the bathing floor channels dirty water out to the street.



• A brick on edge with a notch was placed across the drain hole to keep objects from flowing out with the bath water.

• It is possible that such bathing floors were also used to wash clothes that may have washed out with the rinse water.

Housing Complex

• Large Houses Surrounded by Smaller units

• Complex Passage ways gave access to Interior Rooms

• Numerous rebuilding phases indicates repeated re-organization of spaces

• Outer Units may be of Relatives or Service Groups attached to Parent house



• Generally Entrances form to premises from Lanes only

• Windows at Considerable height from Road or Floor, Sometimes with jali protection

• Wooden Stair

• Most Houses with Courtyards but very few with Wells

• Drinking Water came from nearby River

Housing Complex • In one of the House on its ground

floor are four fair-sized courts, ten smaller rooms, three staircases, a porter's lodge, and a well-chamber.

• The front is towards First Street, and here there are three entrances side by side, the principal one of which is plainly the middle,

• since this is the only one provided with a porter's lodge entering the house by the main door one finds oneself in a small vestibule (Room 68), with a porter's lodge to the right and a second doorway directly opposite leading to the open Court 67.

(Marshall, Mohenjo-daro Vol. I, pp. 20, 219)



• Large Public structures with many access routes or connection from one area to another

• Markets or Public Meeting held in Large Open Courtyards

• Other Buildings may have specific administrative or Religious Function

• Group of Houses or Public Buildings closed together with shared walls which formed larger blocks bordered by wide streets

• Upper Stories constructed in Light Materials like Timber, Compacted earth on flat planks resting on Timber beams



Public Buildings

• Openings Spanned by wooden lintels

• Few Examples of Corbelling

• Well Integrated system of Water supply and Sanitation



Public Buildings

• A large open space or courtyard (10 meters square) is surrounded by a wall that had 13 openings, possibly for windows. This unique structure is situated in the northern part of an extremely large building complex containing around 78 rooms and passageways, but no well. The building lies to the east of the Great Bathand was thought to be a "college" or residence of priests.

The "great bath" is without doubt the earliest public water tank in the ancient world.



Great Bath

• 12m Long, 7m wide, 2.4m deep

• Floor of bath is made in burnt bricks.

• Well in a room near great bath probably source of water to fill bath

• Rainwater also may have been collected for this purposes, but no inlet drains have been found.

• this tank would have been used for special religious functions

• Small rooms with verandah supposed be the changing rooms & bathrooms



Great Bath

Well

Entrance

Pool

Drain outlet

Rooms

• Stairs provided at both ends up to the bottom of bath

• At the foot of the stairs is a small ledge with a brick edging that extends the entire width of the pool. People coming down the stairs could move along this ledge without actually stepping into the pool itself.

• Small sockets at the edges of the stairs could have held wooden planks or treads.



Great Bath

• Located at western edge of mound & south west corner of Great bath

• Appears to be constructed before great bath

• Drain of great bath cut across north east corner of foundation of granary

• Built on top of tapered brick platform



Granary

• Foundation extended 49m in east west direction & 27m in north south direction

• Foundation was divided into 27 square and rectangular block by narrow passageways 2 running E-W and 8 along N-S



Granary

• Some of the blocks had square Sockets for holding wooden beams or pillars indicating that total superstructure was in timber

• 6 food stores of size 15.2 X 6.10 each found at hadappa

Building Material

• Uniformity in selection of material & Construction Technique

• Mud Bricks, Burnt Bricks, wood, reeds

• Mud Bricks –

(1:2:4) 7X14X28 cm for House

10X20X40 cm for City Walls

• Foundation Wall – Mud Brick, Baked Brick, Stone

• Door Windows – Wood

• Flooring – Rammed Earth, sometimes Terracotta Cake

• Bathing area and drain – Baked Bricks

• Roof – Wooden Beams covered with reed and compacted clay



• Well Integrated system of Water supply and Sanitation ; Public baths & Latrines ; Streets & Drainage system

• Private Bathrooms provided in individual Houses

• Most Efficient drainage system of the time

• Drains provided at both sides of streets

• All drains of various lanes & streets connected to main drains

• Lime Gypsum mortar to bind baked bricks for drain

• Drains covered with bricks

• Intersected at Properly designed junction with deeper pit for Periodic Removal of deposited solid waste



Water Supply & Sanitaion


Lothal -

• It is one of the most prominent cities of the ancient Indus valley civilization, located in the Bhāl region of the modern state of Gujarāt and dating from 3700 BCE

• Lothal's dock is the world's earliest known dock


• It connected the city to an ancient course of the Sabarmati river on the trade route between Harappan cities in Sindh and the peninsula of Saurashtra when the surrounding Kutch desert of today was a part of the Arabian Sea. The ancient Indus port of Lothal as envisaged by the

Archaeological Survey of India.


Lothal -

The warehouse of Lothal


and valuable ornaments reaching the far corners of West Asia and Africa

• The techniques and tools they pioneered for bead-making and in metallurgy have stood the test of time for over 4000 years

• A flood destroyed village foundations and settlements (c. 2350 BCE)

• Lothal planners engaged themselves to protect the area from consistent floods.

• The town was divided into blocks of 1–2-metre-high (3–6 ft) platforms of sun-dried bricks, each serving 20–30 houses of thick mud and brick walls.

• It was a vital and thriving trade center in ancient times, with its trade of beads, gems


Lothal - Town Planning


• The city was divided into a citadel, or acropolis and a lower town.

• The rulers of the town lived in the acropolis, which featured paved baths, underground and surface drains (built of kiln-fired bricks) and a potable water well.

• The lower town was subdivided into two sectors.

• A north-south arterial street was the main commercial area.

• It was flanked by shops of rich and ordinary merchants and craftsmen.

• The residential area was located to either side of the marketplace.


Lothal - Acropolis & Lower Town


• Lothal's acropolis was the town center, its political and commercial heart, measuring 127.4m (418ft) east – to -west by 60.9m (200ft) north-to-south.

• The baths were primarily located in the acropolis mostly two-roomed houses with open courtyards.

• The bricks used for paving baths were polished to prevent seepage.

• The remains of rulers house give evidence to a sophisticated drainage system.

• The Lower town marketplace was on the main north-south street 6–8 metres (20–26 ft) wide. Built in straight rows on either side of the street are residences and workshops

The bathroom-toilet structure of houses in Lothal


Lothal – B Block Citadel Area (Curtsey: Archeology Survey of India)


Lothal - Acropolis & Lower Town

• The street maintained a uniform width and did not undergo encroachment during the reconstructive periods after deluges.

• There are multiple two-roomed shops and workplaces of coppersmiths and blacksmiths

• The pavements were lime-plastered and edges were wainscoted


Photos by Raveesh Vyas


Lothal - Sanitation

• Lothal's sophisticated sanitary and drainage system was a hallmark of ancient Indus cities.

• All of Lothal's drainage channels met at right angles, engineered with several steps to separate solid and liquid wastes, which the river Sabarmati carried into the sea.


Lothal - Dockyard & Warehouse


• Lothal engineers accorded high priority to the creation of a dockyard and a warehouse to serve the purposes of naval trade.

• this basin may have been an irrigation tank and canal

• The dock was built on the eastern flank of the town

• It was located away from the main current of the river to avoid silting, but provided access to ships in high tide as well.

• The warehouse was built close to the acropolis on a 3.5-metre-high (10.5 ft) podium of mud bricks.

• The rulers could thus supervise the activity on the dock and warehouse simultaneously.

The dock, with a canal opening to allow water to flow into the river, thereby maintaining a stable water level.


• It is 1 of the five largest Harappa sites and most prominent archaeological sites in India belonging to the Indus Valley Civilization

• It is also considered as grandest of cities of its time

• The site was occupied from 2650 BCE, declining slowly after about 2100 BCE. It was briefly abandoned and reoccupied until 1450 BCE

• discovered in 1967- 8 by J. P. Joshi and is the fifth largest of eight major Harappan sites

• the city of Dholavira has a rectangular shape and organization, and is spread over 22 ha (54 acres)

• The area measures 771.1 m (2,530 ft) in length, and 616.85 m 2,023.8 ft) in width.

Dholavira -



Dholavira -

Dholavira: A artist's reconstruction (courtesy: Archaeological Survey of India)



Dholavira -

Dholavira: Layout of the settlement (courtesy: Archaeological Survey of India)



A. Castle B. Balley C. Middle Town D. Lower Town E. Ceremonial Ground F. Reservoir G. North Gate


F

F

D

B A

G E

C


• Unlike Harappa and Mohenjo-daro, the city is composed to a pre- existing geometrical plan

• Of three division – The citadel, Middle town and Lower town

• The citadel and Middle town has its own defense system, gateways, street system, wells and large open spaces

• The towering "castle" stands in fair insulation and defended by double ramparts

• Next to this stands a place called “Bailey” Where important officials lived

• The Lower Town did not have it s own fortification wall ,but it lies within the common fortification wall of the city.

• The most striking feature of the city is that all of its buildings, at least in their present state of preservation, are built out of stone, whereas most other Harappan sites, including Harappa itself and Mohenjo-daro, are almost exclusively built out of brick

Dholavira – Town Planning



• One of the Unique feature of Dholavira is the Sophisticated water conservation system of channels and reservoirs earliest found anywhere in the world

• Completely built of stone of which 3 are exposed

• Dholavira had massive reservoirs

• They were used for storing fresh water brought by rains

• A seasonal stream which runs in north- south direction of the site was dammed at several points to collect water.

Dholavira - Reservoirs


some of the water reservoirs, with steps, at Dholavira


• www.harappa.com

• www.wikipedia.com

• Archeological Survey of India

• “Harappan Architecture: A Study” – Thesis by Dharmbir Singh, Kurukshetra University

References :


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Indus valley civillisation

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