How a civilisation was found

• ›Alexander Cunningham, the first Director-General of the Archaeological Survey, visited Harappa in the nineteenth century and collected a seal, but did not see how old it was
• ›Daya Ram Sahni excavated Harappa from 1921; R. D. Banerji dug at Mohenjodaro in 1922
• ›in 1924 John Marshall, then Director-General, announced a new civilisation to the world; Mortimer Wheeler later dug by stratigraphy rather than by uniform horizontal layers
• ›the civilisation is named after the first site found, as archaeologists usually do — hence 'Harappan'

Time frame — Early Harappan cultures before c. 2600 BCE; the Mature Harappan phase c. 2600–1900 BCE; Late Harappan after it.

Spread — from Shortughai in north Afghanistan to Daimabad in Maharashtra, and from Sutkagendor on the Makran coast to Alamgirpur in western Uttar Pradesh.

The trap: Cunningham saw Harappa but missed its age; the excavators were Sahni (Harappa) and Banerji (Mohenjodaro), and Marshall made the announcement.

The sites and what each is known for

Town plan — a raised citadel on the west and a larger lower town on the east; streets on a rough grid; houses of standard-size burnt bricks (length, breadth and thickness in the ratio 4:2:1); covered drains laid out before the houses were built.

Bihar before the cities — Chirand in Saran district, on the Ganga near its meeting with the Ghaghara, is Bihar's best-known Neolithic site, with bone tools and early farming.

The trap: the dockyard is at Lothal; the ploughed field is at Kalibangan.

Economy, crafts and trade

Subsistence — wheat, barley, lentil, chickpea and sesame; millets in Gujarat; rice traces are rare. Cattle, sheep, goat, buffalo and pig bones show herding; fish and wild game were eaten. Terracotta plough models come from Cholistan and Banawali.

Crafts — beads of carnelian, jasper, crystal, steatite, faience and gold; shell working at Nageshwar and Balakot; stone weights that doubled in the lower range — 1, 2, 4, 8 … up to 12,800 — and went decimal above; copper and bronze tools.

Raw materials and their sources

Long-distance trade — Mesopotamian texts mention Meluhha, very likely the Harappan region, and name its goods: carnelian, lapis, copper, gold and woods; Dilmun (Bahrain) and Magan (Oman) lay on the sea route. Harappan seals turn up in Mesopotamia.

The trap: the weights were binary in the lower range, not decimal throughout — and Meluhha is a Mesopotamian name, not a Harappan one.

Seals, script, burials — and the end

Seals — mostly square, of steatite, carved with an animal (often the 'unicorn') and a line of signs; used to seal bags of goods and to mark ownership.

Script — undeciphered; about 375–400 signs; written right to left, as the cramped spacing on the left of seals shows; inscriptions are short, five signs on average.

Social difference — burials in pits, some with pottery, ornaments and copper mirrors, a few with far more than others; houses vary in size; luxury goods of faience and gold concentrate in the large cities.

Religion — read with care — terracotta female figurines were read as a mother goddess; a seal with a seated figure was read as 'proto-Shiva'; fire altars at Kalibangan and Lothal. These are interpretations, often made by projecting later practice backwards.

Decline, c. 1900 BCE — mature sites were abandoned or shrank; explanations include climate change, deforestation, floods, the shifting or drying of rivers (the Ghaggar-Hakra), and overuse of the landscape; the old 'Aryan invasion' story rested on skeletons that did not belong to one period, as the archaeologist George Dales showed.

The trap: the script is written right to left and remains undeciphered — any option claiming it has been read is wrong.

Points to Remember

• ›Cunningham saw Harappa · Sahni — Harappa 1921 · Banerji — Mohenjodaro 1922 · Marshall announced 1924 · Wheeler — stratigraphy
• ›Mature Harappan c. 2600–1900 BCE · named after the first site found
• ›Great Bath — Mohenjodaro · dockyard — Lothal · ploughed field, fire altars — Kalibangan · Dholavira — reservoirs, signboard, World Heritage 2021 · Chanhudaro — beads, no citadel · Shortughai — lapis
• ›Citadel west, lower town east · bricks 4:2:1 · covered drains
• ›Chirand (Saran) — Bihar's Neolithic site
• ›Weights — binary below, decimal above · copper from Khetri and Oman · carnelian from Bharuch
• ›Meluhha · Dilmun (Bahrain) · Magan (Oman)
• ›Seals of steatite · script right to left, undeciphered, ~375–400 signs
• ›Mother goddess, proto-Shiva — interpretations · decline c. 1900 BCE — climate, rivers, floods · invasion theory rejected (Dales)
• ›Exam tip: keep a two-column list of site and single feature — most Harappan questions test one pairing