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1. The Indus Valley is located in India between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

2. The monsoon rains flooded the Indus River and helped the crops grow. The Indus Valley civilization developed near the Indus River for resources like fish, water, cleaning, and helping them grow crops.

3. The Indus Valley Civilization emerged around 3200 BC

4. The peak of the Indus Valley Civilization was around 2500 BC

5. The Indus Valley Civilization fell around 1800 BC

The people of the Indus Valley Civilization believed in many god. The primary religions of the civilization were Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. So that means they were Polytheistic.

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There were settlements all sizes, from small farming villages, to huge cities. Lots of planning went into the construction of their cities. Some highlights of their innovation in architecture were the intricate sewer system and how they placed the houses so that the wind would blow through, creating a natural air conditioning system. Harappa and Mohenjo-daro were the two biggest cities, and had about 80,000 citizens. Both cities were located on rivers, and were trade hubs for the region.

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The major settlements of the Indus Valley Civilization include Harappa, Ganeriwala, and Mohenjo-Daro. The buildings and houses were planned out, so the cities were organized and easy to find their way around. These two largest settlements have been home to 35,000 people. These cities also were located on the most important trade routes of that time and they were surrounded by rich agricultural lands. These cities contained well-organized wastewater drainage systems, trash collection systems, and public granaries and baths. Some examples of sophisticated city planning within this civilization are to develop by taming the floods of the Indus and its tributaries. They made it so floods supported farming, which led to large agricultural surpluses, therefore it supported the development of cities.

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The Indus Valley Civilization was polythesitc, meaning they worshipped more than one god. And their three practiced religions were Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. The main male god they worshipped was Lord Shiva, and the main female goddess was Mother Goddess. Lastly,  according to indiansaga.com, “The discovery of amulets indicates that the people of the Indus valley also believed in magic and charms.”

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The people of the Indus Valley used the "Indus Tablet" for communication. It consisted of symbols and words that expressed sounds and ideas. This type of writing is called "logosyllabic", and was an important attribute to the development of civilizations. This type of writing was pictographic, and was expressed on clay tablets. People used materials such as bronze sharp objects to inscribe symbols onto the tablet.
Unfortunately, today we are not able to fully decipher this language, but we can pick apart some symbols and create words and number. For example, a scientist has revealed that circles resemble the number ten. It is predicted that in the future, we will have more clues to this language and hopefully be able to read it.

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Indus Valley Culture:

The cities centered around Indus Valley were very organized with their religion and culture. There were social divisions set in place at the time, that are no longer in use, but were really important at the time. They were also fairly economically structured considering they good produce nonessential items with no major issues. They also had seals for-trade items, some had different animals on them, possibly showing that those specific animals were important to their culture.

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The settlements were very planned out, so you couldn’t just plop a house wherever, and built near rivers or tributaries. The settlements also had walls or man made islands to protect from flooding during the monsoons. Citadels, or fortified areas, were also included in the cities. It doesn’t seem like the Indus Valley cities had monuments, temples, or palaces, but Mohenjo Daro did have The Great Bath. We don’t know what the bath was for though.

Some examples of sophisticated city planning are that the cities used uniformly sized bricks, the cities were laid out in grids, there were sewage systems beneath the streets that were better than middle age sewage systems, and levees and man made islands specifically made to protect from flooding.

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Technological Advancements of the Indus Valley 

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Technological Advancements of the Indus Valley 

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The Indus Valley civilization was located in  Pakistan’s provinces Punjab and Singh. The Indus valley is almost cut off from the rest of the world By the largest mountains in the world and a very large desert. Because of this the Indus valley civilization had really good defense. The Indus valley civilization emerged around 3300bc when settlers sailed over from Africa to eventually settle near the Indus river. Later on around 2600bc the golden age of the Indus valley began, and during this time the Indus valley made several technological advancements. One innovation that they made was the first accurate system of weighing and measuring. This was important because it let them make more advanced things such as more advanced cities. Another advancement that they had made is steel carving. The people of the Indus valley used this to make seals to mark traded goods and someone’s property. A third advancement that the Indus Valley civilization made was newer techniques in metallurgy. Metallurgy is the science of working with bronze, lead, copper, and tin. And a fourth advancement that they made was the new way of disposing of waste through a sewer like system. This sewer like system was made of precisely laid bricks that lead to reservoirs disposing of their waste. The Indus valley civilization also had more sophisticated city layouts. These layouts were laid out in a grid much like our modern cities today. The buildings were built perpendicular to the street making for a more efficient city. But eventually the Indus valley civilization fell due to climate change that made it almost impossible to live so everyone who had lived there eventually left because the land wasn’t producing enough resources to sustain a large population.

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The Indus Valley civilization had made numerous breakthroughs in technology such as seal carving and  weights and measurement. Another form of technology the Indus valley was known for was metal working such as spearheads with metals like bronze tin and lead.

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Religious beliefs:

The Indus valley religion is polytheistic and is made up of Hinduism Buddhism and Jainism. Scholars found figurines that led to the conclusion that the Indus people worshiped a mother goddess symbolizing fertility. They worshiped this with round or pierced stones. A practice that was performed before the scholarship of Shiva and Parvati. As well, the Indus civilization worshiped a father god who may have been the forefather of the race.

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The Indus Valley religious belief system was polytheistic. “Made up of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism,” according to an article called “Religion and Culture- Indus Valley Civilization”. The textbook explains that artifacts with images were depicted as Shive, a major Hindu god known as the Lord of the Animals. They supposedly worshipped female and male deities as well as a tree of life. According to Hinduwebsite.com, “tree of life, which is depicted in the seals as a Pipal or Acadia tree. Defended by a guardian spirit against an evil force symbolized as a tiger.” Though archeologists have little information on the religious system of the Indus Valley, Hindu and their relyance of powerful and spiritual figures were the main source of belief.

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1.The Indus Valley Civilization was located in the basins of the Indus River.

2.This geographic setting was flat which allowed for cities to be easily built along with the floods that brought along silt that was useful for farming. This allowed food to be grown easily increasing populations.

3.The Indus Valley Civilization started around 3000 B.C.E

4.The peak of the Indus Valley Civilization was around 2600 B.C.E

5.This civilization started to fall around 1900 B.C.E  and it is believed that it started to decline because of invaders, climate change, earthquakes, and the path of the river changing.

Economic Life

It is believed that most trade that the Indus Valley Civilization did was conducted with raw materials such as gold, silver, tin, woolen textiles, and food such as grain. They also used a seal to mark merchandise to show that it was official trading. Their geography helped this civilization a lot because they used the Indus River to trade with neighboring territories/empires. It also helped the Indus Valley Civilization because it allowed them to grow excess food for trading. This civilization mostly traded with Mesopotamia though it is also believed that they traded with other small territories that were located in modern day Iraq and Omar though there were also many others.

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1. The Indus Valley is located in India inbetween the Tigris and Euphrates.

2. The geological setting allowed for the mountains and highlands to protect from invaders. The rivers flooded allowing for rich soil and large quantities of crops. Monsoons also brought rain to keep the area wet.

3. Indus became a civilization at about 3200 BC when they began to make farmingvillages on the rivers.

4. The golden age of the Indus was about 2500 BC when they began to make cities and trading was at it’s peak.

5. At about 1750 BC Indus Valley declined and eventually fell. Earthquakes likely flooded and collapsed the cities aswell as the agriculture being destroyed and unrest they fell.

Small villages developed into cities with special crafts, fortifications, and many sophisticated city plans. Some of the largest cities were Kalibagan, Mahenjo-daro, and Harrapa. They had well planned cities that had grid like plans. The massive sophisticated plumbing system was very advanced with sewers while each home could have a toilet. The houses could be as high as 3 stories each, and with a grid planning it wasnt as mumble-jumble as in Mesopotamia.

Source: Textbook

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1. The Indus Valley civilization used their own form of writing called Indus Script

2. Their writing consisted of symbols and word signs that had phonetic value. It’s known as logo-syllabic, which means that some symbols expressed ideas or words, while other symbols represent sounds.

3. We are not able to translate it today. In other cases, like with ancient Egyptian writing, researchers were able to translate the language by comparing an unknown script with a script that has already been deciphered. In the case of the Indus Script, we do not have any deciphered inscriptions to compare to, meaning we are not yet able to figure out what the script means.

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The major products that came from the Indus Valley civilization were terracotta pots, beads, gold, silver, colored gems like turquoise and lapis lazuli, metals, flints, seashells and pearls. Their trade was affected by the geography of the land around it because it was surrounded by mountains and deserts, so it made it hard to trade. Iran and Afghanistan were who they had main trades with, but they also traded with China and India.

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The culture of the Indus Valley civilization was theocracy which is the belief that the kings of the civilization were like gods, and they worshiped them.

Although there is no sign of a temple in the Indus Valley, there are artifacts that reveal the possible belief of Hinduism.

They worshiped a Hindu god named Shiva, along with a mother goddess. Artifacts have also proven they have fertility images and drawings, and they worship a bull.

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Culture:

The Indus Valley Civilization is known as the longest lasting and largest ancient civilization. Their cities were planned out carefully and had really advanced technology such as underground sewer systems, toilets, and building plans. Their culture was based on agriculture and is suspected to have lasted so long because of a lack of battles and arguments. It was mostly a peaceful civilization. They were able to produce non-essential items (like toys) and that tells us that they were not lacking in resources. Almost every house had a bathroom in it, unlike the Egyptian Civilization. Their language, with over 400 symbols, is still not deciphered today. The fall of the Indus Valley Civilization is unknown but it is speculated that earthquakes, conquest, and or environmental disasters were the biggest influence on its downfall.

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Technology

Innovations that were made in this civilization were standardized weights and measures, seal carvings, and metallurgy with copper, bronze, lead, and tin

5 technological advances are plumbing, wells, metallurgy, measures, and seal carvings

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The indus valley civilization used the logo-syllabic writing system where some words express sounds and others express ideas or words. So basically a pictographic.

Sadly we do not know how to read this form of writing yet although dozens of speculative decipherments have been proposed.