Book Reviewed: The Archaeology of Ancient Indian Cities, by Dilip K. Chakrabarti
This book is a little outdated in its content as new archaeological discoveries have been made since the first publication of this book in 1995. In fact the author says that the data available as of 1988 was the latest used in this book. In spite of that, the author has done a tremendous job of putting together much of archeological materials to provide the reader with a strong introduction to the lost civilization of the Indian subcontinent. One of the major interests in this study is how are they related to the Vedic civilization? What were their religious practices, if they had any, and how did the sacrificial practices evolved? What was the nature of political, cultural and economic life styles of the cities of Harappa and Mohenjodaro, and how did it differ from other cities and communities that were spread across ancient India? The book discusses the basic archeological data related to the development features of urban centers in different parts of Indian subcontinent both from prehistoric and early historic periods. There were a large number of settlements in the context of Indus valley civilization, and Neolithic-chalcolithic and Iron Age cultures of inner India. One of the challenging things in this archeological study is the surface scatter used to evaluate the culture of the settlement and its period of existence. The ground survey of sites and the inference made from them regarding the ancient landscape is sometimes difficult, says the author. Despite that the book provides a coherent account of the early urban history of India with reference to a host of related issues; distribution, context, sequence, chronology, physical features, historical character and so on.
Two factors played a catalytic role in the development of the Indus valley civilization: the ability to harness power of rivers before they could settle in the floodplains by devising a system of overflow irrigation and the intensification of craft activity as evidenced by the metallurgical activity in the northeast Rajasthan dating to early Harappan stage. About 2000 copper artifacts have been documented in the not so extensive excavations of a single site, and more than 80 such sites with metal artifacts have been recorded. Once the civilization in the heartland weakened due to slow but inexorable process of drying up of Sarasvati-Hakra channel, the population did not survive due to the the drought or other natural disasters. Some of the survivors moved to other smaller agricultural communities and integrated with them.
Shiva and the Mother Goddess (Parvati, Sakti, Durga) were still the most potent forces in popular worship. Saivism existed in incipient form during the height of Indus valley civilization and its history dates back to the Chalcolithic Age or even further still and it is perhaps most ancient living faith in the world. Pictures on seals and other artefacts show Mother Goddess. Another seal picture shows a male god with three faces. Around him are animals, including an elephant, tiger, rhino and buffalo. This god is like the Hindu god Shiva. The pipal or fig tree is shown in Indus seals were sacred to Indus people and still is, to many Buddhists and Hindus. The Great Bath of Mohenjodaro may have been a temple, where priests and rulers bathed in religious ceremonies. The Indus people thought the cow is a special animal; the giver of life (meat and milk). Today, Hindus regard the cow as sacred. Hindus bathe in the River Ganges, which for them is a holy river. Indus people too probably bathed as part of their religion, to clean the 'inner being' as well as the body. Some experts believe that the Indus religion shaped early Hindu beliefs.
The Indus Valley civilization had more than 1,400 towns and cities, and the biggest cities were Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Each city had as many as 80,000 people. There were lots of smaller cities, such as Lothal, Dholavira, Kalibangan and Banawali. The Indus cities were at their richest between 2600 and 1900 BC. Between 1900 and 1700 BC, this great civilisation started to fall apart; it lasted for over a thousand years. In the 1940s, archaeologist Mortimer Wheeler discovered 39 human skeletons at Mohenjo-Daro. He believed that they were people killed by the Aryan invaders. But archaeologists now think this is not true. There is no evidence of war or mass killings. Indus Valley people were peaceful. If they had an army, they would have left few signs of weapons or battles or the dead bodies had visible scars of slayings. The evidence from skeletons shows that many people died from malaria, a disease spread by mosquitoes suggesting a natural disaster.
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